BIRN BAUM I LASCH
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developed nations, it is difficult for any of us to see the Shah of Iran or the
new King of Saudi Arabia as leaders of an embattled world proletariat–
even though a crude Marxist interpretation of what has happened, say in
the raising of oil prices , could be that proletarian nations or nation classes
have resisted giving up raw materials at prices which impoverish them in
world-market terms. What does this kind of action mean for the future of
the industrial societies in general?
Lasch :
We can envisage a world in which the major powers will find them–
selves increasingly unable to impose their will on the rest of the world.
Presumably this will exacerbate the economic difficulties the capitalist
countries , at any rate , are already beginning to experience at home .
Birnbaum :
It
also appears that within the so-called Third World, there is a
Fourth World. The Third World consists of countries with raw materials to
sell. But the Fourth World countries have neither adequate supplies of raw
materials to sell on the world market nor enough resources for themselves.
We have to transform our simple models of global exploitation into more
complex ones, in which not only the industrialized countries including the
Soviet Union but underdeveloped ones with resources combine somehow,
together exploiting nations poorer still. And no political solution, no
mediating mechanisms are in sight . The facts of international relations in
this period are that the identities of the strong may change, but those who
are strongest are going to impose their global will upon the others.
Lasch :
Vietnam , the dissolution of the cold war power blocs, and the oil
embargo itself all seem to me to call that proposition into question. At
the very least these developments suggest, as you say, a change in the
identity of the strongest ; and we might ask whether this change makes any
difference.
Birnbaum:
Possibly, some, and that leads us to the Communist bloc. I'm
struck by how little magnetic power is exercised by China or the Soviet
Union. For the advanced industrial societies, the Soviet Union is neither an
inspiration nor a model-politically or economically , and certainly not in
its philistine culture . The Chinese enjoy a certain amount of credit in the
Third and Fourth Worlds for their modes of aid as well as for their own
internal achievements, but there is little prospect of the Chinese assuming
the leadership of the Third and Fourth Worlds, or any parts of them.
Perhaps the secret of Chinese Communism is not that it is a new version of
Leninism for backward countries, but a new version ofMarxism, successfully
fused with a very old and complex culture , which has been able to achieve
national goals like independence, psychic and cultural self-sufficiency.
And what this suggests is that there is no one global, much less
