[Marxism] the ANC & Zuma: my reply to Patrick Bond's third reply.

[Patrick Bond]

noah tucker wrote:
lots of pedantic stuff... then:

> Forgive me, but what exactly are you saying here? That the Kirchner regime was making non-reformist reforms when it defaulted, 

Yes, due to mass popular pressure from below, Argentina defaulted on 
$140 bn of debt (the largest ever sovereign default, even bigger than 
Nixon's 1973 gold default), and yes, that action operated against the 
logic of global capital, and yes, the fact that they got away with it 
(they weren't locked out of international trading finance and didn't 
need international credits of any other sort as they ran a trade 
surplus) should have sent a signal to all other wretched middle-income 
countries, that you can snub the int'l banks. For these reasons the 
default was a reform I strongly supported, as did everyone I know 
involved in the debt issue around the world.

> but was elite-reformist when it re-negotiated? 

Yes, the decision to renegotiate and settle on quite a weak deal 
(replete with geopolitical strings attached including support for the 
US/UN takeover of Haiti) in 2004 was widely considered by the left to be 
a sell-out, as Beverly Keene has argued, and I'm sure Nestor would 
confirm. (At the least, though, Kirshner told the IMF to take a hike, 
and joined a group of middle-income countries who, by paying their loans 
back early, have put the IMF into the red; and yes, getting the IMF out 
of your country is another non-reformist reform.)

> Are you making the claim that Argentina (or for that matter, Malaysia), enjoyed brief moments of having no relationship with international capitalist finance? If not, what are you trying to say that would have relevance to my argument?
>   
No, not 'no relationship' because wire transfers and other minor 
financial services were retained; what I said was that they took 
"strong, feasible action against international financiers, taken to 
protect the local economy. Were those rulers (by no means leftists) 
naive in the extreme, or did their tactics work?"

I'm guessing you'd have called default or exchange-control proposals 
along these lines 'naive in the extreme' just before they happened 
(because they're a lot more serious than my purely rhetorical suggestion 
that Zuma diss Citi and Merrill by pointing out who really is giving 
jitters to whom).

Excessive fear of international finance of the type you exhibit, Noah, 
is a long-standing pathology. Robert Mugabe was so petrified of being 
tossed out of the IMF in 2005 that he gave them US$205 million (towards 
arrears) that he couldn't spare, sparking IMF riots at home - and he got 
zilch for his efforts. He should have kept the money and imported spare 
parts, even spokespersons from the local capitalist class agreed.

And Paul Krugman advised Mahathir to impose exchange controls in August 
1998, which Mahathir did, and in the process freaked out the 
international financial community, and that action ensured the strongest 
recovery of the East Asian four. (I was in a plane from Ottawa to 
Washington sitting in a seat next to Stiglitz, fortuitously, the day 
after Mahathir's decision, and Stiglitz was himself quite freaked out, 
telling me that he thought the backlash had now gone too far.)

Jubilee South's Argentina comrades and the mass movements wanted a full 
default on the debt... and you probably would have called them 'naive in 
the extreme'.

I'm guessing you'd say the same about the Jubilee SA comrades here who 
are motivating reparations lawsuits in the US (using the Alien Tort 
Claims Act) against the apartheid debt - which the Mbeki regime 
(including then deputy president Zuma) joined at the urging of Colin 
Powell in August 2003, *so as to file an amicus brief AGAINST the 
apartheid victims and in favour of US/European businesses which profited 
from apartheid.* (Those comrades had a recent victory in the US appeal 
courts so the case may well go to the Supremes in 2008.)

So Noah, if you can't 'fess up that defending Zuma's ass-licking of Citi 
and Merrill was incorrect, then I'm warning you that I'll consider 
taking up the offer of writing for your website, but only under 
truth-in-labelling conditions: that you rename it 31stCenturySocialism.com