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February 2005, Volume 56 — Number 9 c o n t
e n t s The battle over the future of Social Security, the site of continual skirmishes since the Reagan era, is now being waged in earnest (for a history of this struggle see The Editors, “Social Security, the Stock Market, and the Elections,” Monthly Review, October 2000). President Bush began his second term by declaring that partial privatization of Social Security through the creation of personal investment accounts was at the top of the domestic agenda of his administration. This would require an estimated $2 trillion in additional borrowing over the next ten years, and even more after that (New York Times, January 3, 2005), to be coupled with drastic cuts in future Social Security benefits. The White House is counting on the Republican majority in both houses of Congress, the backing of Wall Street, and years of unrelenting ideological warfare against Social Security as the bases on which to effect this change. | more |. REVIEW
OF THE MONTH With a population of over a billion, approaching that of China, and an economic growth rate above the world average, India is now frequently identified as one of the prospective great powers of the twenty-first century. The purpose of this article is to question this prognosis, as the conditions necessary for India to become a great modern power seem to me far from assured. Out of Sight & Out of Mind: A New
Oceanic Imperialism In the July-August 2003 issue of Monthly Review (titled “Imperialism Now”) a number of compelling articles brought into clear focus the rapidly-emerging reconfiguration of U.S. global domination. As John Bellamy Foster noted in his lead essay, “The New Age of Imperialism,” the current reshaping of the world under capitalism is indicative of a “systematic reality arising from the very nature of capitalist development.” Within this new systematic development, the logic of capitalism penetrates everywhere in its quest to secure new markets and natural resources. This article addresses an important but as yet little examined area of capitalist penetration-the open ocean-and the Bush administration's attempt to privatize this last remaining remnant of common property. The social and economic consequences of such a privatization have yet to be played out, but every indication leads us to anticipate that these will include windfall profits for corporations, slackening environmental regulations, and the relentless externalizing of costs while profits accrue to a handful of oceanic actors, namely oil corporations and fish farmers. Remarkably, the lead federal agency, the Department of Commerce (DOC), is paving the way for these results under a cloak of great secrecy, masking their case for privatization with the disingenuous hyperbole of a seafood trade deficit, “farming the seas,” and “feeding the world.” Under the auspices of the DOC, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has drafted legislation that will allow the ocean waters and bottom lands of the continental shelf to be leased to fish-farming operations, a move that promises to unleash a host of ominous environmental, economic, and social consequences. MALCOLM X—HIS LEGACY It is tempting to speculate how the radical politics of the 1960s might have played out had Malcolm X not been assassinated on February 21, 1965. The campaigns for civil rights, for the liberation of people of color domestically and internationally, against the war in Vietnam and other instances of U.S. imperialism, and, above all, the then-nascent efforts to build popular multi-issue mass movements in support of these goals and calling for socialism surely would have benefited from his strong, clear voice and able leadership. Speculation, of course, is idle. But the direction taken by the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor Peoples Campaign of the late 1960s, as well as the emergence of strong anti-imperialist voices in the New Left, offer a glimpse of what might have been possible. As an aid in understanding Malcolm X's historical place, we republish an interview with Malcolm conducted by the poet A. B. Spellman which appeared in Monthly Review's pages in May 1964. It is accompanied by Jigs Gardner's examination of the political context of Malcolm's killing which was published in MR in April 1965. The two pieces are introduced by John J. Simon's survey of Malcolm's life and work from the perspective of the present.—The Editors. 1. The Achievement
of Malcolm X The life of Malcolm X, who was murdered forty years ago this month, spanned a trajectory from oppression and victimization to inchoate rebellion and revolutionary autonomy. His was a voyage from resistance to an informed radicalism. It was a journey from which he ultimately gathered political and historical insight which, combined with his tools of persuasion and skills at leadership, made him at the time of his death arguably the most dangerous figure in this country's history to confront its ruling class. For us, forty years later, Malcolm's life is also informative: both about the destructive encounters that Africans, Asians, Latins, and indigenous peoples have had with this country, its culture and its history, and how deeply domestic resistance to that oppression is embedded in the global anti-imperialist struggle. 2. Interview with
Malcolm X The Muslims, as the Nation of Islam is called, stress the futility of the integrationist program. They argue that there is no precedent for the absorption of Negroes into the greater white American mainstream in fact or in history, that integrationists are asking for something the American socioeconomic system is inherently unable to give them- mass class mobility, so that at best Negroes can expect from the integrationist program a hopeless entry into the lowest levels of a working class already disenfranchised by automation. 3. The Murder of
Malcolm X Here is a man who was killed for his ideas. Think of it! In 1965, when we have become inured to the hypocrisy, venality, stupidity, and brutality of public figures in this blighted land, he was a hero, a martyr. A Cup of Tea,
Summer of ’72 My sister was the only one who had sensed something about the issue. I had just stepped into the room from the terrace one day when she jumped in front of me and said, “What the heck is going on with you? Every time the bell rings you grab your briefcase and step out on the terrace.” She was loud and her tone was angry. I don't remember her exact words. She may have added, "Do you think that you can just grab your briefcase and jump over the wall if they suddenly show up?" BOOK
REVIEWS A review of No Surrender: Writings from an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner by David Gilbert. A Man for All Seasons A review of The Education of a Reluctant Radical, Book 5, Reconstruction by Carl Marzani. |
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Paul M. Sweezy (1910-2004) ·
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