Nostalgia, however, is not an answer to social problems. Instead of lamenting the failure of world developments to follow our aspirations, we need to develop an analysis that comes to grips with current realities - "Butch Lee” and “Red Rover" attempt to start us down this road with Night-Vision, saying: “Today’s revolutionary need is to detox ourselves from the old, stereotyped political formulas from 20 to 30 years ago." They don't claim to have the answers for new strategies and programs - that will have to emerge from grassroots movements themselves - but they certainly raise some penetrating points about a rapidly changing world system.
The preface is exciting because it is bold in stating both the dynamic of a voracious capitalism, and our own need for new, creative thinking: "Capitalism is again ripping apart and restructuring the world, and nothing will be the same. Not race, not nation, not gender and certainly not whatever culture you used to have." Their paradigm of a change from colonialism io neocolonialism opens up important insights but also leaves many gaps and loose ends. Night-Vision does not provide a definitive overview of our new world, but it is a wonderfully thought-provoking book that begins to thaw some of the ice blocks of our old conceptions.
The writing assumes a familiarity with Left analysis and terms, using, for example, "New Afrika" (to denote the colonization and right to independence of Black people within the U.S.) without first defining it. The authors can also display a caustic sarcasm toward those they see as sellout elements of various oppressed groups. The use of pen names blurs the authors' own race, class and gender and their standing to take such swipes, but they do use the term “we” when referring to white women. Of course ultimately the value of the book rests on the validity of its analysis.
The concept of neocolonialism was first promulgated by the great African independence leader, Kwame Nkrumah, to describe imperialism's shift after World War II from direct to indirect rule of the Third World. Formal independence was granted but local elites were used to maintain imperialisms essential economic and political control.
Lee and Rover move off this initial definition to use neocolonialism to stand for the system as a whole, including important developments within the Industrialized countries. Moreover, they focus on the shifts in methods of world rule since 1975 - after the U.S. military defeat in Vietnam and the emergence of a globally integrated economy. The modem dynamic of neocolonialism is to create vertical class structures, engendering capitalist forces tied to imperialism, within and among the range of oppressed groups - racial minorities, white women, gays and lesbians, workers, as well as the once colonized peoples. This dynamic is transforming those struggles and necessitates an anticapitalist strategy for all of them.
Not surprisingly, Lee and Rover are the clearest where the greatest body of material already exists. The rule over the former colonies has shifted from an era of imperialist rivalries (World Wars I & II) over monopoly control of directly ruled colonies to one of multinational corporations, managed world trade, a common interest in keeping the Third World open for a range of exploitation via the market, and the co-opting of native petty bourgeoisies into maintaining imperialist rule.
There's been a parallel change in the role of New Afrika from white America's chief economic asset for 400 years (with riches reaped from slave and near slave labor) to a liability in that national consciousness and resistance have become an obstacle to the smooth functioning of the system. The strategy has become a form of decolonization by adopting a few New Afrikans into middle class America while having a policy of genocide toward the rest. This analysis help's explain today's apparently contradictory reality of an increasing number of Black individuals in positions of wealth and prestige while the masses in the inner cities have been relegated to the devastation of cascading epidemics of unemployment, drugs, incarceration, homelessness, AIDS and tuberculosis. The old slogan of "Black unity" is not adequate if it entails unity with elements - from drug pushers to Supreme Court Justice – participating in the genocide.
The section on the political economy of neocolonialism, particularly pp. 93-113 is a tour de force. If you want to see if this book is worth reading start by checking out these 20 pages, which provide an unvarnished view of the vicious parasitism of the world economy.
As brilliant and searing as this analysis is, the authors
seem to accede to that common Left canard that the export of manufacture
to the Third World is taking jobs away from U.S. workers. Of course there
is a shift from production to white collar jobs. But as the books own example
shows – the Nike "Air Jordan" sneakers that cost $30 to make in Asia but
sell for $130 here - the superexploitation of Third World labor supports
many nonproductive advertising, sales, finance and management jobs here.
At the same time, the export production actually causes unemployment at
the receiving end, as traditional handicrafts and peasant agriculture are
destroyed there. The reason that unemployment has become so bad throughout
most of the world is based on deeper problems of capitalist stagnation
and irrationality. These conditions in turn lead capitalism to treat increasing
numbers of Third World people as "surplus population" relegated to genocide.
The value of Night-Vision is its emphasis on what is new and
changing. One central development is how much the process of production
has become internationalized. Behind the vaunted German engineering of
Mercedes Benz, for example, are the chromium metal alloys mined by African
workers, assembly lines manned by Turkish immigrants, and a major investment
of Kuwaiti capital. This helps us see why the ruling class, now so focused
on global profits, has become increasingly indifferent to the decline of
national infrastructure. At the same time, the need to defuse national
liberation and to make use of a range of talents and faces explains the
growing number of Third World people and women in management positions
- at the very same time that the conditions of life gravely deteriorate
in the inner cities.
Lee and Rover argue that the very ascension of the global
economy is the backdrop for the disturbing surge of ethnic and national
antagonisms, as players below the world ruling class level frantically
scramble to control pieces of territory in order to have some arena of
power. (While this insight is helpful, it is not adequate because it doesn’t
explain why these forces won't instead ally in order to enhance their power.)
There’s been a shift from a bipolar world of the colonizers vs. the colonized
to a more fluid and chaotic world of transnational capital on top of a
range of fragmented subgroups let loose to fight out their sectional needs.
The resulting series of social conflicts are not moral issues to the ruling
class but simply matters of the maximization of profit for capital. They
are perfectly willing to let these subgroups fight it out for position
- and then make use of the victors against the losers and of the conflict
itself to maintain social control from above.
Night-Vision takes a forceful position that it is class changes
that arc being manifest in struggles that appear to be about race, nation,
and gender. On one hand, there are now significant capitalist strata within
each of those groups, on the other, neocolonialism subsumes those old social
categories to create a highly exploited proletariat, now consisting first
and foremost of Third World women. As suggestive as Lee and Rover’s broad
strokes are in this regard, they leave a lot of room for the oversimplification
of collapsing race, class and gender.
For example, (some) Third World men are used to controlling "their"
women, but many of these men are also highly exploited by imperialism.
Nor should white women's gains around abortion rights, even if achieved
without armed struggle, be totally reduced to a convenience for neocolonialism.
Similarly, the emergence of a multinational labor force and the breakdown
of protected monopoly markets may well mean that capital is no longer willing
to pay for the high standard of living given in return for the loyalty
of whites: “Capitalism is now... demanding that white workers start to
live low like workers…” (This analysis does help explain the growing anti-U.S.
government tendency among white supremacist groups.) But the continued
and crucial political role of a loyal, and even angry, home base should
not be lightly dismissed. Race, gender, nation, and class still each have
their own and interrelated histories and deep social realities, A big part
of any revolutionary strategy is to correlate the needs and aspirations
of various oppressed groups, under the leadership of the most oppressed,
toward a universalist project of liberation.
Night-Vision doesn't turn the prevailing darkness into radiant
sunlight, but it has sent up some very useful tracers that provide streaks
of illumination and expose critical targets. We all need to add our very
best analytical fare.