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Tamahnous Theatre Company will return to the Vancouver
Cultural Centre April 14-22 with their production of “Liquid Gold” —
a full scale musical drama of life in the backwaters of the Sechelt
Peninsula. As the popular theatre company has billed it, Liquid Gold is.

ifs

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about power: electrical, economic and the power of moonshine.

East

Canada is a ‘‘bundle of
paradoxes,”’ political economist
Wallace Clement contends, ‘Its
economic development has been
uneven because of esternal and
internal factors. It is both un-
derdeveloped and overdeveloped,
a resource hinterland and an ad-.-
vanced manufacturer, capital rich
and capital poor...”

To understand Canada’s ‘“‘bundle
of paradoxes’, however, is really
nothing less than knowing about
Canadian capitalism, and ac-
curately placing the position of
Canadian capital in the world
economic order.

But that task is what Clement
calls the ‘Canadian quandary” in
his extensive new book, Con-
tinental Corporate Power:
Economic. Linkages between
Canada and the United States.

The quandary that Clement
refers to boils down to an old
question: Is Canada a colony or
imperialist power, or something in-
between? He opts for the latter, but
not before providing ample data to
support a completely different
conclusion.

In fact it is the wealth of detailed
research that is the real strength of
Continental Corporate Power.
Through six of ten chapters,
Clement provides a detailed study
of the link-ups between Canadian
and U.S. capitalists, the role of
U.S. capital in the Canadian
economy and the role of Canadian

This egg turns out empty

If, as has been the case with his
last four or five films, Ingmar
Bergman has been digging into the
deep: well. of his; consciousness-for
what, for him, have so far been
unanswerable questions about
himself, his dreams, Freud and
God, this time his shovel is working
in a bottomless pit. :

The deeper he digs, the more lost
and bewildered he appears to
become. The reality of human
beings struggling in a Nazi en-
vironment either escapes him or he
consciously avoids it — it is im-
possible to tell which.

Formerly he explored emotional
and intellectual life “pyscholo-
gically” and apparently, having
mined those areas until they — or
his discoveries — dried up, he has
now turned to violence and
physical pain. The Serpent’s Egg is
gorier than Robert Aldrich’s
goriest, with crushed skulls, limbs
torn from limb and heads blown to
red blossoms. Enough you say.
What about the story?

What story? To be sure there is a
time, and a place. The time is
November 3 to 11, 1923; the place,
Berlin. Hitler has just made his
“putsch”, starting in the Munich
beer hall, and all Germany is in
upheaval. Hostility, brutal
violence against Jews, hatred, fear
and uncertainty is everywhere.
But all this is made abstract,
distant, general.

The principal characters are
foreigners, alien to the scene: an
American Jewish trapeze artist
and his partner brother, and the
wife of one. In the early scenes, for
unexplained reasons, the brother
commits suicide by putting his
pistol in his mouth and blowing off
the top of his head. This leaves his
brother, Abel Rosenberg (David
Carradine), horrified, benumbed
in an open-mouth way, an ex-
pression which rarely changes
throughout the film. The wife of the
suicide, part of their former
trapeze act, Manuela (Liv
Ullmann) also seems benumbed,
and plays that way. Her interest, it
seems, is in helping her brother-in-
law shake loose from his numb-
ness.

THE SERPENT’S EGG. A film by
Ingmar Bergman. Starring Liv
Ullmann and David Carradine. At
the Columbia Theatre, New
Westminster.

They both go to work in a
hospital with which she has in
some way made a connection, and
Abel is put to work in a labyrin-
thian cellar where records are kept
of the work of their bosses, two
quite mad scientists who perform
unspeakably horrifying  ex-
periments on humans. For science.
But whether for Hitler’s ‘“scien-
tific’’ purposes or for someone who
will follow him and be better
educated as to the value of their
work is left vague.

The point is that the audience
can never become involved in the
fate of the characters. They never
come alive as human beings. Of so
little interest are they that, to be
perfectly frank, I can’t remember

whether they live or die.

As to the title, The Serpent’s
Egg. It is said that the egg of the
reptile is so thin and translucent
that the creature to emerge from it
can be seen in clear outline before
it actually breaks from its shell.
That’s the metaphor. This 1923
series of disconnected events is
supposed to foreshadow the horror
of the time, a decade later, when
Hitler came to power.

When one sees this thoughtless,
politically naive or purposefully
conceived attempt to avoid a study
of the ‘meaning of that time to the
people who lived there, the Soviet
classic, Professor Mamlick,
made three decades _ ago,
inevitably comes to mind.

Bergman should have studied
that film, instead of the bloody
Clockwork Orange. And in doing
so, he would have learned a
valuable lesson not only in history,
politics and humanity, but also in
the art of dramatic writing.

—Lester Cole

__| Musing Canada’s quandary

CONTINENTAL CORPORATE
POWER: Economic. ‘Linkages
between Canada and the United
States. By Wallace Clement.
McLelland .and Stewart, 1977.
Paper, $6.95.

capital outside of Canada,

The political economy of Canada
in its relationship with the world
capitalist system is still very
largely an unmapped terrain. And
to some extent Clement’s research
is trailblazing in filling in many of
the contours of that relationship.

First Clement recounts the story
of U.S. penetration into the
Canadian economy, using the facts
and interpretation of other
economists, but adding his own
focus by carefully comparing the
sectors of the economy where U.S.
capital has concentrated — the
resource and manufacturing
sectors — to the sectors where
Canadian capital has maintained

control, in the circulation tran-.

sportation and utilities sectors.
Although the relationship has
been cozy, it has created a

distorted Canadian economy: ‘‘No.

clear progression from primary to
secondary to tertiary activities
took place in Canada as it had in
the United States. In Canada the
economy changed from primary to
tertiary without developing the
area of secondary production.”’

This, Clement urgues, is
responsible for the primacy of the
financial sector in the Canadian
economy, which, he also details,
has become a world power in its
own right. In fact, comparing the
relative holdings of multinational
corporations by country; Canada
rates sixth in the world with 3.6
percent of foreign direct in-
vestment, ahead of Japan, Sweden,
Belgium and the Netherlands.

A particularly useful section of
Continental Corporate Power is
found in Chapter five with a profile
of Canadian investment in Latin
America. Half of Canadian in-
vestment in the West Indies is in
Jamaica, with further con-
centration in Guyana and the
eastern Caribbean. In Central and
South America, three quarters of
Canadian investment is located in
only seven countries, primarily
Brazil, where over 30 Canadian
companies are active. Clement
looks at Canadian foreign in-
vestment to ascertain if it is truly
Canadian or merely ‘‘go-between’”’
U.S. investment, funnelled through
Canadian subsidiaries. He finds a

_ Substantial chunk is ‘‘go-between’’,

but the majority is not.

By the end of his study, however,
Clement has not escaped the

quandary that was his starting
point. Already by Chapter five he
states, ‘‘Overall is would not be

correct to view Canadian
capitalists as imperialist in theif
own right,” but by Chapter ten he
stresses that ‘“‘any attempt to
analyse Canada in terms of 4
Simple dominance/subordination
dichotomy necessarily misses the
complexity of its internal class and
power relations. While in general,
the U.S. dominates Canada, there |
are still important mediations
between each and significant
political struggles.”

Although Clement is a socialist
and approaches his study from 4
class perspective, there iS)
something missing from his”
analysis. Significantly, he con)
cludes that Canada is not an im-_
perialist power, but nowhere does
he offer a definition of im-
perialism. Clement discounts
Canadian imperialism because it
exists ‘‘in the backwash of U.S.
imperialism’? and _ becausé
Canadian foreign imvestment does
not have ‘‘the political/military
support of the Canadian state.”
But are these fundamental criteria ©
in determining whether a country
is an imperialist power? And does”

Canada not have substantial |

economic power—Clement himself |
demonstrates this point—which is
backed by imperialist military
alliances? |

The same misunderstanding of -
imperialism underlies Clement’s
contention — which is basic to his”
analysis that
capital” is the cornerstone of
modern capitalism. Canadian
capital, he asserts, is concentrated
in “circulation, transportation and
utilities.’’ But what Clement refers
to as ‘‘circulation’”’ — or banking —
Lenin defined as ‘‘finance capital”,
the merging of bank capital and

“industrial |

industrial capital to form the —

cornerstone of imperialism.

There are a number of other |

|

i

points in Continental Corporate —
Power that Canadian Marxists will —
take issue with. But there is also
much they will agree with, as well |

as a wealth of research that is

essential for anyone to understand —

Canadian capitalism.

There is another problem with )

this book that needs mentioning.

Clement is a sociology teacher at —
McMaster University in Hamilton —
and his book bears the imprint of a

lecturer. Neither in style or
vocabulary is this a popular book.
Still, for students of Canadian
imperialism, or for those still
searching for a way out of

Clement’s quandary, Continental —
Corporate Power is worth reading ©

— after reading, or re-reading’
Lenin’s Imperialism: The Highest
Stage of Capitalism. .They’re both
on sale now at the Peoples Co-OP
Bookstore. —Fred Wilson

spring invasion of groups
emotionally exercised over the
well-being of harp seals.

The cast of the Mummers
Troupe, which has been producing
socially relevant theatre pieces
about working people’ in
Newfoundland, has researched and
created collectively They Club
Seals Don’t They? which has
played in several cities across
Canada and is currently running at
the North Vancouver Studio
Theatre until March 26.

The Mummers, in a variety of
ways, present a well-mounted
argument in defence of the seal
hunt, with satire, comedy, parody
and protest, folk songs, sketches
and even a manic punk-rock item.

The show goes back to the first
colonists and their descendants

arent a chancy living from

{ Mummers’ humor at Green

In recent years Newfoundland logging, mining, fishing and
has become the centre of an annual

sealing and spotlights the ex-
ploitation of one fisherman and his
wife.

An effort is made to show both
sides. Before the play starts we
hear recorded voices of celebrities
(Brigitte Bardot and company)
who oppose the hunt. After a while
their argument seems like a self-
parody. Pro and con arguments
are offered in a program kit, but
the Mummers are solidly on the
side of the sealers, lampooning the
high-profile campaigners as -a
publicity circus complete with
movie stars, helicopters,
cameramen, jugglers and clowns.
And at the very end, on film, it is
argued that to be consistent you
should not eat bacon from killed
pigs. When a hunt opponent tells

*the fisherman’s wife, ‘“‘We’ve got

reports,

aa iF oo
David Ross, Rhonda Payne and Jeff Pitcher in They Club Seals »

Don’t They?

From once opposing nuclear
tests, the Greenpeace groups have
switched to a safe cop-out spon-
soring seals. I think a much more
sete a, species is humanity.

e

peace’

highly-entertaining,
nothing against you people,” she production, directed by Chris Tilley. The latter two also com-
“Then get off our backs!” Brookes and set on a ship’s deck by posed and play the music.

Mavis Penney, is enlivened by the
unique talents of players closely
identified with their native scene —
Pierre Beaupre, Rhonda Payne,
Donna Butt, Jeff Pitcher, David :
Ross, Terry Rielly and Glen®

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 24, 1978—Page 10

—Martin Stone 7

:
S expense |