cj#1094> Some interesting questions about capitalism…

2000-06-13

Richard Moore

Dear cj,

I've been engrossed in some projects this month and haven't gotten 
around to posting.  (:<)   

_And, nobody wrote in to inquire.  (:<)  (:<)  

You might find the following 'Call for responses' interesting, perhaps 
inspiring.  I'd be interested in your responses, whether or not you choose to 
send them in the Socialist Review.


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Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 16:37:13 -0700
To: •••@••.•••
Bcc: •••@••.•••
From: Dan Brook <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Call for responses

 For Socialist Review's upcoming Special Section
on Anti-Capitalism, we are assembling a Roundtable
discussion. Please send in five copies of your
responses and commentaries of approximately
500-2000 words (along with a 1-2 line bio), as well as
other visual forms of creative, radical expression, by
1 September 2000 to the address below. We look
forward to your active participation.

{Please distribute this Call for Responses to other
people and lists that might be interested. Apologies
for cross-posting.}


The recent rise in resistance against economic
globalization and the police state exemplified in the US
by the actions against the WTO, the IMF and the
World Bank, the rise in anti-sweatshop activism, and
anti-prison organizing has raised excitement about the
possibility for fighting capitalism. At Socialist Review,
we want to seize this opportunity to ask activists and
academics, Marxists and postmoderns (yes, we
acknowledge that these categories are not mutually
exclusive) to tell us what kinds of theorizing and politics
are relevant to their practice. More specifically, we want
to know what resistance and struggle in the present
period looks like. The following questions are offered to
spark some critical discussion about these critical issues.

1. Is 'capitalism' an important category in your politics?
If so, what exactly do you mean by 'anti-capitalism'?
What is the relationship between capitalism as a mode of
production and capitalism as a discursive category? Is it
just one category among others -- such as race, sexuality,
gender, coloniality -- or does it have a special centrality in
your thinking and practice?

2. Are the categories of 'Marxism', or 'postmodernism'
useful in your political and intellectual work? If so, what
kind of Marxism or postmodernism? If not, what other
schools of thought are helpful to you?

3. How important is having an alternative to capitalism,
e.g., socialism, for you? If so, what would you call it?
How would you define and describe it?

4. How is fighting against 'capitalism' connected -- or
disconnected -- from struggles against racism, sexism,
homophobia, and other systems of oppression?

5. Does it make sense to envision revolution with a capital
'R' as a necessary condition for a just society? Or is
radical democracy a better and more useful concept?

6. What connections, if any, do you see between
anti-sweatshop and anti-globalism organizing and an
anti-capitalist agenda? Does it matter if activists talk
about capitalism?

7. How important -- and helpful -- is it to argue for the
connections between the prison-industrial complex and
capitalism when organizing youth of color against
criminalization of young people?


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Richard K Moore
Wexford, Ireland
Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance 
email: •••@••.••• 
CDR website: http://cyberjournal.org
cyberjournal archive: http://members.xoom.com/centrexnews/
book in progress: http://cyberjournal.org/cdr/gri.html

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                the people control their means of communication.
                        -- Frantz Fanon

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