‘The “Belt and Road” is mostly a mirage.’
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Interview with ‘communist geographer’ Phil Neel.
Among other things, aside from talking about China in Africa, it also re-(?)-defines the contentious notion of ‘surplus population’. (That being so, this link could have as well been posted to the Nick Chavez related thread ‘The Present and Future of Engineers’. But fearing it might go ignored, I opt here for the click-bait approach instead.)
https://brooklynrail.org/2023/11/field-notes/Phil-Neel-with-Komite
The ‘surplus population’ notion (neither industrial reserve army nor lumpens) plays a role in the controversy Internationalist Perspective is having over its Gaza leaflet: https://internationalistperspective.org/a-debate-on-the-ip-leaflet-on-gaza .
(As for the mentioned Emilio Minassian, here in last month’s Field Notes is the mentioned interview with him: https://brooklynrail.org/2023/12/field-notes/Gaza-An-Extreme-Militarization-of-the-Class-War )
Yes, this extract from the IP leaflet does seem to be a bit over the top:
“However, among the highly developed economies, Israel is unique in the proportion of surplus population under its management. The growth of a surplus population that cannot be profitably exploited by capital is a global trend. Deportations, mass incarceration, and forced displacement are common peacetime solutions, but war is capitalism’s gold standard to clear the way for growth. Israel’s combined solution of bombing concentration camps gives us a chilling view into the future of capitalism’s death world.”
Maintaining the population of Gaza is not a burden on Israel as most of the population there (and those in the refugee camps on the West Bank) are maintained by hand-outs from the United Nations (via the UNWRA which the US and its most loyal supporters are risking bankrupting by withholding their contributions to it).
The passage that “war is capitalism’s gold standard to clear the way for growth” seems to be a left-over from their time in the ICC, though other Left Communist Groups invoke it too. It’s just not true a destructive war has been and is needed to maintain capitalist growth.
The passage that “war is capitalism’s gold standard to clear the way for growth” seems to be a left-over from their time in the ICC, though other Left Communist Groups invoke it too. It’s just not true a destructive war has been and is needed to maintain capitalist growth.
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Most Left Communist Groups kept the same conception, they inherited that idea from Vladimir Lenin. They have just rejected some Leninists conceptions but they are still Leninists and pro Bolsheviks, they have not rejected the whole bodies of ideas of Leninism and the Bolsheviks . The same case of CLR James and others who rejected the Vanguard party but they never rejected Leninism completely .
Putin’s War Has Killed China’s Eurasian Railway Dreams
The iron silk road was a key part of the Belt and Road Initiative.Probably, the real killer was the USA ruling class. With Russia the USA used the same tactic as the used in Kuwait, they let Hussein to invade it and they let Putin to invade Ukraine, they stopped the expansion of Russia and they destroy the Eurasian railway and the Russian gas pipelines
Re Minassian, surplus population, the Gaza War, and that IP leaftet, here, against ‘Minassian’s rantings’, is an article by Council Communists Mark One (ie pro KAPD / anti Ruehle). Decadence-theory also comes in for bad mention.
Internationalist Perspective and other followers of Minassian cum suis
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