I hope this doesn’t come off as lib-posting, but I just wanted to write a bit about the two International Relations scholars I had followed on and off for some years though my journey of left-radicalization. A shower thought of sorts.
Mind you, neither of these men are Marxists, let alone ML.
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, and Prof. John Mearsheimer.
Both of them are international realists. Prof. Sachs was one of the engineers of the Soviet collapse through shock therapy, an unwitting economic hitman for the USA who never let himself live down that guilt, and prof. John Mearsheimer is an old school realist that had urged US politicians to treat other regional powers with tact and respect, and not to attempt to mold the entire world in the financial capitalist image of the US, to no avail for his entire career.
Both of them are American scholars disabused of the American propagandistic notion that the USA is the shining city on a hill and international police that can do no wrong, and both of them can see that China is rising, and is on a colision course with a USA that cannot afford to lose its hegemonic status because its the only thing holding the USA together at this point in history. Both of them are very, very vocal witnesses to the moral and political falling apart of the USA.
Yet for almost a decade, I am seeing prof. Jeffrey Sachs speaking increasingly like a distressed philosopher from 18th century Europe, stating eloquently and distressfully about the disasters the course of history is guiding the entire human race towards, and growing increasingly frustrated and angry that his advices are falling on deaf ears of politicians that stand to benefit themselves on the short term.
Meanwhile, prof. John Mearsheimer increasingly speaks with an air of relief, almost joyous even when he was cursing the incurable folly of his home country, the USA, as it appears increasingly likely the USA would rather start a hare-brained regional semi-religious war that can potentially turn nuclear of behalf of its imperial vassal Israel, heedless even to its own long term desire to face China on the strategic battlefield, as figures like prof. Mearsheimer had stated is in the USA’s rational interest, than go down gently into that good night.
What the two men saw cannot be more similar, and they are both vindicated scholars of the field now increasing invited by various groups to provide their views on the Iran war, yet that difference in attitude cannot be more different between them.
I still don’t know what to make of it. Perhaps its just the difference in how we cope with the forces of history unfolding in front of our eyes.
I fully expect Sachs to crashout like Dicaprio on that “Don’t look up” movie in the upcoming years.
Mearsheimer is clearly pro-American hegemony. He just sees the current ruling elite’s detachment from reality as counterpoductive to that. I don’t know what Sachs’ angle is. Perhaps he is genuinely an idealist who has finally/partly understood how wrong his previous assumptions about the world were.
Perhaps he is genuinely an idealist who has finally/partly understood how wrong his previous assumptions about the world were.
i saw him admit to this in an interview in context of his inability to convince his colleagues to stop ukraine from descending into war.
I don’t know what Sachs’ angle is
Globalism. “War hurts free trade and my economic models.”
He’s somewhat about preserving the status quo or at least gradual changes to it (guess he’s still feeling bad for the shock therapy he caused). But history just keeps happening and throwing a spanner into the economic machine.
Mearsheimer is a war mongerer. Part of the cheer squad for US military action. He’s always predicting where the flash points should happen. It’s like a board game. He’s keen on China as the next big target.
J Sac’s book, Common Wealth, essentially calls for population control in third world countries. I only know about him because he was cited for something regarding China’s five year plans.
