Selling land to foreigners

What's your take on the issue, should the law in smaller and less developed countries allow to sell land to foreigners, specifically multinational corporations?

Well who cares about the law? Especially if you are the one who is witting it..

The general strike is more powerful than any law you know?

Yes, of course, as is well known neither the national state nor national capital oppress the workers. We should all make sure that no land or capital falls into the hands of the foreign devils.

Also socialists should completely tell the bourgeois state how to conduct its affairs. That's why we're here after all.

Actually I meant it as a serious question. Where I live there is a big debate whether we should sell land to foreigners or not and the case refers specifically whether we should sell gas-rich gas to Chevron and the corporations alike. And there is a huge working-class opposition to that, i.e. selling land.

So I was wondering what's your take on that. Considering that foreign investment is already allowed to a significant extent, I don't think there is that much of a difference, if any.

And I answered it seriously, albeit in an ironic form. "Native" capital isn't any better than "international" capital, that's nationalist nonsense. Socialists oppose all forms of capital from Ma and Pa shops to Martin and Lockheed.

Furthermore, there is a huge working-class opposition to foreign workers in the UK; that doesn't mean a thing.

The problem is surely selling the land to capitalists, who will exploit the land for their own purposes at the expense of the working class. Does it matter if those capitalists are national or international?

Yes, yes, don't get all patronizing, I understand the basics of class struggle and I agree with you.

But I think that foreign capital has certain differences as compared to domestic capital. In the former case the imperialist powers are given a stronger incentive to meddle with your country. A US-UK coup in Iran back in 1950s comes to mind. In that sense, there is more accountability in case of domestic capital.

Not that I see that much difference, nor do I think the issue is of big importance, but I thought somebody might have a different take on the issue, because there happen to be all these third-worldists, anti-imperialists, anti-anti-imperialists and whatnot.

What accountability? That you can assault bosses while cursing in the language they understand?
But really, this is a serious question. What's the basis for such a conclusion?

Accountability to who? To the national government? Perhaps, but why should this concern socialists? Socialists are anti-imperialists - this means that we defend the workers in regions of belated capitalist development from the predations of the imperialist powers. But it does not mean we support the domestic capital in these regions (which is in any case subservient to imperial cartels).

Imperialism can work with domestic capital as well - the cartels need only set up a local enterprise - or strike a partnership with an existing one - to receive capital exported from the imperialist powers and ship back commodities to these same powers.

These initiatives simply channel discontent over the poverty and backwardness caused by capitalism into anti-communist nationalism. As such they are to be opposed, like all initiatives that sow illusions in the bourgeois state.

Short answer, no, but not because they are foreign.
Corporations should not exist as such, since all they do is give the owners blanket immunity from the natural consequences of their actions. Second, I think we really need to reevaluate just what we mean by owning or buying land. I do not agree with absolute owership of real estate.

Shortest answer: Land should not be a commodity.

You shouldn't organize against foreign capital buying land but around the private ownership of land period.

Yea, you should probably speak for yourself. :laugh: To pretend there is no difference at all is beyond naive, not to mention inconsistent with Marxism.

Would you mind enlightening us on what the differences are between native and foreign capital and how they pertain to the class struggle?

While this is true, I'd like to know the circumstances, because there may not actually be local capital which is able to exploit the area.

I think Vince West is right though - the notion of "national capital" being better than "foreign capital" has led to some of the worst failures of the international left - in part because national capital will seek out relations with foreign capital if it is in their economic interests, and because ultimately they exploit labor just as much, if not sometimes even more. Empirically, too, we know this to be the case - take China, Vietnam and the "third world socialists" in the non-aligned movement as examples. Also pre-neoliberal European social democracy.

Marx himself pointed out that protectionism which favors national capital brings the worst of both worlds - it is less efficient than foreign capital at producing growth, but is still exploitative. Protectionism can help local capital grow, but it does not end the cycle of exploitation of the working class.

I've only ever seen Marx defend free trade in regards to breaking down feudal barriers to the market and expanding it to the encompass the world. Otherwise, he called for the defense of the German 'fatherland' and easily became the SPD's 'German' figure.

You can start with the Marxist position on the national bourgeoisie up to 1917.

Of course, foreign capital is held by foreign devils and must be expelled if our national bourgeoisie is to thrive and prosper. Down with the foreign devils! For Marx-Scheidemann-Chiang Kaishek Thought!

Of course, our national "Marxists" need only consider the British Raj, an example of classical imperialism, carried out by the first European imperialist power. Here the railway system outside the direct territory of the presidencies etc. was in domestic hands - yet obviously served the interest of the British cartels.

This would be slander were it not beyond parody. Perhaps you need to have a glance, just a small one, at texts such as the Critique of the Gotha Programme to see what Marx thought about Die Vaterland.

I see no reason to believe the Indian national bourgeoisie was any less subdued than the Russian one.

Cry me a river anti-imp.
And yeah, some citation will be necessary to support this idea that Marx called for the defense of the fatherland. Good luck with that, if it's not some idiotic misinterpretation you will muster up.

Are you serious? That was the Bolshevik position on Russia's bourgeoisie.