Is world-systems theory bullshit or legit? Is it compatible with the Leninist conception of imperialism and monopoly stage of capitalism? Is Maoism-Third Worldism the logical conclusion of world-systems theory? Is Immanuel Wallerstein responsible for the Roo?
World-systems theory, imperialism, and third-worldism thread.
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MTW has nothing to do with Marxism or WST and is theoretically backwards in all regards. MTW holds to a pre-Ricardian understanding of economics, that a nation's wealth is representative of the average amount of money a random bloke from said nation has, that capitalists have a fixed amount of profit outside of class struggle, and that if challenged by unions and such capitalists will just exploit the Third World more rather than taking money out of their own profits.
It's entirely pseudo-Marxist and pseudo-scientific.
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I'm actually interested in Marxist critiques of World-Systems Theory if you have something to share.
rude as hell
I'm kind of a brainlet on this topic. The only thing I've read that's relevant here is Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. I have a very surface level understanding of WST. I don't even know why WST would be incompatible with Marxism or the Leninist understanding of imperialism/global capitalism. What's the Marxist critique of WST?
Complete garbage. If you're going to make a real case for TWism make the "cultural" argument: western culture is inherently rooted in exploitative social structures (stealing coltan from the Congo in order to make our electronics being one example, junk food made from sugar from Haiti being another), westerners are born to reproduce this system, as we progress further and further into the future we lose memory and practice of our primitive communist nature and thus become completely detached from anything socialist.
The entire theory relies heavily on a metaphysical conception of history, but what social theory doesn't?
Just fucking read OP.
I'm sympathetic to it insofar as that the globally operating law of value is a concept that Marx didn't think about, and Lenin does so barely. I think Third Worldist arguments are really are a necessary addition to Marxist anaylsis, and to pretend that the world hasn't changed since 150 years is frankly not very Marxist. A lot of resentment towards MTW stems from Eurocentrism, and a false interpretation of universalism of the enlightenment that looks as European culture as a value in itself instead of its abstractions, and the fact that many anti-ML tendencies tend to reject revolutions that occur contrary to their expectations, and also followed by a long phase of socialist construction, so they arrive at their preconceived solution that MTW is somehow "anti-Marxist".
As for MTW as an actual praxis, I wouldn't subscribe to it as denies the unity of struggle of proletarians and peasents arround the world. The LLCO does great stuff in Africa sometimes though,l but I'd rather connect our struggles instead of only targeting one issue.
I'm not a MTW or anything but that sounds like a horrible strawman. I have never seen a MTW make an argument like that. pdf related some actual economist talking about this.
ia802707.us.archive.org
This is a ML critique of MTW.
Well, considering the answers in this thread, it becomes quite clear that the majority of the critics against MTW don't read or have a really vulgar understanding of it. Unruhe damaged its reputation beyond repair I guess.
What's wrong with Roo's understanding of MTW?
It's entirely economistic and mechanistic. He has read the economics behind it (I guess) but I don't think you can be a proper MTW without at least a bit of postcolonial theory. I don't think its so much the content of his beliefs but rather the way he represents it. "MUH PRIMARY CONTRADICTION" is not something a MTW would say.
Why not? Isn't that what Roo's MTWism is entirely predicated on?
Yeah, but I don't know why he would mechanistically try to apply this to Third Worldism. That's not even what Mao said, who believed in careful, situational analysis when applying dialectics and no dogmatism.
And a Third Worldist would say that there is a multitude of struggles and conflicts, primarily global capital, which results in imperialism, so resisting imperialism is necessary but isn't isolated in historical development, especially today where imperialism approaches you from all sides. I mean come on, according to this logic you would have to support the Mensheviks and the provisional government instead of the Bolsheviks, because feudalism is the primary contradiction.
What do you think of ?
She's a religious primitivist and argues metaphysically. She's right about economism but it's not really what Marxists are about.
Althusserianism is metaphysical? Because that's what I got from her post.
Can you explain what you mean by this? How is the Enlightenment anti-universalist?
Yes it is. It's completely unmarxist and rejects the LTV and VTL's core assumptions about labor and the production of value. If you don't subscribe to the LTV there's basically no reason to be a Marxist tbqh.
Sage isn't rude, it's either for when you don't think your reply is important or for when you think a thread sucks. Our autistic B.O. made sage add a big red "SAGE" to the top of the post, so it seems passive aggressive now, but it really isn't.
Stop posting anytime, samefagging retard. Posting this so people know not to reply to you or threads you post in
wallerstein based god
asshole
So what does this mean for MTW?
Any critique of this shit?
Not the same guy. but why would anybody bother listening to this low-quality mumbling shit of some namefag on an Uzbek yak breeding board when there are plenty of works about Mao's dialectics out there, with credentials? I havn't listened to it, and won't do so, I posted a good book earlier which you can read if you want.
They bring up decent critiques of Althusser and Mao, especially around the 1:18:00 mark.
No they don't, stop shilling AW. Fuck off.
So explain how his critique is wrong? I want to know.
You mean your critique? Stop pretending to be someone else, AW.
You're too caught up in your ultra-orthodox interpretation of Hegel to actually engage with anyone beyond saying "uh, Y'know they bring up some, uh, pretty good points, and I can uh, see what they're saying but uhhhhh, they uh, don't really seem to uhhhhh, make any sense to me. They're just saying nonsense."
Listening to you not engage with the material you're "talking about" for 2 hours is an utterly awful thing to ask people to do.