I'll answer your question by posing one of my own to you: Can imperialism be defeated by anti-imperialist movements? For that matter, can imperialism even begin to be challenged by anti-imperialist movements?
Nic.
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Is anti-imperialism the most important struggle?
As long as imperialist nations exist, they're gonna do everything in their power to stop socialism - war, sanctions, propaganda, religion, you name it.
Hence, some people may feel that a clear anti-imperialist agenda should be the only goal in the beginning, without which the socialist agenda itself will a nonstarter. Unfortunately, leftists today consider anything short of workers control as reactionary politics and must be avoided. And the result: neither imperialism is defeated nor socialism implemented.
Insights?
I'll answer your question by posing one of my own to you: Can imperialism be defeated by anti-imperialist movements? For that matter, can imperialism even begin to be challenged by anti-imperialist movements?
Nic.
Right now, yes.
This has been the case even when there was a Socialist camp.
Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle Class Struggle [FONT=Franklin Gothic Medium]Class Struggle [/FONT][FONT=Franklin Gothic Medium]Class[/FONT] Struggle
Class Struggle
Is always the most important struggle, when we oppose Imperialism it is part of class war as we are opposing something which is thoroughly anti working class not only to the proletarians at home but to those everywhere.
Milk Sheik why is it that you always seem to want to try and make something else more important than class struggle?
So basically, is imperialism a result of capitalism itself, or just of states not being nice, etc?
imperialism in the modern world is the result of a mature form of capitalism. so, yeah, today it is a result of capitalism.
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
I am not denying the utter importance of class struggle. I am talking about prioritizing. Most nations are under the control of major nations like US, UK etc. For them, wouldn't their top priority center upon attaining political and economic freedom?
Without it, can class struggle even flower in the right direction? Also since imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, wouldn't an anti-imperialist struggle be more productive (for socialism) than cliched slogans?
I think you fail to understand the point. If imperialism is engendered by capitalism then any 'anti-imperialist' struggle which leaves capitalist social relations intact is not, in fact, an anti-imperialist struggle since it fails to tackle the root cause of imperialism. 'Anti-imperialist' struggle does not consist of cheering as workers slaughter each other in the name of their respective nations, but of working for the overthrow of the capitalist social form.
- Manifesto of the Communist International to the Workers' of the World
- Marx, Speech to Mark the Anniversary of the Polish Uprising of 1830
"From the relationship of estranged labor to private property it follows further that the emancipation of society from private property, etc., from servitude, is expressed in the political form of the emancipation of the workers; not that their emancipation alone is at stake, but because the emancipation of the workers contains universal human emancipation – and it contains this because the whole of human servitude is involved in the relation of the worker to production, and all relations of servitude are but modifications and consequences of this relation."
- Karl Marx -
Yes the top priority is political and economic freedom. The question is how to do it.
You answered your own question. Imperialism is a tendency of capitalism, not the foreign policy of a respective state. That means the fight against imperialism is a fight against capitalism, which can only be done on the class terrain.
Subjected to a materialist analysis, "anti-imperialism" reveals itself. The support of any and all bourgeoisie that has interests contrary to the United States has roots in the foreign policy of the old Soviet Union, which supported "anti-imperialism" to curb the influence of the USA. It makes sense why the Soviet Union wouldn't want a US base in Vietnam so close to Russia. "Anti-imperialism" doesn't have it's roots in the workers movement but in the military and economic strategy of opposing factions of the bourgeoisie. Such "anti-imperialism" is nowhere to be found in the works of Lenin.
In other words, paraphrasing Marx, reciting that capitalism has lived through a progressive phase and is today decadent, that it is a transitory economic form like all those that have preceded it, and that it enters the decadent phase when it is no longer able to develop the material productive forces which come into conflict with the existing relations of production, is absolutely not sufficient, neither from a political nor an analytical point of view.
- Fabio Damen
Not at all.
Marxist Leninists would argue otherwise, but they are wrong.
Class Struggle is above all the most important struggle.
That's how you tell the difference between us and Ahmadinejad.
[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
I would like to see someone respond to this.
In other words, paraphrasing Marx, reciting that capitalism has lived through a progressive phase and is today decadent, that it is a transitory economic form like all those that have preceded it, and that it enters the decadent phase when it is no longer able to develop the material productive forces which come into conflict with the existing relations of production, is absolutely not sufficient, neither from a political nor an analytical point of view.
- Fabio Damen
What would happen if all imperialism was defeated? Do some people think we would have a capitalist world without imperialism?
Because that's not gonna happen. So no, it's not.
Edit: But then again that doesn't mean we should disregard the role of imperialism in shaping class politics. Opposing domination by foreign capital is an integral part of class struggle in countries under the heel of imperialism.
Last edited by gorillafuck; 24th December 2010 at 17:26.
Most of the anti imperialists the US has fought were reactionary; Taliban, Al Qaeda, Noreiga, Saddam Hussien, the Iranian Clerics, Arab Nationalist Nasser, Juan Peron, and Surkarno of Indonesia.
Other anti imperialists were developmentalist liberals like Juan Bosch, Arbenz of Guatemala, Mossadegh, etc.
They all wanted to maintain private property capitalist relations.
They were not good for class struggle.
Well right but you're forgetting all the commies they fought, too.
[FONT="Courier New"] “We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Revolution and of the new order of life. ”
― Felix Dzerzhinsky [/FONT]
لا شيء يمكن وقف محاكم التفتيش للثورة
moved to OI learning, as OP has been restricted
The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater?
Here at least We shall be free
Countries don't attain political and economic freedom. Their rulers do. What does this mean to the average worker? Does it mean that they're suddenly more free because their rulers are? Of course it fucking doesn't.
This is what happens when one pays lip service to class struggle but doesn't apply the necessary analysis.
What are you asking? Proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie is the right direction and it can always "flower" in that direction.
Imperialism might be the highest stage of capitalism but all nations partake of it. Some might win and some might lose but the point is not to support the losers against the winners it's to destroy the system altogether.
Sciences & Environment rocks my bedroom.
[FONT=Arial]Say what you mean and say it mean...[/FONT]
"Frankly if we have a revolution and you stop me eating meat, I'm going to eat you."- The inimitable Skinz.
Be careful, lest the time comes where we have to weigh you against a duck.
This doesn't make sense. How can you say that the Taliban economically exploited other countries? I'm not saying you have to support them (very far from it), but claiming they are imperialist is doesn't make sense.
I think the idea that some nationalist groups are particularly reactionary sort of misses the point.
All of them mobilize workers to die on behalf of the nation, and rival imperialisms. The fact that some of them have particularly reactionary social policies whilst some of them even pass themselves off as socialist is neither here nor there.
Being anti-imperialist without also being anti-capitalist isn't going to get us anywhere. The one and only priority we should have is the total destruction of all capitalist states, and the establishment of socialist states in their place. How the fuck is it going to help our movement if we go around supporting reactionary dictatorships like Iran or North Korea? If we destroy capitalism then imperialism will cease to exist. There would be no reason for one socialist nation to try to threaten another, unlike in a capitalist society where extreme nationalism is common.
But I include the nationalism as reactionary social policy.
I am not sure what you're getting at? I oppose groups based on just nationalism.
The nationalism of past movements usually consisted of either Pan-Ethnicity, Islamic militancy of various forms or like you said, a rival imperialism.
Almost all supported private capitalist property, just not laissez-faire.
