Abstract
The title Liu Liangjian contribution, “It’s Time to Change the World, So Interpret It!” sounds very much like an order, instruction or command. Even though we always try to avoid these sorts of statements, there is a great temptation to use it now. This change of heart likely has a lot to do also with Eduardo Mendieta’s contribution in this volume, in which he claims that Hermeneutic Communism reads like a manifesto. Perhaps, in the tradition of the manifesto, we should also have called everyone to interpret the world as clearly as Liangjian does. His contribution is not only remarkable in that it points to the similarities between “weak thought” and an ancient Chinese sage of Daoism (Laozi), but also insofar as it questions “whether interpreting is enough to bring alternatives, emergencies, or events to the world.” In order to respond to this fundamental question, Liangjian reinterprets communism from a Chinese perspective in relation to our preference for the South American alternative.
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Mark Weisbrot, “Attempted Coup in Brazil Seeks to Reverse Election Results,” The Hill, April 4, 2016. http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/275051-attempted-coup-in-brazil-seeks-to-reverse-election-results. In a recent article in the New York Times Weisbrot suggested that “A U.S. Policy of Non-intervention in Venezuela Would Be a Welcome Change” considering “Washington has caused enormous damage to Venezuela in its relentless pursuit of ‘regime change’ for the last 15 years. In March, President Obama once again absurdly declared Venezuela to be an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,’ and extended economic sanctions against the country. (M. Weisbrot, “A U.S. Policy of Non-intervention in Venezuela Would Be a Welcome Change” The New York Times, June 30th 2016: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/06/28/how-to-save-venezuela/the-us-bears-blame-for-the-crisis-in-venezuela-and-it-should-stop-intervening-there
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It is important to understand there are different reasons behind each nation crisis. As Weisbrot reported in 2016 “Ecuador’s current recession is largely due to the collapse in the price of oil, which accounts for the majority of the government’s revenue. Venezuela has of course also been hit hard by the oil price collapse, but its recession began when oil was still at $98 a barrel. In its case, the economy got caught in an “inflation-depreciation” spiral” which brought inflation to 180% last year, while the black market rate for the dollar rose to more than 100 times the official rate. As in Brazil, this was mainly a result of policy mistakes; most importantly in Venezuela, the unsustainable effort to maintain a fixed, overvalued exchange rate.” (M. Weisbrot, “ Has the Left Run Its Course in Latin America?” The Nation, May 10th 2016. https://www.thenation.com/article/has-the-left-run-its-course-in-latin-america/
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Vattimo, G., Zabala, S. (2017). Response to Liangjian. In: Mazzini, S., Glyn-Williams, O. (eds) Making Communism Hermeneutical. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59021-9_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59021-9_22
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