From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 2 07:31:00 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:31:00 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Tell Congress Message-ID: <49350059.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> in solidarity jim ____________________________________ Sent: 11/28/2008 12:04:14 P.M. Eastern Standard Time Subj: Tell Congress: Save Autoworker Jobs Save Autoworker Jobs! Your urgent help is needed to help save the millions of jobs that are connected to America's auto industry. Allowing America's auto industry to fall into bankruptcy punishes workers and retirees for past management misjudgments, and would be a disaster for the country - especially in this deepening economic crisis. Congressional leaders have said they will consider emergency assistance to the domestic auto industry. But a new vote will be required, and we must continue to build support to save jobs. You can take action at: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/autoworkers/5sxwn2h7t38nkt? From Nov. 24 through Dec. 7, most lawmakers are back in their home states or districts, meeting with constituents. The following week, December 7-13, groups across the country are mobilizing for a "People's Bailout" (http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/epaYzP11LcF-/) including an economic stimulus package, restoration of the middle class through collective bargaining, ending foreclosures and other measures to address the economic crisis. The American auto industry has been central to building America?s middle class. Preventing its collapse, and investing in its reform, should be an important part of a broader economic recovery program. Congress needs to hear from all of us - now. Without immediate government aid, one or more automakers could fail, costing millions of jobs, putting thousands of small and medium-sized businesses at risk, threatening health and pension benefits for retirees, and causing enormous damage to our economy. For background from the Economic Policy Institute, see: http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/e7aYzP11LcFF/ For United Auto Workers talking points see here: http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/d1aYzP11LcFJ/ You can take action on this alert via the web at: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/autoworkers/5sxwn2h7t38nkt? Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this. http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/autoworkers/forward/5sxwn2h7t38nkt? We encourage you to take action by December 25, 2008 Save Autoworker Jobs! INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPOND VIA THE WEB: If you have access to a web browser, you can take action on this alert by going to the following URL: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/autoworkers/5sxwn2h7t38nkt? Your letter will be addressed and sent to: Your Congressperson Your Senators ----THIS LETTER WILL BE SENT IN YOUR NAME---- Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here], The workers, retirees and small businesses that depend on America's auto industry need your help right away. GM, Ford and Chrysler need an immediate $25 billion bridge loan to help them weather the current severe credit and economic crises. Without this assistance, these companies will run out of cash and be forced to cease all manufacturing and business operations. Allowing these companies to collapse would be an economic disaster. Congress bailed out Wall Street - it's time to put people first and focus on the Main Street economy, including investing in manufacturing jobs while encouraging a long-term plan for a revitalized and sustainable American auto industry. I urge you to vote for this greatly needed assistance. Thank you for considering my views on this critically important issue. ----END OF LETTER TO BE SENT---- Sincerely, jim pita This message was sent to pitairis at aol.com. To modify your email communication preferences or update your personal profile, visit your subscription management page at: http://www.unionvoice.org/jobswithjustice/smp.tcl?nkey=5sxwn2h7t38nkt& To stop ALL email from Jobs with Justice, reply via email with "remove or unsubscribe" in the subject line, or use the following link: http://www.unionvoice.org/jobswithjustice/remove-domain-direct.tcl?ctx=center& nkey=5sxwn2h7t38nkt& This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 2 07:55:48 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:55:48 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] . DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG CAPITALIST ASSOCIATIONS Message-ID: <49350629.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> V. DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG CAPITALIST ASSOCIATIONS Monopolist capitalist associations, cartels, syndicates and trusts first divided the home market among themselves and obtained more or less complete possession of the industry of their own country. But under capitalism the home market is inevitably bound up with the foreign market. Capitalism long ago created a world market. As the export of capital increased, and as the foreign and colonial connections and ?spheres of influence? of the big monopolist associations expanded in all ways, things ?naturally? gravitated towards an international agreement among these associations, and towards the formation of international cartels. This is a new stage of world concentration of capital and production, incomparably higher than the preceding stages. Let us see how this supermonopoly develops. The electrical industry is highly typical of the latest technical achievements and is most typical of capitalism at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. This industry has developed most in the two leaders of the new capitalist countries, the United States and Germany. In Germany, the crisis of 1900 gave a particularly strong impetus to its concentration. During the crisis, the banks, which by that time had become fairly well merged with industry, enormously accelerated and intensified the ruin of relatively small firms and their absorption by the large ones. ?The banks,? writes Jeidels, ?refused a helping hand to the very firms in greatest need of capital, and brought on first a frenzied boom and then the hopeless failure of the companies which had not been connected with them closely enough.? [1] As a result, after 1900, concentration in Germany progressed with giant strides. Up to 1900 there had been seven or eight ?groups? in the electrical industry. Each consisted of several companies (altogether there were 28) and each was backed by from 2 to 11 banks. Between 1908 and 1912 all these groups were merged into two, or one. The following diagram shows the process: GROUPS IN THE ELECTRICAL INDUSTRY Prior to 1900: Felten & Lahmeyer; Guillaume | | Union A.E.G. | | Siemens Schuckert & Halske & Co. | Berg- mann | Kum- mer | | | Felten & Lahmeyer |_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ | A.E.G. (G.E.C.) _-_-_-_-_-_-_-| | | Siemens & Halske- Schuckert |_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ | | Berg- man _-_-_-_-_-| | | Failed in 1900 By 1912: A.E.G. (G.E.C.) Siemens & Halske Schuckert (in close "co-operation" since 1908) The famous A.E.G. (General Electric Company), which grew up in this way, controls 175 to 200 companies (through the ?holding? system), and a total capital of approximately 1,500 million marks. Of direct agencies abroad alone, it has thirty-four, of which twelve are joint-stock companies, in more than ten countries. As early as 1904 the amount of capital invested abroad by the German electrical industry was estimated at 233 million marks. Of this sum, 62 million were invested in Russia. Needless to say, the A.E.G. is a huge ?combine??its manufacturing companies alone number no less than sixteen?producing the most diverse articles, from cables and insulators to motor-cars and flying machines. But concentration in Europe was also a component part of the process of concentration in America, which developed in the following way: General Electric Company United States: Thomas-Houston Co. establishes a firm in Europe Edison Co. establishes in Eu- rope the French Edison Co. which transfers its patents to the German firm Germany: Union Electric Co. General Electric Co. (A.E.G.) Thus, two electrical ?great powers? were formed: ?there are no other electrical companies in the world completely independent of them,? wrote Heinig in his article ?The Path of the Electric Trust?. An idea, although far from complete, of the turnover and the size of the enterprises of the two ?trusts? can be obtained from the following figures: Turnover (000,000 marks) Number of employees Net profits (000,000 marks) America: General Electric Co: (G.E.C) 1907 1910 252 298 28,000 32,000 35.4 45.6 Germany: General Electric Co: (A.E.G.) 1907 1911 216 362 30,700 60,800 14.5 21.7 And then, in 1907, the German and American trusts concluded an agreement by which they divided the world between them. Competition between them ceased. The American General Electric Company (G.E.C.) ?got? the United States and Canada. The German General Electric Company (A.E.G.) ?got? Germany, Austria, Russia, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey and the Balkans. Special agreements, naturally secret, were concluded regarding the penetration of ?daughter companies? into new branches of industry, into ?new? countries formally not yet allotted. The two trusts were to exchange inventions and experiments. [2] The difficulty of competing against this trust, actually a single world-wide trust controlling a capital of several thousand million, with ?branches?, agencies, representatives, connections, etc., in every corner of the world, is self-evident. But the division of the world between two powerful trusts does not preclude redivision if the relation of forces changes as a result of uneven development, war, bankruptcy, etc. An instructive example of an attempt at such a redivision, of the struggle for redivision, is provided by the oil industry. ?The world oil market,? wrote Jeidels in 1905, ?is even today still divided between two great financial groups?Rockefeller?s American Standard Oil Co., and Rothschild and Nobel, the controlling interests of the Russian oilfields in Baku. The two groups are closely connected. But for several years five enemies have been threatening their monopoly? [3] : (1) the exhaustion of the American oilfields; (2) the competition of the firm of Mantashev of Baku; (3) the Austrian oilfields; (4) the Rumanian oilfields; (5) the overseas oilfields, particularly in the Dutch colonies (the extremely rich firms, Samuel, and Shell, also connected with British capital). The three last groups are connected with the big German banks, headed by the huge Deutsche Bank. These banks independently and systematically developed the oil industry in Rumania, for example, in order to have a foothold of their ?own?. In 1907, the foreign capital invested in the Rumanian oil industry was estimated at 185 million francs, of which 74 million was German capital. [4] A struggle began for the ?division of the world?, as, in fact, it is called in economic literature. On the one hand, the Rockefeller ?oil trust? wanted to lay its hands on everything; it formed a ?daughter company? right in Holland, and bought up oilfields in the Dutch Indies, in order to strike at its principal enemy, the Anglo-Dutch Shell trust. On the other hand, the Deutsche Bank and the other German banks aimed at ?retaining? Rumania ?for themselves? and at uniting her with Russia against Rockefeller. The latter possessed far more capital and an excellent system of oil transportation and distribution. The struggle had to end, and did end in 1907, with the utter defeat of the Deutsche Bank, which was confronted with the alternative: either to liquidate its ?oil interests? and lose millions, or submit. It chose to submit, and concluded a very disadvantageous agreement with the ?oil trust?. The Deutsche Bank agreed ?not to attempt anything which might injure American interests?. Provision was made, however, for the annulment of the agreement in the event of Germany establishing a state oil monopoly. Then the ?comedy of oil? began. One of the German finance kings, von Gwinner, a director of the Deutsche Bank, through his private secretary, Stauss, launched a campaign for a state oil monopoly. The gigantic machine of the huge German bank and all its wide ?connections? were set in motion. The press bubbled over with ?patriotic? indignation against the ?yoke? of the American trust, and, on March 15, 1911, the Reichstag, by an almost unanimous vote, adopted a motion asking the government to introduce a bill for the establishment of an oil monopoly. The government seized upon this ?popular? idea, and the game of the Deutsche Bank, which hoped to cheat its American counterpart and improve its business by a state monopoly, appeared to have been won. The German oil magnates already saw visions of enormous profits, which would not be less than those of the Russian sugar refiners.... But, firstly, the big German banks quarrelled among themselves over the division of the spoils. The Disconto-Gesellschaft exposed the covetous aims of the Deutsche Bank; secondly, the government took fright at the prospect of a struggle with Rockefeller, for it was very doubtful whether Germany could be sure of obtaining oil from other sources (the Rumanian output was small); thirdly, just at that time the 1913 credits of a thousand million marks were voted for Germany?s war preparations. The oil monopoly project was postponed. The Rockefeller ?oil trust? came out of the struggle, for the time being, victorious. The Berlin review, Die Bank, wrote in this connection that Germany could fight the oil trust only by establishing an electricity monopoly and by converting water-power into cheap electricity. ?But,? the author added, ?the electricity monopoly will come when the producers need it, that is to say, when the next great crash in the electrical industry is imminent, and when the gigantic, expensive power stations now being put up at great cost everywhere by private electrical concerns, which are already obtaining certain franchises from towns, from states, etc., can no longer work at a profit. Water-power will then have to be used. But it will be impossible to convert it into cheap electricity at state expense; it will also have to be handed over to a ?private monopoly controlled by the state?, because private industry has already concluded a number of contracts and has stipulated for heavy compensation.... So it was with the nitrate monopoly, so it is with the oil monopoly, so it will be with the electric power monopoly. It is time our state socialists, who allow themselves to be blinded by a beautiful principle, understood, at last, that in Germany the monopolies have never pursued the aim, nor have they had the result, of benefiting the consumer, or even of handing over to the state part of the promoter?s profits; they have served only to facilitate, at the expense of the state, the recovery of private industries which were on the verge of bankruptcy. [5] Such are the valuable admissions which the German bourgeois economists are forced to make. We see plainly here how private and state monopolies are interwoven in the epoch of finance capital; how both are but separate links in the imperialist struggle between the big monopolists for the division of the world. In merchant shipping, the tremendous development of concentration has ended also in the division of the world. In Germany two powerful companies have come to the fore: the Hamburg-Amerika and the Norddeutscher Lloyd, each having a capital of 200 million marks (in stocks and bonds) and possessing shipping tonnage to the value of 185 to 189 million marks. On the other hand, in America, on January 1, 1903, the International Mercantile Marine Co., known as the Morgan trust, was formed; it united nine American and British steamship companies, and possessed a capital of 120 million dollars (480 million marks). As early as 1903, the German giants and this American-British trust concluded an agreement to divide the world with a consequent division of profits. The German companies undertook not to compete in the Anglo-American traffic. Which ports were to be ?allotted? to each was precisely stipulated; a joint committee of control was set up, etc. This agreement was concluded for twenty years, with the prudent provision for its annulment in the event of war. [6] Extremely instructive also is the story of the formation of the International Rail Cartel. The first attempt of the British, Belgian and German rail manufacturers to form such a cartel was made as early as 1884, during a severe industrial depression. The manufacturers agreed not to compete with one another in the home markets of the countries involved, and they divided the foreign markets in the following quotas: Great Britain, 66 per cent; Germany, 27 per cent; Belgium, 7 per cent. India was reserved entirely for Great Britain. Joint war was declared against a British firm which remained outside the cartel, the cost of which was met by a percentage levy on all sales. But in 1886 the cartel collapsed when two British firms retired from it. It is characteristic that agreement could not be achieved during subsequent boom periods. At the beginning of 1904, the German steel syndicate was formed. In November 1904, the International Rail Cartel was revived, with the following quotas: Britain, 53.5 per cent; Germany, 28.83 per cent; Belgium, 17.67 per cent. France came in later and received 4.8 per cent, 5.8 per cent and 6.4 per cent in the first, second and third year respectively, over and above the 100 per cent limit, i.e., out of a total of 104.8 per cent, etc. In 1905, the United States Steel Corporation entered the cartel; then Austria and Spain. ?At the present time,? wrote Vogelstein in 1910, ?the division of the world is complete, and the big consumers, primarily the state railways?since the world has been parcelled out without consideration for their interests?can now dwell like the poet in the heavens of Jupiter.? [7] Let me also mention the International Zinc Syndicate which was established in 1909 and which precisely apportioned output among five groups of factories: German, Belgian, French, Spanish and British; and also the International Dynamite Trust, which, Liefmann says, is ?quite a modern, close alliance of all the German explosives manufacturers who, with the French and American dynamite manufacturers, organised in a similar manner, have divided the whole world among themselves, so to speak?. [8] Liefmann calculated that in 1897 there were altogether about forty international cartels in which Germany had a share, while in 1910 there were about a hundred. Certain bourgeois writers (now joined by Karl Kautsky, who has completely abandoned the Marxist position he had held, for example, in 1909) have expressed the opinion that international cartels, being one of the most striking expressions of the internationalisation of capital, give the hope of peace among nations under capitalism. Theoretically, this opinion is absolutely absurd, while in practice it is sophistry and a dishonest defence of the worst opportunism. International cartels show to what point capitalist monopolies have developed, and the object of the struggle between the various capitalist associations. This last circumstance is the most important; it alone shows us the historico-economic meaning of what is taking place; for the forms of the struggle may and do constantly change in accordance with varying, relatively specific and temporary causes, but the substance of the struggle, its class content, positively cannot change while classes exist. Naturally, it is in the interests of, for example, the German bourgeoisie, to whose side Kautsky has in effect gone over in his theoretical arguments (I shall deal with this later), to obscure the substance of the present economic struggle (the division of the world) and to emphasise now this and now another form of the struggle. Kautsky makes the same mistake. Of course, we have in mind not only the German bourgeoisie, but the bourgeoisie all over the world. The capitalists divide the world, not out of any particular malice, but because the degree of concentration which has been reached forces them to adopt this method in order to obtain profits. And they divide it ?in proportion to capital?, ?in proportion to strength?, because there cannot be any other method of division under commodity production and capitalism. But strength varies with the degree of economic and political development. In order to understand what is taking place, it is necessary to know what questions are settled by the changes in strength. The question as to whether these changes are ?purely? economic or non-economic (e.g., military) is a secondary one, which cannot in the least affect fundamental views on the latest epoch of capitalism. To substitute the question of the form of the struggle and agreements (today peaceful, tomorrow warlike, the next day warlike again) for the question of the substance of the struggle and agreements between capitalist associations is to sink to the role of a sophist. The epoch of the latest stage of capitalism shows us that certain relations between capitalist associations grow up, based on the economic division of the world; while parallel to and in connection with it, certain relations grow up between political alliances, between states, on the basis of the territorial division of the world, of the struggle for colonies, of the ?struggle for spheres of influence?. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes [1] Jeidels, op. cit., S. 232. ?Lenin [2] Riesser, op. cit.; Diouritch, op. cit., p. 239; Kurt Heinig, op. cit. ?Lenin [3] Jeidels, op. cit., S. 192-93. ?Lenin [4] Diouritch, op. cit., pp. 245-46. ?Lenin [5] Die Bank, 1912, 1, S. 1036; 1912, 2, S. 629; 1913, 1, S. 388. ?Lenin [6] Riesser, op. cit., S. 125. ?Lenin [7] Vogelstein, Organisationsformen, S. 100. ?Lenin [8] Liefmann, Kartelle und Trusts, 2. A., S. 161. ?Lenin This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 2 10:22:37 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 12:22:37 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nationalize GM Message-ID: <4935288D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-neil2-2008dec02,0,5617845.story December 2, 2008 Los Angeles Times Nationalize GM By Dan Neil The federal government should buy GM. We can run it, then sell it at a profit once it recovers. At the moment, D.C. and Detroit are brooding on a Morton's Fork: Watch the American automakers auger in and take hundreds of thousands of jobs with them, or bail out these failed and incorrigible companies whose management so richly deserves whatever hell (flying coach?) awaits them. Tops on the critics' list of grievances is Detroit's failure to anticipate the inevitable. Why didn't these companies sufficiently invest in next-generation technology -- fuel-efficient small cars, high-mileage hybrids, plug-ins and all-electric vehicles -- that could help wean the U.S. off foreign oil and take the automobile out of the climate-change equation? As the auto executives again bring their begging bowl to Congress, a consensus is forming: No bailout unless Detroit builds greener cars. From my perch, as someone who drives all of the Big Three's North American product offerings, I think a lot of the anger is reflexive and misplaced. Detroit makes some amazing cars, and anyone who thinks otherwise should hold a Corvette ZR1 to his head and pull the trigger. The Ford F-150 pickup I drove last week flat-out humbles rivals from Toyota or Nissan. Considering that the domestic carmakers are shouldering titanic "legacy" costs -- it's estimated that $2,000 in healthcare, pension and employee post-retirement benefits are baked into the price of every UAW-built vehicle -- just being competitive in any segment is a signal achievement. Nonetheless, the question remains: What to do about the domestic automakers? My modest proposal: Nationalize GM. To be clear, I mean that the federal government should buy GM; forget rathole loans or nonvoting equity shares. The company's stockholder value has been essentially wiped out. The company's enterprise value -- the lock, stock and forklift price -- is about $32 billion; its total debt is $45 billion. Let's make GM an offer. If you feel the gall of free-market ideology rising, consider that the measures being bruited about as preconditions for a bailout -- firing GM's top management; forcing a bankruptcy-like renegotiation of contracts with the UAW, suppliers and dealers (it has too many); and creating a czar of product development to force the building of green cars -- are nationalization in all but name. I say embrace it. GM-USA. Here are the benefits of nationalization: GM's fundamental problem is that it's too big -- and expecting it to fix itself in exchange for a $10-billion to $15-billion loan (its share of the vaunted $25-billion bailout) or magically right-size in Chapter 11 is foolhardy. It would take too long, cost too much and bankruptcy, should it come, would send customers running for the hills. Time is of the essence. Congress, writing a GM law and using federal power to abrogate contracts, could achieve at least some of these goals at a stroke. GM is full of talent and potential. The company spent $8.1 billion on research and development last year, second only to Toyota. Of all the carmakers, GM is closest to commercializing a full-size, four-door, plug-in electric vehicle, the Volt, due in the fourth quarter of 2010. The Volt should travel about 40 miles in all-electric mode before requiring the services of its onboard, gas-powered generator. Many owners could go weeks before they used any gasoline. This is precisely the sort of car that environmental and energy security advocates have been clamoring for. GM's business is growing in other parts of the world; it's only the North American operations that are killing the company. This is a corporation that had $181 billion in revenue and sold 9.4 million vehicles in 2007. To put it another way: GM, though distressed, looks like a good investment. Also, the federal government can sell the company -- at a profit -- once it's righted and sailing forward again. GM is competing with companies that are quasi-national now. If you consider the advantages the government of Japan has bestowed on Toyota, Nissan and Honda -- in terms of healthcare and retirement benefits for its employees -- the unevenness of the field is clear. The same goes for most European companies, and the rising rivals in China will enjoy similar state-subsidized advantages. The government can afford long-term planning. Many of GM's strategic missteps -- such as betting large on trucks and SUVs and not investing early in hybrid technology -- were the result of willful shortsightedness at the board level, responding to a financial market in which shareholders look for the quick return. Putting Uncle Sam in charge would fundamentally enlarge the return-on-investment horizon. We need government-sized automotive help anyway. This country should be putting millions of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on the road. As far as I can tell, without big subsidies, there is no way in the near term to build these vehicles and make a reasonable profit, due to the stubbornly high cost of advanced batteries. Besides, if GM were owned by the government, it wouldn't spend time and money litigating and lobbying against clean-air and safety rules Why not pick up Ford and Chrysler too? If Chrysler goes south, it's too small to drag down the rest of the domestic auto industry. Ford, which has been pursuing its "Way Forward" cost-cutting plan for more than two years, will probably survive the moment without government assistance, though it's going to be close. To be sure, the yard marks of democratic capitalism have moved under us in recent months. Last week, the feds announced that the government would take a $20-billion stake in Citigroup and guarantee hundreds of billions in risky assets, a move that would have seemed pure socialism had we not lived through the last few months. Have we not in effect nationalized the mortgage-loan industry? I say, let's avoid the euphemisms and have the courage of our supercharged Keynesian convictions. By nationalizing GM, we can aim the company's astonishing resources at one of the biggest public-policy problems we have: oil. Restructured and refocused, GM could build green vehicles by the millions in a few years and still have the capacity to build gasoline- and diesel-powered pickups (which we'll still need) ... and maybe even some Corvettes on the side. Dan Neil is The Times' automotive critic. dan.neil at latimes.com This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 2 12:30:57 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:30:57 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A green light , amid the gloom of the recession ... Message-ID: <493546A0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=13482 A green light Amid the gloom of the recession ... By Curt Guyette The stock market continues to nosedive. Major financial institutions have crumpled and retirement funds are evaporating. There's no end in sight to the foreclosure pandemic that hit southeast Michigan before most other areas. The Big Three automakers are frantically trying to fend off collapse. With millions of manufacturing jobs lost already, the immediate future holds the dismal promise of unemployment lines swelling even more. But in the gloom, some see a shining green beacon, showing the way ahead. "This is the future," says Oakland County Commissioner Jim Nash, a longtime proponent of green development strategies. The way he sees it, amid all the negative trends that have combined to create economic disaster, another convergence also under way offers hope. Describing what he calls "a sort of perfect storm, but in a good way," Nash and others point to four factors: No. 1: widespread realization that continued dependence on Middle Eastern oil poses a clear economic and national security threat to the United States. No. 2: the financial imperative to reduce energy costs at all levels. No. 3: acceptance that climate change must be addressed by reducing use of carbon-based fuels. All three points demand a change in the way this nation deals with its energy issues. Add to this mix No. 4: a new president who has made investment in green technology and energy efficiency a top priority - with a promised investment of $150 billion over the next 10 years - and there's no doubt change is coming, Nash says. What remains to be seen is whether this beleaguered region will catch the rising green tide quickly enough to become a leader. "We were the Arsenal of Democracy," observes Nash. "There's no reason we can't be the arsenal in the fight against global warming. But if we don't do it, we are going to be buying this new technology from Germany and Japan." And this is no longer an issue of environmentalists always fighting an uphill battle against those who see them as a threat to economic development. As researchers from Duke University's Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness noted in a report released last week: "While some seek to pit the environment against economic growth, we see economic opportunity in the solutions to the climate crisis. Many business analysts agree. They believe the economic leaders of tomorrow will be companies that manage their resources efficiently and take the lead in developing and commercializing innovative clean technologies. These will also be the companies most able to create well-paying jobs and ensure that current jobs are secure. The demand for climate solutions will create - very directly - manifold job opportunities in many sectors, from core industries such as renewable and energy efficiency businesses to traditional areas such as construction trades, pipefitting and electrical jobs. Equally important, though, is the vast supporting cast of industries that make these low carbon end products possible." The Duke report described Michigan as being well-poised to mass manufacture solar technology. "U.S. auto production has the capacity to produce over 19 million vehicles [a year], but only about 15 million of the current capacity is being used," the report noted. Another report, this one by the Renewable Energy Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, states that "by virtue of its industrial base, Michigan stands to benefit from the increased demand for renewable technology." The way Oakland County's Nash sees it, there is a snowball effect to promoting a green economy, with local governments being in a particularly good position to get efforts rolling. A commitment to pursue energy-efficient building construction and renovation provides jobs and encourages manufacturers to locate in areas where they know their products will be in high demand. The hope is that a partnership of school districts and local colleges, units of local government and the private sector can be a catalyst for change. Nash and fellow members of the newly formed Regional Sustainability Partnership - which includes Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties and the city of Detroit - need look no further than Grand Rapids for an example of a comprehensive, sustainable philosophy of economic development at work. A city of fewer than 200,000 residents, Grand Rapids has leveraged its reputation as one of America's greenest cities to help spur growth. With a model that's been recognized by the United Nations, the city obtains 20 percent of its power from renewable resources and has a goal of 100 percent by 2020. As reported in the magazine Fast Company, the municipal government's energy use has been cut by more than 10 percent, the public transportation fleet features hybrid buses, and the city leads the nation in highly energy-efficient buildings per capita. And it's not just government. As the business magazine pointed out, local corporations such as office-furniture manufacturers Steelcase and Herman Miller "here, in the heart of the Rust Belt, are leading the greenification charge." The companies are turning "eco-friendly in the belief that reducing the environmental cost of commerce will raise their profits" and "boost the regional economy." It is a philosophy that's working. Grand Rapids' Renaissance Zone (where tax breaks are offered to spur business development) "has become the most successful in Michigan" and "continues to lead the state with the number of new Renaissance Zone projects," according to the city's website. Over the past 10 years, the zone has attracted investments totaling more than $250 million. As the Free Press recently reported: "When Mayor George Heartwell looks out his office window, he sees an unusual sight in Michigan: a skyline full of construction cranes. "The city is experiencing a building boom, and it's green. Four of the five giant new projects rising downtown are green-built." Those are the kinds of headlines Nash wants to see being written about southeast Michigan, which is why he was a strong proponent of establishing the Regional Sustainability Partnership, which is modeled on the Grand Rapids effort. A key part of the plan is to help local governments pursue higher energy-efficiency standards and promote the use of green technology, says Nash. Although the up-front costs might be higher, going green provides tremendous savings in the long run, says Nash. He points to Ann Arbor, which replaced its conventional street lights with energy efficient LED lights at a cost of $3 million but with the potential of saving $1 million a year on electricity. By helping local units of government to conduct energy audits and obtain grants to help pay for projects, the partnership seeks to both help save taxpayer dollars and promote job growth. He talks about solar panels and wind turbines, electric and hybrid vehicles, advanced water treatment systems and mass transit, pollution control technology and energy efficient products ranging from windows to refrigerators. Whether it is at a company making LED lights or installing upgraded installations, there are jobs to be had by going green. And by cooperating on a regional basis, the chance of obtaining those jobs improves. Kathryn Underwood, a staff member at the Detroit Planning Commission who focuses on sustainability issues, helped spur creation of Regional Sustainability Partnership, which will have its first meeting in January. Energy efficiency, especially, is a "no-brainer," she says. "It is something everyone - the city, the counties, municipalities, businesses, households - can grasp." And if you get everyone on board and moving in the same direction, you increase your potential for creating jobs. "If government takes leadership, we can start encouraging folks [from the private sector] to come in and start doing economic development," she says. There's also the chance of another spin-off benefit: "It's not an issue that's rife with a lot of controversy. If we, as a region, can come together and cooperate on this, it paves the way for the region to come together on more difficult issues, like transit." "I see the bleakness as a canvas," she says. It's a canvas open to the prospect of being painted over in bright green. She adds, "I see a lot of reason to hope." Curt Guyette is Metro Times news editor. Contact him at 313-202-8004 or cguyette at metrotimes.com. Comments On 12/1/2008 12:52:33 PM, DetroitGlenn said: Grand Rapids is a great example of the wide range of benefits from going Green. But when is Detroit going to wake up to this? We have been working hard to shut down the giant trash incinerator and move to curbside recycling. This would be a great start to new businesses, technological development and more jobs in Detroit. But Mayor Cockrel is dragging his feet. And where are the questions for the other mayoral candidates. Why aren?t the citizens demanding this from the candidates? It is our city. Let?s take it back and be leaders of the new Green Cities not followers. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Dec 2 13:08:00 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:08:00 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nationalize GM Message-ID: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-neil2-2008dec02,0,56178 45.story >> Nationalize GM By Dan Neil The federal government should buy GM. We can run it, then sell it at a profit once it recovers. At the moment, D.C. and Detroit are brooding on a Morton's Fork: Watch the American automakers auger in and take hundreds of thousands of jobs with them, or bail out these failed and incorrigible companies whose management so richly deserves whatever hell (flying coach?) awaits them. Tops on the critics' list of grievances is Detroit's failure to anticipate the inevitable. Why didn't these companies sufficiently invest in next-generation technology -- fuel-efficient small cars, high-mileage hybrids, plug-ins and all-electric vehicles -- that could help wean the U.S. off foreign oil and take the automobile out of the climate-change equation? As the auto executives again bring their begging bowl to Congress, a consensus is forming: No bailout unless Detroit builds greener cars. Nonetheless, the question remains: What to do about the domestic automakers? My modest proposal: Nationalize GM. << Comment Whether General Motors or the entire American based auto industry is nationalized, saved, restructured or bail out, the shrinkage of the workforce and tossing hundreds of thousands of auto workers into the streets, will take place unabated as the result of so-called free market capitalism and this current business cycle. 30 years of reduction in the work force - due solely to technological innovation, is an absolute law of all modern bourgeois production. Specifically, what the auto workers and the entire working class affected by this particular crisis needs are housing, (section 8), food stuff (government commodities), basic transportation and basic health care. The union movement - (meaning all those organized into trade union rather than those who are not trade union members.) cannot win the aforementioned needs on the basis of negotiations with their respective employers. Government and the state must be confronted. For the past 50 years the UAW was compelled to approach the issue of health care from the standpoint of negotiations with its counterparts in the Big Three. Today this approach is worthless. To the degree the UAW shed its old trade union orientation and slowly but steadfastly act as an organized detachment of the labor movement rather than a narrow trade union sector, is the degree to which it can attach to itself, all those who must sell their labor power for wages. One writer in response to this article "Nationalize GM" wrote "fuck em," which is a general sentiment expressed towards auto and the auto unions, at least in America. For reasons of our history, the trade union movement, evolved and developed in opposition to the labor movement, although the trade union movement is a sector of the labor movement. Our trade union movement, notably the UAW, was and behaved as an aristocracy of the labor movement as compared with rest of the labor movement and most certainly those workers in the low wage South. One will find very little support of the UAW as a union and sector of the trade union movement throughout the working class owing to the political backwardness of our working class and a half century of sustained free market ideological campaigning by our ruing class. However, it cannot be denied that 50 years of bourgeois trade union ideology has taken its toll on our working class also. At any rate, no matter what solution are put forth as immediate and long terms solutions, the working class and working masses must have food to eat, shelter, basic health care, education and basic transportation. The class demands needs to be fought for and brought to the fore. It seems we have entered an era where free market ideology as a whole can be defeated on the basis of what our working class is experiencing in real life. Now it the time for communists and socialist advocacy. Waistline **************Life should be easier. So should your homepage. Try the NEW AOL.com. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000002) From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Dec 2 13:22:25 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:22:25 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nationalize GM - some stats of the industry Message-ID: Company by company, Edmunds.com predicts: Chrysler will sell 94,000 units in November, down 41.7 percent compared to November 2007 and down 0.3 percent from October. This would result in a new car market share of 11 percent for Chrysler in November, down from 13.7 percent in November 2007 and down from 11.3 percent in October. Ford will sell 119,000 units in November, down 33.1 percent compared to November 2007 and down 7.8 percent from October. This would result in a new car market share of 14 percent of new car sales in November for Ford, down from 15.1 percent in November 2007 and down from 15.5 percent in October 2008. General Motors will sell 188,000 units in November, down 28.2 percent compared to November 2007 and up 11.2 percent from October. GM's market share is expected to be 22.1 percent of new vehicle sales in November, down slightly from 22.3 percent in November 2007 and up from 20.3 percent in October. Honda will sell 88,000 units in November, down 20.6 percent from November 2007 and up 3 percent from October. Honda's market share is expected to be 10.4 percent in November 2008, up from 9.5 percent in November 2007 and up from 10.3 percent in October. Nissan will sell 57,000 units in November, down 29.3 percent from November 2007 and up 0.2 percent from October. Nissan's market share is expected to be 6.7 percent in November 2008, down from 6.9 percent in November 2007 and down from 6.8 percent in October. Toyota will sell 150,000 units in November, down 24.2 percent from November 2007 and down 1.7 percent from October. Toyota's market share is expected to be 17.6 percent in November, up from 16.8 percent in November 2007 and down from 18.2 percent in October. full: _http://audos.blogspot.com/2008/11/gas-prices-and-heavy-incentives-keep.html_ (http://audos.blogspot.com/2008/11/gas-prices-and-heavy-incentives-keep.html) **************Life should be easier. So should your homepage. Try the NEW AOL.com. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000002) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 2 14:16:29 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:16:29 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Current economic crisis Message-ID: <49355F63.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Sam Webb: Current economic crisis If there were such a thing as an economic tsunami, I would say we are close to experiencing it. The housing crisis continues and shows no sign of ending; credit and money markets are still tight; the stock market gyrates while trending downward; unemployment climbs upward (sharply so in the communities of the nationally and racially oppressed) and will only get worse; wages are down and poverty is up; the level of indebtedness is astronomical and difficult to reduce in the near term. Consumer spending, the engine of economic growth in the 1990s, is tanking. State and local governments are cutting back sharply on services and jobs; deflation, which simply means falling prices over significant sectors of the economy, is a creeping and perilous danger; and financial markets have yet to stabilize as evidenced by the troubles of CitiGroup. In short, not since the Great Depression has the economy deteriorated so rapidly and broadly, leading many economists to predict that the downturn will be L-shaped, that is, deep and prolonged. What is more, the world economy is contracting. At one time the main unit of economic analysis was the national economy, but recent events and trends point to the fallacy of this notion. Looking at the economy and its prospects through strictly a national prism is conceptually mistaken and thus bound to lead to imperfect analysis and ineffective policy prescriptions. Financialization ? two-edged sword While the present turbulence was triggered by the collapse of financial markets, it is located first in the outgrowth of longer-term processes of capitalism that go back to the mid-1970s and the systemic imperatives of profit maximization and wage exploitation that are at its core. Thirty years ago U.S. capitalism was beset by seemingly intractable and contradictory problems ? high inflation and unemployment, declining confidence in the dollar as an international currency, new competitive rivals in Europe and Asia, a slowing of economic growth, and, above all, a falling profit rate. And all of these problems occurred in the context of and were shaped by overproduction in world commodity markets. Faced with this unraveling of the economy, a weakening of U.S. imperialism and a profitability crisis, then-chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker stepped into the breech and pushed up interest rates to record levels. This spike in interest rates sent unemployment rates to the highest level since the Great Depression, forced the closing of scores of manufacturing plants and a great number of family farms, brought incredible hardship to the working class, and especially African-American, Latino and other racially oppressed workers, and negatively impacted the global economy, particularly the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It also created, as we know too well, the conditions for a many-sided attack on labor and its allies, the likes of which hadn?t been seen since the pre-Depression era. At the same time (and of prime importance to Volker), it wrung inflation out of the economy, restored confidence in the dollar (investors are averse to holding dollars when inflationary pressures are eroding their value), attracted and redirected domestic and foreign capital abruptly and massively from the ?real? economy into financial channels where returns were higher. Volcker, as an experienced banker, knew that the problem wasn?t too little money capital, but rather too much and too few opportunities to invest and absorb that capital profitably in the ?real? economy. Once in financial channels, money capital stayed there, but not idly. Financial agents of capital (banks, investment houses, hedge funds, private equity firms and so on) intent on expanding their profits in a very competitive and permissive regulatory environment raced at breakneck speed into a massive buying and selling and borrowing and spending spree for the next three decades ? all of which led to an explosion of the financial sector in terms of employment, transactions, risky products, players and profits. In other words, financialization, which economist Gerald Epstein defines as a process in which ?financial motives, financial markets, financial actors and financial institutions come to play an increasing role in the operation of domestic and international economies? proceeded at a feverish pace and with a broad sweep. (In Financialization and the World Economy, Introduction, 2005) Capital that produces little, destroys much If the cause of financialization lies in the stagnation tendencies in the material goods sector of the U.S. economy and the weakening of the role of U.S. imperialism internationally, its lubricant is the production and reproduction, seemingly without end, of staggering amounts of debt ? corporate, consumer and government. Debt is as old as capitalism. But what is different in this period of financialization is that the production of debt and accompanying speculative excesses and bubbles were not simply passing moments at the end of a cyclical upswing, but essential to ginning up and sustaining investment and especially consumer demand in every phase of the cycle. Indeed, financialization grew to the point where it became the main determinant shaping the contours, structure, interrelations, evolution and dynamism of the national and world economy. Without speculative bubbles, generated by the federal government and Federal Reserve over the past 15 years in internet technology, then in the stock market, and most recently, in housing ? the performance of the U.S. and world economy would have been far worse. But, as we are painfully learning, financialization is a two-edged sword. While it stimulated the domestic and global economy and reflated the power of U.S. imperialism, it also left our nation with an astronomical pileup of debt; introduced enormous instability into the arteries of the U.S. and world economy; drained capital from private and public investment; contributed to jobless recoveries and heightened exploitation in the material goods sector of the economy; successfully engineered the biggest redistribution of wealth in our nation?s history to the upper crust of U.S. finance capital; made the U.S. economy dependent on the willingness of foreign investors to absorb massive amounts of debt in the form of short term government securities; and, finally, greased the wheels for a hard economic landing and a much deeper crisis on the down side of the economic cycle. In other words, the growth of the financial sector was a parasitic and temporary fix for a sluggish economy and a declining imperial power, but as events have shown, it could not forever mask and compensate for slow growth, deindustrialization, stagnant wages, jobless recoveries, heightened exploitation, and a declining role internationally. A Wal-Mart economy of low wages, meager benefits and mounting debt, even when combined with massive military spending, is unsustainable and eventually erupts into crisis. Of course, it took more than shock therapy in the form of high interest rates and then financialization to effect changes of this magnitude and usher in a new era of relentless attacks on the working class, the racially oppressed, women and other social groups. If Volcker struck the first blow, it was the Reagan administration, entering the White House less than a year later, and then successive administrations that were the main political agents of this upheaval in ideology, politics and economics. Reaganites ? main agents of neoliberalism At the ideological level, the Reaganites said that government is best that governs least, that markets are self-correcting and efficient, that wealth is distributed according to work performed, that income inequality is a good thing, that deregulation and privatization are the best cures for what ails the private and public sectors, and that tax cuts for the rich and wealthy trickle down to working people, thereby lifting all boats. But the Reaganites didn?t stop here. At the political-economic level, they dismantled the model of economic governance at the state and corporate level, a model that had its origins in the New Deal and was sustained and expanded by successive administrations in the next three decades. It rested on a measure of class compromise, societal obligations, union rights, formal equality and expansive macroeconomic policies that favored broadly shared prosperity. In its place, the Reaganites built another model of governance popularly called neoliberalism. Not only did this model facilitate a reassertion and consolidation of power by finance capital at the expense of other groupings of capital, but it also used its control of the state apparatus to encourage deindustrialization and off shoring of production, union busting, deregulation, low-wage labor, low inflation, trade liberalization, the shrinkage and privatization of the public sector, draconian control (to the degree possible) over cross-border movements of labor, the re-embedding of racist and sexist practices into the country?s political economy, massive wealth redistribution to the wealthiest families and corporations, a stronger dollar, and the restructuring of the state?s role and functions. This new model, combined with an increased readiness to use military power, was created for the purpose of strengthening the position of U.S. imperialism at home and abroad, radically changing the conditions of exploitation to the advantage of the transnational corporate class, and resubjugating the developing countries. But, as is said, the best laid plans of mice and men and often come to naught, at least in the long run. Offspring of capitalism The rise and fall of neoliberalism is organically connected to the underlying dynamics of capitalism. While each required hit men in the corridors of government and the suites of corporations and a set of institutions (the Federal Reserve Bank and the International Monetary Fund, for example) to grease the skids, it also is the indisputable offspring of capitalism?s internal laws and tendencies. Although an anti-capitalist strategy would be premature at the present conjuncture, the faith of millions of people in capitalism has been shaken. People might defend capitalism if challenged, but not with the same vigor and not without a sympathetic ear to measures that would curb the power and profits of transnational corporations. Did we hear any hue and cry coming from industrial centers when the federal government partially nationalized some banks? And, I?m sure, if the government insisted on ownership and control as a condition for assisting the auto companies, few working people would complain. Most would say, ?They messed up. Why give something and get nothing in return?? In short, the events of recent months and weeks constitute a profound defeat of capitalism ideologically, politically, and economically. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 2 14:19:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:19:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nationalize GM In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4935602D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> In a message dated 12/2/2008 4:20:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us writes: >>> Capital Vol. III Part V. Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise. Interest-Bearing Capital Chapter 21. Interest-Bearing Capital In our first discussion of the general, or average, rate of profit (Part II of this book) we did not have this rate before us in its complete form, the equalisation of profit appearing only as equalisation between industrial capitals invested in different spheres. This was supplemented in the preceding part, which dealt with the participation of merchant's capital in this equalisation, and also commercial profit. The general rate of profit and the average profit now appeared in narrower limits than before. It should be remembered in the course of our analysis that in any future reference to the general rate of profit or to average profit we mean this latter connotation, hence only the final form of average rate. And since this rate is the same for mercantile, as well as industrial, capital, it is no longer necessary, so far as this average profit is concerned, to make a distinction between industrial and commercial profit. Whether industrially invested in the sphere of production, or commercially in the sphere of circulation, capital yields the same average annual profit pro rata to its magnitude. Money ? here taken as the independent expression of a certain amount of value existing either actually as money or as commodities ? may be converted into capital on the basis of capitalist production, and may thereby be transformed from a given value to a self-expanding, or increasing, value. It produces profit, i.e., it enables the capitalist to extract a certain quantity of unpaid labour, surplus-product and surplus-value from the labourers, and to appropriate it. In this way, aside from its use-value as money, it acquires an additional use-value, namely that of serving as capital. Its use-value then consists precisely in the profit it produces when converted into capital. In this capacity of potential capital, as a means of producing profit, it becomes a commodity, but a commodity sui generis. Or, what amounts to the same, capital as capital becomes a commodity.[1] Suppose the annual average rate of profit is 20%. In that case a machine valued at ?100, employed as capital under average conditions and an average amount of intelligence and purposive effort, would yield a profit of ?20. A man in possession of ?100, therefore, possesses the power to make ?120 out of ?100, or to produce a profit of ?20. He possesses a potential capital of ?100. If he gives these ?100 to another for one year, so the latter may use them as real capital, he gives him the power to produce a profit of ?20 ? a surplus-value which costs this other nothing, and for which he pays no equivalent. If this other should pay, say, ?5 at the close of the year to the owner of the ?100 out of the profit produced, he would thereby pay the use-value of the ?100 ? the use-value of its function as capital, the function of producing a profit of ?20. The part of the profit paid to the owner is called interest, which is just another name, or special term, for a part of the profit given up by capital in the process of functioning to the owner of the capital, instead of putting it into its own pocket. It is plain that the possession of ?100 gives their owner the power to pocket the interest ? that certain portion of profit produced by means of his capital. If he had not given the ?100 to the other person, the latter could not have produced any profit, and could not at all have acted as a capitalist with reference to these ?100. [2] To speak here of natural justice, as Gilbart does (see note), is nonsense. The justice of the transactions between agents of production rests on the fact that these arise as natural consequences out of the production relationships. The juristic forms in which these economic transactions appear as wilful acts of the parties concerned, as expressions of their common will and as contracts that may be enforced by law against some individual party, cannot, being mere forms, determine this content. They merely express it. This content is just whenever it corresponds, is appropriate, to the mode of production. It is unjust whenever it contradicts that mode. Slavery on the basis of capitalist production is unjust; likewise fraud in the quality of commodities. The ?100 produce the profit of ?20 because they function as capital, be it industrial or mercantile. But the sine qua non of this function as capital is that they are expended as capital, i.e., are expended in purchasing means of production (in the case of industrial capital) or commodities (in the case of merchant's capital). But to be expended, they must be available. If A, the owner of the ?100, were either to spend them for personal consumption, or to keep them as a hoard, they could not have been invested as capital by B in his capacity of functioning capitalist. B does not expend his own capital, but A's; however, he cannot expend A's capital without A's consent. Therefore, it is really A who originally expends the ?100 as capital, albeit his function as capitalist is limited to this outlay of ?100 as capital. In respect to these ?100, B acts as capitalist only because A lends him the ?100, thus expending them as capital. Let us first consider the singular circulation of interest-bearing capital. We shall then secondly have to analyse the peculiar manner in which it is sold as a commodity, namely loaned instead of relinquished once and for all. The point of departure is the money which A advances to B. This may be done with or without security. The first-named form, however, is the more ancient, save advances on commodities or paper, such as bills of exchange, shares, etc. These special forms do not concern us at this point. We are dealing here with interest-bearing capital in its usual form. In B's possession the money is actually converted into capital, passes through M ? C ? M' and returns to A as M', as M+DM, where DM represents the interest. For the sake of simplicity we shall not consider here the case, in which capital remains in B's possession for a long term and interest is paid at regular intervals. The movement, therefore, is M ? M ? C ? M' ? M'. What appears duplicated here, is 1) the outlay of money as capital, and 2) its reflux as realised capital, as M' or M+DM. In the movement of merchant's capital, M ? C ? M', the same commodity changes hands twice, or more than twice, if merchant sells to merchant. But every such change of place of the same commodity indicates a metamorphosis, a purchase or sale of the commodity, no matter how often the process may be repeated, until it enters consumption. On the other hand, the same money changes hands twice in C ? M ? C, but this indicates the complete metamorphosis of the commodity, which is first converted into money and then from money back into another commodity. But in interest-bearing capital the first time M changes hands is by no means a phase either of the commodity metamorphosis, or of reproduction of capital. It first becomes one when it is expended a second time, in the hands of the active capitalist who carries on trade with it, or transforms it into productive capital. M's first change of hands does not express anything here, beyond its transfer from A to B ? a transfer which usually takes place under certain legal forms and stipulations. This double outlay of money as capital, of which the first is merely a transfer from A to B, is matched by its double reflux. As M', or M + DM, it flows back out of the process to B, the person acting as capitalist. The latter then transfers it back to A, but together with a part of the profit, as realised capital, as M + DM, in which DM is not the entire profit, but only a portion of the profit ? the interest. It flows back to B only as what he had expended, as functioning capital, but as the property of A. To make its reflux complete, B must consequently return it to A. But in addition to the capital, B must also turn over to A a portion of the profit, a part which goes under the name of interest, which he had made with this capital since A had given him the money only as a capital, i.e., as value which is not only preserved in its movement, but also creates surplus-value for its owner. It remains in B's hands only so long as it is functioning capital. And with its reflux ? on the stipulated date ? it ceases to function as capital. When no longer acting as capital, however, it must again be returned to A, who had never ceased being its legal owner. The form of lending, which is peculiar to this commodity, to capital as commodity, and which also occurs in other transactions instead of that of sale, follows from the simple definition that capital obtains here as a commodity, or that money as capital becomes a commodity. A distinction should be made here. We have seen (Book II, Chap. I), and recall briefly at this point, that in the process of circulation capital serves as commodity-capital and money-capital. But in neither form does capital become a commodity as capital. As soon as productive capital turns into commodity-capital it must be placed on the market to be sold as a commodity. There it acts simply as a commodity. The capitalist then appears only as the seller of commodities, just as the buyer is only the buyer of commodities. As a commodity the product must realise its value, must assume its transmuted form of money, in the process of circulation by its sale. It is also quite immaterial for this reason, whether this commodity is bought by a consumer as a necessity of life, or by a capitalist as means of production, i.e., as a component part of his capital. In the act of circulation commodity-capital acts only as a commodity, not as a capital. It is commodity-capital, as distinct from an ordinary commodity, 1) because it is weighted with surplus-value, the realisation of its value, therefore, being simultaneously the realisation of surplus-value; but this alters nothing about its simple existence as a commodity, as a product with a certain price; 2) because its function as a commodity is a phase in its process of reproduction as capital, and therefore its movement as a commodity being only a partial movement of its process, is simultaneously its movement as capital. Yet it does not become that through the sale as such, but only through the connection of the sale with the whole movement of this specific quantity of value in the capacity of capital. In the same way as money-capital it really acts simply as money, i.e., as a means of buying commodities (the elements of production). The fact that this money is simultaneously money-capital, a form of capital, does not emerge from the act of buying, the actual function which it here performs as money, but from the connection of this act with the total movement of capital, since this act, performed by capital as money, initiates the capitalist production process. But in so far as they actually function, i.e., actually play a role in the process, commodity-capital acts here only as a commodity and money-capital only as money. At no time during the metamorphosis, viewed by itself, does the capitalist sell his commodities as capital to the buyer, although to him they represent capital; nor does he give up money as capital to the seller. In both cases be gives up his commodities simply as commodities, and money simply as money, i.e., as a means of purchasing commodities. It is only in connection with the entire process, at the moment where the point of departure appears simultaneously as the point of return, in M ? M' or C ? C', that capital in the process of circulation appears as capital (whereas in the process of production it appears as capital through the subordination of the labourer to the capitalist and the production of surplus value). In this moment of return, however, the connection disappears. What we have then is M', or M + DM, a sum of money equal to the sum originally advanced plus an increment ? the realised surplus-value (regardless of whether the amount of value increased by DM exists in the form of money, or commodities, or elements of production). And it is precisely at this point of return where capital exists as realised capital, as an expanded value, that it never enters the circulation in this form ? in so far as this point is fixed as a point of rest, whether real or imaginary ? but rather appears to have been withdrawn from circulation as a result of the whole process. Whenever it is again expended, it is never given up to another as capital, but is sold to him as an ordinary commodity, or given to him as ordinary money in exchange for commodities. It never appears as capital in its process of circulation, only as commodity or money, and at this point this is the only form of its existence for others. Commodities and money are here capital not because commodities change into money, or money into commodities, not in their actual relations to sellers or buyers, but only in their ideal relations to the capitalist himself (subjectively speaking), or as phases in the process of reproduction (objectively speaking). Capital exists as capital in actual movement, not in the process of circulation, but only in the process of production, in the process by which labour-power is exploited. The matter is different with interest-bearing capital, however, and it is precisely this difference which lends it its specific character. The owner of money who desires to enhance his money as interest-bearing capital, turns it over to a third person, throws it into circulation, turns it into a commodity as capital; not just capital for himself, but also for others. It is not capital merely for the man who gives it up, but is from the very first given to the third person as capital, as a value endowed with the use-value of creating surplus-value, of creating profit; a value which preserves itself in its movement and returns to its original owner, in this case the owner of money, after performing its function. Hence it leaves him only for a specified time, passes but temporarily out of the possession of its owner into the possession of a functioning capitalist, is therefore neither given up in payment nor sold, but merely loaned, merely relinquished with the understanding that, first, it shall return to its point of departure after a definite time interval, and, second, that it shall return as realised capital ? a capital having realised its use-value, its power of creating surplus-value. Commodities loaned out as capital are loaned either as fixed or as circulating capital, depending on their properties. Money may be loaned out in either form. It may be loaned as fixed capital, for instance, if it is paid back in the form of an annuity, whereby a portion of the capital flows back together with the interest. Certain commodities, such as houses, ships, machines, etc., can be loaned out only as fixed capital by the nature of their use-values. Yet all loaned capital, whatever its form, and no matter how the nature of its use-value may modify its return, is always only a specific form of money-capital. Because what is loaned out is always a definite sum of money, and it is this sum on which interest is calculated. Should whatever is loaned out be neither money nor circulating capital, it is also paid back in the way fixed capital returns. The lender periodically receives interest and a portion of the consumed value of the fixed capital itself, this being an equivalent for the periodic wear and tear. And at the end of the stipulated term the unconsumed portion of the loaned fixed capital is returned in kind. If the loaned capital is circulating capital, it is likewise returned in the manner peculiar to circulating capital. The manner of reflux is, therefore, always determined by the actual circuit described by capital in the act of reproduction and by its specific varieties. But as for loaned capital, its reflux assumes the form of return payments, because its advance, by which it is transferred, possesses the form of a loan. In this chapter we treat only of actual money-capital, from which the other forms of loaned capital are derived. The loaned capital flows back in two ways. In the process of reproduction it returns to the functioning capitalist, and then its return repeats itself once more as transfer to the lender, the money-capitalist, as return payment to the real owner, its legal point of departure. In the actual process of circulation, capital appears always as a commodity or as money, and its movement always is broken up into a series of purchases and sales. In short, the process of circulation resolves itself into the metamorphosis of commodities. It is different, when we consider the process of reproduction as a whole. If we start out with money (and the same is true if we start out with commodities, since we begin with their value, hence view them sub specie as money), we shall see that a certain sum of money is expended and returns after a certain period with an increment. The advanced sum of money returns together with a surplus-value. It has remained intact and increased in making a certain cycle. But now, being loaned out as capital, money is loaned as just the sum of money which preserves and expands itself, which returns after a certain period with an increment, and is always ready to perform the same process over again. It is expended neither as money nor as a commodity, thus, neither exchanged against a commodity when advanced in the form of money, nor sold in exchange for money when advanced as a commodity; rather, it is expended as capital. This relation to itself, in which capital presents itself when the capitalist production process is viewed as a whole and as a single unity, and in which capital appears as money that begets money, is here imparted to it as its character, its designation, without any intermediary movement. And it is relinquished with this designation when loaned out as money-capital. A queer conception of the role of money-capital is hold by Proudhon (Gratuit? du Cr?dit. Discussion entre M. F. Bastiat et M. Proudhon, Paris, 1850). Loaning seems an evil to Proudhon because it is not selling. Loaning for an interest is "the faculty of selling the same article over and over again, and of receiving its price again and again, without once relinquishing ownership of the object which is being sold" (p. 9). [The cited words belong to Cheve, one of the editors of the newspaper La Voix du peuple, and the author of the "first letter" in the book Gratuit? du Cr?dit. Discussion entre M. F. Bastiat et M. Proudhon, Paris, 1850. ? Ed] The object ? money, a house, etc. ? does not change owners as in selling and buying. But Proudhon does not see that no equivalent is received in return for money given away in the form of interest-bearing capital. True, the object is given away in every act of buying and selling, so far as there are processes of exchange at all. Ownership of the sold article is always relinquished. But its value is not given up. In a sale the commodity is given away, but not its value, which is returned in the form of money, or in what is here just another form of it ? promissory notes, or titles of payment. When purchasing, the money is given away, but not its value, which is replaced in the form of commodities. The industrial capitalist retains the same value in his hands throughout the process of reproduction (excluding surplus-value), but in different forms. Inasmuch as there is an exchange, i.e., an exchange of articles, there is no change in the value. The same capitalist always retains the same value. But so long as surplus-value is produced by the capitalist, there is no exchange. As soon as an exchange occurs, the surplus-value is already incorporated in the commodities. If we view the entire circuit made by capital, M ? C ? M', rather than individual acts of exchange, we shall see that a definite amount of value is continually advanced, and that this same amount plus surplus-value, or profit, is withdrawn from circulation. The actual acts of exchange do not, at any rate, reveal how this process is promoted. And it is precisely this process of M as capital, on which the interest of the money-lending capitalist rests, and from which it is derived. "In fact," says Proudhon, "the hat-maker, who sells hats, receives their value, neither more nor less. But the money-lending capitalist ... does not recover just his capital, he recovers more than his capital, more than he throws into the exchange; he receives an interest over and above his capital" (p. 69). Here the hatter represents the productive capitalist as distinct from the loan capitalist. Proudhon has obviously failed to grasp the secret of how the productive capitalist can sell commodities at their value (equalisation through prices of production is here immaterial to his conception) and receive a profit over and above the capital he flings into exchange. Suppose the price of production of 100 hats = ?115, and that this price of production happens to coincide with the value of the hats, which means that the capital producing the hats is of the same composition as the average social capital. Should the profit = 15%, the hatter makes a profit of ?15 by selling his commodities at their value of ?115. They cost him only ?100. If he produced them with his own capital, he pockets the entire surplus of ?15 but if with borrowed capital, he may have to give up ?5 as interest. This alters nothing in the value of the hats, only in the distribution among different persons of the surplus-value already contained in this value. Since, therefore, the value of the hats is not affected by the payment of interest, it is nonsense on Proudhon's part to say: "As in commerce the interest on capital is added to the wages of labourers in making up the price of commodities, it is impossible for the labourer to buy back the product of his own labour. Vivre en travaillant is a principle which contains a contradiction under the rule of interest" (p. 105). [3] How little Proudhon understood the nature of capital is shown in the following statement, in which he describes the movement of capital in general as a movement peculiar to interest-bearing capital: "Since money-capital returns to its source from exchange through the accumulation of interest, it follows that reinvestment always made by the same individual continually brings profit to the same person," p. 154. What is it that still puzzles him in the peculiar movement of interest-bearing capital? The categories: buying, price, giving up articles, and the immediate form in which surplus-value appears here; in short, the phenomenon that capital as such has become a commodity, that selling, consequently, has turned into lending and price into a share of the profit. The return of capital to its point of departure is generally the characteristic movement of capital in its total circuit. This is by no means a feature of interest-bearing capital alone. What singles it out is rather the external form of its return without the intervention of any circuit. The loaning capitalist gives away his capital, transfers it to the industrial capitalist, without receiving any equivalent. His transfer is not an act belonging to the real circulation process of capital at all. It serves merely to introduce this circuit, which is effected by the industrial capitalist. This first change of position of money does not express any act of the metamorphosis ? neither buying nor selling. Ownership is not relinquished, because there is no exchange and no equivalent is received. The return of the money from the hands of the industrial capitalist to those of the loaning capitalist merely supplements the first act of giving away the capital. Advanced in the form of money, the capital again returns to the industrial capitalist through the circular process in the form of money. But since it did not belong to him when he invested it, it cannot belong to him on its return. Passing through the process of reproduction cannot by any means turn the capital into his property. He must therefore restore it to the lender. The first expenditure, which transfers the capital from the lender to the borrower, is a legal transaction which has nothing to do with the actual process of reproduction. It is merely a prelude to this process. The return payment, which again transfers the capital that has flowed back from the borrower to the lender is another legal transaction, a supplement of the first. One introduces the actual process, the other is an act supplementary to this process. Point of departure and point of return, the giving away and the recovery of the loaned capital, thus appear as arbitrary movements promoted by legal transactions, which take place before and after the actual movement of capital and have nothing to do with it as such. It would have been all the same as concerns this actual movement if the capital had from the first belonged to the industrial capitalist and had returned to him, therefore, as his own. In the first introductory act the lender gives his capital to the borrower. In the supplemental and closing act the borrower returns the capital to the lender. As concerns the transaction between these two ? and aside from the interest for the present ? as concerns the movement of the loaned capital between lender and borrower, therefore, the two acts (separated by a longer or shorter time interval, during which the actual reproduction process of the capital takes place) embrace the entire movement. And this movement, disposing on condition of returning, constitutes per se the movement of lending and borrowing, that specific form of conditionally alienating money or commodities. The characteristic movement of capital in general, the return of the money to the capitalist, i.e., the return of capital to its point of departure, assumes in the case of interest-bearing capital a wholly external appearance, separated from the actual movement, of which it is a form. A gives away his money not as money, but as capital. No transformation occurs in the capital. It merely changes hands. Its real transformation into capital does not take place until it is in the hands of B. But for A it becomes capital as soon as he gives it to B. The actual reflux of capital from the processes of production and circulation takes place only for B. But for A the reflux assumes the same form as the alienation. The capital returns from B to A. Giving away, i.e., loaning money for a certain time and receiving it back with interest (surplus-value) is the complete form of the movement peculiar to interest-bearing capital as such. The actual movement of loaned money as capital is an operation lying outside the transactions between lender and borrower. In these the intermediate act is obliterated, invisible, not directly included. A special sort of commodity, capital has its own peculiar mode of alienation. Neither does its return, therefore, express itself as the consequence and result, of some definite series of economic processes, but as the effect of a specific legal agreement between buyer and seller. The time of return depends on the progress of the process of reproduction; in the case of interest-bearing capital, its return as capital seems to depend on the mere agreement between lender and borrower. So that in regard to this transaction the return of capital no longer appears as a result arising out of the process of reproduction; it appears as if the loaned capital never lost the form of money. To be sure, these transactions are really determined by the actual reproductive returns. But this is not evident in the transaction itself. Nor is it by any means always the case in practice. If the actual return does not take place in due time, the borrower must look for other resources to meet his obligations vis-?-vis the lender. The bare form of capital ? money expended as a certain sum, A, which returns as sum A + 1/x A after a given lapse of time without any other intermediate act save this lapse of time ? is only a meaningless form of the actual movement of capital. In the actual movement of capital its return is a phase in the process of circulation. The money is first converted into means of production; production transforms them into commodities; through sale of the commodities they are reconverted into money and return in this form into the hands of the capitalist who had originally advanced the capital in the form of money. But in the case of interest-bearing capital, the return, like alienation, is the result of a legal transaction between the owner of the capital and a second party. We see only the alienation and the return payment. Whatever passes in the interim is obliterated. But since money advanced as capital has the property of returning to the person who advanced it, to the one who expended it as capital, and since M ? C ? M' is the immanent form of the movement of capital, the owner of the money can, for this very reason, loan it out as capital, as something that has the property of returning to its point of departure, of preserving, and increasing, its value in the course of its movement. He gives it away as capital, because it returns to its point of departure after having been employed as capital, hence can be restored by the borrower after a certain period precisely because it has come back to him. Loaning money as capital ? its alienation on the condition of it being returned after a certain time-presupposes, therefore, that it will be actually employed as capital, and that it actually flows back to its starting-point. The real cycle made by money as capital is, therefore, the premise for the legal transaction by which the borrower must return the money to the lender. If the borrower does not use the money as capital, that is his own business. The lender loans it as capital, and as such it is supposed to perform the functions of capital, which include the circuit of money-capital until it returns to its starting-point in the form of money. The acts of circulation, M ? C and C ? M', in which a certain amount of value functions as money or commodities, are but intermediate processes, mere phases of the total movement. As capital, it performs the entire movement M ? M'. It is advanced as money or a sum of values in one form or another, and returns as a sum of values. The lender of money does not expend it in purchasing commodities, or, if this sum of values is in commodity-form, does not sell it for money. He advances it as capital, as M ? M', as a value, which returns to its point of departure after a certain term. He lends instead of buying or selling. This lending, therefore, is the appropriate form of alienating value as capital, instead of alienating it as money or commodities. It does not follow, however, that lending cannot also take the form of transactions which have nothing to do with the capitalist process of reproduction. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We have so far only considered the movements of loaned capital between its owner and the industrial capitalist. Now we must inquire into interest. The lender expends his money as capital; the amount of value, which he relinquishes to another, is capital, and consequently returns to him. But the mere return of it would not be the reflux of the loaned sum of value as capital, but merely the return of a loaned sum of value. To return as capital, the advanced sum of value must not only be preserved in the movement but must also expand, must increase in value, i.e., must return with a surplus-value, as M + DM, the latter being interest or a portion of the average profit, which does not remain in the hands of the operating capitalist, but falls to the share of the money-capitalist. The fact that the latter has relinquished it as capital implies that it must be restored to him as M + DM. Later, we shall also have to turn our attention to the form in which interest is paid in the meantime at fixed intervals, but without the capital, whose return follows at the end of a lengthy period. What does the money-capitalist give to the borrower, the industrial capitalist? What does he really turn over to him? It is only this act of handing over money which changes lending money into alienation of money as capital, i.e., alienation of capital as a commodity. It is only by this act of alienating that capital is loaned by the money-lender as a commodity, or that the commodity at his disposal is given to another as capital. What is alienated in an ordinary sale? Not the value of the sold commodity, for this merely changes its form. The value exists ideally in a commodity as its price before it actually passes as money into the hands of the seller. The same value and the same amount of value merely change their form. In the one instance they exist in commodity-form, in the other in the form of money. What is really alienated by the seller, and, therefore, passes into the individual or productive consumption of the buyer, is the use-value of the commodity ? the commodity as a use-value. What, now, is the use-value which the money-capitalist gives up for the period of the loan and relinquishes to the productive capitalist ? the borrower? It is the use-value which the money acquires by being capable of becoming capital, of performing the functions of capital, and creating a definite surplus-value, the average profit (whatever is above or below it appears here as a mere accident) during its process, besides preserving its original magnitude of value. In the case of the other commodities the use-value is ultimately consumed. Their substance disappears, and with it their value. In contrast, the commodity-capital is peculiar in that its value and use-value not only remain intact but also increase, through consumption of its use-value. It is this use-value of money as capital ? this faculty of producing an average profit ? which the money-capitalist relinquishes to the industrial capitalist for the period, during which he places the loaned capital at the latter's disposal. Money thus loaned has in this respect a certain similarity with labour-power in its relation to the industrial capitalist. With the difference that the latter pays for the value of labour-power, whereas he simply pays back the value of the loaned capital. The use-value of labour-power for the industrial capitalist is that labour-power creates more value (profit) in its consumption than it possesses itself, and than it costs. This additional value is use-value for the industrial capitalist. And in like manner the use-value of loaned capital appears as its faculty of begetting and increasing value. The money-capitalist, in fact, alienates a use-value, and thus whatever he gives away is given as a commodity. It is to this extent that the analogy with a commodity per se is complete. In the first place, it is a value which passes from one hand to another. In the case of an ordinary commodity, a commodity as such, the same value remains in the hands of the buyer and seller, only in different forms; both have the same value which they had before the transaction, and which they had alienated ? the one in the form of a commodity, the other in the form of money. The difference is that in a loan the money-capitalist is the only one in the transaction who gives away value; but he preserves it through the prospective return. In the loan transaction just one party receives value, since only one party relinquishes value. ? In the second place, a real use-value is relinquished on the one side, and received and consumed on the other. But in contrast to ordinary commodities this use-value is value in itself, namely the excess over the original value realised through the use of money as capital. The profit is this use-value. The use-value of the loaned money lies in its being able to serve as capital and, as such, to produce the average profit under average conditions.[4] What, now, does the industrial capitalist pay, and what is, therefore, the price of the loaned capital? "That which men pay as interest for the use of what they borrow" is, according to Massie, "a part of the profit it is capable of producing," 1. c., p. 49. [5] What the buyer of an ordinary commodity buys is its use-value; what he pays for is its value. What the borrower of money buys is likewise its use-value as capital; but what does he pay for? Surely not its price, or value, as in the case of ordinary commodities. No change of form occurs in the value passing between borrower and lender, as occurs between buyer and seller when it exists in one instance in the form of money, and in another in the form of a commodity. The sameness of the alienated and returned value is revealed here in an entirely different way. The sum of value, i.e., the money, is given away without an equivalent, and is returned after a certain period. The lender always remains the owner of the same value, even after it passes from his hands into those of the borrower. In an ordinary exchange of commodities money always comes from the buyer's side; but in a loan it comes from the side of the seller. He is the one who gives away money for a certain period, and the buyer of capital is the one who receives it as a commodity. But this is only possible as long as the money acts as capital and is therefore advanced. The borrower borrows money as capital, as a value producing more value. But at the moment when it is advanced it is still only potential capital, like any other capital at its starting-point, the moment it is advanced. It is only through its employment that it expands its value and realises itself as capital. However, it has to be returned by the borrower as realised capital, hence as value plus surplus-value (interest). And the latter can only be a portion of the realised profit. Only a portion, not all of it. For the use-value of the loaned capital to the borrower consists in producing profit for him. Otherwise there would not have been any alienation of use-value on the lender's part. On the other hand, not all the profit can fall to the borrower's share. Otherwise he would pay nothing for the alienated use-value, and would return the advanced money to the lender as ordinary money, not as capital, as realised capital, for it is realised capital only as M + DM. Both of them, lender and borrower, expend the same sum of money as capital. But it is only in the hands of the latter that it serves as capital. The profit is not doubled by the double existence of the same sum of money as capital for two persons. It can serve as capital for both of them only by dividing the profit. The portion which falls to the lender is called interest. The entire transaction, as assumed, takes place between two kinds of capitalists ? the money-capitalist and the industrial or merchant capitalist. It must always be borne in mind that here capital as capital is a commodity, or that the commodity here discussed is capital. All the relations in evidence here would therefore be irrational from the standpoint of an ordinary commodity, or from that of capital in so far as it acts as a commodity-capital in the process of reproduction. Lending and borrowing, instead of selling and buying, is a distinction which here springs from the specific nature of the commodity-capital. Similarly, the fact that it is interest, not the price of the commodity, which is paid here. If we want to call interest the price of money-capital, then it is an irrational form of price quite at variance with the conception of the price of commodities.[6] The price is here reduced to its purely abstract and meaningless form, signifying that it is a certain sum of money paid for something serving in one way or another as a use-value; whereas the conception of price really signifies the value of some use-value expressed in money. Interest, signifying the price of capital, is from the outset quite an irrational expression. The commodity in question has a double value, first a value, and then a price different from this value, while price represents the expression of value in money. Money-capital is nothing but a sum of money, or the value of a certain quantity of commodities fixed in a sum of money. If a commodity is loaned out as capital, it is only a disguised form of a sum of money. Because what is loaned out as capital is not so and so many pounds of cotton, but so much and so much money existing in the form of cotton as its value. The price of capital, therefore, refers to it as to a sum of money, even if not currency, as Mr. Torrens thinks (see Footnote 59). How, then, can a sum of value have a price besides its own price, besides the price expressed in its own money-form? Price, after all, is the value of a commodity (this is also true of the market-price, whose difference from value is not one of quality, but only one of quantity, referring only to the magnitude of value) as distinct from its use-value. A price which differs from value in quality is an absurd contradiction.[7] Capital manifests itself as capital through self-expansion. The degree of its self-expansion expresses the quantitative degree in which it realises itself as capital. The surplus-value or profit produced by it ? its rate or magnitude ? is measurable only by comparison with the value of the advanced capital. The greater or lesser self-expansion of interest-bearing capital is, therefore, likewise only measurable by comparing the amount of interest, its share in the total profits, with the value of the advanced capital. If, therefore, price expresses the value of the commodity, then interest expresses the self-expansion of money-capital and thus appears as the price paid for it to the lender. This shows how absurd it is from the very first to apply hereto the simple relations of exchange through the medium of money in buying and selling, as Proudhon does. The basic premise is precisely that money functions as capital and may thus be transferred as such, i.e., as potential capital, to a third person. Capital, however, appears here as a commodity, inasmuch as it is offered on the market, and the use-value of money is actually alienated as capital. Its use-value, however, lies in producing profit. The value of money or of commodities employed as capital does not depend on their value as money or as commodities, but on the quantity of surplus-value they produce for their owner. The product of capital is profit. On the basis of capitalist production it is merely a different use of money ? whether it is expended as money; or advanced as capital. Money, or commodities, are in themselves potentially capital, just as labour-power is potential capital. Because, 1) money may be converted into elements of production and is, as is, merely an abstract expression of them ? their existence as value; 2) the material elements of wealth have the property of potentially becoming capital, because their supplementary opposite, which makes them into capital, namely wage-labour, is available on the basis of capitalist production. The contradictory social features of material wealth ? its antagonism to labour as wage-labour ? are expressed in capitalist property as such independently of the production process. This particular fact, set apart from the process of capitalist production itself, from which it constantly results and as whose constant result it serves as a constant prerequisite, expresses itself in that money and commodities alike are latent, potential, capital, so that they may be sold as capital, and in that they can in this form command the labour of others bestowing a claim to appropriate the labour of others, and therefore represent self-expanding values. It also becomes clearly apparent that this relationship, and not the labour offered as an equivalent on the part of the capitalist, supplies the title and the means to appropriate the labour of others. Furthermore, capital appears as a commodity, inasmuch as the division of profit into interest and profit proper is regulated by supply and demand, that is, by competition, just as the market-prices of commodities. But the difference here is just as apparent as the analogy. If supply and demand coincide, the market-price of commodities corresponds to their price of production, i.e., their price then appears to be regulated by the immanent laws of capitalist production, independently of competition, since the fluctuations of supply and demand explain nothing but deviations of market-prices from prices of production. These deviations mutually balance one another, so that in the course of certain longer periods the average market-prices equal the prices of production. As soon as supply and demand coincide, these forces cease to operate, i.e., compensate one another, and the general law determining prices then also comes to apply to individual cases. The market-price then corresponds even in its immediate form, and not only as the average of market-price movements, to the price of production, which is regulated by the immanent laws of the mode of production itself. The same applies to wages. If supply and demand coincide, they neutralise each other's effect, and wages equal the value of labour-power. But it is different with the interest on money-capital. Competition does not, in this case, determine the deviations from the rule. There is rather no law of division except that enforced by competition, because, as we shall later see, no such thing as a "natural" rate of interest exists. By the natural rate of interest people merely mean the rate fixed by free competition. There are no "natural" limits for the rate of interest. Whenever competition does not merely determine the deviations and fluctuations, whenever, therefore, the neutralisation of opposing forces puts a stop to any and all determination, the thing to be determined becomes something arbitrary and lawless. More on this in the next chapter. In the case of interest-bearing capital everything appears superficial: the advance of capital as mere transfer from lender to borrower; the reflux of realised capital as mere transfer back, as a return payment with interest, by borrower to lender. The same is true of the fact, immanent in the capitalist mode of production, that the rate of profit is not only determined by the relation of profit made in one single turnover to advanced capital-value, but also by the length of this period of turnover, hence determined as profit yielded by industrial capital within definite spans of time. In the case of interest-bearing capital this likewise appears on the surface to mean that a definite interest is paid to the lender for a definite time span. With his usual insight into the internal connection of things, the romantic Adam M?ller says (Elemente der Staatskunst, Berlin, 1809, Dritter Theil, S. 138); "In determining the prices of things, time is not considered; while in determining interest, time is the principal factor." He does not see how the time of production and the time of circulation enter into the determination of commodity-prices, and how this is just what determines the rate of profit for a given period of turnover of capital, whereas interest is determined by precisely this determination of profit for a given period. His sagacity here, as elsewhere, consists in observing the clouds of dust on the surface and presumptuously declaring this dust to be something mysterious and important. Notes 1. At this point certain passages may be quoted, in which the economists so conceive the matter. ? "You (the Bank of England) are very large dealers in the commodity of capital?" is the question posed to a director of this bank when he was interrogated for the Report on Bank Acts on the witness stand. (H. of C. 1857, p. 404.) 2. "That a man who borrows money with a view of making a profit by it, should give some portion of his profit to the lender, is a self-evident principle of natural justice." (Gilbart, The History and Principles of Banking, London, 1834, p.463.) 3. "A house," "money," etc., are not to be loaned as "capital" if Proudhon is to have his way, but are to be sold as "commodities ... cost-price" (p. 44). Luther stood somewhat above Proudhon. He knew that profit-making does not depend on the manner of lending or buying: "They turn buying also into usury. But this is really too much to bite off at once. We must first confine ourselves to one thing, usury in lending, and after we have stopped that (after judgement-day), we shall not fail to preach against usury in buying." (Martin Luther, An die Pfarherrn wider den Wucher zu predigen, Wittenberg, 1540.) 4. "The equitableness of taking interest depends not upon a man's making or not making profit, but upon its" (the borrowed) "being capable of producing profit if rightly employed". (An Essay on the Governing Causes of the Natural Rate of Interest, wherein the sentiments of Sir W. Petty and Mr. Locke, on that head, are considered, London, 1750, p. 49. The author of this anonymous work is J. Massie.) 5. "Rich people, instead of employing their money themselves ... let it out to other people for them to make profit of, reserving for the owners a proportion of the profits so made" (l. c., pp. 23-24). 6. "The term 'value,' when applied to currency, has three several meanings ... 2) currency, actually in hand... compared with the same amount of currency to be received upon a future day. In this case the value of currency is measured by the rate of interest, and the rate of interest being determined by the ratio between the amount of liable capital and the demand for it." (Colonel R. Torrens, On the Operation of the Bank Charter Act of 1844, etc., 2nd ed., 1847, pp. 5, 6.) 7. "The ambiguity of the term 'value of money' or of the currency, when employed indiscriminately as it is, to signify both value in exchange for commodities and value in use of capital, is a constant source of confusion." (Tooke, Inquiry into the Currency Principle, p. 77.) The main confusion (implied in the matter itself) that value as such (interest) becomes the use-value of capital, has escaped Tooke. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next: Chapter 22 | Table of Contents for Capital, Vol. III This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Dec 2 20:56:34 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 22:56:34 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Now the work begins Message-ID: full: _http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed6art3.html_ (http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed6art3.html) The defeat of John McCain and Sarah Palin was a victory for the workers of America. But, this defeat is not the end. It has simply opened the door for the next step in the battle for real change in this country. The political process does not stand independently. It is the faithful subjective expression of the objective process. Politics is the response of the various classes to the development of the economy. Struggle in politics as in all things takes place when there is polarization. Polarization in society is the result of polarization in the economy. As society polarizes, the factions turn against one another, a process of destruction takes place, and a new process emerges from this struggle and destruction. With the election of Barak Obama we are at the beginning of an emerging political polarization in this country. Millions of every day Americans, disgusted with the corruption and immorality of the Bush Administration, overcame the century old legacies of slavery and voted for an African American president. This vote was not simply a matter of economics, but also expressed the broader social revolution underway. At the same time whole sections of the country went overwhelmingly for McCain. Even states such as Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina, which ended up in the "blue" column, were within a whisper of tipping in the direction of the Republican Party. For the most part, the McCain voters were from the small towns and out of the way places, increasingly unable to make ends meet, and dispossessed of any future under the current economic system. Most significantly for revolutionaries, millions of these voters were in the strategic Rust Belt area the geographical heart of the American working class and the political center of gravity of American working class politics for decades workers whose connections to society, organization, and community make them a strategic force in the developing revolution in this country. The capitalist class is already transforming the state and society in order to protect private property and their class interests. All the discontent that was chanelled into the election process was part of the growing social response to the vast changes underway that will not go away once the election is over. They will reach out to this section of society to support the developing fascist social movement. The first stage of this process will be the consolidation of the scattered fascist elements, and, as they coalesce, they will put forth a program to solve the immediate problems that people face. Without polarization there can be no change. It is only within this motion that revolutionaries can do their work. The bonds that tied society together the institutions, the ideas, and the psychology of the people are beginning unravel. That this makes people open to new ways of thinking only opens the way, it does not guarantee the outcome. Revolutionaries celebrate the dismantling of historical barriers. At the same time, we must strive to see these historic points within the context of the line of march of the revolution. The most conservative sector of the working class the once bribed worker is now the most objectively revolutionary, and a black man is now leading the U.S. through the next step in the battle to protect the capitalist system and maintain U.S. hegemony in the world. We must rely on the understandings of the past, but not be tied to the ideological outlook of the past. Conditions are forcing broad sections of America to move. **************Life should be easier. So should your homepage. Try the NEW AOL.com. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000002) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 3 09:31:10 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:31:10 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Empire of Depression Message-ID: <49366E06.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> December 01, 2008 10:20 am http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175008/steve_fraser_empire_of_depression Tomgram: Steve Fraser, Empire of Depression If you want to catch something of the fears and hopes of Americans right now, go to News.Google.com and try searching for a few words. For instance, put in "FDR" -- the well-known initials of the man who was president four times and took America through the Great Depression and all but the last months of World War II -- and endless screens of references pop up. The Nation and the National Review have both devoted space to him. Paul Krugman and George Will both thought this was the moment to focus on him. Checking out the headlines you might think that the intervening sixty-four years since his death had simply vanished: ("Will FDR Inspire Obama?" "Obama's jobs plan could echo FDR's," "Clinton's potential pitfalls seen in FDR's secretary of State," Channeling FDR," "FDR saved capitalism -- now it's Obama's turn," and so on); headlines galore, not to speak of that Time Magazine "Obama as FDR?" cover. Or, if you have another moment, try "the New Deal," or even the 2008 Obama version of the same,"the new New Deal"; or, if you really want to get a sense of the moment, try "since the Great Depression," which now seems to be embedded in any article about the present economic situation -- as in the "worst crisis since the Great Depression," or "the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression," or even "the most severe credit crunch since the Great Depression." It's a phrase that hovers between horror and euphemism, between the urge to invoke the word "depression" for our moment and an almost superstitious fear of doing so. Historian Steve Fraser, author of Wall Street: America's Dream Palace, has been writing at TomDispatch about both the Great Depression and the possibility of a modern version of the same for some time. Now, he returns to the dawn of the Rooseveltian era to offer a unique and telling comparison -- between FDR's expansive, experimental "brain trust" and Obama's new "team of rivals." In his usual fashion, he raises the truly pregnant question: What kind of new administration could actually get beyond Roosevelt's era as well as our own staggering disaster, leaving "the bailout state" behind us? Tom Beyond the Bailout State Roosevelt's Brain Trust vs Obama's Brainiacs By Steve Fraser On a December day in 1932, with the country prostrate under the weight of the Great Depression, ex-president Calvin Coolidge -- who had presided over the reckless stock market boom of the Jazz Age Twenties (and famously declaimed that "the business of America is business") -- confided to a friend: "We are in a new era to which I do not belong." He punctuated those words, a few weeks later, by dying. A similar premonition grips the popular imagination today. A new era beckons. No person has been more responsible for arousing that expectation than President-elect Barack Obama. From beginning to end, his presidential campaign was born aloft by invocations of the "fierce urgency of now," by "change we can believe in," by "yes, we can!" and by the obvious significance of his race and generation. Not surprisingly then, as the gravity of the national economic calamity has become terrifyingly clearer, yearnings for salvation have attached themselves ever more firmly to the incoming administration. This is as it should be -- and as it once was. When in March 1933, a few months after Coolidge gave up the ghost, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated president, people looked forward to audacious changes, even if they had little or no idea just what, in concrete terms, that might mean. If Coolidge, an iconic representative of the old order, knew that the ancien r?gime was dead, millions of ordinary Americans had drawn the same conclusion years earlier. Full of fear, depressed and disillusioned, they nonetheless had an appetite for the untried. Like Obama, FDR had, during his campaign, encouraged feverish hopes with no less vaporous references to a "new deal" for Americans. Brain Trust vs Brainiacs Yet today, something is amiss. Even if everyone is now using the Great Depression and the New Deal as benchmarks for what we're living through, Act I of the new script has already veered away from the original. A suffocating political and intellectual provincialism has captured the new administration in embryo. Instead of embracing a sense of adventurousness, a readiness to break with the past so enthusiastically promoted during the campaign, Obama seems overcome with inhibitions and fears. Practically without exception he has chosen to staff his government at its highest levels with refugees from the Clinton years. This is emphatically true in the realms of foreign and economic policy. It would, in fact, be hard to find an original idea among the new appointees being called to power in those realms -- some way of looking at the American empire abroad or the structure of power and wealth at home that departs radically from views in circulation a decade or more ago. A team photo of Obama's key cabinet and other appointments at Treasury, Health and Human Services, Commerce, the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, the State Department, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and in the U.S. Intelligence Community, not to speak of senior advisory posts around the President himself, could practically have been teleported from perhaps the year 1995. Recycled Clintonism is recycled neo-liberalism. This is change only the brainiacs from Hyde Park and Harvard Square could believe in. Only the experts could get hot under the collar about the slight differences between "behavioral economics" (the latest academic fad that fascinates some high level Obama-ites) and straight-up neo-liberal deference to the market. And here's the sobering thing: despite the grotesque extremism of the Bush years, neo-liberalism also served as its ideological magnetic north. Is this parochialism, this timorousness and lack of imagination, inevitable in a period like our own, when the unknown looms menacingly and one natural reaction is certainly to draw back, to find refuge in the familiar? Here, the New Deal years can be instructive. Roosevelt was no radical; indeed, he shared many of the conservative convictions of his class and times. He believed deeply in both balanced budgets and the demoralizing effects of relief on the poor. He tried mightily to rally the business community to his side. For him, the labor movement was terra incognita and -- though it may be hard to believe today -- played no role in his initial policy and political calculations. Nonetheless, right from the beginning, Roosevelt cobbled together a cabinet and circle of advisers strikingly heterogeneous in its views, one that, by comparison, makes Obama's inner sanctum, as it is developing today, look like a sectarian cult. Heterogeneous does not mean radical. Some of FDR's early appointments -- as at the Treasury Department -- were die-hard conservatives. Jesse Jones, who ran the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, a Hoover administration creation, retained by FDR, that had been designed to rescue tottering banks, railroads, and other enterprises too big to fail, was a practitioner of business-friendly bailout capitalism before present Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was even born. But there was also Henry Wallace as Secretary of Agriculture, a Midwestern progressive who would become the standard bearer for the most left-leaning segments of the New Deal coalition. He was joined at the Agriculture Department -- far more important then than now -- by men like Mordecai Ezekiel, who was prepared to challenge the power of the country's landed oligarchs. Then there were corporatists like Raymond Moley, Donald Richberg, and General Hugh Johnson. Moley was an original member of FDR's legendary "brain trust" (a small group of the President's most influential advisers who often held no official government position). Richberg and Johnson helped design and run the National Recovery Administration (the New Deal's first and failed attempt at industrial recovery). All three men were partial to the interests of the country's peak corporations. All three wanted them released from the strictures of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act so that they could collaborate in setting prices and wages to arrest the killing deflation that gripped the economy. But they also wanted these corporate behemoths and the codes of competition they promulgated subjected to government oversight and restraints. Meanwhile, Felix Frankfurter (another confidant of FDR's and a future Supreme Court justice), aided by the behind-the-scenes efforts of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, fiercely contested the influence of the corporatists within the new administration, favoring anti-trust and then-new Keynesian approaches to economic recovery. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins used her extensive ties to the social work community and the labor movement to keep an otherwise tone-deaf president apprised of portentous rumblings from that quarter. In this fashion, she eased the way for the passage of the Wagner Act that legislated the right to organize and bargain collectively, and that ended the reign of industrial autocracy in the workplace. Roosevelt's "brain trust" also included Rexford Tugwell. He was an avid proponent of government economic planning. Another founding member of the "brain trust" was Adolph Berle, who had published a bestselling, scathing indictment of the financial and social irresponsibility of the corporate elite just before FDR assumed office. People like Tugwell and others, including future Federal Reserve Board chairman Marriner Eccles, were believers in Keynesian deficit spending as the road to recovery and argued fiercely for this position within the inner councils of the administration, even while Roosevelt himself remained, until later in his presidency, an orthodox budget balancer. All of these people -- the corporatists and the Keynesians, the planners and the anti-trusters -- were there at the creation. They often came to blows. A genuine administration of "rivals" didn't faze FDR. He was deft at borrowing all of, or pieces of, their ideas, then jettisoning some when they didn't work, and playing one faction against another in a remarkable display of political agility. Roosevelt's tolerance of real differences stands in stark contrast to the new administration's cloning of the Clinton-era brainiacs. It was this openness to a variety of often untested solutions -- including at that point Keynesianism -- that helped give the New Deal the flexibility to adjust to shifts in the country's political chemistry in the worst of times. If the New Deal came to represent a watershed in American history, it was in part due to the capaciousness of its imagination, its experimental elasticity, and its willingness to venture beyond the orthodox. Many failures were born of this, but so, too, many enduring triumphs. Beyond the Bailout State Why, at least so far, is the Obama approach so different? Some of it no doubt has to do with the same native caution that caused FDR to navigate carefully in treacherous waters. But some of it may result from the fallout of history. Because the Great Depression and the New Deal happened, nothing can ever really be the same again. We are accustomed to thinking of the Bush years -- maybe even the whole era from the presidency of Ronald Reagan on -- as a throwback to the 1920s or even the laissez-faire golden years of the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century. In some respects, that's probably accurate, but in at least one critical way it's not. Back in those days, faced with a potentially terminal financial crisis, the government did nothing, simply letting the economy plunge into depression. This happened repeatedly until 1929, when it happened again. Since the New Deal, however, inaction has ceased to be a viable option for Washington. State intervention to prevent catastrophe has become an unspoken axiom of political life in perilous times. Of course, thanks to regulatory mechanisms installed during the New Deal years, there was no need to engage in heroic rescues -- not, at least, until the triumph of deregulation in our own time. Then crises began to erupt with ever greater frequency -- the stock market crash of 1987, the savings and loan collapse at the end of that decade, the massive Latin American debt defaults of the early 1990s, the collapse of the economies of the Asian "tigers" in the mid-1990s, the near bankruptcy of the then-huge hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management, later in that decade, the dot-com implosion at the turn the century, climaxing with the general global collapse of the present moment. Beginning perhaps with the bailout of the Chrysler Corporation in the late 1970s, these recurring crises have been met with increasingly strenuous efforts to stop the bleeding by what some have called "the bailout state." The Resolution Trust Corporation, created to rescue the savings and loan industry, first institutionalized what Kevin Phillips has since described as a new political economy of "financial mercantilism." Under this new order the state stands ready to backstop the private sector -- or at least the financial sub-sector which, for the past quarter century, has been the driving engine of economic growth -- whenever it undergoes severe stress. Today, the starting point for all mainstream policymakers, even those who otherwise preach the virtues of the free market and the evils of big government, is the active intervention of the state to prevent the failure of private-sector institutions considered "too big to fail" (as with most recently Citigroup and the insurance company AIG). So, too, the tolerance level for deficit spending, not only for military purposes but, in extremis, to help stop ordinary people from going under, is infinitely higher than in 1932. Ronald Reagan was prepared to live with such spending, if necessary, even as he removed portraits of Thomas Jefferson and Harry S. Truman from the Cabinet Room and replaced them with a canvas of Calvin Coolidge. The question for our "new era" -- not one our New Deal ancestors would have thought to ask -- has become: How do we get beyond the bailout state? This is one crucial realm where genuinely new thinking and new ideas are badly needed. At the moment, as best we can make out, the bailout state is being managed in secret and apparently in the interests, above all, of those who run the financial institutions being "rescued." Often, we don't actually know who is getting what from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, or on what terms, or even which institutions are being helped and which aren't, or often what our public monies are actually being used for. What we do know, however, is anything but encouraging. It includes tax exemptions for merging banks, prices for public-equity stakes in failing outfits that far exceed what is being paid by governments (or even private investors) abroad for similar holdings. Add to this a stark lack of accountability, aggravated by the fact that the U.S. government has neither voting rights (nor even a voice) on boards of directors whose firms would be in bankruptcy court without Washington's aid. Living in an Empire of Depression Are we, then, witnessing the birth of some warped, exceedingly partial version of state capitalism -- partial, that is, to the resuscitation of the old order? If so, lurking within this string of bum deals might there not be a great opportunity? Putting the economy and country back together will require massive resources directed toward common purposes. There is no more suitable means of mobilizing and steering those resources than the institutions of democratic government. Under the present dispensation, the bailout state makes the government the handmaiden of the financial sector. Under a new one, the tables might be turned. But who will speak for that option within the limited councils of the Obama team? A real democratic nationalization of the banks -- good value for our money rather than good money to add to their value -- should be part of the policy agenda up for discussion in the Obama era. As things now stand, the public supplies the loans and the investment capital, but the key decisions about how they are to be deployed remain in private hands. A democratic version of nationalizing the financial system would transfer these critical decisions to new institutions created by the Congress and designed to pursue public, not private, objectives. How to subject the flow of credit and investment capital to public control ought to be on the drawing boards if we are to look beyond the old New Deal to a new one. Or, for instance, if we are to bail out the auto industry, which we should -- millions of jobs, businesses, communities, and what's left of once powerful and proud unions are at stake -- then why not talk about its nationalization, too? Why not create a representative body of workers, consumers, environmentalists, suppliers, and other interested parties to supervise the industry's reorganization and retooling to produce, just as the president-elect says he wants, new green means of transportation -- and not just cars? Why not apply the same model to the rehabilitation of the nation's infrastructure; indeed, why not to the reindustrialization of the country as a whole? If, as so many commentators are now claiming, what lies ahead is the kind of massive, crippling deflation characteristic of such crises, then why not consider creating democratic mechanisms to impose an incomes policy on wages and prices that works against that deflation? Overseas, if everything isn't up for discussion -- and it most certainly isn't -- it ought to be. What happens there bears directly on our future here at home. After all, we live in the empire of depression. America's favorite export for more than a decade has been a toxic line-up of securitized debt. Having ingested it in lethal amounts, every economy in the world from Iceland's and Germany's to Russia's and Indonesia's is either folding up or threatening to fold up like an accordion under the pressure of economic disaster. Until now, the American way of life, including its economy of mass consumption, has depended on maintaining the country's global preeminence by any means possible: economic, political, and, in the end, military. The news of the Bush years was that, in this mix, Washington reached for its six-guns so much more quickly. A global depression will challenge that fundamental hierarchy in every conceivable way. The United States can try to recapture its imperiled hegemony by methods familiar to the Obama-Clinton-Bush (the father) foreign policy establishment, that is by using the country's waning but still intimidating economic and military muscle. But that's a devil's game played at exorbitant cost which will further imperil the domestic economy. It might, of course, be possible, as in domestic affairs, to try something new, something that embraces the public redevelopment of America in concert with the global South. This would entail at a minimum a radical break with the "Washington Consensus" of the Clinton years in which the United States insisted that the rest of the world conform to its free market model of economic behavior. It would establish multilateral mechanisms for regulating the flow of investment capital and severe penalties and restrictions on speculation in international markets. Most of all, it would mean lifting the strangulating grip of American military might that now girdles the globe. All of this would require a capacity for re-imagining foreign affairs as something other than a zero-sum game. So far, nothing in Obama's line-up of foreign policy and national security mandarins suggests this kind of potential policy deviance. Again, no Rooseveltian "brain trust" is in sight, even though unorthodoxies are called for, not just because of the hopes Obama's victory have aroused, but because of the urgency of our present circumstances. If original thinking doesn't find a home somewhere within this forming administration soon, it will be an omen of an even more troubled future to come, when options not even being considered today may be unavailable tomorrow. Certainly, Americans ought to expect something better than a trip down (the grimmest of) memory lanes into the failed neo-liberalism of yesteryear. Steve Fraser is a visiting professor at New York University and the author of Wall Street: America's Dream Palace. He is a regular contributor to TomDispatch.com and co-founder of the American Empire Project (Metropolitan Books). Copyright 2008 Steve Fraser This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 3 09:59:03 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:59:03 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The use-value of capital Message-ID: <49367490.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> 7. "The ambiguity of the term 'value of money' or of the currency, when employed indiscriminately as it is, to signify both value in exchange for commodities and value in use of capital, is a constant source of confusion." (Tooke, Inquiry into the Currency Principle, p. 77.) The main confusion (implied in the matter itself) that value as such (interest) becomes the use-value of capital, has escaped Tooke. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 3 13:11:31 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:11:31 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nationalize GM Message-ID: <4936A1AD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> VI. DIVISION OF THE WORLD AMONG THE GREAT POWERS In his book, on ?the territorial development of the European colonies?, A. Supan, [1] the geographer, gives the following brief summary of this development at the end of the nineteenth century: PERCENTAGE OF TERRITORY BELONGING TO THE EUROPEAN COLONIAL POWERS (Including the United States) 1876 1900 Increase or decrease Africa.......... 10.8 90.4 +79.6 Polynesia.... 56.8 98.9 +42.1 Asia............ 51.5 56.6 +5.1 Australia..... 100.0 100.0 ? America...... 27.5 27.2 -0.3 ?The characteristic feature of this period,? he concludes, ?is, therefore, the division of Africa and Polynesia.? As there are no unoccupied territories?that is, territories that do not belong to any state in Asia and America, it is necessary to amplify Supan?s conclusion and say that the characteristic feature of the period under review is the final partitioning of the globe?final, not in the sense that repartition is impossible; on the contrary, repartitions are possible and inevitable?but in the sense that the colonial policy of the capitalist countries has completed the seizure of the unoccupied territories on our planet. For the first time the world is completely divided up, so that in the future only redivision is possible, i.e., territories can only pass from one ?owner? to another, instead of passing as ownerless territory to an owner Hence, we are living in a peculiar epoch of world colonial policy, which is most closely connected with the ?latest stage in the development of capitalism?, with finance capital. For this reason, it is essential first of all to deal in greater detail with the facts, in order to ascertain as exactly as possible what distinguishes this epoch from those preceding it, and what the present situation is. In the first place, two questions of fact arise here: is an intensification of colonial policy, a sharpening of the struggle for colonies, observed precisely in the epoch of finance capital? And how, in this respect, is the world divided at the present time? The American writer, Morris, in his book on the history of colonisation, [2] made an attempt to sum up the data on the colonial possessions of Great Britain, France and Germany during different periods of the nineteenth century. The following is a brief summary of the results he has obtained: COLONIAL POSSESSIONS Year Great Britain France Germany Area (000,000 sq. m.) Pop. (000,000) Area (000,000 sq. m.) Pop. (000,000) Area (000,000 sq. m.) Pop. (000,000) 1815-30 ? 126.4 0.02 0.5 ? ? 1860 2.5 145.1 0.2 3.4 ? ? 1880 7.7 267.9 0.7 7.5 ? ? 1899 9.3 309.0 3.7 56.4 1.0 14.7 For Great Britain, the period of the enormous expansion of colonial conquests was that between 1860 and 1880, and it was also very considerable in the last twenty years of the nineteenth century. For France and Germany this period falls precisely in these twenty years. We saw above that the development of premonopoly capitalism, of capitalism in which free competition was predominant, reached its limit in the 1860s and 1870s. We now see that it is precisely after that period that the tremendous ?boom? in colonial conquests begins, and that the struggle for the territorial division of the world becomes extraordinarily sharp. It is beyond doubt, therefore, that capitalism?s transition to the stage of monopoly capitalism, to finance capital, is connected with the intensification of the struggle for the partitioning of the world. Hobson, in his work on imperialism, marks the years 1884-1900 as the epoch of intensified ?expansion? of the chief European states. According to his estimate, Great Britain during these years acquired 3,700,000 square miles of territory with 57,000,000 inhabitants; France, 3,600,000 square miles with 36,500,000; Germany, 1,000,000 square miles with 14,700,000; Belgium, 900,000 square miles with 30,000,000; Portugal, 800,000 square miles with 9,000,000 inhabitants. The scramble for colonies by all the capitalist states at the end of the nineteenth century and particularly since the 1880s is a commonly known fact in the history of diplomacy and of foreign policy. In the most flourishing period of free competition in Great Britain, i.e., between 1840 and 1860, the leading British bourgeois politicians were opposed to colonial policy and were of the opinion that the liberation of the colonies, their complete separation from Britain, was inevitable and desirable. M. Beer, in an article, ?Modern British Imperialism?, [3] published in 1898, shows that in 1852, Disraeli, a statesman who was generally inclined towards imperialism, declared: ?The colonies are millstones round our necks.? But at the end of the nineteenth century the British heroes of the hour were Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain, who openly advocated imperialism and applied the imperialist policy in the most cynical manner! It is not without interest to observe that even then these leading British bourgeois politicians saw the connection between what might be called the purely economic and the socio-political roots of modern imperialism. Chamberlain advocated imperialism as a ?true, wise and economical policy?, and pointed particularly to the German, American and Belgian competition which Great Britain was encountering in the world market. Salvation lies in monopoly, said the capitalists as they formed cartels, syndicates and trusts. Salvation lies in monopoly, echoed the political leaders of the bourgeoisie, hastening to appropriate the parts of the world not yet shared out. And Cecil Rhodes, we are informed by his intimate friend, the journalist Stead, expressed his imperialist views to him in 1895 in the following terms: ?I was in the East End of London (a working-class quarter) yesterday and attended a meeting of the unemployed. I listened to the wild speeches, which were just a cry for ?bread! bread!? and on my way home I pondered over the scene and I became more than ever convinced of the importance of imperialism.... My cherished idea is a solution for the social problem, i.e., in order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets for the goods produced in the factories and mines. The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. If you want to avoid civil war, you must become imperialists. [4] That was said in 1895 by Cecil Rhodes, millionaire, a king of finance, the man who was mainly responsible for the Anglo-Boer War. True, his defence of imperialism is crude and cynical, but in substance it does not differ from the ?theory? advocated by Messrs. Maslov, S?dekum, Potresov, David, the founder of Russian Marxism and others. Cecil Rhodes was a somewhat more honest social-chauvinist.... To present as precise a picture as possible of the territorial division of the world and of the changes which have occurred during the last decades in this respect, I shall utilise the data furnished by Supan in the work already quoted on the colonial possessions of all the powers of the world. Supan takes the years 1876 and 1900; I shall take the year 1876?a year very aptly selected, for it is precisely by that time that the pre-monopolist stage of development of West-European capitalism can be said to have been, in the main, completed?and the year 1914, and instead of Supan?s figures I shall quote the more recent statistics of H?bner?s Geographical and Statistical Tables. Supan gives figures only for colonies; I think it useful, in order to present a complete picture of the division of the world, to add brief data on non-colonial and semi-colonial countries, in which category I place Persia, China and Turkey: the first of these countries is already almost completely a colony, the second and third are becoming such. We thus get the following result: COLONIAL POSSESSIONS OF THE GREAT POWERS (000,000 square kilometers and 000,000 inhabitants) Colonies Metropolitan countries Total 1876 1914 1914 1914 Area Pop. Area Pop. Area Pop. Area Pop. Great Britain 22.5 251.9 33.5 393.5 0.3 46.5 33.8 444.0 Russia 17.0 15.9 17.4 33.2 5.4 136.2 22.8 169.4 France 0.9 6.0 10.6 55.5 0.5 39.6 11.1 95.1 Germany ? ? 2.9 12.3 0.5 64.9 3.4 77.2 United States ? ? 0.3 9.7 9.4 97.0 9.7 106.7 Japan ? ? 0.3 19.2 0.4 53.0 0.7 72.2 Total for 6 Great Powers 40.4 273.8 65.0 523.4 16.5 437.2 81.5 960.6 Colonies of other powers (Belgium, Holland, etc.) 9.9 45.3 Semi-colonial countries (Persia, China, Turkey) 14.5 361.2 Other countries 28.0 289.9 Total for the world 133.9 1,657.0 We clearly see from these figures how ?complete? was the partition of the world at the turn of the twentieth century. After 1876 colonial possessions increased to enormous dimensions, by more than fifty per cent, from 40,000,000 to 65,000,000 square kilometres for the six biggest powers; the increase amounts to 25,000,000 square kilometres, fifty per cent more than the area of the metropolitan countries (16,500,000 square kilometres). In 1876 three powers had no colonies, and a fourth, France, had scarcely any. By 1914 these four powers had acquired colonies with an area of 14,100,000 square kilometres, i.e., about half as much again as the area of Europe, with a population of nearly 100,000,000. The unevenness in the rate of expansion of colonial possessions is very great. If, for instance, we compare France, Germany and Japan, which do not differ very much in area and population, we see that the first has acquired almost three times as much colonial territory as the other two combined. In regard to finance capital, France, at the beginning of the period we are considering, was also, perhaps, several times richer than Germany and Japan put together. In addition to, and on the basis of, purely economic conditions, geographical and other conditions also affect the dimensions of colonial possessions. However strong the process of levelling the world, of levelling the economic and living conditions in different countries, may have been in the past decades as a result of the pressure of large-scale industry, exchange and finance capital, considerable differences still remain; and among the six countries mentioned we see, firstly, young capitalist countries (America, Germany, Japan) whose progress has been extraordinarily rapid; secondly, countries with an old capitalist development (France and Great Britain), whose progress lately has been much slower than that of the previously mentioned countries, and thirdly, a country most backward economically (Russia), where modern capitalist imperialism is enmeshed, so to speak, in a particularly close network of pre-capitalist relations. Alongside the colonial possessions of the Great Powers, we have placed the small colonies of the small states, which are, so to speak, the next objects of a possible and probable ?redivision? of colonies. These small states mostly retain their colonies only because the big powers are torn by conflicting interests, friction, etc., which prevent them from coming to an agreement on the division of the spoils. As to the ?semi-colonial? states, they provide an example of the transitional forms which are to be found in all spheres of nature and society. Finance capital is such a great, such a decisive, you might say, force in all economic and in all international relations, that it is capable of subjecting, and actually does subject, to itself even states enjoying the fullest political independence; we shall shortly see examples of this. Of course, finance capital finds most ?convenient?, and derives the greatest profit from, a form of subjection which involves the loss of the political independence of the subjected countries and peoples. In this respect, the semi-colonial countries provide a typical example of the ?middle stage?. It is natural that the struggle for these semidependent countries should have become particularly bitter in the epoch of finance capital, when the rest of the world has already been divided up. Colonial policy and imperialism existed before the latest stage of capitalism, and even before capitalism. Rome, founded on slavery, pursued a colonial policy and practised imperialism. But ?general? disquisitions on imperialism, which ignore, or put into the background, the fundamental difference between socio-economic formations, inevitably turn into the most vapid banality or bragging, like the comparison: ?Greater Rome and Greater Britain.? [5] Even the capitalist colonial policy of previous stages of capitalism is essentially different from the colonial policy of finance capital. The principal feature of the latest stage of capitalism is the domination of monopolist associations of big employers. These monopolies are most firmly established when all the sources of raw materials are captured by one group, and we have seen with what zeal the international capitalist associations exert every effort to deprive their rivals of all opportunity of competing, to buy up, for example, ironfields, oilfields, etc. Colonial possession alone gives the monopolies complete guarantee against all contingencies in the struggle against competitors, including the case of the adversary wanting to be protected by a law establishing a state monopoly. The more capitalism is developed, the more strongly the shortage of raw materials is felt, the more intense the competition and the hunt for sources of raw materials throughout the whole world, the more desperate the struggle for the acquisition of colonies. ?It may be asserted,? writes Schilder, ?although it may sound paradoxical to some, that in the more or less foreseeable future the growth of the urban and industrial population is more likely to be hindered by a shortage of raw materials for industry than by a shortage of food.? For example, there is a growing shortage of timber?the price of which is steadily rising?of leather, and of raw materials for the textile industry. ?Associations of manufacturers are making efforts to create an equilibrium between agriculture and industry in the whole of world economy; as an example of this we might mention the International Federation of Cotton Spinners? Associations in several of the most important industrial countries, founded in 1904, and the European Federation of Flax Spinners? Associations, founded on the same model in 1910.? [6] Of course, the bourgeois reformists, and among them particularly the present-day adherents of Kautsky, try to belittle the importance of facts of this kind by arguing that raw materials ?could be? obtained in the open market without a ?costly and dangerous? colonial policy; and that the supply of raw materials ?could be? increased enormously by ?simply? improving conditions in agriculture in general. But such arguments become an apology for imperialism, an attempt to paint it in bright colours, because they ignore the principal feature of the latest stage of capitalism: monopolies. The free market is becoming more and more a thing of the past; monopolist syndicates and trusts are restricting it with every passing day, and ?simply? improving conditions in agriculture means improving the conditions of the masses, raising wages and reducing profits. Where, except in the imagination of sentimental reformists, are there any trusts capable of concerning themselves with the condition of the masses instead of the conquest of colonies? Finance capital is interested not only in the already discovered sources of raw materials but also in potential sources, because present-day technical development is extremely rapid, and land which is useless today may be improved tomorrow if new methods are devised (to this end a big bank can equip a special expedition of engineers, agricultural experts, etc.), and if large amounts of capital are invested. This also applies to prospecting for minerals, to new methods of processing up and utilising raw materials, etc., etc. Hence, the inevitable striving of finance capital to enlarge its spheres of influence and even its actual territory. In the same way that the trusts capitalise their property at two or three times its value, taking into account its ?potential? (and not actual) profits and the further results of monopoly, so finance capital in general strives to seize the largest possible amount of land of all kinds in all places, and by every means, taking into account potential sources of raw materials and fearing to be left behind in the fierce struggle for the last remnants of independent territory, or for the repartition of those territories that have been already divided. The British capitalists are exerting every effort to develop cotton growing in their colony, Egypt (in 1904, out of 2,300,000 hectares of land under cultivation, 600,000, or more than one-fourth, were under cotton); the Russians are doing the same in their colony, Turkestan, because in this way they will be in a better position to defeat their foreign competitors, to monopolise the sources of raw materials and form a more economical and profitable textile trust in which all the processes of cotton production and manufacturing will be ?combined? and concentrated in the hands of one set of owners. The interests pursued in exporting capital also give an impetus to the conquest of colonies, for in the colonial market it is easier to employ monopoly methods (and sometimes they are the only methods that can be employed) to eliminate competition, to ensure supplies, to secure the necessary ?connections?, etc. The non-economic superstructure which grows up on the basis of finance capital, its politics and its ideology, stimulates the striving for colonial conquest. ?Finance capital does not want liberty, it wants domination,? as Hilferding very truly says. And a French bourgeois writer, developing and supplementing, as it were, the ideas of Cecil Rhodes quoted above,[7] writes that social causes should be added to the economic causes of modern colonial policy: ?Owing to the growing complexities of life and the difficulties which weigh not only on the masses of the workers, but also on the middle classes, ?impatience, irritation and hatred are accumulating in all the countries of the old civilisation and are becoming a menace to public order; the energy which is being hurled out of the definite class channel must be given employment abroad in order to avert an explosion at home?.? [8] Since we are speaking of colonial policy in the epoch of capitalist imperialism, it must be observed that finance capital and its foreign policy, which is the struggle of the great powers for the economic and political division of the world, give rise to a number of transitional forms of state dependence. Not only are the two main groups of countries, those owning colonies, and the colonies themselves, but also the diverse forms of dependent countries which, politically, are formally independent, but in fact, are enmeshed in the net of financial and diplomatic dependence, typical of this epoch. We have already referred to one form of dependence?the semi-colony. An example of another is provided by Argentina. ?South America, and especially Argentina,? writes Schulze-Gaevernitz in his work on British imperialism, ?is so dependent financially on London that it ought to be described as almost a British commercial colony.? [9] Basing himself on the reports of the Austro-Hungarian Consul at Buenos Aires for 1909, Schilder estimated the amount of British capital invested in Argentina at 8,750 million francs. It is not difficult to imagine what strong connections British finance capital (and its faithful ?friend?, diplomacy) thereby acquires with the Argentine bourgeoisie, with the circles that control the whole of that country?s economic and political life. A somewhat different form of financial and diplomatic dependence, accompanied by political independence, is presented by Portugal. Portugal is an independent sovereign state, but actually, for more than two hundred years, since the war of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), it has been a British protectorate. Great Britain has protected Portugal and her colonies in order to fortify her own positions in the fight against her rivals, Spain and France. In return Great Britain has received commercial privileges, preferential conditions for importing goods and especially capital into Portugal and the Portuguese colonies, the right to use the ports and islands of Portugal, her telegraph cables, etc., etc. [10] Relations of this kind have always existed between big and little states, but in the epoch of capitalist imperialism they become a general system, they form part of the sum total of ?divide the world? relations and become links in the chain of operations of world finance capital. In order to finish with the question of the division of the world, I must make the following additional observation. This question was raised quite openly and definitely not only in American literature after the Spanish-American War, and in English literature after the Anglo-Boer War, at the very end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth; not only has German literature, which has ?most jealously? watched ?British imperialism?, systematically given its appraisal of this fact. This question has also been raised in French bourgeois literature as definitely and broadly as is thinkable from the bourgeois point of view. Let me quote Driault, the historian, who, in his book, Political and Social Problems at the End of the Nineteenth Century, in the chapter ?The Great Powers and the Division of the World?, wrote the following: ?During the past few years, all the free territory of the globe, with the exception of China, has been occupied by the powers of Europe and North America. This has already brought about several conflicts and shifts of spheres of influence, and these foreshadow more terrible upheavals in the near future. For it is necessary to make haste. The nations which have not yet made provision for themselves run the risk of never receiving their share and never participating in the tremendous exploitation of the globe which will be one of the most essential features of the next century (i.e., the twentieth). That is why all Europe and America have lately been afflicted with the fever of colonial expansion, of ?imperialism?, that most noteworthy feature of the end of the nineteenth century.? And the author added: ?In this partition of the world, in this furious hunt for the treasures and the big markets of the globe, the relative strength of the empires founded in this nineteenth century is totally out of proportion to the place occupied in Europe by the nations which founded them. The dominant powers in Europe, the arbiters of her destiny, are not equally preponderant in the whole world. And, as colonial might, the hope of controlling as yet unassessed wealth, will evidently react upon the relative strength of the European powers, the colonial question??imperialism?, if you will?which has already modified the political conditions of Europe itself, will modify them more and more.? [11] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes [1] A. Supan, Die territoriale Entwicklung der europ?ischen Kolonien, 1906, S. 254. ?Lenin [2] Henry C. Morris, The History of Colonisation, New York, 1900, Vol. II, p. 88; Vol. 1, p. 419; Vol. 11, p. 304. ?Lenin [3] Die Neue Zeit, XVI, 1, 1898, S. 302. ?Lenin [4] Ibid., S. 304. ?Lenin [5] C. P. Lucas, Greater Rome and Greater Britain, Oxford, 1912, or the Earl of Cromer?s Ancient and Modern Imperialism, London, 1910. ?Lenin [6] Schilder, op. cit., S. 38-42. ?Lenin [7] See pp. 256?57 of this volume.?Ed. [8] Wahl, La France aux colonies quoted by Henri Russier, Le Partage de l?Oc?anie, Paris, 1905, p. 165. ?Lenin [9] Schulze-Gaevernitz, Britischer Imperialismus und englischer Freihandel zu Beginn des 20-ten Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1906, S. 318. Sartorius v. Waltershausen says the same in Das volkswirtschaftliche System der Kapitalanlage im Auslande, Berlin, 1907, S. 46. ?Lenin [10] Schilder, op. cit., Vol. I, S. 160-61. ?Lenin [11] J. E. Driault, Probl?mes politiques et sociaux, Paris, 1900, p. 299. ?Lenin This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 3 15:16:10 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 17:16:10 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nationalize GM Message-ID: In a message dated 12/3/2008 3:12:01 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us writes: >>> > By communists and socialist advocacy, in the context of this article - Nationalize GM, is meant the demand for food, housing (expansion of section 8)<< ^^^ CB: And a moratoriums on mortgage foreclosures ^^^ Comment Absolutely. WL **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Dec 4 09:08:37 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:08:37 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] VII. IMPERIALISM AS A SPECIAL STAGE OF CAPITALISM Message-ID: <4937BA36.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch07.htm VII. IMPERIALISM AS A SPECIAL STAGE OF CAPITALISM We must now try to sum up, to draw together the threads of what has been said above on the subject of imperialism. Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly. Free competition is the basic feature of capitalism, and of commodity production generally; monopoly is the exact opposite of free competition, but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our eyes, creating large-scale industry and forcing out small industry, replacing large-scale by still larger-scale industry, and carrying concentration of production and capital to the point where out of it has grown and is growing monopoly: cartels, syndicates and trusts, and merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks, which manipulate thousands of millions. At the same time the monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher system. If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist associations of industrialists; and, on the other hand, the division of the world is the transition from a colonial policy which has extended without hindrance to territories unseized by any capitalist power, to a colonial policy of monopolist possession of the territory of the world, which has been completely divided up. But very brief definitions, although convenient, for they sum up the main points, are nevertheless inadequate, since we have to deduce from them some especially important features of the phenomenon that has to be defined. And so, without forgetting the conditional and relative value of all definitions in general, which can never embrace all the concatenations of a phenomenon in its full development, we must give a definition of imperialism that will include the following five of its basic features: (1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this ?finance capital?, of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. We shall see later that imperialism can and must be defined differently if we bear in mind not only the basic, purely economic concepts?to which the above definition is limited?but also the historical place of this stage of capitalism in relation to capitalism in general, or the relation between imperialism and the two main trends in the working-class movement. The thing to be noted at this point is that imperialism, as interpreted above, undoubtedly represents a special stage in the development of capitalism. To enable the reader to obtain the most wellgrounded idea of imperialism, I deliberately tried to quote as extensively as possible bourgeois economists who have to admit the particularly incontrovertible facts concerning the latest stage of capitalist economy. With the same object in view, I have quoted detailed statistics which enable one to see to what degree bank capital, etc., has grown, in what precisely the transformation of quantity into quality, of developed capitalism into imperialism, was expressed. Needless to say, of course, all boundaries in nature and in society are conventional and changeable, and it would be absurd to argue, for example, about the particular year or decade in which imperialism ?definitely? became established. In the matter of defining imperialism, however, we have to enter into controversy, primarily, with Karl Kautsky, the principal Marxist theoretician of the epoch of the so-called Second International?that is, of the twenty-five years between 1889 and 1914. The fundamental ideas expressed in our definition of imperialism were very resolutely attacked by Kautsky in 1915, and even in November 1914, when he said that imperialism must not be regarded as a ?phase? or stage of economy, but as a policy, a definite policy ?preferred? by finance capital; that imperialism must not be ?identified? with ?present-day capitalism?; that if imperialism is to be understood to mean ?all the phenomena of present-day capitalism??cartels, protection, the domination of the financiers, and colonial policy?then the question as to whether imperialism is necessary to capitalism becomes reduced to the ?flattest tautology?, because, in that case, ?imperialism is naturally a vital necessity for capitalism?, and so on. The best way to present Kautsky?s idea is to quote his own definition of imperialism, which is diametrically opposed to the substance of the ideas which I have set forth (for the objections coming from the camp of the German Marxists, who have been advocating similar ideas for many years already, have been long known to Kautsky as the objections of a definite trend in Marxism). Kautsky?s definition is as follows: ?Imperialism is a product of highly developed industrial capitalism. It consists in the striving of every industrial capitalist nation to bring under its control or to annex all large areas of agrarian [Kautsky?s italics] territory, irrespective of what nations inhabit it.? [1] This definition is of no use at all because it one-sidedly, i.e., arbitrarily, singles out only the national question (although the latter is extremely important in itself as well as in its relation to imperialism), it arbitrarily and inaccurately connects this question only with industrial capital in the countries which annex other nations, and in an equally arbitrary and inaccurate manner pushes into the forefront the annexation of agrarian regions. Imperialism is a striving for annexations?this is what the political part of Kautsky?s definition amounts to. It is correct, but very incomplete, for politically, imperialism is, in general, a striving towards violence and reaction. For the moment, however, we are interested in the economic aspect of the question, which Kautsky himself introduced into his definition. The inaccuracies in Kautsky?s definition are glaring. The characteristic feature of imperialism is not industrial but finance capital. It is not an accident that in France it was precisely the extraordinarily rapid development of finance capital, and the weakening of industrial capital, that from the eighties onwards gave rise to the extreme intensification of annexationist (colonial) policy. The characteristic feature of imperialism is precisely that it strives to annex not only agrarian territories, but even most highly industrialised regions (German appetite for Belgium; French appetite for Lorraine), because (1) the fact that the world is already partitioned obliges those contemplating a redivision to reach out for every kind of territory, and (2) an essential feature of imperialism is the rivalry between several great powers in the striving for hegemony, i.e., for the conquest of territory, not so much directly for themselves as to weaken the adversary and undermine his hegemony. (Belgium is particularly important for Germany as a base for operations against Britain; Britain needs Baghdad as a base for operations against Germany, etc.) Kautsky refers especially?and repeatedly?to English writers who, lie alleges, have given a purely political meaning to the word ?imperialism? in the sense that he, Kautsky, understands it. We take up the work by the English writer Hobson, Imperialism, which appeared in 1902, and there we read: ?The new imperialism differs from the older, first, in substituting for the ambition of a single growing empire the theory and the practice of competing empires, each motivated by similar lusts of political aggrandisement and commercial gain; secondly, in the dominance of financial or investing over mercantile interests.? [2] We see that Kautsky is absolutely wrong in referring to English writers generally (unless lie meant the vulgar English imperialists, or the avowed apologists for imperialism). We see that Kautsky, while claiming that he continues to advocate Marxism, as a matter of fact takes a step backward compared with the social-liberal Hobson, who more correctly takes into account two ?historically concrete? (Kautsky?s definition is a mockery of historical concreteness!) features of modern imperialism: (1) the competition between several imperialisms, and (2) the predominance of the financier over the merchant. If it is chiefly a question of the annexation of agrarian countries by industrial countries, then the role of the merchant is put in the forefront. Kautsky?s definition is not only wrong and un-Marxist. It serves as a basis for a whole system of views which signify a rupture with Marxist theory and Marxist practice all along the line. I shall refer to this later. The argument about words which Kautsky raises as to whether the latest stage of capitalism should be called imperialism or the stage of finance capital is not worth serious attention. Call it what you will, it makes no difference. The essence of the matter is that Kautsky detaches the politics of imperialism from its economics, speaks of annexations as being a policy ?preferred? by finance capital, and opposes to it another bourgeois policy which, he alleges, is possible on this very same basis of finance capital. It follows, then, that monopolies in the economy are compatible with non-monopolistic, non-violent, non-annexationist methods in politics. It follows, then, that the territorial division of the world, which was completed during this very epoch of finance capital, and which constitutes the basis of the present peculiar forms of rivalry between the biggest capitalist states, is compatible with a non-imperialist policy. The result is a slurring-over and a blunting of the most profound contradictions of the latest stage of capitalism, instead of an exposure of their depth; the result is bourgeois reformism instead of Marxism. Kautsky enters into controversy with the German apologist of imperialism and annexations, Cunow, who clumsily and cynically argues that imperialism is present-day capitalism; the development of capitalism is inevitable and progressive; therefore imperialism is progressive; therefore, we should grovel before it and glorify it! This is something like the caricature of the Russian Marxists which the Narodniks drew in 1894-95. They argued: if the Marxists believe that capitalism is inevitable in Russia, that it is progressive, then they ought to open a tavern and begin to implant capitalism! Kautsky?s reply to Cunow is as follows: imperialism is not present-day capitalism; it is only one of the forms of the policy of present-day capitalism. This policy we can and should fight, fight imperialism, annexations, etc. The reply seems quite plausible, but in effect it is a more subtle and more disguised (and therefore more dangerous) advocacy of conciliation with imperialism, because a ?fight? against the policy of the trusts and banks that does not affect the economic basis of the trusts and banks is mere bourgeois reformism and pacifism, the benevolent and innocent expression of pious wishes. Evasion of existing contradictions, forgetting the most important of them, instead of revealing their full depth?such is Kautsky?s theory, which has nothing in common with Marxism. Naturally, such a ?theory? can only serve the purpose of advocating unity with the Cunows! ?From the purely economic point of view,? writes Kautsky, ?it is not impossible that capitalism will yet go through a new phase, that of the extension of the policy of the cartels to foreign policy, the phase of ultra-imperialism,? [3] i.e., of a superimperialism, of a union of the imperialisms of the whole world and not struggles among them, a phase when wars shall cease under capitalism, a phase of ?the joint exploitation of the world by internationally united finance capital?. [4] We shall have to deal with this ?theory of ultra-imperialism? later on in order to show in detail how decisively and completely it breaks with Marxism. At present, in keeping with the general plan of the present work, we must examine the exact economic data on this question. ?From the purely economic point of view?, is ?ultra-imperialism? possible, or is it ultra-nonsense? If the purely economic point of view is meant to be a ?pure? abstraction, then all that can be said reduces itself to the following proposition: development is proceeding towards monopolies, hence, towards a single world monopoly, towards a single world trust. This is indisputable, but it is also as completely meaningless as is the statement that ?development is proceeding? towards the manufacture of foodstuffs in laboratories. In this sense the ?theory? of ultra-imperialism is no less absurd than a ?theory of ultra-agriculture? would be. If, however, we are discussing the ?purely economic? conditions of the epoch of finance capital as a historically concrete epoch which began at the turn of the twentieth century, then the best reply that one can make to the lifeless abstractions of ?ultraimperialism? (which serve exclusively a most reactionary aim: that of diverting attention from the depth of existing antagonisms) is to contrast them with the concrete economic realities of the present-day world economy. Kautsky?s utterly meaningless talk about ultra-imperialism encourages, among other things, that profoundly mistaken idea which only brings grist to the mill of the apologists of imperialism, i.e., that the rule of finance capital lessens the unevenness and contradictions inherent in the world economy, whereas in reality it increases them. R. Calwer, in his little book, An Introduction to the World Economy, [5] made an attempt to summarise the main, purely economic, data that enable one to obtain a concrete picture of the internal relations of the world economy at the turn of the twentieth century. He divides the world into five ?main economic areas?, as follows: (1) Central Europe (the whole of Europe with the exception of Russia and Great Britain); (2) Great Britain; (3) Russia; (4) Eastern Asia; (5) America; he includes the colonies in the ?areas? of the states to which they belong and ?leaves aside? a few countries not distributed according to areas, such as Persia, Afghanistan, and Arabia in Asia, Morocco and Abyssinia in Africa, etc. Here is a brief summary of the economic data he quotes on these regions. Principal economic areas Area Pop. Transport Trade Industry Million sq. miles Millions Railways (thou. km) Mercantile fleet (mill- ions tons) Imports, exports (thous-million marks) Output Of coal (mill. tons) Of pig iron (mill. tons) Number of cotton spindles (millions) 1) Central Europe 27.6 (23.6) 388 (146) 204 8 41 251 15 26 2) Britain 28.9 (28.6) 398 (355) 140 11 25 249 9 51 3) Russia 22 131 63 1 3 16 3 7 4) Eastern Asia 12 389 8 1 2 8 0.02 2 5) America 30 148 379 6 14 245 14 19 NOTE: The figures in parentheses show the area and population of the colonies. We see three areas of highly developed capitalism (high development of means of transport, of trade and of industry): the Central European, the British and the American areas. Among these are three states which dominate the world: Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. Imperialist rivalry and the struggle between these countries have become extremely keen because Germany has only an insignificant area and few colonies; the creation of ?Central Europe? is still a matter for the future, it is being born in the midst of a desperate struggle. For the moment the distinctive feature of the whole of Europe is political disunity. In the British and American areas, on the other hand, political concentration is very highly developed, but there is a vast disparity between the immense colonies of the one and the insignificant colonies of the other. In the colonies, however, capitalism is only beginning to develop. The struggle for South America is becoming more and more acute. There are two areas where capitalism is little developed: Russia and Eastern Asia. In the former, the population is extremely sparse, in the latter it is extremely dense; in the former political concentration is high, in the latter it does not exist. The partitioning of China is only just beginning, and the struggle for it between Japan, the U.S., etc., is continually gaining in intensity. Compare this reality?the vast diversity of economic and political conditions, the extreme disparity in the rate of development of the various countries, etc., and the violent struggles among the imperialist states?with Kautsky?s silly little fable about ?peaceful? ultra-imperialism. Is this not the reactionary attempt of a frightened philistine to hide from stern reality? Are not the international cartels which Kautsky imagines are the embryos of ?ultra-imperialism? (in the same way as one ?can? describe the manufacture of tablets in a laboratory as ultra-agriculture in embryo) an example of the division and the redivision of the world, the transition from peaceful division to non-peaceful division and vice versa? Is not American and other finance capital, which divided the whole world peacefully with Germany?s participation in, for example, the international rail syndicate, or in the international mercantile shipping trust, now engaged in redividing the world on the basis of a new relation of forces that is being changed by methods anything but peaceful? Finance capital and the trusts do not diminish but increase the differences in the rate of growth of the various parts of the world economy. Once the relation of forces is changed, what other solution of the contradictions can be found under capitalism than that of force? Railway statistics [6] provide remarkably exact data on the different rates of growth of capitalism and finance capital in world economy. In the last decades of imperialist development, the total length of railways has changed as follows: Railways (000 kilometers) 1890 1913 + Europe 224 346 +122 U.S. 268 411 +143 All colonies 82 125 210 347 +128 +222 Independent and semi-independent states of Asia and America 43 137 +94 Total 617 1,104 Thus, the development of railways has been most rapid in the colonies and in the independent (and semi-independent) states of Asia and America. Here, as we know, the finance capital of the four or five biggest capitalist states holds undisputed sway. Two hundred thousand kilometres of new railways in the colonies and in the other countries of Asia and America represent a capital of more than 40,000 million marks newly invested on particularly advantageous terms, with special guarantees of a good return and with profitable orders for steel works, etc., etc. Capitalism is growing with the greatest rapidity in the colonies and in overseas countries. Among the latter, new imperialist powers are emerging (e.g., Japan). The struggle among the world imperialisms is becoming more acute. The tribute levied by finance capital on the most profitable colonial and overseas enterprises is increasing. In the division of this ?booty?, an exceptionally large part goes to countries which do not always stand at the top of the list in the rapidity of the development of their productive forces. In the case of the biggest countries, together with their colonies, the total length of railways was as follows: (000 kilometres) 1890 1913 U.S. 268 413 +145 British Empire 107 208 +101 Russia 32 78 +46 Germany 43 68 +25 France 41 63 +22 Total 491 830 +339 Thus, about 80 per cent of the total existing railways are concentrated in the hands of the five biggest powers. But the concentration of the ownership of these railways, the concentration of finance capital, is immeasurably greater since the French and British millionaires, for example, own an enormous amount of shares and bonds in American, Russian and other railways. Thanks to her colonies, Great Britain has increased the length of ?her? railways by 100,000 kilometres, four times as much as Germany. And yet, it is well known that the development of productive forces in Germany, and especially the development of the coal and iron industries, has been incomparably more rapid during this period than in Britain?not to speak of France and Russia. In 1892, Germany produced 4,900,000 tons of pig-iron and Great Britain produced 6,800,000 tons; in 1912, Germany produced 17,600,000 tons and Great Britain, 9,000,000 tons. Germany, therefore, had an overwhelming superiority over Britain in this respect. [7] The question is: what means other than war could there be under capitalism to overcome the disparity between the development of productive forces and the accumulation of capital on the one side, and the division of colonies and spheres of influence for finance capital on the other? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes [1] Die Neue Zeit, 1914, 2 (B. 32), S. 909, Sept. 11, 1914; cf. 1915, 2, S. 107 et seq. ?Lenin [2] Hobson, Imperialism, London, 1902, p. 324. ?Lenin [3] Die Neue Zeit, 1914, 2 (B. 32), S. 921, Sept. 11, 1914. Cf. 1915, 2, S. 107 et seq. ?Lenin [4] Ibid., 1915, 1, S. 144, April 30, 1915. ?Lenin [5] R. Calwer, Einf? hrung in die Weltwirtschaft, Berlin, 1906. ?Lenin [6] Statistisches Jahrbuch f?r das deutsche Reich, 1915; Archiv f?r Eisenbahnwesen, 1892. Minor details for the distribution of railways among the colonies of the various countries in 1890 had to be estimated approximately. ?Lenin [7] Cf. also Edgar Crammond, ?The Economic Relations of the British and German Empires? in The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, July 1914, p. 777 et seq. ?Lenin This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Dec 4 10:38:19 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:38:19 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] UNTOLD STORY OF ELECTION 2008: THE DEATH OF THE NRA Message-ID: <4937CF3C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> December 4th, 2008 http://www.alternet.org ___________________________________________________________ UNTOLD STORY OF ELECTION 2008: THE DEATH OF THE NRA By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet Among the big losers in November were the NRA and the myth of the once-feared "NRA Voter." Reform of our gun laws is on the way. http://www.alternet.org/rights/109841/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Dec 4 10:41:27 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:41:27 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Monopoly competition Message-ID: <4937CFF8.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> At the same time the monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher system. ^^^^ CB: Monopoly capital doesn't eliminate competition but gives rise to monopoly competition. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Dec 4 11:00:02 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:00:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Call to Action Message-ID: <4937D453.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> A Call to Action Statement of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA at its November 15-16th 2008 meeting in New York -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The National Committee of the Communist Party USA calls on all of those concerned about the economic crisis that has gripped our country and the world to unite and fight for the election mandate. We hail the tens of millions who came to the polls and registered an historic defeat of the ultra right. These voters saw through the direct and indirect appeals to racism and voted for Obama. We salute those who rejected the Republican anti-communist, anti-immigrant attacks and numerous other slanders and voted their hopes and not their fears. Their votes represent the highest expression of patriotism. Our party has a proud history in the fight against racism, for unity and equality. We fully appreciate what this election represents in terms of the ongoing freedom struggle. The election of Barack Obama was indeed historic. While many of the pundits and other candidates rejected the idea, it was clear that the majority of voters were ready to elect our nation?s first African American President. The over 66 million votes cast for Obama represent a major blow against racism. Obama?s grassroots election tactics created a new model of election campaigns, which will change; forever the way elections are run. The extraordinarily innovative use of the Internet helped build a powerful movement of millions and created a very effective ground operation. While the Republicans ridiculed Obama?s background as a community organizer, it was those skills that made it possible to build a movement with thousands of dedicated volunteers, raise record amounts of money, draw record crowds and ultimately win the election. In order to win the Obama campaign had to battle racism and promote racial unity, and they did. The great strength of his campaign was its ability to unite people of all races and nationalities. Organized labor made an historic contribution to this effort. A quarter million workers trekked door to door, in state after state, convincing their fellow workers to ?do the right thing,? including put aside racial prejudice, and elect a pro-labor president. This was very effective and will have long-term effects on the entire workingclass movement. The Communist Party has always been confident that racial divisions, though entrenched, can be overcome when real class interests are understood -- and that?s what happened in this historic election. We also want to emphasis the role of the African American vote, which made a massive move to the Obama camp after his primary victory in predominantly white Iowa. African Americans voted against the Republicans in the high ninety percent ? in some areas, the vote was almost unanimous for Obama and the Democrats. This was historic, as was the massive majority support of youth. The huge Latino vote took on new political significance, and women came forward in large numbers. This broad electoral coalition included many independents and anti-Bush Republicans. This election shows that our country may have never been a center-right country and is in fact moving towards politics that are far more progressive. It was a landslide victory that is realigning our nation politically. President-elect Obama faces enormous challenges both domestically and internationally. There is much speculation as to what he will do. We believe that the key to success lies in Obama?s ongoing relationship with the magnificent coalition that won the day on November 4th and with continuing to expand that coalition. That movement is still intact and will be present in massive numbers at the inauguration. Throughout the campaign at his record-breaking rallies, Sen. Obama constantly emphasized that his all-people?s movement was built from the bottom up. We are very mindful of what the President-elect said in his acceptance speech, ?This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change.? As one union supporter said just days after the election, ?Now is the time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. There is legislation to be drafted, there is organizing to be done. Obama can?t do it by himself.? It?s time for post-election action to guarantee that the American people?s ?great expectations? become reality. Again, the movement approach is needed, aimed at winning the grass roots and moving the labor and peoples movement to the next level. There is still a tough fight ahead. The ultra right is down -- but not out. With the sharpening economic crisis wreaking havoc, emergency measures are needed to help Main Street. With millions losing their homes and jobs, it is time for action. A Chance to Make Change Millions of people have responded to the Obama campaign?s request for input on what the priorities of the new administration should be. Labor, the women?s movement, and other people?s organizations are already making proposals that include the following: -- A stimulus package of a half trillion dollars or more, to create millions of jobs, including a public works program. -- Emergency help for the jobless and the victims of the sub prime mortgage crisis. -- Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, so more workers can have unions. -- A concrete timetable for pulling out our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as rapidly as possible. -- Step up the campaign for universal healthcare through such means as passing HR676; preserve and improve Medicare and Medicaid; extend children?s health care plans and unemployment compensation. -- Emergency aid to cities and states. In addition, there are calls to review and where necessary repeal Bush?s executive orders, as well as the Patriot Act. United action is called for, against California?s Proposition 8 (gay marriage ban), against racist violence and to end the ICE raids and deportations of immigrant workers, and for comprehensive, democratic immigration reform including a path towards citizenship. While we participate in all of these struggles, we must take part in the important conversations on the future of our country, including the socialist alternative. Building the Communist Party is something positive and necessary; history shows that a large Communist contingent in the people?s movement, and a wide circulation of our press, contribute substantially to advancing the cause of democracy and social progress. It is a new day. Great changes are possible. Yes, it?s time for action. On January 20th, big history will be made in our country. The mobilization by the labor and people?s movement for a People?s Inauguration will put the fight for the mandate on the mark and ready to go. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Dec 4 22:01:10 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 00:01:10 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Auto notes and comments Message-ID: Earlier today I watched the government hearing on the auto bailouts in their entirety and then watched Chris Matthews ?hardball? news program featuring various spokesperson in government and Chrysler CEO. Chrysler?s CEO - for instance, presented a 120 page document out lining its need for $7 billion as a bridge to its reorganization. General Motors requested a total of $19 billion and at least $4 billion before the month is out. Ford, being more modest, requested a total of $9 billion stating that its survival did not depend on the government loans. Labor cost, as stated by the UAW representative and agreed to by Chrysler CEO on ?Hardball? amounts to 10% - one dime out of each dollar, of cost. Collectively the auto companies are asking for an insignificant amount of money when compared to the hundreds of billions - nay, trillions, of dollars poured into the financial sector of the economy, during the Saving and Loans scams of the late 1980s and the current crisis of cooking the books to fool the world into believing that valueless financial products can forever fetch a price in the market. ************************* Polls indicate that 61% of the American people feel that the auto industry should not be bail out. Supporters of the bailout state that bankruptcy or collapse of the industry would place in jeopardy 2.5 - 3 millions jobs. Experts have come forth stating that allowing General Motors to collapse - go out of business, would drag down Chrysler and impact Ford and end up costing the government 8 - 10 the probable cost of a bailout passage. These cost are measured in unemployment insurance (at a 26 year high already), health care cost and the impact auto employment have on all the local economies in the economy. Why do 61% of the American people feel that the auto industry should not be bailed out? Of the 2.5 to 3 millions jobs - (wages or paychecks), at stake is roughly one million UAW retirees receiving from $350.00 to $3,000 in monthly pension checks. For example, with my monthly pension check from Chrysler, the rent on my apartment is paid as well as everything else including those frequent trips to Wal Mart. My consumption drives the market. A reduction - say 30%, in the monthly pension checks of automotive retirees would have an immediate negative impact on the economy and employment. Should the company be forced to honor the pension agreements it has made? Unfortunately, many citizens believe with all their hearts and soul that my pension check somehow comes out of the price of vehicles produced and sold in the market. Nothing could be further from the truth. Then again pension funds across the board have been hit by the financial crisis losing vast sums as stock prices across the board fall and institutional investors try and bail out a wide range of investments. Why do 61% of the American people feel that the auto industry should not be bailed out? From all indications from the national media the mood ?up on the hill? is not favorable for an industry bailout. ************* Current wage rates at the unionized Big Three are roughly $28 an hour for production workers and roughly $25 an hour in the non-union South auto plants. Ok, the UAW negotiated in its recent contract a wage tier that pays new hired workers 50% below the wages of the non union autoworkers of the South. That is to say basic entry wages will begin at roughly $12.00 an hour. Here is the incentive for the auto companies to offer lucrative buy out packages to the long seniority workers. ************** In Flint, the steady attack by General Motors and Delphi on jobs has reached crisis proportions. In the late 1970s, GM employed 80,000 workers in Flint. In 1998, this number shrunk to 27,000. Today, GM employs 14,500 with 3,100 workers at Delphi. Fifteen short years later, the Flint workers were the highest paid in the nation. Today, household income in Flint is below the national average. Now, as a result of the changes in the economy, GM and Delphi are putting the squeeze on a shrinking work force, asking for unprecedented cuts in wages and benefits. ?We?re building a high-quality product, and they?re telling us we?re worthless,? declared one worker. The corporations are telling American workers to settle for a steadily declining living standard or a life in the streets. In reality, these formerly secure workers are heading that way anyway. Delphi workers in China work for $3 an hour. Delphi has filed for bankruptcy while demanding unprecedented wage and benefit cuts from the United Auto Workers. Even before it filed for bankruptcy, retirees from Delphi were horrified to receive notices in the mail that Delphi pension funds were not solvent and their pensions may be radically reduced. Active workers were asked to give up as much as 63 percent of their pay (down to accepting wages of $10 per hour), along with long standing benefits, such as health care and vacation days. At a recent UAW meeting of Delphi workers, a shocked, angry and confused membership was told that their union would stand tall. However, the union leadership offered no specifics on how they would deal with the situation. Since then, many employees at a Delphi facility have been crowding into the plant hospital with elevated blood pressure from the stress. ************ If trying to deal with Hurricane Delphi wasn?t enough, GM and UAW just announced an agreement on how to cut health care costs 25% for active employees, a sizable blow to retiree health benefits (something UAW President Gettlefinger promised he would not touch). It?s a bitter pill that some UAW members must now swallow ? in the new global economy, battles cannot be won at the bargaining table. More and more, the workers are standing alone against a government that cares only about accommodating the national and international needs of global capitalism. The shameful reduction of the safety net continues. What is new is that today more and more formerly secure workers are being thrown into the social revolution. Though unaware of the cause of the problem or the solution, a growing class of destitute workers is forming that has nowhere to turn. There is no way to go back to what once was, only forward. But this requires that the people become conscious of the entire process and their role in making the political changes that are possible today. ******************************* Waistline **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 5 09:27:26 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:27:26 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Bridge Loan for America's Auto Industry References: Message-ID: <4939101D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Dear Iris, (http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/8pad1M11Nq-r/) Our economy is in crisis, and now we are on the brink of losing our U.S. auto industry. If GM, Ford and Chrysler collapse, the effects will be felt everywhere. From machinists at parts manufacturers to beauty salons in auto plant towns, millions of jobs would be lost-deepening the impact of the current recession for all. The stakes couldn?t be higher, and our lawmakers need to take decisive action now to avoid unthinkable consequences. _Urge Congress to offer a "bridge loan" to our automakers and help get our economy moving again_ (http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/8pad1M11Nq-r/) . An emergency bridge loan, enabling domestic automakers to keep the production lines moving, is a necessary step to revitalize the U.S. auto industry, protect American jobs and begin rebuilding our economy. The automakers have submitted plans to cut costs and strengthen products, and the UAW has announced that workers will do their part, too. But this is not enough. The automakers need additional financial resources to weather this unprecedented economic downturn. _Contact lawmakers and demand they support an immediate bridge loan to GM, Ford and Chrysler_ (http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/8pad1M11Nq-r/) . The bridge loan requested by the automakers and endorsed by the UAW is not a blank check like the ones Henry Paulson has handed out to Wall Street banks. All three automakers have provided detailed roadmaps to Congress for how they will utilize these loans to revitalize their companies. Time is running out, and we need Congress to act now. Hearings are being held this week with the automakers, and Congress is expected to vote on the rescue plan next week. Your voice can make the difference for workers across the country. _Contact your lawmakers now and encourage them to support an immediate bridge loan to GM, Ford and Chrysler_ (http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/8pad1M11Nq-r/) . Thank you for all you do. Together, we can save good union jobs and help rebuild America?s middle class. In solidarity, Marc Laitin AFL-CIO Online Mobilization Coordinator This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 5 09:47:12 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:47:12 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What form would nationalization take ? Message-ID: <493914BF.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Former New Jersey Governor was on tv finance show this morn calling for a "restructuring" of the auto companies: lets restructure the property relations. MICHAEL MOORE: SAVE THE AUTO INDUSTRY AND KICK ITS CEOS TO THE CURB By Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com These auto execs don't deserve a dime. Fire all of them, and take over the industry for the good of the workers, the country and the planet. http://www.alternet.org/workplace/110051/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Dec 5 19:44:03 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2008 21:44:03 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What form would nationalization take ? Message-ID: MICHAEL MOORE: SAVE THE AUTO INDUSTRY AND KICK ITS CEOS TO THE CURB By Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com _http://www.alternet.org/workplace/110051/_ (http://www.alternet.org/workplace/110051/) >> 1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes): The Big Three are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail (a corresponding public-works project across the country will build the rail lines and tracks). This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones. 2. You could buy all the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion, or anything? Take the money and buy the company! (You're going to demand collateral anyway if you give them the "loan," and because we know they will default on that loan, you're going to own the company in the end as it is. So why wait? Just buy them out now.) 3. None of us want government officials running a car company, but there are some very smart transportation geniuses who could be hired to do this. We need a Marshall Plan to switch us off oil-dependent vehicles and get us into the 21st century. This proposal is not radical or rocket science. It just takes one of the smartest people ever to run for the presidency to pull it off. What I'm proposing has worked before. The national rail system was in shambles in the '70s. The government took it over. A decade later, it was turning a profit, so the government returned it to private/public hands, and got a couple billion dollars put back in the treasury. This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure -- and millions of jobs. More importantly, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession.<< Comment Such are Michael Moore's suggestion for saving the auto industry and the industrial infrastructure it represents. Auto has always experienced feast to famine movement due to its extremely cyclical nature. Between 1950's and 1980's (more specifically the Chrysler bailout period) the downturn cycle ran every three years, with local and state governments conforming to this cycle, providing a reasonable social safety net for these temporarily unemployed workers and the workers of the Midwest as a whole. Throughout the 1980's the social safety net was eroded as the means to drive the living standard of the entire working class down and basically destroy the "middle class" that was part of the post WW II landscape. . Today's job report says that 533,000 jobs were lost in November. 1 in 10 mortgages are in foreclosure or one month behind. 3 million are currently collecting unemployment and retail sales the day after Thanksgiving was the worse in 34 years. Unemployment if officially at 6.7% or in the real world running at 13% nationwide. 6.7% unemployed means that 10 million people are without work looking for jobs. Well . . . 13% means twice as many - 20 million looking for jobs. Now auto industry and its directly relating part suppliers involve roughly 750 different pensions. The auto industry pays roughly $150 billion years as annual taxes. A group of Senators earnestly believe in their hearts and soul that General Motors should be driven into bankruptcy - along with Chrysler, and let the "free market" sort things out. Thus, the issue today is being frames as bankruptcy versus government help up to and including nationalization. Interestingly, one year ago a discussion about nationalization of any aspect of the economy was impossible in America. What has changed in America is the thinking of millions of people, many of whom made the Obama victory possible. In another period of American history what would have been talked about during a downturn or economic crisis would have been how to get the blacks or women out of industry. Today such a discussion is increasingly impossible. I fall on the side of nationalization at the end of the day, but deeply feel that the social safety net has to be dramatically expanded, over and beyond the government programs of the 1950's and early 60's. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Sat Dec 6 06:18:00 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:18:00 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] why are union's rights repealed ? Message-ID: <493A3538.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> _Click here: Washington Times - Hoyer asks why union's rights repealed_ (http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/05/hoyer-wants-explanation-for-repeal-of- unions-right/) in solidarity jim This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Sat Dec 6 09:15:38 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:15:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] MICHAEL MOORE'S ADVICE Message-ID: <493A5EDA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> MICHAEL MOORE'S ADVICE FOR THE AUTO INDUSTRY IS FAR TOO CAVALIER FOR SUCH A SERIOUS ISSUE By Toby Barlow, AlterNet Moore likes to complain about Detroit's 'gas-guzzling, inferior products,' but he's ignoring the great achievements of millions of its auto workers. http://www.alternet.org/workplace/110531/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Sat Dec 6 09:17:16 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:17:16 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A letter to Michael Moore Message-ID: <493A5F3C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> JOHN CORTEZ A letter to Michael Moore _John Cortez_ (mailto:) Automotive News | November 24, 2008 - 3:34 pm EST Dear Mr. Moore: Let me start by stating upfront that I?m a lifelong Michigander and a contract employee of General Motors. I should also add that, unlike many at GM, I have long been a fan of your work, the work of a man I had considered to be about truth, and truth-telling, even when it hurts, and hurts so bad it?s funny in a pathetic sort of way. On ?Larry King Live? last week, you didn?t tell the truth, and it left me flabbergasted. In your defense, I think you did it out of ignorance, not malice. But it was an untruth nonetheless, and one that will have very damaging ramifications for Detroit and for the nation. When is the last time you were in a showroom of new GM products? Or Ford or Chrysler for that matter? I?d guess years, if not decades. And yet, you felt comfortable going on CNN and disparaging the current roster of cars and trucks from GM, calling them ?crap,? ?the wrong vehicles,? and implying that they? re the same old garbage that no one wants to buy! It was hugely irresponsible and couldn?t have come at a worse time for our home state. Yes, many of the products of the past were in fact garbage. I was a journalist for AutoWeek magazine through most of the ?90s, and I drove every car and truck from every manufacturer on the planet, and the GM products were, with the exception of the Corvette, largely lousy. However, Mr. Moore, this is 2008. Have you been in a new Chevrolet Malibu? It ?s better than anything Toyota or Honda has, gets better mileage, won North American Car of the Year, and is built by the UAW in America. Have you seen the Buick Enclave? Gotta be the best-looking crossover on the market, is selling like crazy, even though ?no one? wants GM products, and is built by the UAW in Lansing. Have you driven a Cadillac CTS-V? Even the highly discriminating German press says it?s the best-performing luxury sports sedan on the global market today. It?s built by the UAW in Lansing. The point is, whether you care to admit it or not, right now GM?s product house is IN ORDER. It has the best lineup of cars and trucks, top to bottom, it has ever had. Honest to God. The influential automotive press, across the country and around the world, has realized it, and it is only a matter of time until the public does as well. The newest models had been selling well, and the restructuring already under way had been taking hold, and Wall Street had noticed. The stock price was $43 just a year ago. That?s a sure sign that Wall Street approved of the changes in progress. Then the credit market collapsed, and GM could get no financing to continue business, and most of its customers could get no loans to buy vehicles. And that is where things stand now. Is the weak balance sheet at GM as compared to Toyota and others the fault of past mismanagement, poor products and legacy burdens, and at least partially self-inflicted? You betcha, as the governor of Alaska might say. Absolutely. The company, with an assist from the federal government (national health care, anyone?), bears some of the blame for putting itself in this precarious position. Is it to blame for the catastrophic events of THIS year? No. Wall Street is, and it?s getting $700 billion in handouts, no questions asked. Wall Street executives flew down there in their own jets to get it and no one batted an eye. Now the auto industry is in D.C., with its collective hand out, asking for a pittance by comparison -- $25 billion, in LOANS, not bailout money -- and getting hammered left and right and criticized on national TV because of it. Your irresponsible comments will only fuel the fires of hatred that burn for the Big 3 and for Detroit. And since we all know that politicians don?t put cream in their coffee without first consulting the polls, we know how this is going to go down. America doesn?t want to lend money to the auto industry, so Congress won?t. And we?ll all go down in flames here in Michigan. The UAW you claim to support so strongly will be SOL. Downtown Detroit, which has worked so hard at coming back, will be a literal ghost town, instead of the after-5 p.m. ghost town it largely is now. Restaurants, salons, shops, everything in southeast Michigan will close, and the ripple effect will begin, and spread across America, and it will be horrific. I don?t see how to avoid it, if we don?t get this bridge loan. But I know what I?d like to see, and that is for you to go on TV or write a blog or say something somewhere that indicates you?ve seen GM?s new vehicles. Test drive a Cadillac CTS and tell the UAW workers in Lansing what you think of the vehicle they work so hard to build. It may be the last one they get a chance to make. It?s that bad. And for the life of me, I can?t figure out why the rest of America is so indifferent to the fate of our home state. Drop dead, they are telling us. Do you have any idea why? This isn?t about helping the three CEOs you saw sitting on the witness bench on Capitol Hill; this is about keeping this region -- and ultimately this nation --from economic apocalypse. I apologize for the long letter. This is fairly important stuff. The city and state I love are on the brink of becoming a wasteland. America can help us, but doesn?t want to and doesn?t care. Any idea how that feels? Sincerely, John John Cortez is a former reporter for AutoWeek, a sister publication of Automotive News. He now is vice president of executive communications for Hass This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Dec 6 12:42:35 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2008 14:42:35 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Chicago workers occupy plant Message-ID: Hopefully a first salvo of the fightback. -- Yoshie <_http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ue061208.html_ (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ue061208.html) > UE Members in Chicago Need Our Help! UE Local 1110 members in Chicago who work at Republic Windows and Doors, are now engaged in a battle with their employer as well as the giant Bank of America. The bank -- which has already been given $25 billion dollars in taxpayer bailout monies -- is refusing to extend credit to the company. The national Jobs with Justice coalition has taken up the fight on behalf of these UE members, launching a campaign to expose the shameful behavior by Bank of America -- as well as the many other outrages of the government bailout. To lend a hand, click here. <_http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica/_ (http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica/) > Do your part today to support these fellow workers and push back against the Wall Street and big bank rip-off of taxpayers. Please participate in the Jobs with Justice Week of Action for a People's Bailout Now! To lend a hand please visit the main Jobs with Justice page.<_http://www.jwj.org/_ (http://www.jwj.org/) > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Chicago Factory Occupied by Lee Sustar In a tactic rarely used in the U.S. since the labor struggles of the 1930s, the workers, members of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) Local 1110, refused to leave the plant on December 5, its last scheduled day of operation. "We decided to do it because this is money that belongs to us," said Maria Roman, who's worked at the plant for eight years. "These are our rights." Word of the occupation spread quickly both among labor and immigrant rights activists -- the overwhelming majority of the workers are Latinos. Seven local TV news stations showed up to do interviews and live reports, and a steady stream of activists arrived to bring donations of food and money and to plan solidarity actions. Management claims that it can't continue operations because its main creditor, Bank of America (BoA), refuses to make any more loans to the company. After workers picketed BoA headquarters December 3, bank officials agreed to sit down with Republic management and UE to discuss the matter at a December 5 meeting arranged by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill), said UE organizer Leah Fried. BoA had said that it couldn't discuss the matter with the union directly without written approval from Republic's management. But Republic representatives failed to show up at the meeting, and plant managers prepared to close the doors for good -- violating the federal WARN Act that requires 60 days notice of a plant closure. The workers decided this couldn't go unchallenged. "The company and Bank of America are throwing the ball to one another, and we're in the middle," said Vicente Rangel, a shop steward and former vice president of Local 1110. Many workers had suspected the company was planning to go out of business -- and perhaps restart operations elsewhere. Several said managers had removed both production and office equipment in recent days. Furthermore, while inventory records indicated there were plenty of parts in the plant, workers on the production line found shortages. And the order books, while certainly down from the peak years of the housing boom, didn't square with management's claims of a total collapse. "Where did all those windows go?" one worker asked. Workers were especially outraged that Bank of America, which recently received a bailout in taxpayer money, won't provide credit to Republic. "They get $25 billion from the government, and won't loan a few million to this company so workers can keep their jobs?" said Ricardo Caceres, who has worked at the plant for six years. The members of Local 1110 have a history of struggle. In 2004, they decertified the Central States Joint Board -- a union notorious for corruption and sweetheart contracts with management -- and brought in UE, a far more democratic organization. In May of this year, Local 1110 mobilized for a contract by organizing a "practice" picket, and 70 workers used their lunch break to confront the boss with a petition listing their demands. The workers were able to turn back the company's effort to win major concessions and won solid pay increases. Now, management is trying to get revenge by pocketing money that belongs to the workers. UE officials and workers acknowledge that it will be difficult to stop the plant from closing. But they're determined to get the money owed to them -- and they believe that by fighting, they can set an example for other workers facing layoffs and plant closures as the recession deepens. Negotiations are set for Monday, December 8. Whatever happens, however, the workers have already sent a message to employers that if they violate workers rights and the law, they can expect a fight. "This is a message to the workers of America," said Vicente Rangel, the shop steward. "If we stand together, we will prevail until justice is done, and we get what we're due." What YOU Can Do If negotiations with Bank of America fail to resolve the issue, there will be a picket of BoA's Chicago headquarters at 231 S. La Salle on Tuesday, December 9 at 12 noon. Members of Local 1110 need your support. Make checks payable to the UE Local 1110 Solidarity Fund, and mail to: 37 S. Ashland, Chicago, IL 60607. Messages of support can be sent to _leahfried at gmail.com_ (mailto:leahfried at gmail.com) . For more information, call UE at 312-829-8300. At the Jobs with Justice Web site, you can send a message of protest to Bank of America. <_http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica/_ (http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/bankofamerica/) > Workers occupying the Republic Windows & Doors factory slated for closure are vowing to remain in the Chicago plant until they win the $1.5 million in severance and vacation pay owed them by management. The call to action was first published on the Web site of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) on 5 December 2008. Lee Suster's article was first published by SocialistWorker.org on 6 December 2008. **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 8 07:09:40 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:09:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] DEMAND JUSTICE FOR LORENE PARKER Message-ID: <493CE454.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> DEMAND JUSTICE FOR LORENE PARKER - STOP BANK OF AMERICA'S FORECLOSURE OF HER HOME and SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH UE UNION WORKERS OCCUPYING CHICAGO FACTORY PROTEST RALLY, WEDS., DEC. 10, 12:00 NOON BANK OF AMERICA Guardian Building, Congress at Griswold, downtown Detroit Bank of America - Bank of OpportunityT OPPORTUNITY? OPPORTUNITY TO BE FORECLOSED ON AND GET THROWN INTO THE STREETS BY BANK OF AMERICA, WHILE THE BANK GETS $25 BILLION IN TAXPAYER BAILOUT FUNDS! DETROIT SAYS, NO THANKS. Lorene Parker of Detroit fell behind on her mortgage with Bank of America when she had large medical bills stemming from undergoing a heart and liver double transplant. She tried to contact Bank of America over a period of months to request relief on her mortgage because of her medical hardship. The bank's response? It is moving ahead with foreclosure proceedings and has scheduled a sheriff's sale of Ms. Parker's home on December 11. DEMAND THE ILLEGAL SHERIFF'S SALE BE STOPPED AND BANK OF AMERICA IMMEDIATELY NEGOTIATE A LOAN MODIFICATION WITH LORENE PARKER! UE union workers at the Republic Doors and Windows factory in Chicago have been occupying the plant since Dec. 5. Management suddenly announced the factory would close without giving the workers the 60 day notice required under the WARN Act. It said workers would not get the severance pay and vacation pay they are owed because Bank of America backed out of its loan with the company. BANK OF AMERICA - PAY THE CHICAGO UE WORKERS AND STOP UNION BUSTING! Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions Phone (313) 887-4344, Web site: www.moratorium-mi.org, Email: moratorium at moratoium-mi.org This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 8 14:43:17 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:43:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bridge loan to Detroit 3 cheaper Message-ID: <493D4EA6.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Bridge loan to Detroit 3 cheaper for taxpayers than bankruptcy, study says By _Ryan Beene_ (mailto:rbeene at crain.com) This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Mon Dec 8 16:48:00 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 18:48:00 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bridge loan to Detroit 3 cheaper Message-ID: In a message dated 12/8/2008 5:00:15 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, _the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com_ (mailto:the.buffalo.in.the.midst at gmail.com) writes: >> Charles... tell us... do you give a fuck about anyone else in the world's economic/physical health and well-being besides your UAW union 'friends'? If so, how do you reconcile that with your otherwise planet-raping belief that it is somehow of utmost importance to bail out an obsolete DIRTY industry that has done untold trillions of dollars worth of damage to the planet and it's inhabitants and employs no more than a handful of US workers all told (including the ancillary codependent industries of the region)? A response IS expected << Comment Until this year the annual rate of new vehicle purchases has been roughly 17 million for the past seven years. The world wide market is projected at between 50 - 65 million for the next decade or so. Without question automotive production and Ford ism has given American capitalism much of its distinguishing characteristic for the past century. The passage of the automobile from a toy of the rich and wealthy into an affordable mode of transportation for the working class changed American society. The issue facing most auto workers is economic survival and resisting falling wage rates. Whether or not one or all three of the American auto producers are bailed out or ultimately survive well into the next decade, will in fact have nothing whatsoever to do with the volume of automotive production world wide and in America. In fact the American producers dominate a little less than 50% of the America market with Toyota, Nissan and Honda commanding the loin share of the other 50%. Whether or not one supports a bailout - bridge loan, for the American producers is purely a tactical and individual inclination . . . . in my opinion. Roughly 60% of the American people oppose bailing out the American auto companies due to a 50 year anti-union orientation and other ideological hate. Ones attitude toward automotive production and its impact on the environment is of course a different question all together. Me, I support a government bailout of the industry and beefing up pensions along with taking health care out of the private sector. In my opinion the new car market could be immediately halved and then halved again in 24 months and then halved again while society concentrates on a different form of mass transit. I do not advocate doing away with the automobile, individual transportation and feel that 2 million new vehicles a year could more than adequately service our needs for private modes of transportation. On the issue of power train and engine source I favor fuel cell technology and various hybrids in the real world. I do believe the automotive industry is wrongly configured as a result of the bourgeois mode of producing. I lean against the idea that today the automotive industry is obsolete. Waistline **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From dogangoecmen at aol.com Mon Dec 8 14:08:57 2008 From: dogangoecmen at aol.com (dogangoecmen at aol.com) Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:08:57 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?Bayku=C5=9F=3A_Turkish_Journal_for_Phi?= =?utf-8?q?losophical_Writings?= Message-ID: <8CB279051E1915E-E00-5AF@WEBMAIL-MB03.sysops.aol.com> De?erli Arkada?lar, Bayku?: Felsefe Yaz?lar? Dergisinin ?zne kuram?n? konu edinen ???nc? say?s? ??kt?. A?a??da i?indekilerin listesi bulunmaktad?r. L?tfen yayiniz. Dear Friends,??The third issue of Bayku?: Turkish Journal for Philosophical Writings is published. Below you find the list of contents. You are welcome to forward. Liebe Freundinnen und Freunde, die dritte Nummer der Bayku?: Zeitschrift f?r philosophische Schriften ist herausgekommen. Unten findet sich das Inhaltsverzeichnis. Bitte leiten Sie weiter. Do?an G??men --------------------------- ??indekiler Contents ?nhaltverzeichnis Bayku??tan... From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Dec 9 09:37:04 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 11:37:04 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama Victory Historic! Message-ID: The defeat of John McCain and Sarah Palin was a victory for the workers of America and the workers of America and indeed the world, understands this clearly. But, this defeat is not the end, and if anything at all, the beginning of the battle to shape a different kind of consciousness amongst the American workers. Obama's victory opened the door for the next step in the battle for real change in this country. It has been a month since the election of Obama, of whom I voted for. It has taken a good month for me to believe and grasp the logic of American voters electing a black man to the office of President. Obama's election is proof of change. Elections, as everyone and anyone knows who has ever taken an active part in one as campaign worker or candidate is a very practical matter and not the stuff of alleged "strategic" and "tactical" "Marxist" considerations outside the field of engagement. That is to say, if one is engaging the election process as a political force in combat, one can concretely speak of strategy, tactics, disposition of forces and so on. Arguing on the basis of what Lenin would have done or how Lenin?s party engaged the political sphere and electoral politics during the transition from agricultural-feudal social relations to modern bourgeois-industrial relations 100 years ago is useless. America is nothing like feudal Russia. With the election of Barack Obama we are at the beginning of an emerging political polarization in this country. Obama?s election marks a turning point in American politics. Millions of every day Americans, disgusted with the corruption, stupidity and immorality of the Bush Administration, overcame the century old legacies of slavery and voted for an African American president as a protest vote against the "free market" ideologists deaf ear to the economic woes of the workers. This vote also expressed the broader changes in our working class and outlines the social revolution underway with its abrupt change in the thinking and culture of America. At the same time whole sections of the country went overwhelmingly for McCain. In this election McCain represented all that is old, degenerate, racist, discriminatory and utter capitalist in our culture. Even states such as Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina, which ended up in the "blue" column, were within a whisper of tipping in the direction of the Republican Party. For the most part, the McCain voters were from the small towns and out of the way places, increasingly unable to make ends meet, and dispossessed of any future under the current economic system. Any shift in the thinking of these workers is worth noting because it is precisely these workers that in the past century were the road block to the revolutionary movement. Today, a huge section of these historically bribed workers are being drawn upon the spontaneous path of fighting for food, clothes, shelter, medical care and all the things in our society that our society considers socially necessary means of life. Eight years ago many, if not most of these same workers voted for Bush W and twenty years ago these same workers - as a population group, were the social basis of the Reagan Revolution. Reagan was of course the political response to the 1965 Watts Rebellion. Millions of these McCain voters were in the strategic Rust Belt area. This geographical heart of the American working class has been the political center of gravity of American working class politics for decades. These are the workers whose connections to society, organization, and community make them a strategic force in the developing revolution in this country. Swinging a narrow section of these workers away from the Republican Party and defeating McCain-Palin and through them ushering in the virtual destruction of the Republican Party as national party, set the stage for the current intensifying moral and ideological struggle against the free market ideological fascists. The ascendancy of Obama to the White House has no comparison in the past century, because there was no possibility of a black man running for President and being elected. Who does not know that most of the past century was dominated by the fact of legal segregation. Here, I recall the Kennedy election so glamorized by our bourgeoisie. The fact of the matter is that Kennedy?s people told the great singer and dancer Sammy Davis Jr. not to marry Kim Novak because a mixed race marry would threaten his presidential campaign. The Obama campaign was a campaign of and for change and this change, his election is historic or history altering. Revolutionaries of course, celebrate the dismantling of historical barriers. At the same time, we must strive to see these historic points within the context of the line of march of the revolution. The most conservative sector of the working class the once bribed worker is now the most objectively revolutionary, and a black man is now leading the U.S. through the next step in the battle to protect the capitalist system and maintain U.S. hegemony in the world. We must rely on the understandings of the past, but not be tied to the ideological outlook of the past. Conditions are forcing broad sections of America to move. Today, any one of us can begin to work within the motion of the growing dispossessed in this country to focus on the key sections that can pull the whole class forward. Waistline **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 9 15:30:41 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:30:41 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Workers win big Round in Chicago factory Sit-In Message-ID: <493EAB47.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Workers win big Round in Chicago factory Sit-In http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081209/ap_on_re_us/workers_takeover This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 10 07:29:16 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:29:16 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Coming soon to U.S., 1 million jobs lost every month Message-ID: _http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Coming_soon_to_U.S._1_million_1207.html_ (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Coming_soon_to_U.S._1_million_1207.html) Coming soon to U.S., 1 million jobs lost every month: ReportStephen C. Webster Published: Sunday December 7, 2008 Print This Email This London-based GFC Economics is making a frightening prediction: By spring 2009, the United States could be facing more than 1 million layoffs every successive month. Expenses related to corporate debt, and muddy credit markets consumed by fear, are driving a fast-approaching "hard landing," claims a Sunday report in UK's Guardian. "Corporate bond yields have rocketed since the credit crisis began as investors flee risky assets in search of safe havens such as US Treasuries. That effectively means many firms are being forced to pay eye-watering interest rates to borrow funds," the paper reported. "November's jobs figures were so much worse than analysts had expected that the Dow Jones share index actually rallied by 259 points, more than 3 per cent, as investors bet that Washington would have to launch a major new rescue package for the economy even before President-elect Barack Obama takes over the White House in January." Sunday morning, during an appearance on Meet the Press, President-elect Obama cautioned Americans that the crisis would only get worse before it begins to ease. He also outlined a new stimulus package some senior Democrats have said could cost as much as $1 trillion. "Mr. Obama refused to put a cost on the plan, but senior Democrats are talking about $700 billion, with others urging up to $1 trillion," reported the Times Online. "When he met the nation?s governors last week he was told that on the state level there was $136 billion worth of building projects ready to go if federal money was made available." David Frost, director-general of the British Chamber of Commerce, paints a grim deadline. "The worry is that next year the job losses will be just horrendous," he said. "All sectors are taking the hit. In the middle of the year it was construction and estate agencies. Now it is services, the automotive industry, retailers. Firms are waiting for Christmas and if they can't see any improvement they will cut their payrolls." **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 10 08:07:22 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:07:22 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The media myth: Detroit's $70-an-hour autoworker Message-ID: <493F94D9.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/14103/ The media myth: Detroit's $70-an-hour autoworker Author: Eric Boehlert People's Weekly World Newspaper, 12/05/08 14:47 From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 10 13:31:19 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:31:19 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? Message-ID: <493FE0C8.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From: Carrol Cox I'm not sure how dirty a word it is, but the answer to the question is that the illusion that "nationalization = Socialism" is not confined to posters on pen-l but is widely believed. So the question should be, why is socialism a dirty word in America. There is no necessary relationship between nationalizatio and socialism, but almost everyone believes there is. Carrol ^^^ CB: I agree with Carrol that opposition of Americans to nationalization and public ownership is the result of the heavy-duty anti-Communist brainwashing Americans had for especially the 70 years ending in the 1990 or so. However, I'd say Carrol is wrong on the Marxist version of socialism not being heavily nationalization and public ownership, public ownership of the basic means of production. Public ownership need not be by the national state, but may be by national subunit states, so in the strict sense not "_national_ization" , but "publicization". In the case of the auto companies, the State of Michigan might be the owner, I suppose , government ownership. See Marx and Engels discussion of private and public property , and numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 of the sketched program from _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ below. Nationalization and public ownership are a big part of socialism compared to capitalism. http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian The distinguishing feature of communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property. But modern bourgeois private property is the final and most complete expression of the system of producing and appropriating products that is based on class antagonisms, on the exploitation of the many by the few. In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labor, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence. Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily. Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property? But does wage labor create any property for the laborer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage labor, and which cannot increase except upon conditions of begetting a new supply of wage labor for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labor. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism. To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social STATUS in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion. Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power. When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 10 19:53:45 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:53:45 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? Message-ID: ^^^ >> CB: I agree with Carrol that opposition of Americans to nationalization and public ownership is the result of the heavy-duty anti-Communist brainwashing Americans had for especially the 70 years ending in the 1990 or so. However, I'd say Carrol is wrong on the Marxist version of socialism not being heavily nationalization and public ownership, public ownership of the basic means of production. Public ownership need not be by the national state, but may be by national subunit states, so in the strict sense not "_national_ization" , but "publicization". In the case of the auto companies, the State of Michigan might be the owner, I suppose , government ownership. See Marx and Engels discussion of private and public property , and numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 of the sketched program from _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ below. Nationalization and public ownership are a big part of socialism compared to capitalism.<< _http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian_ (http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian) Comment Marx and Engels speak of centralization of credit and production - productive forces, rather than the concept of nationalization (with or without quotes). It is not necessary for the state or government to be the owner or administrator of productive forces to implement a policy of public ownership. It is only necessary for the state to be the armed protector of public property no matter what its form. In America I can visualize a form of public property where no aspect of the state - as state, or government is owner (with or without quotes) of productive forces. It seems to me that the reason the state was owner of productive forces in the Soviet Union was due to its lack of development in every conceivable category of social life. In fact the communists had to carry out the industrial revolution, something our bourgeoisie achieved long ago. In fact America was founded as a bourgeois country. It is industrialism that is the precondition for any concept of modern communism. Russia lacked such industrialization and the state was imbued with the task of industrialization. America is a highly developed capitalist country and modern (industrial/post-industrial) state, whereas the revolutionaries in Russia inherited a feudal state system undergoing collapse and revolution. In other words centralization of production, or rather further centralization, in America can take place on the basis of the post industrial infrastructure; modern communications, transportation and the modern superstructure - (here meaning its cultural attributes). In the state of Michigan of instance, the state or government or its subunits as local jurisdictions, would not own the auto infrastructure or production facilities or for that matter have anything whatsoever to do with day to day operations of automotive production. No one would own the facilities, including the people who actually worked in the industry. We are fortunately in possession of a technology that makes nation-wide and international coordination of automotive production independent of the state and local organs of government a practical possibility and daily reality today in the here and now. Nationalization? Much depends on whether or not revolutionaries or counter revolutionaries win important sections of the working class over to their vision. If the progressives win the workers over to active combat against the fascists? then nationalization as a phase in the social revolution, as it is unfolding in real time, can become a weapon in the arsenal of the social revolution. If we lose the propaganda and agitation war, than nationalization becomes a lever for fascism. I personally am very leery and skeptical - as stated in several previous post, about calls for nationalization, even when such ?calls? are combined with the word socialism. In the past nationalization in America has meant the tightening of bourgeois rule. For instance money was nationalized - issuing ? greenbacks,? as was the armed forces and banking, to a degree. The rub is practical politics. In the real world of shifting American politics the fascists and historical Southern reactionary chauvinists and Republicans are at the core of opposition to the bridge loan to auto, which at this point is the form bourgeois nationalization of auto is taking. To the point: the reason nationalization is a dirty word in America is basically the same as the reason most Americans are anti-communist. However the new polls state that a shift has taken place in the attitude of Americans. Rather than 60% being against a bail out (bridge load) to the auto industry, today 46% are in favor with 42% against. Waistline **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 10 20:02:18 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:02:18 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? Message-ID: full: _http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v17ed2art3.html_ (http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v17ed2art3.html) American Culture Fuels Anti-Communism The unique history and culture of the United States makes Americans particularly susceptible to anti-communist propaganda. The propaganda?s success rests on and is integrally tied to the objective economic realities of American life. Each supports the other in sustaining the power of the ruling class. Unlike most countries, the United States never went through a period of feudalism. The European conquerors and colonizers slaughtered the peoples of the continent and obliterated their communal societies. The war for freedom from British control was an all-class war for national liberation. Further, American capitalism was developed on the back of African American slavery. The frontier and the freedom it held out for working people to own and farm their own land laid the material base for the ideas of ?American exceptionalism? ? the view that the United States, unlike all other capitalist societies, has eliminated classes. This concept fuels American individualism, white supremacy and anti-communism. During periods of heightened class conflict such as the 1930?s Depression, the American working class was drawn toward communism. With the dramatic success of the proletariat in the Soviet Union under the leadership of its Communist Party, the Communist Party of the United States grew rapidly in numbers and influence. The United States and Soviet alliance against fascist Germany won sympathy for communism among large numbers of Americans. In response to communism?s optimistic message of working class victory from oppression and exploitation, the ruling class moved swiftly in its own self interest to squelch the growing sympathy for communism. Following World War II, the United States entered a long period of economic growth at the expense of the colonial peoples of the world. Full employment and rising wages bribed the American working class into discarding its sympathy for communism. The Soviet Union was denounced as the source of all evil, school children huddled under their desks in fear of a Soviet nuclear bomb. The Cold War was born out of US imperialism. All Americans were persuaded to believe that their common interests as Americans outweighed their class differences. They have come to think that the only class that can represent American interests abroad is the ruling class. Anti-communism subverts the unity of the international working class, and has prevented American workers from expressing their solidarity with the struggles of workers in other countries. Ending Anti-Communism Anti-communism is prevalent today even though the material base for anti-communism has been fundamentally eroded by revolutionary changes in the economy. The introduction of electronics into production has created a revolutionary increase in productivity. This new technology can produce an abundance of goods without human labor and for the first time in history makes possible a communist economic system that can provide a paradise for all. **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Dec 11 07:28:13 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:28:13 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word inAmerica? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4940DD2D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> 12/10/2008 9:53 PM >>> ^^^ >> CB: I agree with Carrol that opposition of Americans to nationalization and public ownership is the result of the heavy-duty anti-Communist brainwashing Americans had for especially the 70 years ending in the 1990 or so. However, I'd say Carrol is wrong on the Marxist version of socialism not being heavily nationalization and public ownership, public ownership of the basic means of production. Public ownership need not be by the national state, but may be by national subunit states, so in the strict sense not "_national_ization" , but "publicization". In the case of the auto companies, the State of Michigan might be the owner, I suppose , government ownership. See Marx and Engels discussion of private and public property , and numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 of the sketched program from _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ below. Nationalization and public ownership are a big part of socialism compared to capitalism.<< _http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian_ (http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian) Comment Marx and Engels speak of centralization ^^^ CB: I think "centraliization" is a metaphor using the geometric fact that the center of a circle is equidistant from every point on the circle. So, the center of a circle can serve as a symbol for the _whole_ circle. So, in this case when they refer to "centralization", of course, the nation is not in the shape of a circle, but it is a way of referring to the whole nation; or some whole, in this case it is a national whole. With globalization, we could have a global bank, which would be a world central bank. In the US , of course, the federal government represents the whole nation. Actually, Wall Street is already the bank " center" . So, we have a centralized banking system , but it is centralized in the private property sector. Marx and Engels are talking about centralizing metaphorically in the state or public sector. There is the Federal Reserve, but I heard a discussion that the Fed is actually owned by the Central Wall Street Banks, the ones that just went bankrupt , and helped themselves to 8 trillion dollars. ^^^^^ of credit and production - productive forces, rather than the concept of nationalization (with or without quotes). It is not necessary for the state or government to be the owner or administrator of productive forces to implement a policy of public ownership. It is only necessary for the state to be the armed protector of public property no matter what its form. ^^^ CB: In my thinking, the institution that owns in this case becomes an agency of the state in its republican institutional aspect, and that institution gains its public nation by its connection to the public, the people, as a whole, the People or Public through the _re_publican institutions, elected representative institutions in the US and its governmental subdivisions state, county, city, town, village. This is the theory, and we know its shortcomings in practice and history, but , I don't think there is a better alternative way to define and establish public ownership away from private ownership. ^^^ In America I can visualize a form of public property where no aspect of the state - as state, or government is owner (with or without quotes) of productive forces. It seems to me that the reason the state was owner of productive forces in the Soviet Union was due to its lack of development in every conceivable category of social life. In fact the communists had to carry out the industrial revolution, something our bourgeoisie achieved long ago. In fact America was founded as a bourgeois country. It is industrialism that is the precondition for any concept of modern communism. Russia lacked such industrialization and the state was imbued with the task of industrialization. America is a highly developed capitalist country and modern (industrial/post-industrial) state, whereas the revolutionaries in Russia inherited a feudal state system undergoing collapse and revolution. In other words centralization of production, or rather further centralization, in America can take place on the basis of the post industrial infrastructure; modern communications, transportation and the modern superstructure - (here meaning its cultural attributes). In the state of Michigan of instance, the state or government or its subunits as local jurisdictions, would not own the auto infrastructure or production facilities or for that matter have anything whatsoever to do with day to day operations of automotive production. ^^^ CB: The State of Michigan and other more locally elected governments are the only institution with a slight claim to be representative or republican representative form of the public or all of the people, the whole population now. Because it represents the whole ( of the state or of the city) through elections , it is a "center" metaphorically ,as explained above. The revolution in computer technology, by the way, presents the opportunity for the whole of the People to do a lot more input to the "center" representative institutions, in between elections, i.e. more direct democracy. ^^^ No one would own the facilities, including the people who actually worked in the industry. ^^^ CB: Yes, no _one_ would own property because one person owning basic means of production is the definition of _private_ property. It will be owned by everybody through their representatives. Socialism has a republican form, thus the Union of Soviet Socialist _Republics_ ^^^^^ We are fortunately in possession of a technology that makes nation-wide and international coordination of automotive production independent of the state and local organs of government a practical possibility and daily reality today in the here and now. Nationalization? ^^^ CB: Publicization or the People owning. Which whole of people owns, whether the whole nation of people, the whole state, the whole globe, the determination of _whole groups of people_ is important. The whole nation of people doesn't have to own the local transportation system, but the whole city of people does. The optimum practical form developed historically for large groups , millions or thousands of people, to own something collectively is to establish republican representative committees, councils, soviets, representative houses. I think we can abolish Senates and Parliaments. ^^^ Much depends on whether or not revolutionaries or counter revolutionaries win important sections of the working class over to their vision. If the progressives win the workers over to active combat against the fascists? then nationalization as a phase in the social revolution, as it is unfolding in real time, can become a weapon in the arsenal of the social revolution. If we lose the propaganda and agitation war, than nationalization becomes a lever for fascism. I personally am very leery and skeptical - as stated in several previous post, about calls for nationalization, even when such ?calls? are combined with the word socialism. In the past nationalization in America has meant the tightening of bourgeois rule. For instance money was nationalized - issuing ? greenbacks,? as was the armed forces and banking, to a degree. ^^^ CB: Nation formation is specific to the bourgeois phase of history. We might have regional and global represenative forms, like the United Nations. Socialism advocates world government. ^^^^ The rub is practical politics. In the real world of shifting American politics the fascists and historical Southern reactionary chauvinists and Republicans are at the core of opposition to the bridge loan to auto, which at this point is the form bourgeois nationalization of auto is taking. To the point: the reason nationalization is a dirty word in America is basically the same as the reason most Americans are anti-communist. However the new polls state that a shift has taken place in the attitude of Americans. Rather than 60% being against a bail out (bridge load) to the auto industry, today 46% are in favor with 42% against. Waistline **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Dec 11 07:41:13 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:41:13 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word inAmerica? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4940E038.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> 12/10/2008 9:53 PM >>> ^^^ >> CB: I agree with Carrol that opposition of Americans to nationalization and public ownership is the result of the heavy-duty anti-Communist brainwashing Americans had for especially the 70 years ending in the 1990 or so. However, I'd say Carrol is wrong on the Marxist version of socialism not being heavily nationalization and public ownership, public ownership of the basic means of production. Public ownership need not be by the national state, but may be by national subunit states, so in the strict sense not "_national_ization" , but "publicization". In the case of the auto companies, the State of Michigan might be the owner, I suppose , government ownership. See Marx and Engels discussion of private and public property , and numbers 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 of the sketched program from _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ below. Nationalization and public ownership are a big part of socialism compared to capitalism.<< _http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian_ (http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html#Proletarian) Comment Marx and Engels speak of centralization of credit and production - productive forces, rather than the concept of nationalization (with or without quotes). ^^^^^ CB: Actually, Marx and Engels say 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. ^^^ CB: In referring to a "national bank" they are calling the centralization nationalization. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 11 19:08:10 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 11:08:10 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? Message-ID: >> 1. Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? The rub is practical politics. In the real world of shifting American politics the fascists and historical Southern reactionary chauvinists and Republicans are at the core of opposition to the bridge loan to auto, which at this point is the form bourgeois nationalization of auto is taking.<< You might think the debate outside of the bourgeoisie might be: how is it that the auto companies enjoyed record 'profits' for over two decades and yet found themselves financially unable to weather one year of bad stock markets and bad sales? Ditto the financial conglomerates (which overlap with the automakers anyway--like GMAC being the 'best' part of GM when the company was riding high back in the 1990s). It seems in a way similar to what happened in the 90s UK with Blair and his purged Labor taking the place of the Conservatives as the preferred establishment party, the Democratic Party of Obama has become the chosen party of American capital. I think if nationalization is the inevitable path that is coming for the government-industry relationship, then better the auto companies be allowed to go bankrupt first. CJ From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Dec 12 07:46:38 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:46:38 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? Message-ID: >> I think if nationalization is the inevitable path that is coming for the government-industry relationship, then better the auto companies be allowed to go bankrupt first.<< CJ Comment What is the rationale for bankruptcy as the prelude to nationalization, rather than simply nationalize with some kind of "auto czar?" How will bankruptcy help the working class masses? Waistline **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 12 08:02:02 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:02:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Kapital: manga version References: <493B3FAB.1050908@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4942369A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> > > > When Karl Marx alerted economists to the "the knell of capitalist > private property" he probably didn't imagine the phrase cropping-up as > a speech bubble in a comic strip for Japanese commuters. > > But across the world's second biggest economy, bookstores from > Hiroshima to Hokkaido are preparing for what they expect to be the > publishing phenomenon of the year: Das Kapital -- the manga version. > > The comic, which goes on sale early next month, plays into a growing > fascination among Japan's hard-working labour force with socialist > literature and joins a collection of increasingly fierce literary > critiques of the global capitalist system. > > In recent decades, while Japan Inc was still delivering collective > prosperity to the nation, public criticism of companies has been > muted. Unions were weak and acquiescent. But now, as the country sinks > into its second recession in seven year, the sackings begin and the > gap widens between rich and poor, a growing number of Japanese believe > the problem lies with capitalism itself. > > The ambitious comic rendering of Das Kapital is designed to parcel the > complex economic theories of Marx's hefty original in a format which > Japanese adore digesting their information from; it will also be > compressed into a size that can be slipped discretely into a Chanel > evening bag, or slid into the top drawer of a desk when the bosses are > looking. A sneak preview given to The Times reveals that Marx's > central themes are relayed in the comic via a cast of suitably > down-trodden workers. > > Japanese publishers have historically used cartoons to explain thorny > diplomatic relations with China, advanced wine-tasting and even the > spread of bird flu: the manga version of Das Kapital takes on even the > toughest concepts thrown up in the original, from "commodity > fetishism" to the precise process by which "the expropriators are > expropriated". > > The comic is expected to sell tens of thousands of copies in its first > weeks on sale, but is up against stiff competition: _anti-capitalist > books are the hottest sellers in capitalist Japan at the moment,_ and > it will take something extraordinary to beat the sales of _Hideki > Mitani's "Greedy Capitalism and the Self Destructiveness of Wall > Street._" > > A former Goldman Sachs high-flyer, Mr Mitani now vigorously deplores > the destruction of Japanese business values on the altar of > Anglo-Saxon capitalism and describes Wall Street itself as one of > Dante's circles of hell. Phrases like "unbridled mammonism" and > "uncontrolled greed" abound in his work. Japanese readers, meanwhile, > are lapping it up, and the book has become the fastest-selling > non-fiction title for many years. > > The dramatic shift to the left in Japanese literary tastes has even > revived domestic socialist tracts of the 1930s: one of the strongest > selling books of the year, at nearly half a million copies, is > Kanikosen - a savagely bleak, novel depicting violence, exploitation > and revolution aboard a crabmeat canning ship. [Hmmm - Japanese 'Death > Ship?] > > The book has somehow pinched a nerve in 21st Century Japan. When > Kanikosen was reprinted earlier this year, Tokyo's largest bookshop > put a poster at the front of the store reading: "Revival of the book > that describes the cruel labour environment of the past: an > environment similar to that of the current working poor in 2008." > > Daisuke Asao, a senior officer in the National Confederation of Trades > Unions, said of Japan's resurgent interest in socialist literature: > "the situation of those labourers in the book is very similar to > modern temporary workers: the unpredictable contracts, the working > under heavy supervision, violence from supervisors, the widespread > sexual harassment and the pressure against unionisation are all things > that modern Japanese recognise every day." > http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/japan/article5175853.ece This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 12 08:05:40 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:05:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Absolute General Law Message-ID: <49423774.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1979/outline-capital/ch12.htm Raya Dunavevskaya 1979 Lecture 12 Part VII Chapter 25 The Lot of the Working Class The concluding chapter of this part, ?The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation is by far the most basic to the theory of capitalist development. In reviewing it we must go rather slowly because in the treatment of the organic composition of capital Marx anticipates the treatment be accords it in the section on the Declining Rate of Profit in Volume XII, and thus |a full understanding of this chapter will help us when we get to that volume. Of decisive Significance in understanding what is the general law of accumulation is the recognition that the lot of the working-class is as integral a part of this law as the organic composition of capital. This is not ?mere? agitation, but can be expressed in the most precise technical terms. The organic composition of capital is the interrelationship between its value composition, or the proportion between constant and variable capital, and its technical composition, or the division between means of production and living labor power. The way this affects the lot of the workers is as follows: ?Production of surplus value is the absolute law of this mode of production. Labour-power is only saleable so far as it preserves the means of production in their capacity of capital, reproduces its own value as capital and yields in unpaid labour a source of additional capital.? (p. 678) Hence a wage rise could never reach the point where it would threaten the system itself: ?Either the price of labor keeps on rising because its rise does not interfere with the progress of accumulation...Or, on the other hand, accumulation slackens in consequence of the rise in the price of labour, because the stimulus of gain is blunted. The rate of accumulation lessens; but with the lessening the primary cause of that lessening vanishes, i.e., the disproportion between capital and exploitable labour-power. The mechanism of the process of capitalist production removes the very obstacles that it temporarily creates. The price of labour falls again to a level corresponding with the needs of the self-expansion of capital, whether the level be low, the same as, or above, the one which was normal before the rise of wages took place.? (pp. 678-9) Marx summarizes this in the following formulation; ?To put it mathematically, the rate of accumulation is independent, not the dependent variable, the rate of wages, the dependent, not the independent variable,? (p. 679) Or, in other words, the rise of wages therefore is confined within limits that not only leave intact the foundations of the capitalist system, but also secure its reproduction on a progressive scale. The law of capitalist accumulation, metamorphosed by economists into a pretended law of nature, in reality merely states that the very nature of accumulation excludes every diminution in the degree of exploitation of labour, and every rise in the price of labour, which could seriously imperil the continual reproduction on an ever enlarging scale, of the capitalistic relation. It cannot be otherwise in a mode of production in which the labourer exists to satisfy the needs of self-expansion of existing values, instead of on the contrary, material wealth existing to satisfy the needs of development on the part of the labourer. As, in religion, man is governed by the products of his own brain, so in capitalistic production he is governed by the products of his own hand.? (pp. 680-l) Growth of Constant Capital At the Expense of Variable Capital Marx now turns his attention to the conditions arising from a change in the organic composition of capital. The law governing this change is the progressive increase of constant capital in proportion to variable capital.(Labor-power or the wage-fund to buy it.) Accumulation of capital, it is true, means expansion of production and hence the growth of the working population. However, the demand for labor comes not from total capital, but only from its variable component, which is relatively the smaller part. Moreover, the value of constant capital does not fully reflect the change in the composition of its material constituents. In order to hire more workers, not only is a greater wage fund needed but greater investment in factories, in means of production and raw materials. ?Whereas formerly an increase in capital by 20 percent would have sufficed to raise the demand for labour by 30 percent, now this latter rise requires a tripling of the original capital.? (p. 683) Marx continues: ?This diminution in the variable part of capital as compared with the constant, or the altered value composition of the capital, however, only shows approximately the change in the composition of its material constituents. If, e.g., the capital-value employed today in spinning is 7/8 constant and 1/8 variable, whilst at the beginning of the 18th Century it was 1/2 constant and 1/2 variable, on the other hand, the mass of raw material, instruments of labour, etc. that a certain quantity of spinning labour consumes productively today, is many hundred times greater than at the beginning of the 18th Century. The reason is simply that, with the increasing productivity of labour, not only does the mass of the means of production consumed by it increase, but their value compared to this mass diminishes. Their value therefore rises absolutely, but not in proportion to their mass.? (p. 683) Centralization of Capital Marx now proceeds to analyze the effect of the concentration and centralization of capital upon the relationship of constant to variable capital. But, first, he warns that ?The laws of this centralisation of capitals or of the attraction of capital by capital, cannot be developed here.? He does not deal with this until he reaches Volume III. Here he says, ?A brief hint at a few facts must suffice.? (p. 686) However, what Marx calls a ?brief hint? propounds astounding problems for the Marxist student. Here is how he develops his brief hint: ?The battle of competition is fought by cheapening of commodities. The cheapness of commodities depends, coeteris paribus, on the productiveness of labour, and this again on the scale of production. Therefore the larger capitals beat the smaller... Competition and credit, the two most powerful levers of centralisation, develop in proportion as capitalist production and accumulation do... Centralisation may take place by a mere change in the distribution of already existing capitals, a simple change in the quantitative arrangement of the components of social capital. Capital may in that case accumulate in one hand in large masses by withdrawing it from many individual hands. Centralisation in a certain line of industry would have reached its extreme limit, if all the individual capitals invested in it would have been amalgamated into one single capital."(pp. 686-8) This is trustification. This is the beginning of the second and the most important change Marx introduced into the French Edition of CAPITAL. Moreover, Marx does not stop here since the development of the trust is only the limit of centralisation of capital in a specific line of industry. What is the limit of centralization of capital in a given country? ?This limit,? Marx writes, would not be reached in any particular society until the entire social capital would be united, either in the hands of one single capitalist, or in those of one single corporation.? (p. 688) We have here the prediction of state capitalism: ?the entire social capital... united either in the hands of one single capitalist or in those of one single corporation.? The General Absolute Law of Capitalist Production The results of this act, continues Marx in this crucial addition to the French Edition of CAPITAL, has the same results whether accomplished by ?the violent means of annexation? or ?the smoother road of forming stock companies.? The result is of a qualitative character; that is, it so revolutionises the technical composition of capital that it increases its constant at the expense of its variable constituent: ?The specifically capitalist mode of production, the development of the productive power of labour corresponding to it and the change then resulting in the organic composition of capital, do not merely keep pace with the advance of accumulation, or with the growth of social wealth. They develop to a much quicker rate. If it was originally say 1:1, it now becomes successively 2:1, 3:1, 4:1., 5:1., 7:1., etc... The labouring population therefore produces, along with the accumulation of capital produced by it, the means by which it itself is made relatively superfluous, is turned into a relative surplus population.? (pp. 690-3) ?The greater the social wealth, the functioning of capital, the extent and energy of its growth, and therefore also the absolute mass of the proletariat and the productiveness of labour, the greater is the industrial reserve army. The same causes which develop the expansive power of capital, develop also the labour-power at its disposal... But the greater this reserve army in proportion to the active labour-army. the greater is the mass of a consolidated surplus population, ...and the greater is the official pauperism. This absolute general law of capitalist accumulation.? (p. 707) This absolute general law dominates over production even when it has reached its ultimate development through statification. This law of capitalist accumulation means not only the polarization of wealth, the alienation of the products of labor from the laborer, but it means the alienation of his very capacity to labor. Marx?s description of the capitalist labor process is that it is a process wherein ?all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the laborer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage to a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange him from the intellectual potentialities of the labour-process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour-process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital. But all methods for the production of surplus value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes again a means for the development of these methods. It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulated, the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. The law, finally, that always equilibrates the relative surplus-population, or industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the labourer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with an accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time, accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole. i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.? (pp. 708-9) Questions 1. Define the value-composition, technical composition and the organic composition of capital. 2. Explain the relation between the law of capitalistic accumulation and the laborer?s existence ?to satisfy the needs of self-expansion of existing value.? 3. What is the significance of the proportionate increase of constant to variable capital? 4. What is the law of the concentration of wealth, of its centralization? What is the limit of centralisation in a single industry? What is the limit in a given society? Are these affected by the ?absolute general law of capitalist production"? What is the ?absolute general law"? 5. What is the relation between accumulation and the reserve army of labor? What are the different forms of the relative surplus population? 6. Is the degradation of the worker to an appendage of a machine dependent upon whether his payment is high or low? This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 12 08:57:38 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:57:38 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] VIII. PARASITISM AND DECAY OF CAPITALISM Message-ID: <494243A2.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> VIII. PARASITISM AND DECAY OF CAPITALISM We now have to examine yet another significant aspect of imperialism to which most of the discussions on the subject usually attach insufficient importance. One of the shortcomings of the Marxist Hilferding is that on this point he has taken a step backward compared with the non-Marxist Hobson. I refer to parasitism, which is characteristic of imperialism. As we have seen, the deepest economic foundation of imperialism is monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly which has grown out of capitalism and which exists in the general environment of capitalism, commodity production and competition, in permanent and insoluble contradiction to this general environment. Nevertheless, like all monopoly, it inevitably engenders a tendency of stagnation and decay. Since monopoly prices are established, even temporarily, the motive cause of technical and, consequently, of all other progress disappears to a certain extent and, further, the economic possibility arises of deliberately retarding technical progress. For instance, in America, a certain Owens invented a machine which revolutionised the manufacture of bottles. The German bottle-manufacturing cartel purchased Owens?s patent, but pigeon-holed it, refrained from utilising it. Certainly, monopoly under capitalism can never completely, and for a very long period of time, eliminate competition in the world market (and this, by the by, is one of the reasons why the theory of ultra-imperialism is so absurd). Certainly, the possibility of reducing the cost of production and increasing profits by introducing technical improvements operates in the direction of change. But the tendency to stagnation and decay, which is characteristic of monopoly, continues to operate, and in some branches of industry, in some countries, for certain periods of time, it gains the upper hand. The monopoly ownership of very extensive, rich or wellsituated colonies operates in the same direction. Further, imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries, amounting, as we have seen, to 100,000-50,000 million francs in securities. Hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather, of a stratum of rentiers, i.e., people who live by ?clipping coupons?, who take no part in any enterprise whatever, whose profession is idleness. The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by exploiting the labour of several overseas countries and colonies. ?In 1893,? writes Hobson, ?the British capital invested abroad represented about 15 per cent of the total wealth of the United Kingdom.? [1] Let me remind the reader that by 1915 this capital had increased about two and a half times. ?Aggressive imperialism,? says Hobson further on, ?which costs the tax-payer so dear, which is of so little value to the manufacturer and trader ... is a source of great gain to the investor.... The annual income Great Britain derives from commissions in her whole foreign and colonial trade, import and export, is estimated by Sir R.Giffen at ?18,000,000 (nearly 170 million rubles] for 1899, taken at 2 1/2 per cent, upon a turnover of ?800,000,000.? Great as this sum is, it cannot explain the aggressive imperialism of Great Britain, which is explained by the income of ?90 million to ?100 million from ?invested? capital, the income of the rentiers. The income of the rentiers is five times greater than the income obtained from the foreign trade of the biggest ?trading? country in the world! This is the essence of imperialism and imperialist parasitism. For that reason the term ?rentier state? (Rentnerstaat), or usurer state, is coming into common use in the economic literature that deals with imperialism. The world has become divided into a handful of usurer states and a vast majority of debtor states. ?At the top of the list of foreign investments,? says Schulze-Gaevernitz, ?are those placed in politically dependent or allied countries: Great Britain grants loans to Egypt, Japan, China and South America. Her navy plays here the part of bailiff in case of necessity. Great Britain?s political power protects her from the indignation of her debtors.? [2] Sartorius von Waltershausen in his book, The National Economic System of Capital Investments Abroad, cites Holland as the model ?rentier state? and points out that Great Britain and France are now becoming such. [3] Schilder is of the opinion that five industrial states have become ?definitely pronounced creditor countries?: Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. He does not include Holland in this list simply because she is ?industrially little developed?. [4] The United States is a creditor only of the American countries. ?Great Britain,? says Schulze-Gaevernitz, ?is gradually becoming transformed from an industrial into a creditor state. Notwithstanding the absolute increase in industrial output and the export of manufactured goods, there is an increase in the relative importance of income from interest and dividends, issues of securities, commissions and speculation in the whole of the national economy. In my opinion it is precisely this that forms the economic basis of imperialist ascendancy. The creditor is more firmly attached to the debtor than the seller is to the buyer. [5] In regard to Germany, A. Lansburgh, the publisher of the Berlin Die Bank, in 1911, in an article entitled ?Germany?a Rentier State?, wrote the following: ?People in Germany are ready to sneer at the yearning to become rentiers that is observed in France. But they forget that as far as the bourgeoisie is concerned the situation in Germany is becoming more and more like that in France.? [6] - The rentier state is a state of parasitic, decaying capitalism, and this circumstance cannot fail to influence all the socio-political conditions of the countries concerned, in general, and the two fundamental trends in the working-class movement, in particular. To demonstrate this in the clearest possible manner let me quote Hobson, who is a most reliable witness, since he cannot be suspected of leaning towards Marxist orthodoxy; on the other hand, he is an Englishman who is very well acquainted with the situation in the country which is richest in colonies, in finance capital, and in imperialist experience. With the Anglo-Boer War fresh in his mind, Hobson describes the connection between imperialism and the interests of the ?financiers?, their growing profits from contracts, supplies, etc., and writes: ?While the directors of this definitely parasitic policy are capitalists, the same motives appeal to special classes of the workers. In many towns most important trades are dependent upon government employment or contracts; the imperialism of the metal and shipbuilding centres is attributable in no small degree to this fact.? Two sets of circumstances, in this writer?s opinion, have weakened the old empires: (1) ?economic parasitism?, and (2) the formation of armies recruited from subject peoples. ?There is first the habit of economic parasitism, by which the ruling state has used its provinces, colonies, and dependencies in order to enrich its ruling class and to bribe its lower classes into acquiescence.? And I shall add that the economic possibility of such bribery, whatever its form may be, requires high monopolist profits. As for the second circumstance, Hobson writes: ?One of the strangest symptoms of the blindness of imperialism is the reckless indifference with which Great Britain, France and other imperial nations are embarking on this perilous dependence. Great Britain has gone farthest. Most of the fighting by which we have won our Indian Empire has been done by natives; in India, as more recently in Egypt, great standing armies are placed under British commanders; almost all the fighting associated with our African dominions, except in the southern part, has been done for us by natives.? Hobson gives the following economic appraisal of the prospect of the partitioning of China: ?The greater part of Western Europe might then assume the appearance and character already exhibited by tracts of country in the South of England, in the Riviera and in the tourist-ridden or residential parts of Italy and Switzerland, little clusters of wealthy aristocrats drawing dividends and pensions from the Far East, with a somewhat larger group of professional retainers and tradesmen and a larger body of personal servants and workers in the transport trade and in the final stages of production of the more perishable goods; all the main arterial industries would have disappeared, the staple foods and manufactures flowing in as tribute from Asia and Africa. . . . We have foreshadowed the possibility of even a larger alliance of Western states, a European federation of great powers which, so far from forwarding the cause of world civilisation, might introduce the gigantic peril of a Western parasitism, a group of advanced industrial nations, whose upper classes drew vast tribute from Asia and Africa, with which they supported great tame masses of retainers, no longer engaged in the staple industries of agriculture and manufacture, but kept in the performance of personal or minor industrial services under the control of a new financial aristocracy. Let those who would scout such a theory (it would be better to say: prospect) as undeserving of consideration examine the economic and social condition of districts in Southern England today which are already reduced to this condition, and reflect upon the vast extension of such a system which might be rendered feasible by the subjection of China to the economic control of similar groups of financiers, investors, and political and business officials, draining the greatest potential reservoir of profit the world has ever known, in order to consume it in Europe. The situation is far too complex, the play of world forces far too incalculable, to render this or any other single interpretation of the future very probable; but the influences which govern the imperialism of Western Europe today are moving in this direction, and, unless counteracted or diverted, make towards some such consummation.? [7] The author is quite right: if the forces of imperialism had not been counteracted they would have led precisely to what he has described. The significance of a ?United States of Europe? in the present imperialist situation is correctly appraised. He should have added, however, that, also within the working-class movement, the opportunists, who are for the moment victorious in most countries, are ?working? systematically and undeviatingly in this very direction. Imperialism, which means the partitioning of the world, and the exploitation of other countries besides China, which means high monopoly profits for a handful of very rich countries, makes it economically possible to bribe the upper strata of the proletariat, and thereby fosters, gives shape to, and strengthens opportunism. We must not, however, lose sight of the forces which counteract imperialism in general, and opportunism in particular, and which, naturally, the social-liberal Hobson is unable to perceive. The German opportunist, Gerhard Hildebrand, who was once expelled from the Party for defending imperialism, and who could today be a leader of the so-called ?Social-Democratic? Party of Germany, supplements Hobson well by his advocacy of a ?United States of Western Europe? (without Russia) for the purpose of ?joint? action ... against the African Negroes, against the ?great Islamic movement?, for the maintenance of a ?powerful army and navy?, against a ?Sino-Japanese coalition?, [8] etc. The description of ?British imperialism? in Schulze-Gaevernitz?s book reveals the same parasitical traits. The national income of Great Britain approximately doubled from 1865 to 1898, while the income ?from abroad? increased ninefold in the same period. While the ?merit? of imperialism is that it ?trains the Negro to habits of industry? (you cannot manage without coercion ... ), the ?danger? of imperialism lies in that ?Europe will shift the burden of physical toil?first agricultural and mining, then the rougher work in industry?on to the coloured races, and itself be content with the role of rentier, and in this way, perhaps, pave the way for the economic, and later, the political emancipation of the coloured races?. An increasing proportion of land in England is being taken out of cultivation and used for sport, for the diversion of the rich. As far as Scotland?the most aristocratic place for hunting and other sports?is concerned, it is said that ?it lives on its past and on Mr. Carnegie? (the American multimillionaire). On horse racing and fox hunting alone England annually spends ?14,000,000 (nearly 130 million rubles). The number of rentiers in England is about one million. The percentage of the productively employed population to the total population is declining: Population England and Wales (000,000) Workers in basic industries (000,000) Per cent of total popula- tion 1851..... 17.9 4.1 23 1901..... 32.5 4.9 15 And in speaking of the British working class the bourgeois student of ?British imperialism at the beginning of the twentieth century? is obliged to distinguish systematically between the ?upper stratum? of the workers and the ?lower stratum of the proletariat proper?. The upper stratum furnishes the bulk of the membership of co-operatives, of trade unions, of sporting clubs and of numerous religious sects. To this level is adapted the electoral system, which in Great Britain is still ?sufficiently restricted to exclude the lower stratum of the proletariat proper"! In order to present the condition of the British working class in a rosy light, only this upper stratum?which constitutes a minority of the proletariat?is usually spoken of. For instance, ?the problem of unemployment is mainly a London problem and that of the lower proletarian stratum, to which the politicians attach little importance...? [9] He should have said: to which the bourgeois politicians and the ?socialist? opportunists attach little importance. One of the special features of imperialism connected with the facts I am describing, is the decline in emigration from imperialist countries and the increase in immigration into these countries from the more backward countries where lower wages are paid. As Hobson observes, emigration from Great Britain has been declining since 1884. In that year the number of emigrants was 242,000, while in 1900, the number was 169,000. Emigration from Germany reached the highest point between 1881 and 1890, with a total of 1,453,000 emigrants. In the course of the following two decades, it fell to 544,000 and to 341,000. On the other hand, there was an increase in the number of workers entering Germany from Austria, Italy, Russia and other countries. According to the 1907 census, there were 1,342,294 foreigners in Germany, of whom 440,800 were industrial workers and 257,329 agricultural workers. [10] In France, the workers employed in the mining industry are, ?in great part?, foreigners: Poles, Italians and Spaniards. [11] In the United States, immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe are engaged in the most poorly paid jobs, while American workers provide the highest percentage of overseers or of the better-paid workers. [12] Imperialism has the tendency to create privileged sections also among the workers, and to detach them from the broad masses of the proletariat. It must be observed that in Great Britain the tendency of imperialism to split the workers, to strengthen opportunism among them and to cause temporary decay in the working-class movement, revealed itself much earlier than the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries; for two important distinguishing features of imperialism were already observed in Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century?vast colonial possessions and a monopolist position in the world market. Marx and Engels traced this connection between opportunism in the working-class movement and the imperialist features of British capitalism systematically, during the course of several decades. For example, on October 7, 1858, Engels wrote to Marx: ?The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable.?[15] Almost a quarter of a century later, in a letter dated August 11, 1881, Engels speaks of the ?worst English trade unions which allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at least paid by, the middle class?. In a letter to Kautsky, dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote: ?You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers? party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England?s monopoly of the world market and the colonies.? [13] (Engels expressed similar ideas in the press in his preface to the second edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England, which appeared in 1892.) This clearly shows the causes and effects. The causes are: (1) exploitation of the whole world by this country; (2) its monopolist position in the world market; (3) its colonial monopoly. The effects are: (1) a section of the British proletariat becomes bourgeois; (2) a section of the proletariat allows itself to be led by men bought by, or at least paid by, the bourgeoisie. The imperialism of the beginning of the twentieth century completed the division of the world among a handful of states, each of which today exploits (in the sense of drawing superprofits from) a part of the ?whole world? only a little smaller than that which England exploited in 1858; each of them occupies a monopolist position in the world market thanks to trusts, cartels, finance capital and creditor and debtor relations; each of them enjoys to some degree a colonial monopoly (we have seen that out of the total of 75,000,000 sq. km., which comprise the whole colonial world, 65,000,000 sq. km., or 86 per cent, belong to six powers; 61,000,000 sq. km., or 81 per cent, belong to three powers). The distinctive feature of the present situation is the prevalence of such economic and political conditions that are bound to increase the irreconcilability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of the working-class movement: imperialism has grown from an embryo into the predominant system; capitalist monopolies occupy first place in economics and politics; the division of the world has been completed; on the other hand, instead of the undivided monopoly of Great Britain, we see a few imperialist powers contending for the right to share in this monopoly, and this struggle is characteristic of the whole period of the early twentieth century. Opportunism cannot now be completely triumphant in the working-class movement of one country for decades as it was in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century; but in a number of countries it has grown ripe, overripe, and rotten, and has become completely merged with bourgeois policy in the form of ?social-chauvinism?. [14] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes [1] Hobson, op. cit., pp. 59, 62. ?Lenin [2] Schulze-Gaevernitz, Britischer Imperialismus, S. 320 et seq. ?Lenin [3] Sartorius von Waltershausen, Das volkswirtschaftliche System, etc., Berlin, 1907, Buch IV. ?Lenin [4] Schilder, op. cit., S. 393. ?Lenin [5] Schulze-Gaevernitz, op. cit., S. 122. ?Lenin [6] Die Bank, 1911, 1, S. 10-11. ?Lenin [7] Hobson, op. cit., pp. 103, 205, 144, 335, 386. ?Lenin [8] Gerhard Hildebrand, Die Ersch?tterung der Industrieherrschaft und des Industriesozialismus, 1910, S. 229 et seq. ?Lenin [9] Schulze-Gaevernitz, Britischer Imperialismus S. 301. ?Lenin [10] Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, Bd. 211. ?Lenin [11] Henger, Die Kapitalsanlage der Franzosen, Stuttgart, 1913. ?Lenin [12] Hourwich, Immigralion and Labour, New York, 1913. ?Lenin [13] Briefwechsel von Marx und Engels, Bd. II, S. 290; 1V, 433?Karl Kautsky, Sozialismus und Kolonialpolitik, Berlin, 1907, S. 79; this pamphlet was written by Kautsky in those infinitely distant days when he was still a Marxist. ?Lenin [14] Russian social-chauvinism in its overt form, represented by the Potresovs, Chkenkelis, Maslovs, etc., and its covert form (Chkeidze, Skobelev, Axelrod, Martov, etc.) also emerged from the Russian variety of opportunism, namely, liquidationism. ?Lenin [15] [PLACEHOLDER.] VII. IMPERIALISM AS A SPECIAL STAGE OF CAPITALISM | IX. CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISM This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 12 08:59:32 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:59:32 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Imperialism is monopoly Message-ID: <49424414.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> "If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism." This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 12 12:29:33 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:29:33 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] CALL TO ACTION Message-ID: <4942754C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> CALL TO ACTION It is time for progressives and all supporters of democracy to act. The political crisis in this country demands action of every type from the study of history, particularly the Hayes/Tilden election, to demonstrations in the streets. As everyone has heard a thousand times, a crisis is the simultaneous presentation of danger and opportunity. It is literally true that the history of the 21st century will be defined by what happens in the next 6 to 12 months. For all the tired use of clich?s, nevertheless, it is true that those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Even the New York Times, that bastion of power representing a certain section of the ruling class in the world, took the time to analyze the Hayes/Tilden election. The New York Times, however, took the most conservative possible interpretation of that constitutional crisis. After cursory discussion of the election and Florida's crucial role, the New York Times (11/12/00) stated: "That gave Hayes 185 electoral votes and left Tilden with 184. The incensed Democrats threatened retaliation. They said they would engage in a filibuster that would prevent the completion of the electoral count until Inauguration Day came and there was no president. They vowed to congest the streets of Washington and prevent Hayes from being inaugurated. Democrats organized armed bands and, threatening 'Tilden or blood', said they would physically put Tilden in the White House. There was real fear that war would break out. Then something happened. Historians disagree on exactly what it was. Some believe that a compromise was reached at a hotel meeting between emissaries of the two parties. At that meeting, a deal was supposedly brokered that, among other things, stipulated that if Hayes became president, he would remove the remaining federal troops stationed in the South, effectively ending Reconstruction, a matter of great importance to the Southern states. That did in fact happen, but whether it was a formal quid pro quo linked to Hayes's assumption of office is unclear." (Emphasis added) The ruling class in this country is severely divided. In fact, the entire country is divided. A deal will be made to calm things down. The content and direction of that deal will be substantially affected by the strength and presence of progressives during the coming struggle. Over one-half of the voting population, who by themselves, are a conservative grouping of people, came down on the side of Al Gore. It is clear that the overwhelming majority of trade unionists, national minorities and women voted for Gore. If this election is stolen in Florida, Jeb Bush, George's brother, who has vowed to eliminate all affirmative action in Florida, and who is an open enemy of the working class, implemented that theft. Rick Shenkman, Tom Paine.com, has described the extent of the corruption: "As has been widely reported, there were many irregularities in Palm Beach County. Over 19,000 ballots were thrown out because voters allegedly punched holes for two candidates. And the ballot design may have led people to accidentally vote for Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan, who received an unusually high tally, though he neither campaigned nor advertised in the area. Buchanan himself has remarked that the votes he received in this liberal community apparently went to him unintentionally. He concludes: 'I don't want any votes that I did not receive and I don't want to win any votes by mistake.' He added: 'It seems to me that these 3,000 votes people were talking about - most of those are probably not my vote and that may be enough to give the margin to Mr. Gore.' Were these votes to be added to Gore's column Gore would be the universally acknowledged winner of the election at present. That the election in Florida has been marked by numerous instances of fraud and irregularity is by now well established. 'The NAACP chairman Julian Bond says he has collected evidence that the vote of minorities, presumably more inclined to vote for Gore than Bush, was suppressed in several places through unwholesome means. In communities outside Orlando, for instance, voters were given pencils instead of pens, which gives rise to the suspicion that their votes may possibility have been altered later. (State law requires that pens be used.) In Hillsborough County some officials apparently denied some citizens access to the polls, claiming that the race on their voter cards didn't match state records. And in the same county, a sheriff's deputy allegedly asked black men for identification, turning them away on the unproven grounds that they were convicted felons.'" The ballot in Palm Beach County was illegal and the deal made by the Democratic Party in that county to accept that ballot was likewise illegal. No one has the right to make a deal to violate the law, certainly not when it comes to the right to vote, or depriving someone of the right to vote. In describing the deal made in 1876, the New York Times glossed over the arrangement that was made. In 1876, the Republican Party sold out the former slaves of the South. It cooperated in the implementation of Jim Crow segregation throughout the South. It permitted the rise of Klu Klux Klan terrorism against the Negro people. That is, that deal set the history of this country for one hundred years. Notably, the whole concept of an electoral college instead of a popular vote was a compromise with southern states that also demanded that slaves be counted as 3/5 a person. The history of this country is governed by compromises with slaveholders, segregationists, and now reactionaries who claim the mantel of their forbearers. It is clear that trade unionists, women and national minorities stand to lose every gain fought for during the 20th century if the progressives who fought for those gains sit on the sidelines. Many of those gains were obtained when there was a split in the ruling class. The trade union movement developed its strength during the 1930's when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was attacked as a traitor to his class and progressives declared he was merely saving capitalism. Certainly, the Civil Rights movement's successes depended on the fact that many powerful forces in this country wanted an end to segregation. Admittedly, many capitalists wanted to move plants to the South to break trade union shops but that is the nature of our movement. To the credit of the union movement, they overwhelmingly supported desegregation. When a deal gets made that sets the direction of this country and therefore the world for the 21st century, that deal certainly will involve the Supreme Court where every progressive piece of legislation and every constitutional right is in jeopardy if the Scalia/Thomas type take over. We must take the position that Al Gore and the Democratic Party do not have the right to compromise the election. The majority of voters in this country chose Al Gore, and he, as an individual, has no right to thwart their choice. The stronger the progressive presence, the better the deal that will be made. We must fight to prevent the sellout that has occurred in the past. Our principled and disciplined fight sets the basis for our own self-respect. We must provide a legal presence in Florida where the corruption and denial of the right to vote was pervasive. We must provide demonstrations in Florida to support the voters who were in favor of Al Gore. We must have demonstrations in Washington, D.C. where the deal making will go on. Anything less will allow the reactionaries to take over this country for another hundred years. Yours in Struggle, Ronald D. Glotta This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 12 12:36:41 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:36:41 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] CHICAGO WORKERS TO REST OF COUNTRY: "DON'T LET IT DIE!" Message-ID: <494276F8.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> CHICAGO WORKERS TO REST OF COUNTRY: "DON'T LET IT DIE!" By David Bacon New America Media, 12/11/08 http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=a3d3cc49a93f6bfac1b3f22114371524 When the day finally comes that Raul Flores loses his job, he will face a bitter search for another one. "I've got a family to support, so I've got to do whatever it takes," he says. "It's going to be hard. The economic situation is not good, but I can't just wait for something to happen to me." That puts Flores in the same boat as millions of other U.S. workers. Last month alone 533,000 workers lost their jobs, the highest figure in 34 years. A week ago, the heads of the big three auto companies were in Washington DC, pleading for loans to keep their companies afloat. As a price, lawmakers and pundits told them they had to become "leaner and meaner," and in response, General Motors announced it would close nine plants and put tens of thousands of workers in the street. Ford and Chrysler described a similar job-elimination strategy. What makes Flores special? He didn't just accept the elimination of his job. Instead, he sat in at the Chicago plant where he worked for six days, together with 240 other union members at Republic Windows and Doors. Republic workers were not demanding the reopening of their closed factory. They've been fighting for severance and benefits to help them survive the unemployment they know awaits them. Yet their occupation can't help but raise deeper questions about the right of workers to their jobs. Can a return to the militant tactics of direct action, that produced the greatest gains in union membership, wages and job security in U.S. history, overturn "the inescapable logic of the marketplace"? Can employers, and the banks that hold their credit lines, be forced to keep plants open? Unlike the auto giants, Republic was not threatening bankruptcy. It makes a "green product," Energy-Star compliant doors and windows that should be one of the bedrock industries for a new, more environmentally sustainable economy. But Bank of America, as it was receiving $25 billion in Federal bailout funds, pulled the company's credit line. Perhaps that alone led President-elect Obama to support the workers. The bank-enforced closure undermines his program for using environmentally sustainable jobs to replace those eliminated in the spiraling recession. He called Republic workers "absolutely right. What's happening to them is reflective of what's happening across this economy." Federal law requires companies to give employees 60 days notice of a plant closure, or pay them 60 days severance pay, to give them breathing room to find other jobs. Republic workers got three days, and no money. "They knew they'd be out on the street penniless," says Leah Fried, organizer for Local 1110 of the United Electrical Workers. "When the negotiating committee came back to the factory to report that the company didn't even show up to talk with them, the workers were so enraged they voted unanimously not to leave until they got their severance and vacation pay." While the workers' acted to gain their legally-mandated rights, the plant occupation resurrects a tactic with a radical history. In 1934, auto workers occupied the huge Fisher Body plants in Flint, Michigan, and when the battle was over, the United Auto Workers was born. Sitdown strikes spread across the country like wildfire. Occupying production lines in plant after plant, workers won unions, better wages, and real changes in their lives. Seventy years later, the workers who have inherited that legacy of unionization and security are on the brink of losing everything. Just since 2006 the United Auto Workers has lost 119,000 members. The threat of plant closure has been used to cut the wages of new hires in half, to $14.50, the same wage paid on the window lines at Republic, where the union is only four years old. Flores certainly hopes that those whose livelihoods are in peril will rediscover the tactic. "This is the start of something," he urges. "Don't let it die. Learn something from it." And the sitdown was successful. After six days sitting-in, and a rally of 1000 people in front of the bank, JP Morgan, another beneficiary of Federal assistance that owns 40% of Republic, put up $400,000, and Bank of America another $1.35 million. That was enough to pay the legally-mandated severance, the workers' accrued vacation, and two months of health care. Flores and his coworkers then voted to end the occupation. Fran Tobin, midwest organizer for Jobs with Justice, a coalition of labor and community groups with chapters around the country, shares Flores' optimism. "I think this is not the last time we're going to see American workers occupying American plants, as part of a move to save jobs and turn things around," he says. Organizers for Jobs with Justice are fanning out with a program they call a "Peoples' Bailout." "We need to ask, 'What kind of an economy and recovery do we want?'" Tobin emphasizes. He lists funds for a jobs program, rather than huge loans to banks, a moratorium on home foreclosures, investment in infrastructure repair, and helping local and state governments (and public worker) survive the crisis without massive budget cuts. Flores, Tobin and Fried all agree that none of those demands can be won without unions and workers willing to fight for them. That makes the Republic plant occupation more than just a local confrontation. "This might not be the right tactic in every situation, but people know we need to be fighting back," Fried says. Will the unions in auto plants and other workplaces hit by layoffs take up the challenge of the Republic workers? To Flores, they have to do something more than just watch the elimination of their jobs. "We've got to fight for our rights," he emphasizes. "It's not fair that they just kick us out on the street with nothing. Somebody has to respond." For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org Just out from Beacon Press: Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002 See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006) http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575 See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004) http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html -- __________________________________ David Bacon, Photographs and Stories http://dbacon.igc.org This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 12 13:18:30 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:18:30 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Blaming the workers Message-ID: <494280A4.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Blaming the workers By Jack Lessenberry Blame the workers. Especially, blame the United Auto Workers. That's what we've been hearing from the talking heads over the last several weeks as our auto industry skidded toward the brink of extinction and politicians debated a bailout. Over and over again, I've heard people repeat that the trouble was that the average UAW worker costs the auto companies $73 per hour. Nice work if you can get it. Matter of fact, it made me want to pack a lunch bucket and trudge off to Dodge Main. Trouble is, when I checked, I found that this statistic is simply not true. Unionized autoworkers, at least the relatively few still working, made about $28 an hour last year, according to Ann Arbor's respected Center for Automotive Research. Yes, they do get benefits, and benefits cost money. But how could they rack up another $45 an hour in bennies? The answer is that they don't. Jonathan Cohn sagely reported in The New Republic how this figure was concocted: By taking the entire cost of health care and pensions for both active employees and retirees and adding it to the average hourly wage. Yes, health care and other benefits do cost the auto companies $42 an hour. But that's because they have so many retirees. General Motors has been around for almost a century. Ford, even longer. Toyota, which didn't open plants here until the 1980s, has very few retirees. Naturally their total labor costs are lower. Yes, the United Auto Workers union did fight hard to win their workers decent salaries and benefits. (The nerve of those bastards!) Based on their real salaries, longtime autoworkers make about $60,000 a year. When you consider the physical stress and the repetitive motion injuries, that doesn't seem like such a good deal to me. And it is even worse now, since nobody working for the Not-So-Big Three knows if he or she will still have a job in a few months. Yet life is not always fair. We need to ask the question: Are the unions and the salaries and the benefits paid their members really the reason the auto companies are on their knees? Harley Shaiken is one of the most knowledgeable labor experts in the country. A Detroit native, he's now a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. I asked him if it's fair to blame the UAW for all, or even some, of the shape the domestic industry is in? "No, I don't think so," he said. "I think the UAW has played an important role in rebuilding the industry. Were there excesses in the past? Of course. By everyone." But that's not what has caused the present crisis; the credit crunch resulting from the Wall Street meltdown last September was the catalyst. "The automakers are asking Congress for $34 billion," Shaiken reminded me. "If the entire labor force volunteered to work for free next year, that would save them [only] about $18 billion. "Of course, labor costs are critical," he explained. "But they aren't decisive in terms of the scope of the current economic meltdown." Well, what about the so-called "jobs bank," whereby temporarily idled workers would still get paid until new jobs could be found for them? "It's become the most falsely maligned thing in the industry, and it's gotten a bad rap," Shaiken said. "It was always capped in terms of financial liability for the companies. Ford, for example, was [paying] less than $200 million a year." What was important about the jobs bank, however, was that it gave workers incentives to come up with laborsaving devices. Even if they cost jobs in the short run, they wouldn't be penalized. The union, however, has signaled it is to suspend the jobs bank, which now involves fewer than 4,000 workers. But what about other concessions? Has the union been willing to step up and do its part? "I think it has," Shaiken said. "Entering [UAW] workers at the Big Three are giving up two-thirds of their total compensation. They are being hired at $14 an hour, and at considerably reduced benefits." That is far less than workers at Toyota or Honda. "That hasn't made much of a difference yet, because the auto companies are hiring so few workers," the professor added. "But over time, it certainly will." Much of what we've heard about unions and their role in the industry is just plain wrong, he argued. "When people think of unions, they think of them as being sort of opposed to improvements in productivity. That simply isn't true." Yes, there may have been a time when unions were part of the problem. But they get it today. Shaiken cited one recent study that showed that unionized labor forces were, by and large, better in terms of productivity than nonunion workers. In other words, the professor thinks much of what we thought we knew was wrong. ... Not for the first time. Newspaper update: The latest buzz is that a momentous decision has been made to deliver the Free Press only two or three days a week, soon after the first of the year. "They would print it and put it in the boxes the other days, but otherwise encourage people to go to the Internet," said a longtime staffer, who seemed to be in a position to know. The paper would be home delivered Thursday and Sunday, and perhaps one other day. Subscribers would be encouraged to turn to the paper's website. Politics & Prejudices was unable to nail this down further, but it sounded more definite than many of the constant rumors swirling about the fate of one or both Detroit dailies. My colleague Sandra Svoboda contacted Freep Editor Paul Anger, who offered what can best be described as a "guarded" response: "We're looking at all sorts of things. I think it's pretty safe to say we're going to print a newspaper. " Pressed to say whether the print version would be scaled back, he said: "I can't really say anything else. We are no different than anybody else in the country, and all of us better be looking at everything. ... This is all a work in progress." What is not known is what this "work in progress" could mean for the very junior partner in the current Joint Operating Agreement, The Detroit News. It is hard to believe Detroit Newspapers Inc. would continue to run an expensive, seven-day delivery system for the smaller of the two papers. Whatever decision is made, by the way, will be really entirely up to Gannett. Though the Denver-based MediaNews Group owns the Detroit News, under the present deal, which was struck in 2005, Gannett has 95 percent control. There's even a quaintly bizarre twist to all this; according to a knowledgeable source, the internal code word for all this is "Project Griffon." According to the source, someone in high authority apparently thought that was the name of the ship Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac arrived in when he discovered Detroit on July 24, 1701. That's a little hard to believe, since a glance at any standard history would show Old Caddy arrived in a canoe. A French ship named the Griffon, however, was the first full-sized sailing ship on the Great Lakes. It set sail Sept. 18, 1679 ... and promptly vanished. Perhaps the Gannettoids who came up with that name for their new adventure were highly subtle intellectuals. Maybe the name indicates that they know that the success or failure of their efforts are still shrouded in mystery. Or maybe they just didn't know experts believe the Griffon plummeted to the bottom. Anyway, I haven't been able to confirm any of this, though someone I trust swears it is all true. Jack Lessenberry opines weekly for Metro Times. Contact him at letters at metrotimes.com. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Dec 12 13:22:38 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:22:38 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] CALL TO ACTION Message-ID: Question: Is not the document below time specific or was it written eight years ago? And is this not attorney Glotta of the National Lawyers Guide? I have a copy of his latest book: "The Road To Hell Is Not Paid with Good Intentions." Waistline In a message dated 12/12/2008 2:30:46 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us writes: CALL TO ACTION It is time for progressives and all supporters of democracy to act. The political crisis in this country demands action of every type from the study of history, particularly the Hayes/Tilden election, to demonstrations in the streets. As everyone has heard a thousand times, a crisis is the simultaneous presentation of danger and opportunity. It is literally true that the history of the 21st century will be defined by what happens in the next 6 to 12 months. For all the tired use of clich?s, nevertheless, it is true that those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Even the New York Times, that bastion of power representing a certain section of the ruling class in the world, took the time to analyze the Hayes/Tilden election. The New York Times, however, took the most conservative possible interpretation of that constitutional crisis. After cursory discussion of the election and Florida's crucial role, the New York Times (11/12/00) stated: "That gave Hayes 185 electoral votes and left Tilden with 184. The incensed Democrats threatened retaliation. They said they would engage in a filibuster that would prevent the completion of the electoral count until Inauguration Day came and there was no president. They vowed to congest the streets of Washington and prevent Hayes from being inaugurated. Democrats organized armed bands and, threatening 'Tilden or blood', said they would physically put Tilden in the White House. There was real fear that war would break out. Then something happened. Historians disagree on exactly what it was. Some believe that a compromise was reached at a hotel meeting between emissaries of the two parties. At that meeting, a deal was supposedly brokered that, among other things, stipulated that if Hayes became president, he would remove the remaining federal troops stationed in the South, effectively ending Reconstruction, a matter of great importance to the Southern states. That did in fact happen, but whether it was a formal quid pro quo linked to Hayes's assumption of office is unclear." (Emphasis added) The ruling class in this country is severely divided. In fact, the entire country is divided. A deal will be made to calm things down. The content and direction of that deal will be substantially affected by the strength and presence of progressives during the coming struggle. Over one-half of the voting population, who by themselves, are a conservative grouping of people, came down on the side of Al Gore. It is clear that the overwhelming majority of trade unionists, national minorities and women voted for Gore. If this election is stolen in Florida, Jeb Bush, George's brother, who has vowed to eliminate all affirmative action in Florida, and who is an open enemy of the working class, implemented that theft. Rick Shenkman, Tom Paine.com, has described the extent of the corruption: "As has been widely reported, there were many irregularities in Palm Beach County. Over 19,000 ballots were thrown out because voters allegedly punched holes for two candidates. And the ballot design may have led people to accidentally vote for Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan, who received an unusually high tally, though he neither campaigned nor advertised in the area. Buchanan himself has remarked that the votes he received in this liberal community apparently went to him unintentionally. He concludes: 'I don't want any votes that I did not receive and I don't want to win any votes by mistake.' He added: 'It seems to me that these 3,000 votes people were talking about - most of those are probably not my vote and that may be enough to give the margin to Mr. Gore.' Were these votes to be added to Gore's column Gore would be the universally acknowledged winner of the election at present. That the election in Florida has been marked by numerous instances of fraud and irregularity is by now well established. 'The NAACP chairman Julian Bond says he has collected evidence that the vote of minorities, presumably more inclined to vote for Gore than Bush, was suppressed in several places through unwholesome means. In communities outside Orlando, for instance, voters were given pencils instead of pens, which gives rise to the suspicion that their votes may possibility have been altered later. (State law requires that pens be used.) In Hillsborough County some officials apparently denied some citizens access to the polls, claiming that the race on their voter cards didn't match state records. And in the same county, a sheriff's deputy allegedly asked black men for identification, turning them away on the unproven grounds that they were convicted felons.'" The ballot in Palm Beach County was illegal and the deal made by the Democratic Party in that county to accept that ballot was likewise illegal. No one has the right to make a deal to violate the law, certainly not when it comes to the right to vote, or depriving someone of the right to vote. In describing the deal made in 1876, the New York Times glossed over the arrangement that was made. In 1876, the Republican Party sold out the former slaves of the South. It cooperated in the implementation of Jim Crow segregation throughout the South. It permitted the rise of Klu Klux Klan terrorism against the Negro people. That is, that deal set the history of this country for one hundred years. Notably, the whole concept of an electoral college instead of a popular vote was a compromise with southern states that also demanded that slaves be counted as 3/5 a person. The history of this country is governed by compromises with slaveholders, segregationists, and now reactionaries who claim the mantel of their forbearers. It is clear that trade unionists, women and national minorities stand to lose every gain fought for during the 20th century if the progressives who fought for those gains sit on the sidelines. Many of those gains were obtained when there was a split in the ruling class. The trade union movement developed its strength during the 1930's when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was attacked as a traitor to his class and progressives declared he was merely saving capitalism. Certainly, the Civil Rights movement's successes depended on the fact that many powerful forces in this country wanted an end to segregation. Admittedly, many capitalists wanted to move plants to the South to break trade union shops but that is the nature of our movement. To the credit of the union movement, they overwhelmingly supported desegregation. When a deal gets made that sets the direction of this country and therefore the world for the 21st century, that deal certainly will involve the Supreme Court where every progressive piece of legislation and every constitutional right is in jeopardy if the Scalia/Thomas type take over. We must take the position that Al Gore and the Democratic Party do not have the right to compromise the election. The majority of voters in this country chose Al Gore, and he, as an individual, has no right to thwart their choice. The stronger the progressive presence, the better the deal that will be made. We must fight to prevent the sellout that has occurred in the past. Our principled and disciplined fight sets the basis for our own self-respect. We must provide a legal presence in Florida where the corruption and denial of the right to vote was pervasive. We must provide demonstrations in Florida to support the voters who were in favor of Al Gore. We must have demonstrations in Washington, D.C. where the deal making will go on. Anything less will allow the reactionaries to take over this country for another hundred years. Yours in Struggle, Ronald D. Glotta **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From jannuzi at gmail.com Fri Dec 12 20:48:06 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 12:48:06 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? Message-ID: If you do not take the companies away from the combined control of shareholders and top management, you can not nationalize them. It's sort of like asking for unconditional surrender first. CJ From shmage at pipeline.com Fri Dec 12 21:35:15 2008 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:35:15 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Dec 12, 2008, at 10:48 PM, CeJ wrote: > If you do not take the companies away from the combined control of > shareholders and top management, you can not nationalize them. > It's sort of like asking for unconditional surrender first. When the shareholders and top management (banks, auto) can hold on only at public expense, nationalization is not like asking for unconditional surrender--it only takes the guts to "just say no." Shane Mage > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, > kindling in measures and going out in measures." > > Herakleitos of Ephesos From jannuzi at gmail.com Sat Dec 13 04:46:35 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:46:35 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: SM:>>When the shareholders and top management (banks, auto) can hold on only at public expense, nationalization is not like asking for unconditional surrender--it only takes the guts to "just say no."<< I meant asking for bankruptcy before nationalization was like asking for unconditional surrender. Exactly what are you arguing for? Believe me, I have neither the time nor the strong stomach to visit Marxmal or LiberalBoredObserver Talk archives to find out. So please, spell it out for us here on MT. I say no nationalization unless it is really nationalization. Nor would I trust Rubin or Bernanke to figure that out. CJ From rasherrs at eircom.net Sat Dec 13 13:37:59 2008 From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett) Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:37:59 -0000 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Finance Capital Message-ID: <000101c95d62$aff5ceb0$0fe16c10$@net> Hi Anybody know where I can download Towards a Theory of Finance Capital by Hillel Ticktin. It was published in No 17 Critique Journal of Socialism. Paddy Hackett From dogangoecmen at aol.com Sun Dec 14 10:45:28 2008 From: dogangoecmen at aol.com (dogangoecmen at aol.com) Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 12:45:28 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Finance Capital In-Reply-To: <000101c95d62$aff5ceb0$0fe16c10$@net> References: <000101c95d62$aff5ceb0$0fe16c10$@net> Message-ID: <8CB2C2AE30F8D7F-17C4-1647@WEBMAIL-MZ10.sysops.aol.com> Paddy, I checked the webside of the journal for you. This is an early number. It seems to be not available. Why don't write to Hillel Ticktin or to the editorial board. This seems to be the only way to get a copy of the article. Sorry, Dogan. -----Original Message----- From: Paddy Hackett To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Sent: Sat, 13 Dec 2008 21:37 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Finance Capital Hi Anybody know where I can download Towards a Theory of Finance Capital by Hillel Ticktin. It was published in No 17 Critique Journal of Socialism. Paddy Hackett _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ________________________________________________________________________ AOL Email goes Mobile! You can now read your AOL Emails whilst on the move. Sign up for a free AOL Email account with unlimited storage today. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 15 08:20:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:20:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Userer or rentier state Message-ID: <49462F82.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The US today is a userer state in a slightly different sense today; and from an "industrial state" to a "userer state". Charles ^^^^ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 15 08:30:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:30:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Republic settlement Message-ID: <494631DA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Update #2: Vote is 'Yes' at Republic; Plant Occupation Ends 10 December, 2008 CHICAGO After the conclusion of negotiations Wednesday evening, the membership of Local 1110, more than 200 workers, met in the plant cafeteria to hear and consider the tentative settlement that had been worked out by UE negotiators over the past three days. The settlement was approved by a unanimous vote. 'Justice - We Did It!' Following the vote, the UE members, led by Local President Armando Robles, marched out of the plant, chanting "We did it!" in English and Spanish. Pres. Robles stepped to the microphones outside the front entrance to the plant, where a throng of reporters and cameras had been waiting. He announced the end of the occupation and said that justice had been achieved. UE Western Region President Carl Rosen then described the negotiations, summarized the settlement agreement, and commented on the significance of the struggle and the achievement. Pay, Health Care, Vacation Pay The settlement totals $1.75million. It will provide the workers with: * eight weeks of pay they are owed under the federal WARN Act; * provided with two months of continued health coverage, and; * pay for all accrued and unused vacation. JPMorgan Chase will provide $400,000 of the settlement, with the balance coming from Bank of America Third Party Fund Although the money will be provided as a loan to Republic Windows and Doors, it will go directly into a third-party fund whose sole purpose is to pay the workers what is owed them. As the Local 1110 leaders characterized the settlement, "We fought to make them pay what they owe us, and we won." 'Historic Victory' UE Director of Organization Bob Kingsley spoke on behalf of the National Union, describing the outcome of the occupation as "a victory for workers everywhere," and as "an historic victory for America's labor movement." Kingsley went on to call the settlement "a win for all working men and women who face uncertainty, unfairness and job loss in a troubled economy." 'The Window of Opportunity' Foundation Kingsley then announced the creation of a new foundation, dedicated to reopening the plant. It will be initiated with seed money from the UE national union and the thousands of dollars of donations to the UE Local 1110 Solidarity Fund that have come in from across the country and around the world in just the past five days. Melvin Maclin of Local 1110 announced the name of the foundation, which was chosen by the workers themselves: the Window of Opportunity Fund. Maclin said that the fund will be open to receive donations from all friends of the Republic workers and supporters of their struggle. Rosen introduced U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, praising the congressman for his tireless work in behalf of the Republic workers and indispensible role in bringing about the settlement. Gutierrez spoke at some length, and then introduced David Rudis, Illinois State President, Bank of America. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 15 08:34:40 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:34:40 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Unemployment stories Message-ID: <494632C0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> On the dole Sacramento News & Review - Sacramento,CA,USA By Seth Sandronsky On a late November afternoon, Elk Grove resident Melanie Nisewanger, 21, stopped by the state Employment Development Department on ... Seth Sandronsky http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Archive?author=3348 This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 15 09:15:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:15:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Blaming the workers Message-ID: <49463C66.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Blaming the workers By Jack Lessenberry Blame the workers. Especially, blame the United Auto Workers. That's what we've been hearing from the talking heads over the last several weeks as our auto industry skidded toward the brink of extinction and politicians debated a bailout. Over and over again, I've heard people repeat that the trouble was that the average UAW worker costs the auto companies $73 per hour. Nice work if you can get it. Matter of fact, it made me want to pack a lunch bucket and trudge off to Dodge Main. ^^^ CB: Of course, Dodge Main was closed in 1979. It's a big empty hulk on Mt. Elliott now. ^^^ Trouble is, when I checked, I found that this statistic is simply not true. Unionized autoworkers, at least the relatively few still working, made about $28 an hour last year, according to Ann Arbor's respected Center for Automotive Research. Yes, they do get benefits, and benefits cost money. But how could they rack up another $45 an hour in bennies? The answer is that they don't. Jonathan Cohn sagely reported in The New Republic how this figure was concocted: By taking the entire cost of health care and pensions for both active employees and retirees and adding it to the average hourly wage. Yes, health care and other benefits do cost the auto companies $42 an hour. But that's because they have so many retirees. General Motors has been around for almost a century. Ford, even longer. Toyota, which didn't open plants here until the 1980s, has very few retirees. Naturally their total labor costs are lower. Yes, the United Auto Workers union did fight hard to win their workers decent salaries and benefits. (The nerve of those bastards!) Based on their real salaries, longtime autoworkers make about $60,000 a year. When you consider the physical stress and the repetitive motion injuries, that doesn't seem like such a good deal to me. And it is even worse now, since nobody working for the Not-So-Big Three knows if he or she will still have a job in a few months. Yet life is not always fair. We need to ask the question: Are the unions and the salaries and the benefits paid their members really the reason the auto companies are on their knees? Harley Shaiken is one of the most knowledgeable labor experts in the country. A Detroit native, he's now a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. I asked him if it's fair to blame the UAW for all, or even some, of the shape the domestic industry is in? "No, I don't think so," he said. "I think the UAW has played an important role in rebuilding the industry. Were there excesses in the past? Of course. By everyone." But that's not what has caused the present crisis; the credit crunch resulting from the Wall Street meltdown last September was the catalyst. "The automakers are asking Congress for $34 billion," Shaiken reminded me. "If the entire labor force volunteered to work for free next year, that would save them [only] about $18 billion. "Of course, labor costs are critical," he explained. "But they aren't decisive in terms of the scope of the current economic meltdown." Well, what about the so-called "jobs bank," whereby temporarily idled workers would still get paid until new jobs could be found for them? "It's become the most falsely maligned thing in the industry, and it's gotten a bad rap," Shaiken said. "It was always capped in terms of financial liability for the companies. Ford, for example, was [paying] less than $200 million a year." What was important about the jobs bank, however, was that it gave workers incentives to come up with laborsaving devices. Even if they cost jobs in the short run, they wouldn't be penalized. The union, however, has signaled it is to suspend the jobs bank, which now involves fewer than 4,000 workers. But what about other concessions? Has the union been willing to step up and do its part? "I think it has," Shaiken said. "Entering [UAW] workers at the Big Three are giving up two-thirds of their total compensation. They are being hired at $14 an hour, and at considerably reduced benefits." That is far less than workers at Toyota or Honda. "That hasn't made much of a difference yet, because the auto companies are hiring so few workers," the professor added. "But over time, it certainly will." Much of what we've heard about unions and their role in the industry is just plain wrong, he argued. "When people think of unions, they think of them as being sort of opposed to improvements in productivity. That simply isn't true." Yes, there may have been a time when unions were part of the problem. But they get it today. Shaiken cited one recent study that showed that unionized labor forces were, by and large, better in terms of productivity than nonunion workers. In other words, the professor thinks much of what we thought we knew was wrong. ... Not for the first time. Newspaper update: The latest buzz is that a momentous decision has been made to deliver the Free Press only two or three days a week, soon after the first of the year. "They would print it and put it in the boxes the other days, but otherwise encourage people to go to the Internet," said a longtime staffer, who seemed to be in a position to know. The paper would be home delivered Thursday and Sunday, and perhaps one other day. Subscribers would be encouraged to turn to the paper's website. Politics & Prejudices was unable to nail this down further, but it sounded more definite than many of the constant rumors swirling about the fate of one or both Detroit dailies. My colleague Sandra Svoboda contacted Freep Editor Paul Anger, who offered what can best be described as a "guarded" response: "We're looking at all sorts of things. I think it's pretty safe to say we're going to print a newspaper. " Pressed to say whether the print version would be scaled back, he said: "I can't really say anything else. We are no different than anybody else in the country, and all of us better be looking at everything. ... This is all a work in progress." What is not known is what this "work in progress" could mean for the very junior partner in the current Joint Operating Agreement, The Detroit News. It is hard to believe Detroit Newspapers Inc. would continue to run an expensive, seven-day delivery system for the smaller of the two papers. Whatever decision is made, by the way, will be really entirely up to Gannett. Though the Denver-based MediaNews Group owns the Detroit News, under the present deal, which was struck in 2005, Gannett has 95 percent control. There's even a quaintly bizarre twist to all this; according to a knowledgeable source, the internal code word for all this is "Project Griffon." According to the source, someone in high authority apparently thought that was the name of the ship Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac arrived in when he discovered Detroit on July 24, 1701. That's a little hard to believe, since a glance at any standard history would show Old Caddy arrived in a canoe. A French ship named the Griffon, however, was the first full-sized sailing ship on the Great Lakes. It set sail Sept. 18, 1679 ... and promptly vanished. Perhaps the Gannettoids who came up with that name for their new adventure were highly subtle intellectuals. Maybe the name indicates that they know that the success or failure of their efforts are still shrouded in mystery. Or maybe they just didn't know experts believe the Griffon plummeted to the bottom. Anyway, I haven't been able to confirm any of this, though someone I trust swears it is all true. Jack Lessenberry opines weekly for Metro Times. Contact him at letters at metrotimes.com. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 15 09:22:04 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:22:04 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] General crisis theory Message-ID: <49463DDB.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? CeJ jannuzi at gmail.com Sat Dec 13 04:46:35 MST 2008 Previous message: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why is "Nationalization" A Dirty Word in America? Next message: [Marxism-Thaxis] Finance Capital Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SM:>>When the shareholders and top management (banks, auto) can hold on only at public expense, nationalization is not like asking for unconditional surrender--it only takes the guts to "just say no."<< I meant asking for bankruptcy before nationalization was like asking for unconditional surrender. Exactly what are you arguing for? Believe me, I have neither the time nor the strong stomach to visit Marxmal or LiberalBoredObserver Talk archives to find out. So please, spell it out for us here on MT. I say no nationalization unless it is really nationalization. Nor would I trust Rubin or Bernanke to figure that out. CJ ^^^ CB: It seems to be that objective conditions, the objective tendencies of capitalism are causing a form of nationalization to occur "automatically". Time to revisit Marxist-Leninist general crisis theory. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 15 09:31:21 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:31:21 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Colossus with Feet of Clay Message-ID: <49464009.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> New book examines character of deepening crisis in capitalist globalization By Abayomi Azikiwe Editor, Pan-African News Wire Published Nov 13, 2008 7:38 PM Colossus with Feet of Clay: Low-Wage Capitalism What the new globalized, high-tech imperialism means for the class struggle in the U.S. By Fred Goldstein Available at leftbooks.com. This is a must-read book for those seeking answers to the current crisis in world capitalism. With the economic meltdown of 2008, the very future of the system of international finance capital has been thrown into question. Monumental write-offs of hundreds of billions of dollars by the world?s leading banks and investment firms have occurred this year. Names such as Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, UBS, HSBC, Wachovia, Citigroup, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc., have become the focus of attention of not only the bourgeoisie, but of working people who have seen their jobs, homes, pensions and overall living standards plunge. Official statistics on the U.S. economy indicate that over one million jobs have been lost during 2008. Consumer confidence has declined while signs of social discord have emerged, in part resulting in the willingness of many whites to vote for the country?s first African-American president. What has generated profound anger among working people throughout the U.S. is the response to this crisis by the capitalist class and the bourgeois state, which have given over a trillion dollars in taxpayer money to the very same financial institutions that created the crisis. This crisis, however, is not confined to the U.S. The subprime mortgage crisis and the ?credit crunch,? as it was described during the early months of 2008, are now being labeled-even by the corporate press-as a major economic dilemma affecting billions of people around the globe. The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank along with central banks throughout Europe and the world have handed over hundreds of billions of dollars and other units of currency to the bankers in order to stave off a rapid collapse of the system. Despite all of these subsidies to the financiers, many of these firms have not survived. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have essentially been ?nationalized? under capitalist control by the U.S. government in order to soften the fall of the multi-trillion-dollar housing market. Yet there has been no bailout for the working people of the U.S. and the world. Millions have lost their homes and jobs. Their pensions are rapidly drying up because many of these funds were invested in the gambling houses of Wall Street and its counterparts around the world. Nonetheless, the resistance and fightback are developing. Workers in Europe have staged general strikes against rising fuel and food prices. There have been food rebellions in various countries throughout the Caribbean and Africa. In the U.S., a burgeoning movement calling for a moratorium on foreclosures has made a political impact and is influencing the political dialogue taking place inside the country. The source of the crisis Goldstein, utilizing Marxist economic analysis, has approached this crisis from the standpoint of those who are most seriously affected: the working class, the nationally oppressed and women. The author makes the case in very simple and straightforward language that the crisis is one of capitalist overproduction. According to Goldstein: ?This cycle dictates that, during periods of capitalist expansion, the powers of production increase ever more rapidly while the powers of consumption of society expand only gradually. Sooner or later production outstrips consumption. Profit does not arrive in corporate bank accounts until sales take place. If commodities cannot be sold at a profit, inventories pile up, production stops, workers are laid off, and a crisis ensues. That is the crude dynamic of the capitalist crisis of overproduction.? (pp. xi-xii) The author explains: ?The new international division of labor pits workers all around the world against each other in a race to the bottom. It depresses wages of the working class in imperialist countries and expands the sweatshop, superexploitation of the workers in low-wage countries. It makes each capitalist recovery more difficult and undermines the historic advantages accruing to the workers in a capitalist upturn. All this is aggravating the general crisis of capitalism. High technology and low-wage capitalism on a world scale are accelerating the crisis of overproduction and laying the basis for a massive counterattack by the working class.? (p. xiii) Women, race and the capitalist crisis As it relates to the impact of the crisis on women and the nationally oppressed in the U.S., Goldstein looks at this phenomenon within the context of the historical development of the country. It was the stolen land of the Native Americans and the slave labor of the African people, along with the low-wage exploitation of Chinese workers in building the railways to the West Coast, which made the U.S. the leading capitalist nation in the world. The author takes note of the changing character of the labor force in the U.S.: ?The rise in the number of women compared to men in the workforce over the last three decades is telling. In 1970, 79 percent of all men participated in the labor force as opposed to 43 percent of all women. In 2005, men?s participation dropped to 72 percent while women?s climbed to 60 percent. Women?s participation in the labor force has steadily risen since 1980 and men?s participation has steadily declined. By 2005 there were 80 million men and 70 million women in the workforce.? Goldstein emphasizes that women are more likely to receive lower wages than men. He also points to the class nature of the Clinton-era ?welfare reform? policy that advanced ?the politically reactionary campaign to spread the idea that those on welfare were lazy people who just wanted to ?live off the dole.? It was racist in character because the racist regime of U.S. capitalism has left so many Black single parents in poverty and almost all references to the poor focus in on African Americans (even though the majority of the poor in the U.S. are white).? (p. 134) The author illustrates how the restructuring of capitalism has devastated large sections of the Black working class: ?The restructuring by the bosses devastated Black workers, partly as a result of a deliberate effort starting in the 1960s and 1970s to relocate plants away from the industrial central cities, where there were great concentrations of the African-American proletariat. But this devastation was also the result of a general decline in manufacturing and particularly of the general attack on the union movement.? (p. 137) The coming fightback Goldstein not only analyzes the character of the modern-day capitalist crisis, but he boldly puts forward a set of possible demands that can serve as a rallying point for a national and international fightback movement. Looking at the recent struggles that have taken place over the last three decades during the overall capitalist decline, he firmly believes that the present crisis can be reversed through a proactive approach by the working class and the oppressed. This struggle will not just encompass the workers of the industrialized capitalist states. The proletariat in the U.S. and Western Europe must understand the necessity of forming alliances with working people in the former colonial and neocolonial countries. The globalization of capitalist production has created the conditions for such an alliance, one that can transform the course of history. Goldstein?s work not only makes a significant contribution to the resurgence in literature on Marxist political economy, but more importantly, it serves as a guide for building broader and more militant social movements that directly address the need to transform capitalist societies in order to ensure a socialist future for humanity. ?Low Wage Capitalism? can be ordered online at www.Leftbooks.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Articles copyright 1995-2008 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved. Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011 Email: ww at workers.org Subscribe wwnews-subscribe at workersworld.net Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php Page printed from: http://www.workers.org/2008/us/book_review_1120/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 15 09:48:48 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:48:48 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Remember, the recession isn't all bad Message-ID: <49464420.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> -------------------------------------------------------------- From: Doug Henwood On Dec 14, 2008, at 11:27 PM, Eugene Coyle wrote: Henwood's two posts on this confuse me. Not sure what his position is. Let me be clear about mine: The present financial crisis began in 1947 with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, a crippling blow to the labor movemen That's clarifying. A 61-year crisis. Ok. Doug ^^^^ CB: Actually, the General Crisis of Capitalism starts in 1917 with the Russian Rev. The general crisis of capitalism is when it begins to leave the "world stage". There's the general crisis and cyclical crises. Lenin noted then that capitalism had "considerable reserves" ( I'll say !), but in the long run it's socialism or barbarism, comrades. Australian Marxist Review No. 49, November 2008 Editorial Notes With the present state of the world, it is timely to look at the concept of "crisis", a most frequently used term nowadays. For Marxists, "crisis" has multiple connotations. There is the general crisis of capitalism, referring to our present historical period, in which capitalism as a social system loses its global monopoly. Another social system, socialism, based on the power of the working people, makes its appearance. Some socialist countries are no more, but the exploitation, brutality and poverty suffered by masses of people at the hands of capitalism, especially in South America, is seeing ever more countries extricate themselves from the imperialist web. Socialist revolution is on the historical agenda. A second use of the term "crisis", which actually pre-dates the first use, is in "crisis of overproduction", which is one of the four phases of the cycle of crisis, recession, recovery and boom, which is characteristic of and intrinsic to the process of capitalist production. Crises of overproduction have been regular features of capitalist economies since the early 1800s. Capitalist production is unplanned, anarchic, with each enterprise aiming to make maximum profits. Capital must keep "turning over", with goods continually sold, so the profits of exploitation, surplus value, are constantly turned into money, ready for a new round of production and exploitation. If this turnover is interrupted, a crisis of overproduction can occur. The turnover of capital can be impeded if there is an imbalance between the two major branches of industry ? capital goods and consumer goods ? or if the level of demand in the economy as a whole is insufficient, relative to productive capacity, or if there are long-term trends at work, altering the structure of capitalist economies and intensifying the social contradictions within the system e.g. downgrading of manufacturing in advanced capitalist countries. Crises of overproduction (recessions, depressions) are inevitable under capitalism and ultimately stem from the fundamental contradiction in capitalist society, that between the social character of production and the private appropriation of the product, which occurs because of the private ownership of the major means of production. The capitalist world has been heading towards recession for some time but there is more to capitalism?s current economic troubles. We cannot simply reduce the present economic state to just another crisis of overproduction. Capitalism is in a financial crisis. It also suffers an environmental crisis, food crisis, housing crisis, a crisis of public health and other secondary crises. The financial crisis is the result of wholesale deregulation of capitalist economies (a response to the demands of transnational corporations to "leave it to the markets") allowing the enormous growth in speculation over the last two decades. The current round of the financial crisis was triggered by predatory and fraudulent lending practices associated with sub-prime mortgages in the US housing market. As the recent CPA Central Committee Executive resolution says: "In this era of accelerated globalisation, massive amounts of capital, trillions of dollars, are moved every day between electronically connected markets, seeking profits. Speculation is rife. In fact, a main tendency of today?s capitalism is to bypass the productive economy, the real production process which generates all wealth, and to make huge amounts of fast money through speculation." It also says: "The consequences of the sub-prime mortgage scandal are bringing hardships for many working people around the world. It is typical of capitalism that billions of dollars of taxpayers? money has been used to bail out the banks. Privatise the profits and socialise the losses is still capitalism?s guiding light. Not one person has been saved from foreclosure and eviction by bailouts, not one pension fund or superannuation scheme has been quarantined from the devastating effects of the crisis." In this way, the financial crisis is interwoven with and exacerbates the crisis of overproduction. It is another main factor pushing capitalist economies towards recession. Capitalism doesn?t collapse because it?s in an economic crisis or in a period of general crisis. That is a common misconception. In fact, crisis has been called "a form of motion of capitalism". It is a normal pattern for capitalist development. A crisis of overproduction is a period of renewal, especially for the stronger enterprises which buy up or replace the weaker ones and renew their means of production at a more technologically advance level. It may be a time of crisis and hardship, but it?s also an opportunity to discuss with people the workings of capitalism, its instability, its exploitative nature, its rapacious greed, fuelled by deregulation and the gargantuan growth in speculation. It is a time to publicise the advantages of socialism, for example in China and in Cuba. It is a time to inform people about and win their support for the progressive changes taking place in Venezuela and other South American countries and to demonstrate how their move away from the private enterprise system and towards socialism, is deepening the general crisis of capitalism. E.C. http://www.cpa.org.au/amrarch/49editorial_notes.html _______________________________________________ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 15 10:13:07 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 12:13:07 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Remember, the recession isn't all bad Message-ID: <494649D2.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Remember, the recession isn't all bad -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: pen-l at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [Pen-l] Remember, the recession isn't all bad From: Charlie Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 10:06:43 -0800 Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=sbcglobal.net; h=Received:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:Message-ID:Date:From:User-Agent:MIME-Version:To:Subject:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=2XcjacgZ7b5yWxNmaUrc6SxkKSqHArxQZ2YZ6lKOEQNpsCuJmRMZU5+bFqFUkBP7pfu2Icg2f56HpEUCgrpfoGypEBzTUBkVCGXpeF4eWAcUHKiVgDRnSB4ZMphxc8/3wod/o9mi7EsoFzZvXPvA55GqX1ofAwvDBJlioO1Nxz8= ; User-agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 (Windows/20081105) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Remember, the recession isn't all bad: Unsupportable debts are being erased. Consumers are rebuilding their savings and lowering their living standards to match reality. Workers are exiting dying industries. And through distress sales, foreclosures, and bankruptcies, assets are being taken away from weak hands and given to strong ones, creating the conditions for future growth." --Peter Coy, "Is the Jobs Panic Justified?", Business Week, Dec. 22, 2008 Teachers might want to parse almost every phrase of this remark in class. Charles Andrews This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Mon Dec 15 14:20:44 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:20:44 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Colossus with Feet of Clay Message-ID: Speaking of feet and then shoes. The guy that threw his gym shoes - one at a time, at Bush W. I been laughing my ass off for the past two days, every time I think about it. Waistline **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From Waistline2 at aol.com Mon Dec 15 14:30:00 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:30:00 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Pension Fund Crisis in the US Message-ID: Massive Pension Fund Crisis in the US By Henry C.K. Liu This article appeared in AToL on October 31, 2008 as: Balck Hole Gapes for Pensions More than three years before the current financial crisis, in a series Greenspan, the Wizard of Bubbleland that began on September 14, 2005, I warned: Through mortgage-backed securitization, banks now are mere loan intermediaries that assume no long-term risk on the risky loans they make, which are sold as securitized debt of unbundled levels of risk to institutional investors with varying risk appetite commensurate with their varying need for higher returns. But who are institutional investors? They are mostly pension funds that manage the money the US working public depends on for retirement. In other words, the aggregate retirement assets of the working public are exposed to the risk of the same working public defaulting on their house mortgages. When a homeowner loses his or her home through default of its mortgage, the homeowner will also lose his or her retirement nest egg invested in the securitized mortgage pool, while the banks stay technically solvent. That is the hidden network of linked financial landmines in a housing bubble financed by mortgage-backed securitization to which no one is paying attention. The bursting of the housing bubble will act as a detonator for a massive pension crisis. Now in October 2008, while the US government is busy bailing out wayward banks, public pension funds operated by states and municipalities are facing their worst year of loss in history, exacerbating cumulative funding shortfalls of past decades of credit bubble and putting pressure on distressed state governments to shore them up to avoid pending default. In the nine months to the end of September, the average state and municipal pension fund lost 14.8% of its market value. The loss has deepened as global financial markets fell sharply in October. The loss has more than double previous highest loss for state funds, which registered 7.9% for the full year in 2002. Few market analysts expect equity prices to bottom any time soon, let alone a recovery, and many are resigned to the prospect of years of asset deflation and economic stagnation. California?s Calpers, the biggest public pension fund in the US, in the week ending October 24 reported a loss of 20% of its asset value, or more than $40 billion, in the quarter between July 1 and October 20, 2008. State and local pension funds comprise a patchwork of 2,700 funds that manage $1.4 trillion on behalf of 21 million public employees, including teachers, firefighters, policemen and other municipal workers. About 40% of these funds are under-funded, meaning that they would not be able to pay the future pensions promised to public employees. State governments have raised pension benefits to keep up with inflation, betting on a growing wealth effect from fund investments to meet higher payments. It was part of the flawed rationale that called for the privatization of social security. Just like the social security trust fund, pension funds are money that belongs to the workers who are required to contribute into them out of their payroll deductions and matched by public funds as part of workers? employment benefits. These funds are not charity payments from government employers. They are compulsory savings of public sector workers. Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, hometown of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, has convened a taskforce to address the shortfalls in Illinois funds. For example, funding for the Police Fund has fallen to less than 50% of requirement. The situation is actually more ominous. The calculation is based on an assumption of annual returns of 8%, but very few funds will reach that level of return in the next few years. Most funds will be lucky to escape further losses in the current market meltdown. The city of Chicago would have to start contributing substantially more to the fund out of its general revenue and from Federal and state subsidy. Public employees are faced with the prospect of being required to contribute more from their payroll deductions. And Chicago is not unique in its public pension problem. Every city and state of the union is in similar difficulty. A vicious downward cycle is emerging as state and local governments face lower tax revenue that put pressure to cut costs. Congress is pushing for a second fiscal stimulus package, in part to alleviate pressures on state pension funding. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, cited money lost from pension funds in her push for an additional $150 billion second stimulus package. The public pension funds themselves have limited options. Many are under pressure to move away from the stock market into less risky investments, but that would mean suffering more capital loss in this market environment and reducing returns in the future. Why hard-working public employees have to pay more to make up the losses in their pension funds managed by irresponsible professionals who were supposed to protect their hard-earned capital when the bankers whose greed were responsible for the financial tsunami that caused the losses are awarded with obscene golden parachutes? Because, according to Republican candidates McCain and Palin, Joe the plumber thinks that forcing rich bankers to pay for the losses they engineered and put on the backs of public workers would be to practice ? socialism?. October 29, 2008 **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 15 15:14:55 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:14:55 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Pension Fund Crisis in the US In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4946908F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> 12/15/2008 4:30 PM >>> Massive Pension Fund Crisis in the US By Henry C.K. Liu This article appeared in AToL on October 31, 2008 as: Balck Hole Gapes for Pensions More than three years before the current financial crisis, in a series Greenspan, the Wizard of Bubbleland that began on September 14, 2005, I warned: Through mortgage-backed securitization, banks now are mere loan intermediaries that assume no long-term risk on the risky loans they make, which are sold as securitized debt of unbundled levels of risk to institutional investors with varying risk appetite commensurate with their varying need for higher returns. But who are institutional investors? They are mostly pension funds that manage the money the US working public depends on for retirement. In other words, the aggregate retirement assets of the working public are exposed to the risk of the same working public defaulting on their house mortgages. When a homeowner loses his or her home through default of its mortgage, the homeowner will also lose his or her retirement nest egg invested in the securitized mortgage pool, while the banks stay technically solvent. ^^^ CB; Did the banks remain technically solvent ? If so, why did the federal government have to give them $ 8 trillion ? Not arguing with the danger to pensions, but I don't think the banks have been solvent through all this . ^^^^^^^ That is the hidden network of linked financial landmines in a housing bubble financed by mortgage-backed securitization to which no one is paying attention. The bursting of the housing bubble will act as a detonator for a massive pension crisis. Now in October 2008, while the US government is busy bailing out wayward banks, public pension funds operated by states and municipalities are facing their worst year of loss in history, exacerbating cumulative funding shortfalls of past decades of credit bubble and putting pressure on distressed state governments to shore them up to avoid pending default. In the nine months to the end of September, the average state and municipal pension fund lost 14.8% of its market value. The loss has deepened as global financial markets fell sharply in October. The loss has more than double previous highest loss for state funds, which registered 7.9% for the full year in 2002. Few market analysts expect equity prices to bottom any time soon, let alone a recovery, and many are resigned to the prospect of years of asset deflation and economic stagnation. California?s Calpers, the biggest public pension fund in the US, in the week ending October 24 reported a loss of 20% of its asset value, or more than $40 billion, in the quarter between July 1 and October 20, 2008. State and local pension funds comprise a patchwork of 2,700 funds that manage $1.4 trillion on behalf of 21 million public employees, including teachers, firefighters, policemen and other municipal workers. About 40% of these funds are under-funded, meaning that they would not be able to pay the future pensions promised to public employees. State governments have raised pension benefits to keep up with inflation, betting on a growing wealth effect from fund investments to meet higher payments. It was part of the flawed rationale that called for the privatization of social security. Just like the social security trust fund, pension funds are money that belongs to the workers who are required to contribute into them out of their payroll deductions and matched by public funds as part of workers? employment benefits. These funds are not charity payments from government employers. They are compulsory savings of public sector workers. Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, hometown of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, has convened a taskforce to address the shortfalls in Illinois funds. For example, funding for the Police Fund has fallen to less than 50% of requirement. The situation is actually more ominous. The calculation is based on an assumption of annual returns of 8%, but very few funds will reach that level of return in the next few years. Most funds will be lucky to escape further losses in the current market meltdown. The city of Chicago would have to start contributing substantially more to the fund out of its general revenue and from Federal and state subsidy. Public employees are faced with the prospect of being required to contribute more from their payroll deductions. And Chicago is not unique in its public pension problem. Every city and state of the union is in similar difficulty. A vicious downward cycle is emerging as state and local governments face lower tax revenue that put pressure to cut costs. Congress is pushing for a second fiscal stimulus package, in part to alleviate pressures on state pension funding. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, cited money lost from pension funds in her push for an additional $150 billion second stimulus package. The public pension funds themselves have limited options. Many are under pressure to move away from the stock market into less risky investments, but that would mean suffering more capital loss in this market environment and reducing returns in the future. Why hard-working public employees have to pay more to make up the losses in their pension funds managed by irresponsible professionals who were supposed to protect their hard-earned capital when the bankers whose greed were responsible for the financial tsunami that caused the losses are awarded with obscene golden parachutes? Because, according to Republican candidates McCain and Palin, Joe the plumber thinks that forcing rich bankers to pay for the losses they engineered and put on the backs of public workers would be to practice ? socialism?. October 29, 2008 **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Mon Dec 15 18:40:14 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:40:14 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Pension Fund Crisis in the US Message-ID: <_Waistline2 at aol.com_ (mailto:Waistline2 at aol.com) > 12/15/2008 4:30 PM >>> Massive Pension Fund Crisis in the US >>> This article appeared in AToL on October 31, 2008 as: Black Hole Gapes for Pensions Greenspan, the Wizard of Bubbleland that began on September 14, 2005, I warned: Through mortgage-backed securitization, banks now are mere loan intermediaries that assume no long-term risk on the risky loans they make, which are sold as securitized debt of unbundled levels of risk to institutional investors with varying risk appetite commensurate with their varying need for higher returns. But who are institutional investors? They are mostly pension funds that manage the money the US working public depends on for retirement. In other words, the aggregate retirement assets of the working public are exposed to the risk of the same working public defaulting on their house mortgages. When a homeowner loses his or her home through default of its mortgage, the homeowner will also lose his or her retirement nest egg invested in the securitized mortgage pool, while the banks stay technically solvent. <<< ^^^ CB; Did the banks remain technically solvent ? If so, why did the federal government have to give them $ 8 trillion ? Not arguing with the danger to pensions, but I don't think the banks have been solvent through all this . Comment To begin with the quote from Mr. Liu is taken from the article: ?Greenspan the Wizard of Bubbleland? published back on September 14, 2005 or more than 3 years ago. The article can be found here and is worth reading: _http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GI14Dj01.html_ (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GI14Dj01.html) The article is not pinpointing a specific bank or banks but explaining the double whammy faced by the workers. For instance what banks are being talked about? Well, banks in general and the impact of Greenspan. Consider the following two paragraphs taken from the aforementioned article. ?The growth of capital markets was responsible for the long boom that began with the Greenspan era in 1987, rather than bank lending. Banks' share of net credit markets, according Fed data on flow of funds, dropped from a peak of more than 62% in 1975 to 27.5% in 2004 while securitization's share rose from negligible in 1975 to more than 60% in 2004. Securitization now stands at more than $3 trillion, up from $375 billion in 1985. It shows the effect of a shift of importance from banks as funding intermediaries to the capital/credit markets. Nasdaq companies rely less on banks for funds and are thus less affected by Greenspan's interest-rate policy. Greenspan has been vocal in explaining that his monetary policy of gradual moves of rising FFR was not specifically targeted toward the stock markets but toward the unsustainable expansion of the economy as a whole, although with the same breath, he decried the dangers of the wealth effect if it ever ended up heavier on the consumption side than on the investment side, which of course was exactly what happened. Consumer spending has been holding up the US economy in recent years, while most of the supply-side investment has gone overseas. This has caused a separation between the dollar economy and the US economy. The dollar economy expands from global dollar hegemony while the US economy is hollowed out of manufacturing. Dollar hegemony has deprived the US economy of real productivity from manufacturing and forced it into virtual productivity from finance manipulation? (end of quote) Again . . . Repeat . . . . The passage quoted above is from 3 years ago. However, to answer the question. No the banks did not remain technically solvent. I have in mind say CitiiBank. I believe - my point of view, is that the roots of this particular outbreak of crisis goes back to 2006, rather than say 1946 as suggested on Pen-L. By crisis is meant the crisis of profitability as it erupts on the basis of the existing business cycle. Waistline **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010) From farmelantj at juno.com Tue Dec 16 05:26:23 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:26:23 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Shameless Self-promotion Message-ID: <20081216.072623.25262.0@webmail16.vgs.untd.com> "Six Prominent American Freethinkers" http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/fl161208.html ____________________________________________________________ Click here to find the satellite television package that meets your needs. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw2MVWJM1otoZsNHPCfSJa5H16MkBBMgcN3cUZ3zekdriUb8t/ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 16 06:41:11 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 08:41:11 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?=5Blbo-talk=5D_Wall_Street_Coup_D?= =?utf-8?b?4oCZw6l0YXQgKG11c3QgcmVhZCk=?= In-Reply-To: <4947A141.4050209@email.it> References: <37E6A9FA-D492-4837-B32A-ACB40B3FE4BA@pipeline.com> <1389c3439f0f0b27f93efd6557252134.squirrel@webmail.uci.edu> <4946B897.4080608@sbcglobal.net><4946B897.4080608@sbcglobal.net> <4947A141.4050209@email.it> Message-ID: <494769A8.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> double bluff I'd like to see some comments on this article: http://news.goldseek.com/TrendInvestor/1229359632.php extract: " *So a total of $975 Billlion Dollars would be required as an absolute maximum to bail out every single foreclosed mortgage in America. **So why do we have an $8.5 trillion Dollar solution to solve a $975 Billion Dollar problem? ...* CB: Raghu and I said something this on PEN-L about six months ago. We said give all the foreclosure debtors the money to pay their mortgages. The creditors would then get paid , and it would be win-win. The money could be given to the debtors in a script that could only be used to pay mortgage debts. OTC derivative contracts are basically the same as regulated futures contracts. They are also zero sum, BUT they do not take place within an exchange. So they are not regulated and they are not transparent. What has happened is that a band of insiders have taken such huge OTC derivative bets that they have been able to push the markets, so that many of these OTC derivative contracts have triggered. Because the amount of leverage used or the notional value of these contracts is so high it takes very little movement for the outsiders to become insolvent, it is leverage gone mad. The Insiders knew that this would happen, but they also knew that the Government would not allow this corrupt system to fail. ^^^ CB: I said this too, more recently. The "too big to fail" group knew they gov'mint wouldn't let them fail. They did a test run on that with LTCM the hedge fund several years back. Sure enough LTCM was bailed out. Hence the $8.5 trillion Dollars of bailouts, this money is simply being transferred or funnelled from the taxpayers to a select band of Wall Street insiders. Remember it is a zero sum game the outsiders Bear Stearns, Wachovia, Citigroup LOST but somebody gained an equivalent amount. As Gordon Gecko stated in the film Wall Street. ?The Politicians and media go on, and on, about how this is necessary to save the system, too big to fail, etc, etc. It is all rubbish they are nothing more than paid salesman for the bankers, it is a Government of the few and only for the few. The banks had huge unregulated bets amongst themselves and all kept in secret, the outsiders inevitably lost, and your money is now being funnelled directly to the bet winners. It is theft pure and simple. ^^^ CB: Life imitates art. ^^^^ ?*$8.5 Trillion Dollars would buy exactly 80% of all the mortgages outstanding in America*. So imagine for *the same money that your government or is it the bankers government? have already given to the bankers they could have instead sent you a cheque for 80% of your outstanding mortgage*, that would be some Christmas present. Instead they decided to send all of this money,*YOUR MONEY* to a select band of Wall Street insiders. ?Ironic that a few bankers have engineered the biggest robbery in history.? ^^^^ CB: I said this too, last week. The Greatest Bank Heist in history wherein the banks do the heisting. This article is all plagerism (smile) found here: http://webabuser.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/wall-street-coup-d%e2%80%99etat-must-read/ > -- Caselle da 1GB, trasmetti allegati fino a 3GB e in piu' IMAP, POP3 e SMTP autenticato? GRATIS solo con Email.it http://www.email.it/f Sponsor: Prison Break: dalla TV il gioco per cellulare! Evadi dalla noia! Clicca qui: http://adv.email.it/cgi-bin/foclick.cgi?mid=8274&d=16-12 ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 16 10:53:28 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:53:28 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bailouts: The Ultimate Double Standard Message-ID: <4947A4CA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Published on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 by The American Prospect Bailouts: The Ultimate Double Standard by Robert Kuttner Imagine if the automakers had been offered the same kind of government assistance as the banks. Detroit's Big Three would each get new government capital totaling many tens of billions to replace their lost equity, as well as government guarantees running into the hundreds of billions. And government, oddly, would ask almost nothing in return. There would be no "car czar" to supervise Detroit's management, no wage and benefit cuts for employees, no review of product lines, and no government-mandated restructuring plan. A pretty sweet deal. But that's basically what the banks got. You might think that the banks had some friends in high places -- friends like Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs where Robert Rubin once was co-chairman; or Tim Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and treasury-secretary designate, a prot?g? of the same Robert Rubin who now is a senior executive of Citigroup. The contrast between the proposed auto bailout and the bank bailout gives new meaning to the term "double standard." And the case of Citigroup is a very instructive place to begin. Citigroup, once a trillion dollar behemoth, is one of America's largest three banks (the other two are JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America), and by any normal measure Citigroup is insolvent. Without the extraordinary infusions of government funds that Citigroup has received, it would be out of business. Under the $750 billion bank bailout legislated by Congress at Paulson's urgent request, the initial idea was to buy up toxic securities clogging the balance sheets of banks, Paulson resisted the idea of giving the Treasury authority to aid the banks directly. In fact, the Democrats added this provision to the emergency law over Paulson's objection. Paulson, however, soon found that his half-baked plan to take securities off the banks' hands was unworkable. So he quickly reverted to the direct aid that he had opposed. Citigroup got an initial $20 billion; then when its collapse seemed imminent it got another $25 billion in late November. Its stock price, which had been hammered, briefly doubled. The idea behind the bailout was to enable banks to resume normal lending, but so far the main beneficiaries have been bank stockholders and executives. In addition, Citigroup got another $306 billion in guarantees of those toxic securities. If they turn out to be worthless, the taxpayer pays. What did the taxpayer get in return? Precious little. Citigroup has temporarily suspended paying dividends, and its executive compensation plan must be reviewed and approved by the Treasury. But there is no across-the-board pay cutting, no talk of top management giving up perks or working for a dollar a year, no government seats on Citigroup's board. And the Treasury is startlingly incurious about how Citigroup is running its business. There is to be no comprehensive review or restructuring along the lines of what is in store for automakers. Citigroup will probably be back for more aid. But few commentators have been asking the question that is so widely posed when it comes to the auto industry: What if Citigroup went bust? It would be a calamity if Citigroup just collapsed, the way the smaller Lehman Brothers did in September, triggering the stock market crash. But if the government were to conclude that Citigroup was insolvent rather than just throwing money at it, and sold off its healthy pieces to other banks while disposing of its devalued securities, the real world consequences would be fairly minor. Mainly, Citigroup's shareholders would be wiped out, but they have already lost most of their investment. Indeed, one could make a good case that the effects of the auto industry collapsing would be far more serious than the orderly liquidation of Citigroup. In the case of Citigroup, other banks would simply pick up the business. But the auto industry is one of the two linchpins of American manufacturing, the other being aerospace. The spillover consequences to the economies of several states would be immense. So why is the government indiscriminately throwing money at Citigroup while it is putting the auto industry through the wringer for a far smaller sum? The answer is that Wall Street enjoys far more political influence than any manufacturing industry. And as a consequence of that outsized influence, politicians, especially the crew currently running the Treasury (who come from Wall Street and will return to it), are largely passive when comes to insisting on changes in bank's business as usual. By contrast, most politicians will not give aid to automakers without a good hard look under the hood. This saga suggests two policy conclusions. First, there needs to a single standard for all industries getting government aid, with plenty of accountability. Deciding just to let these wounded industries collapse may seem smart on the Wall Street Journal editorial page (which has now been proven utterly wrong in its extreme faith in markets) but it would be a disaster for the real economy. However with taxpayer aid must come greater accountability. And that leads to the second conclusion. It's time for some serious public institution building. The Treasury has neither the will nor the competence to closely monitor and restructure Citigroup and other large banks now getting emergency aid because of the misfeasance of their executives. Not does the government have the capacity to help Detroit restructure the auto industry (An ad hoc "car czar" just won't do it, any more than Hank Paulson's ad hoc bank ubailouts have done it.) We need something like the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of the 1930s, which did not just put money into failing corporations and banks, but actively managed turnarounds. And this, gentle reader, takes us into the long-forbidden territory of industrial policy -- a concept that both Republicans and Democrats, for thirty years, have been dismissing as a sin against free markets. How could the government possibly know enough to "pick winners"? That was the job of the free market, so the argument went. Thanks to the general hostility to industrial policy, we have lost one industry after another and sent others offshore. And we are losing competitive races in industries like renewable energy where American technology was once the pioneer. Many of America's success stories, like aerospace and biotech and the internet, have in fact been the result of unacknowledged industrial policies; spinoffs of defense spending or biomedical research. These government policies did not pick winners; they created winners. But that result had to be incidental, because it was ideologically forbidden for industrial success to be the goal. Lately the free market has been picking losers, big time. Worse, it has been creating losers, often out of once-sound enterprises. And the much maligned government has been picking winners. Actually it has been picking survivors in a helter-skelter process of triage, ever since Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke began their spree of emergency interventions in the summer of 2007. Bear Stearns going down the tubes? Yes, let that one live, but with a shotgun merger. Here's $29 billion. Lehman Brothers? Absolutely not, time to draw the line. Oops, better save A.I.G. before it takes the whole economy down Here's another $85 billion. Better make that $135 billion. Citigroup? Whatever it takes. The problem is not that government, in an emergency, is picking winners. With the economy tottering on the edge of a depression, there's no good alternative. The problem is that Paulson and company, who do not really believe in government, have been doing a lousy job at it. The new Obama administration has to create a lot of government capacity and competence if it is to save the private sector from its self-inflicted wounds. And it needs a single standard. ? 2008 The American Prospect Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine, as well as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the think tank Demos. He was a longtime columnist for Business Week, and continues to write columns in the Boston Globe. He is the author of Obama's Challenge and other books. Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/16-8 This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 17 07:05:25 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:05:25 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] IX. CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISM Message-ID: <4948C0D5.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch09.htm IX. CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISM By the critique of imperialism, in the broad sense of the term, we mean the attitude of the different classes of society towards imperialist policy in connection with their general ideology. The enormous dimensions of finance capital concentrated in a few hands and creating an extraordinarily dense and widespread network of relationships and connections which subordinates not only the small and medium, but also the very small capitalists and small masters, on the one hand, and the increasingly intense struggle waged against other national state groups of financiers for the division of the world and domination over other countries, on the other hand, cause the propertied classes to go over entirely to the side of imperialism. ?General? enthusiasm over the prospects of imperialism, furious defence of it and painting it in the brightest colours?such are the signs of the times. Imperialist ideology also penetrates the working class. No Chinese Wall separates it from the other classes. The leaders of the present-day, so-called, ?Social-Democratic? Party of Germany are justly called ?social-imperialists?, that is, socialists in words and imperialists in deeds; but as early as 1902, Hobson noted the existence in Britain of ?Fabian imperialists? who belonged to the opportunist Fabian Society. Bourgeois scholars and publicists usually come out in defence of imperialism in a somewhat veiled form; they obscure its complete, domination and its deep-going roots, strive to push specific and secondary details into the forefront and do their very best to distract attention from essentials by means of absolutely ridiculous schemes for ?reform?, such as police supervision of the trusts or banks, etc. Cynical and frank imperialists who are bold enough to admit the absurdity of the idea of reforming the fundamental characteristics of imperialism are a rarer phenomenon. Here is an example. The German imperialists attempt, in the magazine Archives of World Economy, to follow the national emancipation movements in the colonies, particularly, of course, in colonies other than those belonging to Germany. They note the unrest and the protest movements in India, the movement in Natal (South Africa), in the Dutch East Indies, etc. One of them, commenting on an English report of a conference held on June 28-30, 1910, of representatives of various subject nations and races, of peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe who are under foreign rule, writes as follows in appraising the speeches delivered at this conference: ?We are told that we must fight imperialism; that the ruling states should recognise the right of subject peoples to independence; that an international tribunal should supervise the fulfilment of treaties concluded between the great powers and weak peoples. Further than the expression of these pious wishes they do not go. We see no trace of understanding of the fact that imperialism is inseparably bound up with capitalism in its present form and that, therefore [!!], an open struggle against imperialism would be hopeless, unless, perhaps, the fight were to be confined to protests against certain of its especially abhorrent excesses.? [1] Since the reform of the basis of imperialism is a deception, a ?pious wish?, since the bourgeois representatives of the oppressed nations go no ?further? forward, the bourgeois representative of an oppressing nation goes ?further? backward, to servility towards imperialism under cover of the claim to be ?scientific?. That is also ?logic?! The questions as to whether it is possible to reform the basis of imperialism, whether to go forward to the further intensification and deepening of the antagonisms which it engenders. or backward, towards allaying these antagonisms, are fundamental questions in the critique of imperialism. Since the specific political features of imperialism are reaction everywhere and increased national oppression due to the oppression of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition, a petty-bourgeois-democratic opposition to imperialism arose at the beginning of the twentieth century in nearly all imperialist countries. Kautsky not only did not trouble to oppose, was not only unable to oppose this petty-bourgeois reformist opposition, which is really reactionary in its economic basis, but became merged with it in practice, and this is precisely where Kautsky and the broad international Kautskian trend deserted Marxism. In the United States, the imperialist war waged against Spain in 1898 stirred up the opposition of the ?anti-imperialists?, the last of the Mohicans of bourgeois democracy who declared this war to be ?criminal?, regarded the annexation of foreign territories as a violation of the Constitution, declared that the treatment of Aguinaldo, leader of the Filipinos (the Americans promised him the independence of his country, but later landed troops and annexed it), was ?jingo treachery?, and quoted the words of Lincoln: ?When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs others, it is no longer self-government; it is despotism.? [2] But as long, as all this criticism shrank from recognising the inseverable bond between imperialism and the trusts, and, therefore, between imperialism and the foundations of capitalism, while it shrank from joining the forces engendered by large-scale capitalism and its development-it remained a ?pious wish?. This is also the main attitude taken by Hobson in his critique of imperialism. Hobson anticipated Kautsky in protesting against the ?inevitability of imperialism? argument, and in urging the necessity of ?increasing the consuming capacity? of the people (under capitalism!). The petty-bourgeois point of view in the critique of imperialism, the omnipotence of the banks, the financial oligarchy, etc., is adopted by the authors I have often quoted, such as Agahd, A. Lansburgh, L. Eschwege, and among the French writers Victor Berard, author of a superficial book entitled England and Imperialism which appeared in 1900. All these authors, who make no claim to be Marxists, contrast imperialism with free competition and democracy, condemn the Baghdad railway scheme, which is leading to conflicts and war, utter ?pious wishes? for peace, etc. This applies also to the compiler of international stock and share issue statistics, A. Neymarck, who, after calculating the thousands of millions of francs representing ?international? securities, exclaimed in 1912: ?Is it possible to believe that peace may be disturbed ... that, in the face of these enormous figures, anyone would risk starting a war?? [3] Such simple-mindedness on the part of the bourgeois economists is not surprising; moreover, it is in their interest to pretend to be so naive and to talk ?seriously? about peace under imperialism. But what remains of Kautsky?s Marxism, when, in 1914, 1915 and 1916, he takes up the same bourgeois-reformist point of view and affirms that ?everybody is agreed? (imperialists, pseudo- socialists and social-pacifists) on the matter of peace? Instead of an analysis of imperialism and an exposure of the depths of its contradictions, we have nothing but a reformist ?pious wish? to wave them aside, to evade them. Here is a sample of Kautsky?s economic criticism of imperialism. He takes the statistics of the British export and import trade with Egypt for 1872 and 1912; it seems that this export and import trade has grown more slowly than British foreign trade as a whole. From this Kautsky concludes that ?we have no reason to suppose that without military occupation the growth of British trade with Egypt would have been less, simply as a result of the mere operation of economic factors?. ?The urge of capital to expand ... can be best promoted, not by the violent methods of imperialism, but by peaceful democracy.? [4] This argument of Kautsky?s, which is repeated in every key by his Russian armour-bearer (and Russian shielder of the social-chauvinists), Mr. Spectator,[11] constitutes the basis of Kautskian critique of imperialism, and that is why we must deal with it in greater detail. We will begin with a quotation from Hilferding, whose conclusions Kautsky on many occasions, and notably in April 1915, has declared to have been ?unanimously adopted by all socialist theoreticians?. ?It is not the business of the proletariat,? writes Hilferding ?to contrast the more progressive capitalist policy with that of the now bygone era of free trade and of hostility towards the state. The reply of the proletariat to the economic policy of finance capital, to imperialism, cannot be free trade, but socialism. The aim of proletarian policy cannot today be the ideal of restoring free competition?which has now become a reactionary ideal?but the complete elimination of competition by the abolition of capitalism.? [5] Kautsky broke with Marxism by advocating in the epoch of finance capital a ?reactionary ideal?, ?peaceful democracy?, ?the mere operation of economic factors?, for objectively this ideal drags us back from monopoly to non-monopoly capitalism, and is a reformist swindle. Trade with Egypt (or with any other colony or semi-colony) ?would have grown more? without military occupation, without imperialism, and without finance capital. What does this mean? That capitalism would have developed more rapidly if free competition had not been restricted by monopolies in general, or by the ?connections?, yoke (i.e., also the monopoly) of finance capital, or by the monopolist possession of colonies by certain countries? Kautsky?s argument can have no other meaning; and this ?meaning? is meaningless. Let us assume that free competition, without any sort of monopoly, would have developed capitalism and trade more rapidly. But the more rapidly trade and capitalism develop, the greater is the concentration of production and capital which gives rise to monopoly. And monopolies have already arisen?precisely out of free competition! Even if monopolies have now begun to retard progress, it is not an argument in favour of free competition, which has become impossible after it has given rise to monopoly. Whichever way one turns Kautsky?s argument, one will find nothing in it except reaction and bourgeois reformism. Even if we correct this argument and say, as Spectator says, that the trade of the colonies with Britain is now developing more slowly than their trade with other countries, it does not save Kautsky; for it is also monopoly, also imperialism that is beating Great Britain, only it is the monopoly and imperialism of another country (America, Germany). It is known that the cartels have given rise to a new and peculiar form of protective tariffs, i.e., goods suitable for export are protected (Engels noted this in Vol. III of Capital[12]). It is known, too, that the cartels add finance capital have a system peculiar to themselves, that of ?exporting goods at cut-rate prices?, or ?dumping?, as the English call it: within a given country the cartel sells its goods at high monopoly prices, but sells them abroad at a much lower price to undercut the competitor, to enlarge its own production to the utmost, etc. If Germany?s trade with the British colonies is developing more rapidly than Great Britain?s, it only proves that German imperialism is younger, stronger and better organised than British imperialism, is superior to it; but it by no means proves the ?superiority? of free trade, for it is not a fight between free trade and protection and colonial dependence, but between two rival imperialisms, two monopolies, two groups of finance capital. The superiority of German imperialism over British imperialism is more potent than the wall of colonial frontiers or of protective tariffs: to use this as an ?argument? in favour of free trade and ?peaceful democracy? is banal, it means forgetting the essential features and characteristics of imperialism, substituting petty-bourgeois reformism for Marxism. It is interesting to note that even the bourgeois economist, A. Lansburgh, whose criticism of imperialism is as petty-bourgeois as Kautsky?s, nevertheless got closer to a more scientific study of trade statistics. He did not compare one single country, chosen at random, and one single colony with the other countries; he examined the export trade of an imperialist country: (1) with countries which are financially dependent upon it, and borrow money from it; and (2) with countries which are financially independent. He obtained the following results: EXPORT TRADE OF GERMANY (000,000 marks) To countries financially dependent on Germany 1889 1908 Per cent increase Rumania 48.2 70.8 47 Portugal 19.0 32.8 73 Argentina 60.7 147.0 143 Brazil 48.7 84.5 73 Chile 28.3 64.0 114 Total 234.8 451.5 92 To countries financially independent of Germany Great Britain 651.8 997.4 53 France 210.2 437.9 108 Belgium 137.2 322.8 135 Switzerland 177.4 401.1 127 Australia 21.2 64.5 205 Dutch East Indies 8.8 40.7 363 Total 1,206.6 2,264.4 87 Lansburgh did not draw conclusions and therefore, strangely enough, failed to observe that if the figures prove anything at all, they prove that he is wrong, for the exports to countries financially dependent on Germany have grown more rapidly, if only slightly, than exports to the countries which are financially independent. (I emphasise the ?if?, for Lansburgh?s figures are far from complete.) Tracing the connection between exports and loans, Lansburgh writes: ?In 1890-91, a Rumanian loan was floated through the German banks, which had already in previous years made advances on this loan. It was used chiefly to purchase railway materials in Germany. In 1891, German exports to Rumania amounted to 55 million marks. The following year they dropped to 39.4 million marks and, with fluctuations, to 25.4 million in 1900. Only in very recent years have they regained the level of 1891, thanks to two new loans. ?German exports to Portugal rose, following the loans of 1888- to 21,100,000 (1890); then, in the two following years, they dropped to 16,200,000 and 7,400,000, and regained their former level only in 1903. ?The figures of German trade with Argentina are still more striking. Loans were floated in 1888 and 1890; German exports to Argentina reached 60,700,000 marks (1889). Two years later they amounted to only 18,600,000 marks, less than one-third of the previous figure. It was not until 1901 that they regained and surpassed the level of 1889, and then only as a result of new loans floated by the state and by municipalities, with advances to build power stations, and with other credit operations. ?Exports to Chile, as a consequence of the loan of 1889, rose to 45,200,000 marks (in 1892), and a year later dropped to 22,500,000 marks. A new Chilean loan floated by the German banks in 1906 was followed by a rise of exports to 84,700,000 marks in 1907, only to fall again to 52,400,000 marks in 1908.? [6] From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 17 07:12:41 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:12:41 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] X. THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORY Message-ID: <4948C289.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> X. THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORY We have seen that in its economic essence imperialism is monopoly capitalism. This in itself determines its place in history, for monopoly that grows out of the soil of free competition, and precisely out of free competition, is the transition from the capitalist system to a higher socio-economic order. We must take special note of the four principal types of monopoly, or principal manifestations of monopoly capitalism, which are characteristic of the epoch we are examining. Firstly, monopoly arose out of the concentration of production at a very high stage. This refers to the monopolist capitalist associations, cartels, syndicatess, and trusts. We have seen the important part these play in present-day economic life. At the beginning of the twentieth century, monopolies had acquired complete supremacy in the advanced countries, and although the first steps towards the formation of the cartels were taken by countries enjoying the protection of high tariffs (Germany, America), Great Britain, with her system of free trade, revealed the same basic phenomenon, only a little later, namely, the birth of monopoly out of the concentration of production. Secondly, monopolies have stimulated the seizure of the most important sources of raw materials, especially for the basic and most highly cartelised industries in capitalist society: the coal and iron industries. The monopoly of the most important sources of raw materials has enormously increased the power of big capital, and has sharpened the antagonism between cartelised and non-cartelised industry. Thirdly, monopoly has sprung from the banks. The banks have developed from modest middleman enterprises into the monopolists of finance capital. Some three to five of the biggest banks in each of the foremost capitalist countries have achieved the ?personal link-up? between industrial and bank capital, and have concentrated in their hands the control of thousands upon thousands of millions which form the greater part of the capital and income of entire countries. A financial oligarchy, which throws a close network of dependence relationships over all the economic and political institutions of present-day bourgeois society without exception?such is the most striking manifestation of this monopoly. Fourthly, monopoly has grown out of colonial policy. To the numerous ?old? motives of colonial policy, finance capital has added the struggle for the sources of raw materials, for the export of capital, for spheres of influence, i.e., for spheres for profitable deals, concessions, monopoly profits and so on, economic territory in general. When the colonies of the European powers,for instance, comprised only one-tenth of the territory of Africa(as was the case in 1876), colonial policy was able to develop?by methods other than those of monopoly?by the ?free grabbing? of territories, so to speak. But when nine-tenths of Africa had been seized (by 1900), when the whole world had been divided up,there was inevitably ushered in the era of monopoly possession of colonies and, consequently, of particularly intense struggle for the division and the redivision of the world. The extent to which monopolist capital has intensified all the contradictions of capitalism is generally known. It is sufficient to mention the high cost of living and the tyranny of the cartels. This intensification of contradictions constitutes the most powerful driving force of the transitional period of history, which began from the time of the final victory of world finance capital. Monopolies, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small or weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations?all these have given birth to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. More and more prominently there emerges, as one of the tendencies of imperialism, the creation of the ?rentier state?, the usurer state, in which the bourgeoisie to an ever-increasing degree lives on the proceeds of capital exports and by ?clipping coupons?. It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of the bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to a greater or lesser degree, now one and now another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before; but this growth is not only becoming more and more uneven in general, its unevenness also manifests itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital (Britain). In regard to the rapidity of Germany?s economic development, Riesser, the author of the book on the big German banks, states: ?The progress of the preceding period (1848-70), which had not been exactly slow, compares with the rapidity with which the whole of Germany?s national economy, and with it German banking, progressed during this period (1870-1905) in about the same way as the speed of the mail coach in the good old days compares with the speed of the present-day automobile ... which is whizzing past so fast that it endangers not only innocent pedestrians in its path, but also the occupants of the car.? In its turn, this finance capital which has grown with such extraordinary rapidity is not unwilling, precisely because it has grown so quickly, to pass on to a more ?tranquil? possession of colonies which have to be seized?and not only by peaceful methods?from richer nations. In the United States, economic development in the last decades has been even more rapid than in Germany, and for this very reason, the parasitic features of modern American capitalism have stood out with particular prominence. On the other hand, a comparison of, say, the republican American bourgeoisie with the monarchist Japanese or German bourgeoisie shows that the most pronounced political distinction diminishes to an extreme degree in the epoch of imperialism?not because it is unimportant in general, but because in all these cases we are talking about a bourgeoisie which has definite features of parasitism. The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the numerous branches of industry, in one of the numerous countries, etc., makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or given nation against all the others. The intensification of antagonisms between imperialist nations for the division of the world increases this urge. And so there is created that bond between imperialism and opportunism, which revealed itself first and most clearly in Great Britain, owing to the fact that certain features of imperialist development were observable there much earlier than in other countries. Some writers, L. Martov, for example, are prone to wave aside the connection between imperialism and opportunism in the working-class movement?a particularly glaring fact at the present time?by resorting to ?official optimism? (? la Kautsky and Huysmans) like the following: the cause of the opponents of capitalism would be hopeless if it were progressive capitalism that led to the increase of opportunism, or, if it were the best-paid workers who were inclined towards opportunism, etc. We must have no illusions about ?optimism? of this kind. It is optimism in respect of opportunism; it is optimism which serves to conceal opportunism. As a matter of fact the extraordinary rapidity and the particularly revolting character of the development of opportunism is by no means a guarantee that its victory will be durable: the rapid growth of a painful abscess on a healthy body can only cause it to burst more quickly and thus relieve the body of it. The most dangerous of all in this respect are those who do not wish to understand that the fight against imperialism is a sham and humbug unless it is inseparably bound up with the fight against opportunism. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 17 07:21:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:21:51 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder Message-ID: <4948C4AE.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Vladimir Lenin?s Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Written: April?May 1920 Source: Collected Works, Volume 31, p. 17?118 Publisher: Progress Publishers, USSR, 1964 First Published: As pamphlet, June 1920 Translated: Julius Katzer Online Version: marx.org in 1996, marxists.org 1999 Transcribed: Zodiac HTML Markup: Brian Basgen and David Walters -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: In What Sense We Can Speak of the International Significance of the Russian Revolution (9 k) An Essential Condition of the Bolsheviks? Success (9 k) The Principal Stages in the History of Bolshevism (19 k) The Struggle Against Which Enemies Within the Working-Class Movement Helped Bolshevism Develop, Gain Strength, and Become Steeled (28 k) "Left-Wing" Communism in Germany. the Leaders, the Party, the Class, the Masses (28 k) Should Revolutionaries Work in Reactionary Trade Unions? (29 k) Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments? (32 k) No Compromises? (33 k) "Left-Wing" Communism in Great Britain (35 k) Several Conclusions (38 k) Appendix (28 k) The Split Among the German Communists The Communists and the independents in Germany Turati and Co. in Italy False Conclusions from Correct Premises Note from Wijnkoop, June 30 1920 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Endnotes With this now-classic work, Lenin aimed to encapsulate the lessons the Bolshevik Party had learned from its involvement in three revolutions in 12 years?in a manner that European Communists could relate to, for it was to them he was speaking. He also further develops the theory of what the "dictatorship of the proletariat" means and stresses that the primary danger for the working-class movement in general is opportunism on the one hand, and anti-Marxist ultra-leftism on the other. "Left-Wing" Communism: an Infantile Disorder was written in April, and the appendix was written on May 12, 1920. It came out on June 8-10 in Russian and in July was published in German, English and French. Lenin gave personal attention to the book?s type-setting and printing schedule so that it would be published before the opening of the Second Congress of the Communist International, each delegate receiving a copy. Between July and November 1920, the book was re-published in Leipzig, Paris and London, in the German, French and English languages respectively. "Left-Wing" Communism: an Infantile Disorder is published according to the first edition print, the proofs of which were read by Lenin himself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In What Sense we can Speak of the International Significance of the Russian Revolution -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the first months after the proletariat in Russia had won political power (October 25 [November 7], 1917), it might have seemed that the enormous difference between backward Russia and the advanced countries of Western Europe would lead to the proletarian revolution in the latter countries bearing very little resemblance to ours. We now possess quite considerable international experience, which shows very definitely that certain fundamental features of our revolution have a significance that is not local, or peculiarly national, or Russian alone, but international. I am not speaking here of international significance in the broad sense of the term: not merely several but all the primary features of our revolution, and many of its secondary features, are of international significance in the meaning of its effect: on all countries. I am speaking of it in the narrowest sense of the word, taking international significance to mean the international validity or the historical inevitability of a repetition, on an international scale, of what has taken place in our country. It must be admitted that certain fundamental features of our revolution do possess that significance. It would, of course, be grossly erroneous to exaggerate this truth and to extend it beyond certain fundamental features of our revolution. It would also be erroneous to lose sight of the fact that, soon after the victory of the proletarian revolution in at least one of the advanced countries, a sharp change will probably come about: Russia will cease to be the model and will once again become a backward country (in the "Soviet" and the socialist sense). At the present moment in history, however, it is the Russian model that reveals to all countries something?and something highly significant?of their near and inevitable future. Advanced workers in all lands have long realised this; more often than not, they have grasped it with their revolutionary class instinct rather than realised it. Herein lies the international "significance" (in the narrow sense of the word) of Soviet power, and of the fundamentals of Bolshevik theory and tactics. The "revolutionary" leaders of the Second International, such as Kautsky in Germany and Otto Bauer and Friedrich Adler in Austria, have failed to understand this, which is why they have proved to be reactionaries and advocates of the worst kind of opportunism and social treachery. Incidentally, the anonymous pamphlet entitled The World Revolution (Weltrevolution), which appeared in Vienna in 1919 (Sozialistische Bucherei, Heft 11; Ignaz Brand), very clearly reveals their entire thinking and their entire range of ideas, or, rather, the full extent of their stupidity, pedantry, baseness and betrayal of working-class interests?and that, moreover, under the guise of "defending" the idea of "world revolution". We shall, however, deal with this pamphlet in greater detail some other time. We shall here note only one more point: in bygone days, when he was still a Marxist and not a renegade, Kautsky, dealing with the question as an historian, foresaw the possibility of a situation arising in which the revolutionary spirit of the Russian proletariat would provide a model to Western Europe. This was in 1902, when Kautsky wrote an article for the revolutionary Iskra, [1] entitled "The Slavs and Revolution". Here is what he wrote in the article: "At the present time [in contrast with 1848] it would seem that not only have the Slavs entered the ranks of the revolutionary nations, but that the centre of revolutionary thought and revolutionary action is shifting more and more to the Slavs. The revolutionary centre is shifting from the West to the East. In the first half of the nineteenth century it was located in France, at times in England. In 1848 Germany too joined the ranks of the revolutionary nations.... The new century has begun with events which suggest the idea that we are approaching a further shift of the revolutionary centre, namely, to Russia.... Russia, which has borrowed so much revolutionary initiative from the West, is now perhaps herself ready to serve the West as a source of revolutionary energy. The Russian revolutionary movement that is now flaring up will perhaps prove to be the most potent means of exorcising the spirit of flabby philistinism and coldly calculating politics that is beginning to spread in our midst, and it may cause the fighting spirit and the passionate devotion to our great ideals to flare up again. To Western Europe, Russia has long ceased to be a bulwark of reaction and absolutism. I think the reverse is true today. Western Europe is becoming Russia?s bulwark of reaction and absolutism.... The Russian revolutionaries might perhaps have coped with the tsar long ago had they not been compelled at the same time to fight his ally?European capital. Let us hope that this time they will succeed in coping with both enemies, and that the new ?Holy Alliance? will collapse more rapidly than its predecessors did. However the present struggle in Russia may end, the blood and suffering of the martyrs whom, unfortunately, it will produce in too great numbers, will not have been in vain. They will nourish the shoots of social revolution throughout the civilised world and make them grow more luxuriantly and rapidly. In 1848 the Slavs were a killing frost which blighted the flowers of the people?s spring. Perhaps they are now destined to be the storm that will break the ice of reaction and irresistibly bring with h a new and happy spring for the nations" (Karl Kautsky, "The Slavs and Revolution", Iskra, Russian Social-Democratic revolutionary newspaper, No. 18, March 10, 1902). How well Karl Kautsky wrote eighteen years ago! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes [1] The old Iskra?the first illegal Marxist newspaper in Russia. It was founded by V. I. Lenin in 1900, and played a decisive role in the formation of revolutionary Marxist party of the working class in Russia. Iskra?s first issue appeared in Leipzig in December 1900, the following issues being brought out in Munich, and then beginning with July 1902?in London, and after the spring of 1903?in Geneva. On Lenin?s initiative and with his participation, the editorial staff drew up a draft of the Party?s Programme (published in Iskra No. 21), and prepared the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P., at which the Russian revolutionary Marxist party was actually founded. Soon after the Second Congress, the Mensheviks, supported by Plekhanov, won control of Iskra. Beginning with issue No. 52, Iskra ceased to be an organ of the revolutionary Marxists. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 17 09:11:43 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:11:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Now what? Message-ID: <4948DE6E.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://metrotimes.com/news/story.asp?id=13533 Now what? By Jack Lessenberry SEE ALSO More Business Stories Hope lives here (12/3/2008) As the bad times hit the country at large, Detroit must look within for the answers Getting to work (12/3/2008) A bailout is needed, but a new New Deal would be better Brace for impact (11/26/2008) More from Jack Lessenberry Blaming the workers (12/10/2008) UAW not behind Big Three's woes Getting to work (12/3/2008) A bailout is needed, but a new New Deal would be better Brace for impact (11/26/2008) Nobody can assume anything these days. But let's imagine that President Bush does release enough money to prevent General Motors and Chrysler from collapsing before the end of the month. So then what? What has to happen is an intelligent, radical plan to restructure and refocus the auto industry, and soon. You see, they are going to need more money. Lots more, and what they are doing isn't working. President George W. Bush is almost certain to release a few billions to keep the wheels turning. Somewhere in whatever passes for his cerebral cortex, there has to be some realization of how badly he's screwed up just about everything he's done. We have a failed war, failed diplomacy, and a deficit out of control. Dubya's approval ratings are virtually the lowest in history. The Shrub, in other words, badly needs a high note to shuffle off on. He got that chance when a bunch of Confederate senators unexpectedly derailed aid to the auto industry. Creatures like Richard Shelby of Alabama, "Call Girl Dave" Vitter of Louisiana and Bobby Corker of Tennessee - Republicans all - demanded that in return for loans to their employers, the United Auto Workers immediately agree to non-union wage rates prevailing in the South. When the union declined, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his troops refused to allow the full Senate to vote on the package, raising the real possibility of causing the car companies to collapse, and creating millions of jobless. If that happens now, the voters would certainly blame President Bush - and the Republican Party. That also would mean decades before the GOP manages to win another election. Schoolchildren would learn for years that George W. Bush was the worst president we've ever had. Whoever the Republicans run in 2012 probably wouldn't even be able to set foot in Michigan or Ohio. To avoid this, and to look like a moderate hero, all Bush has to do is release enough money to keep the automakers going for a few more months, till the problem is squarely President Obama's. So that's what is likely to happen. Let's assume it does. The little band of zealots who killed the bailout bill were indeed vindictive, nasty men who hate the unions and hate the North. Yet let's face the truth: They are not totally off-base in their criticisms of the auto companies. Giving them enough money to survive for a few months is the right thing to do, yes. But it doesn't address any of the long-term problems. Their business model hasn't been working for a long time. Yes, the reason they are immediately in danger of collapse is not their fault. However, they have been losing money for years. The credit crunch caused by the Wall Street collapse speeded up a problem that has been building for a long time. General Motors hopes the Chevy Volt will lead them to profitability, but they don't really know. Chrysler has no plan to become profitable; nobody who knows anything about the business thinks the company can survive. Most of its 49,000 workers are going to end up without jobs, probably sooner than later. What we have to figure out - the government, the industry, all of us - is what to do. Even in the best-case scenario, there is going to be lots of pain involved. Michigan State University economist Charles Ballard has been saying that we have a choice about the economy. We can opt to make it a rocky but survivable landing, or we can have "wreckage strewn all over the runway." Naturally, there are all sorts of ideas about how to do this. Michael Moore, who manages to be both brilliant and crazy, sometimes in the same sentence, posted a solution on his website: He thinks the government should buy the Big Three, and force them "from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil, and more importantly, to build trains, buses, subways and light rail." Meanwhile, he would create a "corresponding public-works project across the country," to build rail lines and tracks. That is intriguing, and may happen someday. But not yet. Even if we had a government and a population intellectually ready for that, it would take some time to get there. What will happen instead is not clear, but we can't go on throwing money at these companies to let them go on losing it by making cars that too few people want to buy. Indeed, President Obama's first major test may be figuring this out. Let's hope that he has dreams of a workable future, and the audacity to be bold enough for success. Justice delayed, but justice at last: If you saw George Clooney's movie about Edward R. Murrow, Good Night and Good Luck, you undoubtedly remember the case of Milo Radulovich, who was one of the Red Scare's most innocent victims. Radulovich, a veteran of World War II (he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps at age 17), wanted to be a weather forecaster, and was working hard to get a degree at the University of Michigan in 1953. Then came the knock at the door. He was being thrown out of the service and his GI benefits taken away, because his sister and father were seen as "security risks." His sister, Margaret Fishman, was a left-wing type who protested great American institutions like the racism that prevented Paul Robeson from staying in the Book-Cadillac Hotel when he came to Detroit. Milo's father was a Serbian immigrant who took a newspaper from the old country to keep up with the obituaries and other local news. But Serbia was then part of communist Yugoslavia. Tsk-tsk. For that, they wanted to take Milo's commission away. Never mind that he had worked on top-secret U.S. intelligence projects. Murrow took up his cause. He did a See it Now program which exposed the injustice of all this. That saved Milo's commission, and gave Murrow the ammunition and power to go after the most dangerous man in America, Sen. Joe McCarthy. Thanks in part to Milo's guts, McCarthy was destroyed. But the stress meant the Raduloviches fled Michigan one semester before Milo could finish his degree, partly at his wife's insistence. The marriage died anyway, and while Milo eventually did become a weather forecaster, his career suffered badly as a result. For years, people have asked the University of Michigan to award Milo Radulovich the degree his heroism cost him. Finally, last Sunday, the university did just that, with a ceremony in the Bentley Historical Library, where Radulovich's papers are deposited. "It is important to record and remember this, so that the students of today resolve never to let this happen again," said Dean Terrence McDonald before he presented the diploma to the Radulovich family. Sadly, the event was missing the one man who would have appreciated it most: Milo himself, who died a year ago. I was lucky enough to have several dinners with Radulovich over the years. Not long before he died, he told me that he didn't really care if he was ever awarded his degree. (That was the only time I ever thought he was less than truthful.) I do know that he thought a whole lot more in his last years about what was happening to civil liberties in this country, and it made him sick. "This feels like McCarthyism, the same thing, all over again," he told me. I just wish he could have lived to see this day. Jack Lessenberry opines weekly for Metro Times. Contact him at letters at metrotimes.com. Business Now what? By Jack Lessenberry SEE ALSO More Business Stories Hope lives here (12/3/2008) As the bad times hit the country at large, Detroit must look within for the answers Getting to work (12/3/2008) A bailout is needed, but a new New Deal would be better Brace for impact (11/26/2008) More from Jack Lessenberry Blaming the workers (12/10/2008) UAW not behind Big Three's woes Getting to work (12/3/2008) A bailout is needed, but a new New Deal would be better Brace for impact (11/26/2008) Nobody can assume anything these days. But let's imagine that President Bush does release enough money to prevent General Motors and Chrysler from collapsing before the end of the month. So then what? What has to happen is an intelligent, radical plan to restructure and refocus the auto industry, and soon. You see, they are going to need more money. Lots more, and what they are doing isn't working. President George W. Bush is almost certain to release a few billions to keep the wheels turning. Somewhere in whatever passes for his cerebral cortex, there has to be some realization of how badly he's screwed up just about everything he's done. We have a failed war, failed diplomacy, and a deficit out of control. Dubya's approval ratings are virtually the lowest in history. The Shrub, in other words, badly needs a high note to shuffle off on. He got that chance when a bunch of Confederate senators unexpectedly derailed aid to the auto industry. Creatures like Richard Shelby of Alabama, "Call Girl Dave" Vitter of Louisiana and Bobby Corker of Tennessee - Republicans all - demanded that in return for loans to their employers, the United Auto Workers immediately agree to non-union wage rates prevailing in the South. When the union declined, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his troops refused to allow the full Senate to vote on the package, raising the real possibility of causing the car companies to collapse, and creating millions of jobless. If that happens now, the voters would certainly blame President Bush - and the Republican Party. That also would mean decades before the GOP manages to win another election. Schoolchildren would learn for years that George W. Bush was the worst president we've ever had. Whoever the Republicans run in 2012 probably wouldn't even be able to set foot in Michigan or Ohio. To avoid this, and to look like a moderate hero, all Bush has to do is release enough money to keep the automakers going for a few more months, till the problem is squarely President Obama's. So that's what is likely to happen. Let's assume it does. The little band of zealots who killed the bailout bill were indeed vindictive, nasty men who hate the unions and hate the North. Yet let's face the truth: They are not totally off-base in their criticisms of the auto companies. Giving them enough money to survive for a few months is the right thing to do, yes. But it doesn't address any of the long-term problems. Their business model hasn't been working for a long time. Yes, the reason they are immediately in danger of collapse is not their fault. However, they have been losing money for years. The credit crunch caused by the Wall Street collapse speeded up a problem that has been building for a long time. General Motors hopes the Chevy Volt will lead them to profitability, but they don't really know. Chrysler has no plan to become profitable; nobody who knows anything about the business thinks the company can survive. Most of its 49,000 workers are going to end up without jobs, probably sooner than later. What we have to figure out - the government, the industry, all of us - is what to do. Even in the best-case scenario, there is going to be lots of pain involved. Michigan State University economist Charles Ballard has been saying that we have a choice about the economy. We can opt to make it a rocky but survivable landing, or we can have "wreckage strewn all over the runway." Naturally, there are all sorts of ideas about how to do this. Michael Moore, who manages to be both brilliant and crazy, sometimes in the same sentence, posted a solution on his website: He thinks the government should buy the Big Three, and force them "from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil, and more importantly, to build trains, buses, subways and light rail." Meanwhile, he would create a "corresponding public-works project across the country," to build rail lines and tracks. That is intriguing, and may happen someday. But not yet. Even if we had a government and a population intellectually ready for that, it would take some time to get there. What will happen instead is not clear, but we can't go on throwing money at these companies to let them go on losing it by making cars that too few people want to buy. Indeed, President Obama's first major test may be figuring this out. Let's hope that he has dreams of a workable future, and the audacity to be bold enough for success. Justice delayed, but justice at last: If you saw George Clooney's movie about Edward R. Murrow, Good Night and Good Luck, you undoubtedly remember the case of Milo Radulovich, who was one of the Red Scare's most innocent victims. Radulovich, a veteran of World War II (he joined the U.S. Army Air Corps at age 17), wanted to be a weather forecaster, and was working hard to get a degree at the University of Michigan in 1953. Then came the knock at the door. He was being thrown out of the service and his GI benefits taken away, because his sister and father were seen as "security risks." His sister, Margaret Fishman, was a left-wing type who protested great American institutions like the racism that prevented Paul Robeson from staying in the Book-Cadillac Hotel when he came to Detroit. Milo's father was a Serbian immigrant who took a newspaper from the old country to keep up with the obituaries and other local news. But Serbia was then part of communist Yugoslavia. Tsk-tsk. For that, they wanted to take Milo's commission away. Never mind that he had worked on top-secret U.S. intelligence projects. Murrow took up his cause. He did a See it Now program which exposed the injustice of all this. That saved Milo's commission, and gave Murrow the ammunition and power to go after the most dangerous man in America, Sen. Joe McCarthy. Thanks in part to Milo's guts, McCarthy was destroyed. But the stress meant the Raduloviches fled Michigan one semester before Milo could finish his degree, partly at his wife's insistence. The marriage died anyway, and while Milo eventually did become a weather forecaster, his career suffered badly as a result. For years, people have asked the University of Michigan to award Milo Radulovich the degree his heroism cost him. Finally, last Sunday, the university did just that, with a ceremony in the Bentley Historical Library, where Radulovich's papers are deposited. "It is important to record and remember this, so that the students of today resolve never to let this happen again," said Dean Terrence McDonald before he presented the diploma to the Radulovich family. Sadly, the event was missing the one man who would have appreciated it most: Milo himself, who died a year ago. I was lucky enough to have several dinners with Radulovich over the years. Not long before he died, he told me that he didn't really care if he was ever awarded his degree. (That was the only time I ever thought he was less than truthful.) I do know that he thought a whole lot more in his last years about what was happening to civil liberties in this country, and it made him sick. "This feels like McCarthyism, the same thing, all over again," he told me. I just wish he could have lived to see this day. Jack Lessenberry opines weekly for Metro Times. Contact him at letters at metrotimes.com. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 17 09:17:21 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 11:17:21 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] THIRD PARTIES, REPUBLICANS AND WHITE PEOPLE Message-ID: <4948DFC1.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> THIRD PARTIES, REPUBLICANS AND WHITE PEOPLE All politics is local. That political bromide, made popular by Thomas P. (Tip) O?Neill, contains an important kernel of truth. Congressman Tip O?Neill from Massachusetts once bragged he never forgot the name of a constituent, or even the names of the constituent?s mother and father. While that talent is impressive, it hardly qualifies him as a profound political thinker. Nevertheless, he reminds us that political work to be successful must begin not just at the state level, or even the congressional district level but most importantly at the precinct level. That is not to say that national and international political analysis is irrelevant; in fact, it is key. But political organizing must be grounded in local concerns, alliances, and interests. Political organizing, however, quickly meets a brick wall unless it has a national or even international perspective. Because of the Democratic Party?s persistent and consistent refusal to address the needs and demands of its constituency, progressives turn in frustration to direct action, demonstrations or third parties. That is always the motivation, hopefully, of those who turn to alternative forms of political expression and explains, again hopefully, the rise of the Green Party, the Labor Party, and other political expressions of resistance to the established order. One hopes desperately that people who turn to third parties are not motivated by personal ego, petty jealousies or racism or any other of the more base human impulses. But objective analysis requires recognition that a human process involves all of these impulses. But because racism is a political statement that has enormous consequences, particularly in this country, it is that dilemma that must be addressed and resolved to have any hope of success in changing this country. We can now officially acknowledge that the Republican Party, led by the aggressively opportunist Bush cabal, is the white people?s party. After a 35-year campaign of wedge politic, i.e. hate politics, the Bush cabal seized power in 2000 by illegally disqualifying 80,000 to 100,000 Black voters in Florida. Nixon established the Southern strategy and vicious attack politics as the modus operandi of the Republican Party but it was Ronald Reagan who made the definitive move to capture the hearts and minds of the most reactionary and racist section of white people in this country. By opening his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, he openly proclaimed that the Republican Party condoned the terroristic suppression of the Black community and with that symbolic statement, he won the South for the Republican Party. The location of Reagan?s opening shot, of course, was the same area where Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were murdered for trying to register Blacks to vote. By combining violent suppression with political activity, Reagan endorsed the violent terroristic attacks on the Black community for its attempt to exercise the most basic of democratic rights. Neither the media nor the Democratic Party took him to task for such an outrageous political posture. As a result, the Republican Party?s plunge into racism and hatred was sealed. Of course, any historical dividing line is imprecise and insufficient. The Republican Party has carried a majority of the white vote since 1968 after President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act and Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King were assassinated. Jack Lessenbury correctly observes: ?Yes, the last Republican convention had blacks and Hispanics prominently on display as window dressing. But that is all that they were, other than a way to make socially aware voters feel better about the Republicans. When Election Day came, Al Gore won the virtually unanimous support of African-American voters everywhere in the country. He also won something like three-quarters of the Hispanic vote, except for Florida?s Cubans, and high percentages of other minorities.? Metro Times (8/13-19/2003, p.5) (Emphasis added) The window dressing, however, is important. Appealing to the most reactionary and racists elements of this country would make the Republican Party a small minority party particularly given the political program of the Republican Party. The program of the Republican Party addresses only the needs of the wealthiest people in this country, and basically robs the rests of the population. It can only carry the rest by pandering to racism, male supremacy and homophobia. All this careful maneuvering is done through the skillful use of coded messages that generate the necessary hatred in order to hide the true political agenda. Hatred is a powerful emotion that blinds white working people from their economic self-interest. The Democratic Party takes the absolutely wrong approach. Instead of solidifying its base by building a program that addresses the country?s racist history, current racial unfairness and then building bridges to the progressive impulses within the white working class, it tries to send its own pseudo coded racist messages. That leaves progressives within the Democratic Party an open field. Instead, too many progressives abandon that open field and set up new basically all white organizations. Nevertheless, the contradiction can be exploited if white progressives are willing to enter the Democratic Party and organize, accepting leadership from the powerful African-American leadership within the party. The economic realities will force recognition within the white working class where its economic self-interest lies. ?A three-sentence description of the arc of American politics over the past 70 years would run like this: First, Democrats and moderate Republicans created institutions?above all Social Security and Medicare?that provided a measure of financial security to ordinary working Americans. The biggest beneficiaries of these institutions were African-Americans and working-class Southern whites, and both were part of the moderate-to-liberal coalition that dominated American politics until the 1960?s.? But the right opened an increasingly effective counterattack, with a strategy that included using racially charged symbolism to get Southern whites to vote against their own economic interests. * * * ?The big story in that election [November, 2000] was the victory of Republicans in Mississippi and Kentucky. The secondary story, however, was a string of victories by affluent suburban areas in the Northeast. In my state, New Jersey, Democrats took firm control of the state?s Legislature. What this tells us is that some people?either in New Jersey, Mississippi or both ?voted against their economic interests. For whatever you think of Bush?s economic plan, it?s clearly much better for New Jersey?a rich state, which gains a lot from tax cuts tilted toward the affluent?than for a poor state like Mississippi.? Paul Krugman, NYT, 11/07/03, p.23 There were several elements of the forged coalition of working class whites (not just in the South) and African-Americans. First, the depression framed the necessity for such unity. The depression represented the total failure of capitalism. Second, the worldwide revolutionary movement frightened liberals more than poverty. At the time, the progressive movement in this country pushed an anti-racist agenda inside the union movement and even within the Democratic Party itself. World War II destroyed productive forces throughout the world and concentrated enormous capital in the hands of a few groups in this country. These groups consolidated their power, gave certain benefits to workers, and purged communists and other progressives from unions, universities, schools and every other possible institutional setting. Facing a devastating criticism from the Soviet Union and progressive forces in this country of Jim Crow segregation, these same forces had to dismantle racist institutions in the South. That allowed corporations to move south where low pay and an antiunion culture predominated, and was profitable. The Democratic Party then became a strange structure with African-Americans as the base and an uncomfortable white leadership at the top. With its form of racism, this white leadership vacillated between an opportunistic use of the Black vote and a programmatic addressing of its needs. But it never addressed in any systematic matter the protection of the political and economic rights of minorities within its constituency. Nor did it formulate an openly anti-racist agenda. Instead it moved more and more to the right. Calling it a move to the ?center?, the Democratic Party more and more ignored its base. Disgusted with the opportunism of the Democratic Party, white progressive either left or acted in organizations outside the Party to influence it. That left the power oriented Republican Party able to exploit the contradictions within the Democratic Party. That is why the wedge politics or hate politics has been so effective. But it is also why the Republican Party is now the white people?s party. Republicans, of course, must deny or hide their racist foundation. White progressives acting within the Democratic Party could forge an anti-racist agenda and expose the Republican Party. Outside the Democratic Party they become marginalized and often are more ?white? than the Republican Party. The Republican Party continues to deny its whiteness with no alternative institution to expose it. But that denial will ring hollow as time and information reveals the invalidity of its claims. ?Winton claims, however, that the GOP had a breakthrough year among Hispanics. He cites as evidence a drop in Hispanic support for Congressional Democrats and rise in support for Republicans between 2000 and 2002. While Winston?s data for 2002 are wrong and exaggerate this change, it is true that the Hispanic two party House vote was 65 percent Democratic/35 percent Republican in 2000 and did fall modestly to 62 percent /38 percent in 2002. However, Hispanic support for House Democrats traditionally falls at least several points from a Presidential to an off-year election, so this says little about a real trend toward Republicans. The more pertinent comparison is to 1998, the last off-year election, where Hispanics supported Democrats 63 percent to 37 percent. So, basically, we have shift in off-year Democratic support from 63/37 to 62/38. If that?s a trend, Public Opinion will eat his calculator. Well, what about the Senate races? These were the most significant races in 2002 and perhaps a pro-GOP surge can be detected here. Nope, the Senate two party vote among Hispanics was 67 percent Democratic/33 percent Republican. Governors, then? Not here, either?Democratic support among Hispanics was a healthy 65 percent to 35 percent. What about other minorities? Not much luck here either for the GOP. In fact, blacks and Asians both appear to have increased their support for Democrats. The two party black vote for the House went from 89 percent Democrat/11 percent Republican in both 1998 and 2000 to a 91 percent/9 percent split in 2002. And Asians increased their support dramatically for House Democrats going from 56 percent Democratic/44 percent Republican in 1998 to 60 percent/40 percent in 2000 to 66 percent/34 percent in 2002! Much more ?progress? like this among minority voters and the GOP?aka ?the white people?s party??will have a very limited future indeed. Ruy Teixeira, Mid-Term Myths of the 2002 Election. TomPaine.commonsense.http///www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9098/view/print. Like it or not political discussion occurs in this context. Third parties either reach for some big name like Ralph Nader and are therefore bound to his perspective or work in anonymity at the local level. And they remain as segregated as the Republican Party. Even though the long term prospects of the Republican Party are limited, it will do enormous damage in the meantime. As will be discussed, later, the Republican Party will consolidate its power through strongarm tactics and election fraud. The identification of this rightwing, probably fascist force, as the enemy of our democracy is only the first step. The damage done by the Bush cabal is clear and horrendous: 1) rejection of the repetitive injury standard for workers; 2) the withdrawal from Kyoto; 3) the unpunished and unexamined fraud of Enron; 4) the withdrawal from the International Conference on Racism; 5) the refusal to support the International Criminal Court; 6) the appointment of vicious rightwing judges who will dismantle protections for workers, women, and minorities; 7) the undermining of constitutional protections including but not limited to the use of noncombatant detainee status and the attack on entire sections of our population; 7) the attack on the separation of church and state; 8) broad scale wiretapping, etc, etc, etc; 8) the elimination of 2,500,000 manufacturing jobs, the first president since Hubert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs; 9) the sacking of the American treasury by huge tax cut for the rich; 10) the transition from surplus to deficit to the tune of 500 billion dollars. The list goes on and on with a specific attack on the environment accomplished by a multitude of executive orders, etc. But in a separate category, the Bush cabal is guilty of the murderous unilateral attack on Afghanistan and Iraq killing thousands and thousands and thousands of people first as an excuse not to deal with Saudi Arabia and then as an attempt to steal oil. Lies are used to cover the misdeeds and lies are used to cover the lies, all with the willing compliance of the media. The propagandistic media has never mentioned the word ?mandate?, a requirement for dramatic change in a democracy. Because the propagandistic media refused to discuss whether the Bush cabal had a mandate for radical, reactionary change, our democracy has been brutally damaged. Any effort by the progressive movement will be first to fight for democracy and that has a majority constituency in this country. Benito Mussolini defined fascism as corporate control of government. Of course, German fascism included a racist perspective. The Bush cabal embodies both elements with propaganda to hide both elements of their program. The Bush cabal is the enemy as is the rightwing movement that supports his seizure of power. The destructive power of this coalition of forces is undeniable. The above list, in fact, is incomplete and inadequate. It only touches the wreckage that has been done, the institutions dismantled, the lives destroyed and the capital wasted. While the wreckage done by the Bush cabal is awesome, it is not surprising. Any serious analysis of the reactionary movement in this country could easily have predicted the devastation. Yet, knowing the dangers presented, thousands and thousands of people, overwhelmingly white and a majority progressive, turned to third party alternatives or ignored the entire process. Energized as never before, the African-American community had the political sophistication to understand the peril presented and the vulnerability of our democracy. Under tremendous attack in Florida, this community was able to increase its vote substantially which required the Bush cabal to steal the election and not allow the counting of the votes. As previously documented, the groups that constitute the backbone of the working class movement voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party. The African-American community is the core of the working class. This community not only performs most of the most oppressive and poorly paid jobs; this community is also a key element of the trade union movement. Whether it is the demand for a stronger union movement or women?s liberation, this community will be the political base. The unity of working people is the only basis for change. As Abraham Lincoln said: ?The strongest bond of human sympathy, outside the family relation, should be one uniting all working people of all nations and kindred.? The unity of African-Americans (92% Democratic); Hispanic (63% Democratic) women (at least 60% Democratic); Asians (66% Democratic) is key to any progressive movement. The political and cultural expression of that unity is inside the Democratic Party. The struggle will be to unite that political unity with progressives and force the Democratic leadership to accept and respect its political base. Yet, progressives consistently refuse to unite politically with this constituency. Instead, the Green Party creates another white people?s party, runs Ralph Nader who has 1% of his vote from minorities and assists in visiting untold misery on the working class. The Nation magazine carries a headline on its front page that Democrats are an endangered species in the South. Democrats are not an endangered species; white Democrats are rare. But millions of Blacks support the Democratic Party, and they are not irrelevant as is consistently implied. They get almost no assistance from the white leadership of the Democratic Party. The Bush cabal provides a good example of the differences in strategy: ?Mr. Bernier?s program is part of a network of conservative-minded local radio shows in politically important states on which campaign officials are heard daily, programs like ?Mid-Day with Charlie Sykes? in Milwaukee, ?The Martha Zoller Show? in Atlanta and ?The Jerry Bowyer Program? in Pittsburgh. It is a network that the Democrats do not have -- though they are trying to cultivate one -- and one that Mr. Bush?s campaign strategists believe will give him an edge in an election that could go to whichever side best mobilizes its core voters. Presidents have used radio to reach voters virtually since its invention. But strategists and radio experts say the Bush campaign has taken it to a new level of sophistication, using it far earlier in the campaign cycle and appearing regularly on shows with even the tiniest of audiences.? (New York Times 12/29/03, Page 1 ? Emphasis added) This example provides an example not only of weakness of the Democratic Party, but also the racist ideology that underlies that weakness. There exists a tremendous network of Black, and Hispanic radio stations that would effective contrast the Republican and Democratic Party approaches: Tom Joyner, Tavis Smiley and others speak to millions of people every day. Given support, that audience would broaden and take on ever more political clout. ?LOS ANGELES ? A sign that Tavis Smiley?s new PBS talk show is not standard-issue for public television: The set was created by tennis star and aspiring designer Venus Williams. That?s just the start. Smiley, retuning to TV less than two years after he was canned by BET, says his daily late-night series debuting next month will be more than visually striking. ?Tavis Smiley,? PBS? first West Coast-based talk show, will be fast-paced and aimed at drawing a younger, more ethnically diverse audience than typically watches public TV, its host says. Smiley, whose punchy, baritone delivery and pointed questions are familiar to his growing National Public Radio audience, is ready to get back on the tube. (His radio program, aired locally at 9 a.m. weekdays on WDET-FM (101.9) will continue) * * * Smiley says he intends his program to be the same kind of forum he?s created on NPR?s ?The Tavis Smiley Show,? one that challenges its audience to consider issues from new viewpoints and addresses over-looked issues. ?I want to use this show, as I try to do on my NPR show, to introduce Americans to each other. In many ways, we still live in a very segregated country,? he says. Recently, Smiley examined heavy opposition by black Americans to the war in Iraq. * * * Not everyone is impressed by his ecumenical efforts. Last year, National Review managing editor Jay Nordlinger referred unadmiringly to Smiley as ?the black leftist radio personality.? His reach is increasing. His NPR show, which started with 16 stations in January 2002, has enjoyed one of the fastest NPR expansions ever to major markets and now is carried on more than 80 stations and reaches an audience of more than 1 million. He has brought in a somewhat younger crowd and definitely attracted more blacks listeners ? 30 per cent of his audience, compared to about 5 percent for most other NPR shows.? Lynn Elber, the Detroit News, 12/29/03, Page 60 ? Emphasis added) The Democratic Party could easily tap into this network if it was willing openly to confront the racism of the Republican network. The Democratic Party leadership consistently refuses to build the party at the precinct level, choosing instead to rely on rich donors to then buy advertisements. We have this terrible spectacle of Democrats going to bunch of rich people to raise money to give to the rich media to get its message to the people. No wonder the message is so weak. The Republican Party has more money but instead builds its party from the ground up. The reason is obvious. To build the Democratic Party from the ground up would require putting a lot of money and political muscle into the Black community. And the party and apparently progressives are afraid of that. The Black community is then left twisting in the wind. That political fact represents a tremendous opportunity for the progressive community. Green Party activists are not barred from participating in the Democratic Party. They could run for precinct delegate, unite with the large representation of the minority communities and force the Democratic Party to be responsive to its base. In fact, that could be done as the Green Party because there is no prohibition against dual membership. Then, when an independent candidacy is realistic, it would have the ability to forge the necessary alliances. But that would require engaging Black delegates as equals or more importantly to accept their leadership based on their power within the Party. The Labor Party could do the same, and so could every other progressive group. All of this could be done without losing any group identity. The Democratic Party has an organized, national delegate system in place ready for organization, especially since the leadership is afraid of mobilizing its base. Yet progressives continue to cling to the myth that there is no difference between the two parties. Once they start organizing in the predominantly Democratic precincts, it would soon become clear that there is an enormous difference. Undoubtedly, Green Party and Labor Party activists live in primarily white communities. That would make them minorities in most of those communities. That would make it easier for them to be elected precinct delegates. But it would also require that they confront the racism in those communities and raise money to empower the base of the Party. Instead, the third party movement expects the base of the Democratic Party that is multinational and working class to move into their parties and accept a new white leadership. What form of racism is that?it needs a new name. There are two coterminous changes in this country that require immediate attention by progressives and require immediate movement into the Democratic Party. First, redistricting by the Republican Party has now made almost all congressional districts safe seats with a majority going into the Republican Party. Second, the combination of money, fraud, and coercion has made almost all elections rigged. The use of computer voting machines with no paper trail and owned by partisan Republican corporations has resulted in elections that are turned upside down without any reason other than the fraudulent control of machines. Max Cleland in Georgia, Janet Reno in Florida and the senator from Nevada are glaring examples. ?Roxanne Jekot, who has put much of her professional and life on hold to work on the issue full time, puts even more strongly. ?Corporate America is very close to running this country. The only thing stopping them from taking total control are the pesky voters. That?s why there?s such a drive to control the vote. What we?re seeing is the corporatization of the last shred of democracy. I feel that unless we stop it here and stop it now ? she says, ?my kids won?t grow to have a right to vote at all.? Andrew Grunbel, Published on 10/13/03 by the Independent/UK.? The article by Andrew Grunbel is too long to quote but begins with the following synopsis: ?A quiet revolution is taking place in US politics. By the time it?s over, the integrity of elections will be in the unchallenged, unscrutinized control of a few large - and pro-republican - corporations.? In addition, the following is a quote from An Open Letter to America: It?s Time to Take Back our Country by John and Elaine Mellancamp. ?The vote count was not conducted by state election officials, but by private company that sold Georgia the voting machines in the first place, under a strict trade-secrecy contract that made it not only difficult but actually illegal?on pain of stiff criminal penalties?for the state to touch the equipment or examine the proprietary software to ensure the machines worked properly. There was not even a paper trail to follow up. The machines were fitted with thermal printing devices that could theoretically provide a written record of voters? choices, but these were not activated. Consequently, recounts were impossible. Had Diebold Inc, the manufacturer, been asked to review the votes, all it could have done was program the computers to spit out the same data as before, flawed or not. Astonishingly, these are the terms under which America?s top three computer voting machine manufacturers?Diebold, Sequoia, and Election Systems and Software (ES&S-have sold their products to elections officials around the country.? Republican money has now taken over California and will rig the election for Bush II in 2004. It is at least interesting to observe subtleties of this process of distorting and cooking the election results. ?Let?s hear it for California?s secretary of state, Kevin Shelley. Based on the findings of a public task force, he has now decided that all electronic voting machines used in his state must print out a paper receipt. Inexplicably, Shelley postpones implementation to the 2006 election.? Jim Hightower?s Lowdown, Vol. 5, #12 (12/03) (Emphasis added) That probably will insure that Bush II can steal the 2004 presidential election. The only place where progressives have a chance to act is in the Democratic precincts and primaries. Most of the other elections will be controlled by rich corporate Republicans. With a war chest approaching $1,000,000,000.00, Bush II can buy the election, and that?s what the Bush cabal intends to do. Even if, by some wild chance, a Democrat were to be allowed in the presidency, the media attack dogs would not allow that president to have any effect whatsoever. Because the Republican media will make sure to hide the stolen election and put a spin on these rigged elections, progressives will have a wide-open field to show the courage to fight that the Democratic leadership lacks. One of two things will happen in November of 2004. Either the Bush cabal will steal or buy the election using computer control to steal key states, or a Democratic President will be allowed to be elected. In the latter case, such a President will be paralyzed by the media attack dogs who will make it impossible for the elected President to govern. Under either scenario, progressives will have to build a base inside the Democratic Party. Such a movement will address the question of marginalization that now exists. Progressives, if effective, can speak for the Democratic Party, showing the courage that the current leadership lacks. While the Democratic Party will have a majority of the votes, and certainly a majority of the working class votes, it will have a minority of power and a minority of positions. The Democratic leadership will weekly protest the fraud and unfairness of the system. In those circumstances, progressives will have fertile ground to till especially as the Democratic leadership continues to ignore its base. Taking leadership at the base will enable progressives to support mobilization of that base with direct action, civil disobedience and strike activity. This strategy is increasingly important because the Republican Party leadership intends to dismantle the entire governmental structure that supports working people. The recent Medicare bill was passed with no debate and is designed to require destruction in 2011. Ted Kennedy describes this as the Trojan horse strategy. (See Paul Krugman NYT 121/14/03 p A25) Even Head Start is under attack. With a Republican attack, it is now fighting for its existence. ?Facing an increasingly raw fight over the future of Head Start, Congressional Republicans asked the General Accounting Office today to examine the federal government?s financial oversight of the program, which serves almost one million preschoolers who live in poverty.? NYT, 11/20/03 p. A22 In these circumstances, the Black Panther Program of feeding the children becomes, again, an important part of the political struggle, and the struggle will be multinational, potentially revolutionary In addition, the Republican economic program continuously concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer people, which leaves a bigger and bigger constituency for progressives. The Republicans always concentrate first on activating its base. As Bush II said in January of 2000: ?you can fool some of the people all the time and those are the ones we concentrate on.? The strategy of the Republican Party is to solidify its base and tell enough lies, make enough appeals to racism, male supremacy and homophobia to steal elections ?The thirteen states in which ?sodomy? laws were struck down by the Supreme Court were all states that Bush carried in his first election. But the Republicans? decision to embrace political homophobia anew is more than simply a sop to the Christers and the far right?given that antigay backlash; it?s shrewd political strategy. Karl Rove never tires of pointing out that 4 million of the 19 million evangelical Christians didn?t vote in 2000. With 2004 shaping up as another close elections, Rove & Co want to energize the Christian-right base to which Bush is already so heavily indebted (it motored his 2000 primary victories against John McCain) and insure a maximum turnout among the AWOL evangelicals and other Christian traditionalists.? Doug Ireland, Republicans Relaunch the Antigay Culture Wars, Nation, 10/20/03 p22. The base of hate politics is racism in this country. The response to such hate politics is first to consolidate the base?that is, to address the question of racism, the Republican Party?s reliance on racism and the other hate politics and then address the economic strategy that underpins the reason for hate politics. That can be done by forcing the Democratic Party to address its base just as the Republican Party always caters first to its right wing white base before it addresses other issues. Certainly, progressives cannot address the question of racism in this county by promoting another form of racism. The African-American community represents a powerful voting block inside the Democratic Party and also understands that the Democratic Party?s white leadership has refused to recognize that base. That is why some of the more reactionary and opportunists elements inside the Black community have become Republicans or pork chop nationalists or both. Progressives need to look ahead. There are only two possible scenarios in 2004. Probably, the Bush cabal will steal the election. In those circumstances, progressives must build the Democratic Party base to confront the fascist movement that will emerge once Bush II consolidates power. With the remote possibility that a Democrat takes the presidency, he will not be allowed to govern. The media attack dogs will immediately block all possible efforts to repair the damage of the Bush cabal: ?From the beginning, his enemies portrayed Clinton as unworthy to occupy the office of president of the United States. This assessment held firm despite his acknowledged intellect, industriousness, and charm, and also despite the fact that by almost every statistical measure, the American people and their government were in far better condition by 1999 than when the Arkansan took office in 1993. With is remarkable political skills, the president had broken the Republican ?lock? n the electoral votes of the southern states, muted his own ?party?s clamorous left wing, adapted portions of the Republican agenda to how own uses, restored fiscal discipline, and outmaneuvered his bitterest foes in the GOP leadership again and again. But the better the president and the country did, the more his adversaries appeared willing to endorse almost anything short of assassination to do him in.? (p xiii ? Emphasis added) The Hunting of the President, The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill & Hillary Clinton, Joe Conason & Gene Lyons (St. Martin?s Press, NY) If a Democratic president is elected, progressives must make it impossible to silence the ?clamorous left wing?. If Bush II is elected, progressives must mobilize the Democratic base to attack the fascist moves that most certainly will come. The beauty of the current constellation of forces is that progressives can now seize the moral high ground and speak for the majority needs and dreams of people in this country. We need only the courage and vision to seize the time. Yours in Struggle, Ronald D. Glotta http://www.glottaassociates.com/articles/thirdparties.html This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 17 11:26:07 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:26:07 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Auto Salvation and Restructuring - Only the Workers Can Make it Happen Message-ID: <4948FDEF.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Auto Salvation and Restructuring - Only the Workers Can Make it Happen By John Case http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7870/?PrintableVersion=enabled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archives - Dates and Topics 2008 - online December 1- 31, 2008 click here for related stories: labor movement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12-17-08, 9:52 am The collapse of the congressional short-term bailout of the imperiled US auto industry brings us to a crossroads. The immediate cause was right-wing Republican demands to kill the UAW as the price tag for its support - demanding that it pre-authorize big cuts in benefits and wages and essentially forget about retiree obligations before any negotiations on "restructuring" or loans could begin. This demand, not surprisingly, originated from states with heavy concentrations of foreign automobile manufacturing. Bob Corker - the Senator from Nissan, Tennessee who narrowly won election through a race-baiting campaign against Harold Ford Jr in 2006 - led the charge. It is clear that much of the same group that voted against the bridge loans to auto are pinning their hopes of protecting the rich who were not ruined by crisis on Wall Street by hiding under the cover of a perceived widespread aversion to "nationalization," or more socialism. For sure the effects of decades of anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-social-democratic propaganda permeating most US institutions should not be understated, but that legacy has taken a significant hit below the waterline. The question is: is it strong enough to paralyze the government from acting decisively? For US auto workers - decisive is the key word, and it is the Chicago sit-down strikers that come to mind when I think about decisive, and about how workers can compell powerful forces - like the president-elect of the United States - to recognize and support their legitimate interests and rights. I am not focusing on the particular tactic in the Bank of America struggle, only on the need for workers to exert whatever force they have to strikingly demonstrate to the public the overwhelming public interest in saving the US auto (and manufacturing) industries. Contrary to Senator Corker's smokescreen about union wages, the real impediment to a bailout to the auto industry are the owners and executives. They have pursued a failed business model for years based on the assumption that easy credit and cheap oil would make Americans (and others) by an unlimited number of fuel inefficient cars. The truth is they must all be disenfranchised and fired before a public bailout has any long-term credibility. Which raises the question: Who will run the new "American Car Company"? The answer depends in large part on exactly what the "American Car Company" is going to produce. Since what kind of product people use to travel in implictly determines the kind of transportation system options you have, the future of the "American Car Company" is closely linked to the size and kind of infrastructure stimulus is enacted. The known requirements are: a) fuel efficient and designed to more easily accommodate alternative fuel systems; b) compatible with light rail and denser housing development; c) relieved of legacy health and retirement costs; d) medical coverage as federal employees; e) high tech; f) sell at a competitive price on world markets; g) somehow not violate the WTO prohibition against "hidden, unverifiable subsides" in traded commodities that would destabilize trade agreements to the detriment of US partners. The job description for the new management is formiddable. From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 17 11:41:37 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:41:37 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder Message-ID: In a message dated 12/17/2008 9:22:36 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us writes: Vladimir Lenin?s Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Written: April?May 1920 Source: Collected Works, Volume 31, p. 17?118 Publisher: Progress Publishers, USSR, 1964 "In Western Europe and in America, the Communist must learn to create a new, uncustomary, non-opportunist, and non-careerist parliamentarianism; the Communist parties must issue their slogans; true proletarians, with the help of the unorganized and downtrodden poor, should distribute leaflets, canvass workers? house and cottages of the rural proletarians and peasants in the remote villages (fortunately there are many times fewer remote villages in Europe than in Russia, and in Britain the number is very small); they should go into the public houses, penetrate into unions, societies and chance gatherings of the common people, and speak to the people, not in learned (or very parliamentary) language, they should not at all strive to "get seats" in parliament, but should everywhere try to get people to think, and draw the masses into the struggle, to take the bourgeoisie at its word and utilize the machinery it has set up, the elections it has appointed, and the appeals it has made to the people; they should try to explain to the people what Bolshevism is, in a way that was never possible (under bourgeois rule) outside of election times (exclusive, of course, of times of big strikes, when in Russia a similar apparatus for widespread popular agitation worked even more intensively). It is very difficult to do this in Western Europe and extremely difficult in America, but it can and must be done, for the objectives of communism cannot be achieved without effort. We must work to accomplish practical tasks, ever more varied and ever more closely connected with all branches of social life, winning branch after branch, and sphere after sphere from the bourgeoisie." _http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch10.htm_ (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch10.htm) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Wed Dec 17 12:31:12 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:31:12 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Einstein's Legacy? Message-ID: "Einstein's Legacy -- Where are the "Einsteinians?"" by Lee Smolin Logos, Issue 4.3 (Summer 2005) http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/smolin.htm An old article, but a surprise to me, as Smolin claims that no one has yet followed in the footsteps of Einstein in terms of his fundamental goals. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 17 14:18:52 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:18:52 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] End the Auto Crisis: Build Mass Transit & "Green" CarsPublic Ownership to Save Jobs and the Environment Message-ID: <4949266B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> End the Auto Crisis: Build Mass Transit & "Green" Cars Public Ownership to Save Jobs and the Environment Union auto workers are fighting for their lives. For us the fight to defend the United Auto Workers union (UAW) and its members is immediate. It is estimated that over three million jobs are linked to the jobs at GM, Ford and Chrysler: including workers in parts supply, dealerships, steel, rubber, and many other supporting industries. Bankruptcy would have devastating effects on communities where these workers live. Whole regions rely on their purchasing power and the loss of taxes for local and state governments would cause an even bigger crisis. Bankruptcy will also destroy the pensions and healthcare for millions of retirees. We join with labor and all its allies in demanding immediate action by the federal government to guarantee the loans needed to save these jobs. We are actively engaged in the growing fight to build solidarity and support for the burning demands of the workers and their union. Even if/when bridge loans are given to the Big Three, the companies have announced there will be further plant closings and say they will permanently shed tens of thousands of their workforce. They do this while continuing to move production out of the country. GM has manufacturing operations in 32 countries around the world. And while the auto companies complain about competition from lower wage countries, they in turn threaten workers in Mexico, Thailand, South America and elsewhere to accept low wages as a condition of work. Everything unions have fought for throughout our history is being challenged. Republican senators are demanding that unionized workers tear-up their union contracts and work for non-union rates. A forced bankruptcy would destroy the contracts of the UAW. Automotive jobs have been a pathway to a better life for all working people and their loss would hit African American and Latino workers particularly hard. Black workers in particular are more concentrated in auto than other industries. To solve the economic crisis we need to put more money, not less, into the hands of working people. Republican attempts to force the UAW to take cuts will increase the wage gap; it is a continuation of Republican trickledown economics that voters rejected in the November election. These are the same economic policies that created the present economic crisis. It would lower the purchasing power of auto workers and would create a downward wage pressure on all workers If we agree that the auto industry is too important to fail, both in terms of our nation's transportation needs and the need to move away from reliance on fossil fuels, then it is too important to be left in the hands of the CEO's. And at the same time, given the overall economic crisis and the underlying failures of unbridled corporate greed and mismanagement, it is the time to look at more basic solutions also. Demands for public and government oversight raise the issue of democratic public ownership of the domestic auto industry. The United States government could buy all the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. The worth of the companies is less than the aid they want from taxpayers. If the public provides the capital, why do decisions remain in private hands? Representatives from the unions, from engineers employed in the industry, from government, and the communities and states where the plants are located, are best able to make the key decisions. Representatives from management itself should have input but not control. We have an economic crisis, but we also have a crisis of the environment and the two are interlinked. We face global catastrophe and the profits before nature philosophy of the auto executives is a major roadblock for building a "green," sustainable industry. Cities all over the country are looking at the need for mass transit: from rail to subways, and buses. Public demand for environment friendly cars is also growing. We should demand that unemployed auto workers in Detroit and Michigan are put to work building all of the above. Public ownership can work! From our postal service, to social security, to our public school system, Medicare, police, fire, and military, public ownership has been successful. In the early 70's the government took over a rail system in crisis, fixed it and then years later sold it to private owners at a profit. The changes needed in our infrastructure to build and sustain the environmentally friendly cars of the future will require public money so why should the ownership of the companies remain in private hands? In addition: * We need to pass the Employee Free Choice Act to spur union organizing and to increase the wages and buying power of working people. * We need National Health care, pass HR 676 ? health care is a human right and it should be removed as a bargaining chip. * We need an international minimum wage to stop the whipsawing of workers from one country to another. * We need a law to stop tax breaks for companies that outsourcing our jobs. * We need to get behind President-Elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus and public works jobs program. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Dec 18 09:36:49 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:36:49 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] By any means necessary and sufficient Message-ID: <494A35D0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> If war is no longer the adequate metaphor in social tranformation and political transformation ( revolution), then electoral politics, which is peaceful politics , not armed struggle, is the _main_ "arena" of political struggle. Non-electoral actors are not where it's at for peaceful revolution. Venezuela, Bolivia, Urugay, the US have demonstrated the new model of electoral politics to peaceful revolution. As Malcolm X suggested, revolution by any amd all means necessary and suffient: the ballot or the bullet. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/malcolmxballot.htm This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Dec 18 22:24:59 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:24:59 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] After Losses, Pensions Ask for a Change Message-ID: After Losses, Pensions Ask for a Change By Mary Williams Walsh - November 20, 2008 - New York Times, A1 Stung by outsize investment losses, some of the nation?s biggest companies are pushing Congress to roll back rules requiring them to put more money into their pension funds, just two years after President Bush signed a law meant to strengthen the pension system. The total value of company pension funds is thought to have fallen by more than $250 billion since last winter. With cash now in short supply for companies, they are asking Congress to excuse them from having to replenish the required amounts. Lawmakers from both parties seem receptive to the idea, and there was talk of adding a pension relief provision to the broad fiscal stimulus package Congress considered for this week?s lame-duck session. Late Wednesday, several senators announced that they had reached agreement on a bill that would provide pension relief. Even if it is not completed this week, some Congressional leaders say they will seek support for a pension relief bill in January. ?Congress needs to make the funding less volatile,? said Representative Earl Pomeroy, Democrat of North Dakota, who has long been outspoken on pension issues. ?I believe that taking this step will save thousands of jobs without costing the Treasury anything.? The risk of giving companies a break on their required contributions is that some troubled companies may go bankrupt anyway, and the federal government will have to take over their ailing plans. Though the government insures traditional pensions, its insurance is limited. And when it takes over a plan, people can lose benefits. Pension relief for companies would also expose the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to greater risk. The federal guarantor is already operating at a deficit. Companies do not dispute the risks, but they say that when Congress tightened the pension rules it did not take this year?s unprecedented market turmoil into account. If companies are now required to put new money into their pension funds, they say, they will not have the cash needed for business investments and payrolls. ?At a time when companies desperately need cash to keep their businesses afloat, the new funding rules will require huge, countercyclical contributions to their pension plans,? a group of more than 300 companies, trade associations, consulting firms and labor unions wrote in a letter sent last week to the senior members of the House and Senate committees that deal with workplace matters. On Wednesday four senators announced a measure for consideration by the full Senate on Thursday that would give companies more time to make up investment losses and sort out other problems. The bill was backed by Senators Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana; Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa; Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts; and Michael Enzi, Republican of Wyoming. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 was enacted in response to a string of big corporate bankruptcies and pension failures at the beginning of this decade. Federal law requires companies to put money into their pension plans on a regular schedule, but the bankruptcies revealed gaping loopholes that were allowing companies to go for years without adding money. The 2006 amendments were intended to close some of the loopholes and make the pension system less risky. Until this year?s market disaster, most company pension funds had been making great gains. In 2002, the last low point for most pension funds, America?s 500 biggest companies reported an aggregate pension deficit of more than $200 billion, according to David Zion, an analyst at Credit Suisse who specializes in decoding pension numbers. Thanks to company contributions and strong investment gains, the group reported a pension surplus of $60 billion at the end of 2007. Data including this year?s losses will not be available until the next batch of annual reports, but Mr. Zion estimates that this same group has lost almost $265 billion since the beginning of the year. Results are likely to vary from one company to another because pension investment strategies can vary greatly. But Mr. Zion said he thought that of these 500 pension funds, more than 200 were now less than 80 percent funded, meaning they have less than 80 cents for every dollar of benefits promised. The so-called funded ratio matters greatly because the new rules call for companies to bring their plans up to 100 percent funding in seven years, starting this year. The phase-in schedule expects them to be at least 92 percent funded this year, at least 94 percent funded next year and so on. Lawmakers wanted to reduce the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation?s exposure to the stock market, so they wrote the law to encourage conservative investing. The law does not specifically ban volatile pension investments, but if a company suffers losses big enough to throw it off the seven-year path to full funding, then it no longer gets seven years?it has to achieve 100 percent funding right away. Some companies have started shifting away from equities, which can swing widely, but many others have not. Now those with mostly stocks in their pension funds seem likely to have tripped the penalty switch, by falling below this year?s required 92 percent funded ratio. As a result they will now have to shoot for 100 percent funding. The letter said the required contributions for next year are rising sharply. It cited one unnamed Florida company that contributed $673,000 this year and will be required to put in more than $15 million in 2009. Many of the companies now calling for relief have sprawling, mature pension funds with obligations so big they can dominate the companies? own financial performance. Mr. Zion has identified nine big companies whose pension obligations are more than five times the size of their single largest liability on their balance sheets; six have signed the letter: the NCR Corporation, I.B.M., Rockwell Collins, the ITT Corporation, Northrop Grumman and the Pactiv Corporation. The sponsor of America?s biggest corporate pension fund, General Motors, did not sign the letter. But Ford Motor and Chrysler did. The A.F.L.-C.I.O. has not yet taken a public stand on pension relief, but consumer advocates are expressing guarded support. ?If they ask for something more than temporary, it?s not going to happen quickly,? said Norman Stein, a professor at the University of Alabama who specializes in pension issues. The Pension Rights Center, an advocacy group in Washington, said the financial crisis had clearly shown that defined-benefit pensions were superior to 401(k) plans, which make participants bear all the market risk. The center said it would make sense to encourage companies to keep offering pensions by giving them a break on their contribution?but only if they agreed not to freeze their plans. In a pension freeze, employees keep the benefits they have earned, but stop building up new benefits with additional years of work. Even a frozen pension fund still needs contributions, albeit smaller ones, and the companies seeking relief include those with both frozen and active plans. Companies urging relief that have already frozen one or more of their pension plans include 3M, Alcoa, DuPont, I.B.M., Nortel, Northrop Grumman, Verizon and Whirlpool, among others. The issue would be a flashpoint, Professor Stein predicted. ?This is completely inappropriate for frozen plans,? he said. ?I can?t see any reason at all to give relief to frozen plans.? _http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourmoney/retirement/articles/after_losses_pensions_ ask_for_a_change.html_ (http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourmoney/retirement/articles/after_losses_pensions_ask_for_a_change.html) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Dec 19 12:34:56 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 14:34:56 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Pension Funds Collapse: The End of Retirement? Message-ID: _http://www.alternet.org/workplace/113981/_ (http://www.alternet.org/workplace/113981/) Pension Funds Collapse: The End of Retirement? By Shamus Cooke, Information Clearing House. Posted December 19, 2008 Unless things change fast, human history will show that the phenomenon of "retirement" was limited to one generation. After World War II, when European and Japanese economies stood in tatters, American capitalism could fulfill "the American dream," since there was little foreign competition to speak of. For the first time ever, workers were promised that -- after working thirty or so years -- they would be able to securely retire. That was largely the case ... for one generation. The second generation is having a devastating reality check. 2008 was supposed to be a watershed year for retirement: it was the first year that the baby-boomers turned 62, and the retirement frenzy was to begin (since people could begin to draw on their social security benefits). Early in the year, however, a study was conducted that found one-fourth of these boomers were delaying retirement (only the baby-boomers who were actually able to plan for retirement were studied). The economy has since nose dived, and many more retirements are being delayed. The unfortunate reality is that many who planned on retiring will work until the grave, joining the millions of other baby-boomers who never had such dreams. The experts are calling this the "perfect storm" for retirement. Everything that could go wrong is in fact going wrong. This storm, however, was not created by supernatural forces, but the coordinated effort of big-business and their puppet politicians. The deliberate destruction of the pension and its replacement by the 401(k) was, of course, a giant step towards attacking retirement; but now that the economic crisis has emerged, we're beginning to see just how ruinous the effects are. At the end of September, just as the crisis was beginning to gain steam, it was discovered that in the previous year the value of stocks in 401(k) accounts had fallen by nearly $2 trillion! Much more has been lost since then. This is especially devastating since almost one-third of 401(k) participants in their 60s had 80 percent of their money in stocks (pension funds have been similarly destroyed). The 401(k) was the scheme of the century. Corporations offloaded their "burdensome" pensions and used the combined forces of the media and politicians to sell the ruse to the public, to the great benefit of Wall Street. Workers were told that the boom-slump cycle was over, and that stocks were a sure thing. There were additional factors to invest in stocks: interest rates were so low that investing in bonds and other less-risky instruments offered only tiny returns; and since employers stopped contributing to retirement funds, a bigger return was required. More importantly, corporations have been driving down real wages since the seventies, allowing less money to be saved for retirement, creating a mood of desperation. Every "safe bet" for investing has been proven unsafe; the recession has left nothing untouched. After the dotcom bubble burst -- taking with it millions of people's 401(k) savings -- the housing market became the place to invest. Now the safest possible investment, too, has turned sour. For millions of people, the home they lived in was their nest egg, which they had planned to sell and move into a smaller place. No more. Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ), who chairs the House subcommittee on health, employment, labor and pensions, put it bluntly: "Some will have very little, some will have almost nothing, and some will have nothing when they retire". Of course, people who "have nothing" do not retire. 12Next page ? **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Dec 19 21:39:04 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:39:04 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Truth behind the Citigroup Bank "Nationalization" Message-ID: The Truth behind the Citigroup Bank "Nationalization" by F William Engdahl Global Research (November 24 2008) On Friday November 21, the world came within a hair's breadth of the most colossal financial collapse in history according to bankers on the inside of events with whom we have contact. The trigger was the bank which only two years ago was America's largest, Citigroup. The size of the US Government de facto nationalization of the $2 trillion banking institution is an indication of shocks yet to come in other major US and perhaps European banks thought to be 'too big to fail'. The clumsy way in which US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, himself not a banker but a Wall Street 'investment banker', whose experience has been in the quite different world of buying and selling stocks or bonds or underwriting and selling same, has handled the unfolding crisis has been worse than incompetent. It has made a grave situation into a globally alarming one. 'Spitting into the wind' A case in point is the secretive manner in which Paulson has used the $700 billion in taxpayer funds voted him by a labile Congress in September. Early on, Paulson put $125 billion in the nine largest banks, including $10 billion for his old firm, Goldman Sachs. However, if we compare the value of the equity share that $125 billion bought with the market price of those banks' stock, US taxpayers have paid $125 billion for bank stock that a private investor could have bought for $62.5 billion, according to a detailed analysis from Ron W Bloom, economist with the US United Steelworkers union, whose members as well as pension fund face devastating losses were GM to fail. That means half of the public's money was a gift to Paulson's Wall Street cronies. Now, only weeks later, the Treasury is forced to intervene to de facto nationalize Citigroup. It won't be the last. Paulson demanded, and got from a labile US Congress, Democrat as well as Republican, sole discretion over how and where he can invest the $700 billion, to date with no effective oversight. It amounts to the Treasury Secretary in effect 'spitting into the wind' in terms of resolving the fundamental crisis. It should be clear to any serious analyst by now that the September decision by Paulson to defer to rigid financial ideology and let the fourth largest US investment bank, Lehman Brothers fail, was the proximate trigger for the present global crisis. Lehman Brothers' surprise collapse triggered the current global crisis of confidence. It was simply not clear to the rest of the banking world which US financial institution bank might be saved and which not, after the Government had earlier saved the far smaller Bear Stearns, while letting the larger, far more strategic Lehman Brothers fail. Some Citigroup details The most alarming aspect of the crisis is the fact that we are in an inter-regnum period when the next President has been elected but cannot act on the situation until after January 20 2009 when he is sworn in. Consider the details of the latest Citigroup government de facto nationalization (for ideological reasons Paulson and the Bush Administration hysterically avoid admitting they are in the process of nationalizing key banks). Citigroup has more than $2 trillion of assets, dwarfing companies such as American International Group Inc that got some $150 billion in US taxpayer funds in the past two months. Ironically, only eight weeks before, the Government had designated Citigroup to take over the failing Wachovia Bank. Normally authorities have an ailing bank absorbed by a stronger one. In this instance the opposite seems to have been the case. Now it is clear that the Citigroup was in deeper trouble than Wachovia. In a matter of hours in the week before the US Government nationalization was announced, the stock value of Citibank plunged to $3.77 in New York, giving the company a market value of about $21 billion. The market value of Citigroup stock in December 2006 had been $247 billion. Two days before the bank nationalization the CEO, Vikram Pandit had announced a huge 52,000 job slashing plan. It did nothing to stop the slide. The scale of the hidden losses of perhaps the twenty largest US banks is so enormous that if not before, the first Presidential decree of President Barack Obama will likely have to be declaration of a US 'Bank Holiday' and the full nationalization of the major banks, taking on the toxic assets and losses until the economy can again function with credit flowing to industry once more. Citigroup and the government have identified a pool of about $306 billion in troubled assets. Citigroup will absorb the first $29 billion in losses. After that, remaining losses will be split between Citigroup and the government, with the bank absorbing ten percent and the government absorbing ninety percent. The US Treasury Department will use its $700 billion TARP or Troubled Asset Recovery Program bailout fund, to assume up to $5 billion of losses. If necessary, the Government's Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) will bear the next $10 billion of losses. Beyond that, the Federal Reserve will guarantee any additional losses. The measures are without precedent in US financial history. It's by no means certain they will salvage the dollar system. The situation is so intertwined, with six US major banks holding the vast bulk of worldwide financial derivatives exposure, that the failure of a single major US financial institution could result in losses to the OTC derivatives market of $300-$400 billion, a new IMF working paper finds. What's more, since such a failure would likely cause cascading failures of other institutions. Total global financial system losses could exceed another $1,500 billion according to an IMF study by Singh and Segoviano. The madness over a Detroit GM rescue deal The health of Citigroup is not the only gripping crisis that must be dealt with. At this point, political and ideological bickering in the US Congress has so far prevented a simple emergency $25 billion loan extension to General Motors and other of the US Big Three automakers - Ford and Chrysler. The absurd spectacle of US Congressmen attacking the chairmen of the Big Three for flying to the emergency Congressional hearings on a rescue loan in their private company jets while largely ignoring the issue of consequences to the economy of a GM failure underscores the utter lack of touch with reality that has overwhelmed Washington in recent years. For GM to go into bankruptcy risks a disaster of colossal proportions. Although Lehman Brothers, the biggest bankruptcy in US history, appears to have had an orderly settlement of its credit defaults swaps, the disruption occurred before-hand, as protection writers had to post additional collateral prior to settlement. That was a major factor in the dramatic global market selloff in October. GM is bigger by far, meaning bigger collateral damage, and this would take place when the financial system is even weaker than when Lehman failed. In addition, a second, and potentially far more damaging issue, has been largely ignored. The advocates of letting GM go bankrupt argue that it can go into Chapter 11 just like other big companies that get themselves in trouble. That may not happen however, and a Chapter 7 or liquidation of GM that would then result would be a tectonic event. The problem is that under Chapter 11 US law, it takes time for the company to get the protection of a bankruptcy court. Until that time, which may be weeks or months, the company would need urgently 'bridge financing' to continue operating. This is known as 'Debtor-in-Possession or DIP financing. DIP is essential for most Chapter 11 bankruptcies, as it takes time to get the plan of reorganization approved by creditors and the courts. Most companies, like GM today, go to bankruptcy court when they are at the end of their liquidity. DIP is specifically for companies in, or on the verge of bankruptcy, and the debt is generally senior to other outstanding creditor claims. So it is actually very low risk, as the amount spent is usually not large, relatively speaking. But DIP lending is being severely curtailed right now, just when it is most needed, as healthier banks drastically cut loans in the severe credit crunch situation. Without access to DIP bridge financing, GM would be forced into a partial, or even a full liquidation. The ramifications are horrendous. Aside from loss of 100,000 jobs at GM itself, GM is critical to keep many US auto suppliers in business. If GM failed soon most, possibly even all of the US and even foreign auto suppliers will go under. Those parts suppliers are important to other auto makers. Many foreign car factories would be forced to close due to loss of suppliers. Some analysts put 2009 job losses from a GM failure as high as 2.5 million jobs due to the follow-on effects. If the impact of that 2.5 million job loss is seen in terms of the overall losses to the economy of non-auto jobs such as services, home foreclosures caused and such, some estimate total impact would be more than fifteen million jobs. So far in the face of this staggering prospect, the members of the US Congress have chosen to focus on the fact the GM chief, Rick Wagoner, flew in his private company jet to Washington. The Congressional charade conjures up the image of Nero playing his fiddle as Rome goes up in flames. It should not be surprising that at the recent EU-Asian Summit in Beijing, Chinese officials mooted the idea of trading between the EU and Asian nations such as China in Euro, Renminbi, Yen or other national currencies other than the dollar. The Citigroup bailout and GM debacle has confirmed the death of the post-1944 Bretton Woods Dollar System. The real truth behind Citigroup bailout What neither Paulson nor anyone in Washington is willing to reveal is the real truth behind the Citigroup bailout. By his and the Republican Bush Administration's adamant earlier refusal to take an initial resolute action to immediately nationalize the nine or so largest troubled banks, he has created the present debacle. By refusing on ideological grounds to instead reorganize the banks' assets into some form of 'good bank' and 'bad bank', similar to what the Government of Sweden did with what it called Securum, during its banking crisis in the early 1990s, Paulson and company have created a global financial structure on the brink. A Securum or similar temporary nationalization would have allowed the healthy banks to continue lending to the real economy so the economy could continue operating, while the State merely sat on the undervalued real estate assets of the Swedish banks for some months until the recovering economy made the assets again marketable to the private sector. Instead, Paulson and his 'crony capitalists' in Washington have turned a bad situation into a globally catastrophic one. His apparent realization of the error of his initial refusal to nationalize came too late. When Paulson reversed policy on September 19 and presented the nine largest banks with an ultimatum to accept partial Government equity ownership, abandoning his original bizarre plan to merely buy up the toxic waste asset-backed securities of the banks with his $700 billion TARP taxpayer money, he never revealed why. Under the original Paulson Plan, as Dimitri B Papadimitriou and L Randall Wray of the Jerome Levy Institute at Bard College in New York point out, Paulson sought to create a situation in which the US 'Treasury would become an owner of troubled financial institutions in exchange for a capital injection - but without exercising any ownership rights, such as replacing the management that created the mess. The bailout would be used as an opportunity to consolidate control of the nation's financial system in the hands of a few large (Wall Street) banks, with government funds subsidizing purchases of troubled banks by "healthy" ones.' Paulson soon realized the scale of crisis, largely triggered by his inept handling of the Lehman Brothers case, had created an impossible situation. Were Paulson to use the $700 billion to buy up toxic waste ABS assets from the select banks at today's market price, the $700 billion would be far too little to take an estimated $2 trillion ($2,000 billion) in Asset Backed Securities off the books of the banks. The Levy Economics Institute economists state, 'It is probable that many and perhaps most financial institutions are insolvent today - with a black hole of negative net worth that would swallow Paulson's entire $700 billion in one gulp'. That reality is the real reason Paulson was forced to abandon his original 'crony bailout' TARP plan and opt to use some of his money to buy equity shares in the nine largest banks. That scheme as well is 'dead on arrival' as the latest Citigroup nationalization scheme underscores. The dilemma Paulson has created with his inept handling of the crisis is simple: If the US Government paid the true value for these nearly worthless assets, the banks would have to write down huge losses, and, as Levy economists put it, 'announce to the world that they are insolvent'. On the other hand, if Paulson raised the toxic waste purchase price high enough to protect the banks from losses, $700 billion 'will buy only a tiny fraction of the "troubled" assets'. That is what the latest nationalization of Citigroup is about. It is only the beginning. The 2009 year will be one of titanic shocks and changes to the global order of a scale perhaps not experienced in the past five centuries. This is why we should speak of the end of the American Century and its Dollar System. How destructive that process will be to the citizens of the United States who are the prime victims of Paulson's crony capitalists, as well as to the rest of the world depends now on the urgency and resoluteness with which heads of national Governments in Germany, the EU, China, Russia and the rest of the non-US world react. It is no time for ideological sentimentality and nostalgia of the postwar old order. That collapsed this past September along with Lehman Brothers and the Republican Presidency. Waiting for a 'miracle' from an Obama Presidency is no longer an option for the rest of the world. _____ Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article. To become a Member of Global Research: _http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=section§ionName=membership _ (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=section§ionName=membership) The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author's copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: _crgeditor at yahoo.com_ (mailto:crgeditor at yahoo.com) _www.globalresearch.ca_ (http://www.globalresearch.ca) contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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(http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 10:25:19 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:25:19 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] How to Get on an Atheist's Good Side Message-ID: <494F8730.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> How to Get on an Atheist's Good Side By Greta Christina, Greta Christina's Blog Posted on December 22, 2008, Printed on December 22, 2008 http://www.alternet.org/story/114009/ Every margalized group needs allies, atheists included. And atheists make good allies -- we're a growing movement that's lively, outspoken, and passionately committed to social justice. So what do atheists want from their allies? And how can progressive non-atheist people and groups be good allies with the atheist movement? (A quick disclaimer first: While I suspect that a lot of atheists will more or less agree with much of this list, I really am speaking only for myself here. Atheists are notoriously independent, and they don't like having other people speak for them.) 1: Familiarize yourself with the common myths and misconceptions about atheists -- and don't perpetuate them. There's a lot of misunderstanding and ignorance about who atheists are and what we do and don't believe. Needless to say, these myths and misconceptions are wrong. Don't believe them. Don't perpetuate them. Don't let them infect the way you speak and act, and please speak out against them when you hear them. Find out what we actually think and believe and do, instead of what anti- atheist propaganda says about what we think and believe and do. Sam Harris has written a pretty good list of the most common myths about atheists, with short arguments against them. There's a touch of needless snark in the piece, IMO -- Harris can't quite resist the temptation to get in a few digs against religion when he should probably just be explaining atheism -- but overall, it gives a good, concise view of the most common misconceptions about atheism, and why, exactly, they're mistaken. I'm just going to add one quick thing to Harris's list before I move on: The myth that atheists are 100% certain that there is no God, with a dogmatic attachment to that belief. In reality, I've encountered almost no atheists who thought that God's existence had been definitely disproved. Atheism doesn't mean being 100% certain that God doesn't exist. It just means being certain enough. We're about as certain that Jehovah doesn't exist (or Yahweh, or Allah, or Ganesh, or the Goddess, or any of the gods that are commonly worshipped today) as we are that Zeus doesn't exist. If you don't think you're close-minded for not believing in Zeus, then please don't accuse atheists of being close-minded for not believing in your god. 2: Familiarize yourself with what it's like to be an atheist, both in the U.S. and in the rest of the world. Discrimination against atheists, in the United States, and around the world, is very real. It doesn't look exactly like other forms of discrimination -- no form of discrimination looks exactly like any other -- but it is real. Here are just a few examples. According to a recent Gallup Poll, asking Americans who they'd be willing to vote for for President, atheists came in at the very bottom of the list: below blacks, below women, below Jews, below gays. Below every other marginalized group on the list. With less than half of Americans saying they'd vote for an atheist. Unless you live in a incredibly progressive district, being an out atheist will effectively kill any chances you have at a political career. Atheists in the military have been illegally proselytized at, berated, called a disgrace, denied promotion, had meetings broken up, and been threatened with charges... all by superior officers, and all because of their atheism. In her recent Senate campaign, Elizabeth Dole issued a series of campaign flyers and videos, centering on the fact that her opponent, Kay Hagan, had attended a fundraiser hosted by two atheist lobbyists... a campaign that openly referred to atheists as "vile," that treated the very existence of atheists as an abomination, and that used language about atheists that would have raised a tidal wave of shock and denunciation around the country if it had been aimed at any other religious group. And especially in small rural towns, anti-atheist bigotry can turn truly ugly. Being an out atheist means risking ostracism and worse. Out atheist teenagers have been kicked out of public school programs, and then kicked out of public school. Out atheists have been the targets of vandalism and death threats. Even believers can be targeted with anti- atheist ostracism, threats, and vandalism, if they're perceived as being atheists because of their stance on separation of church and state (such as the anti- intelligent- design activists in Dover, Pennsylvania). And I'm just talking about the U.S., where atheists are, at least in theory, guaranteed equal protection and freedom of non-religion under the 1st and 14th amendments. I'm not even talking about overt theocracies, where denying the existence of God will earn you a death sentence. This stuff is real. And there's a lot more. These examples have barely scratched the surface. We are pissed off for a reason. Please don't trivialize it. 3: Find common ground. Religious believers might think there's no way for them to be allies with atheists. Aren't atheists trying to do away with religion? How can you be allies with someone who thinks your most cherished beliefs are a myth, and wants to rid the world of them? Okay. First, not all atheists are trying to do away with religion. Many atheists are fine with religion, as long as it's respectful of people who don't share it. They just don't believe it themselves, and just want to be left alone to give what they have to the world and to practice their lack of faith in peace. If all religions minded their own business, if religions didn't have the depressingly common habit of demonizing people who don't agree with them and shoving themselves down everybody else's throat... most of us wouldn't care about it very much. Second: Even the atheists who would like to see religion disappear, and who are actively working to make that happen, still passionately support religious freedom. We don't want to make religion disappear by law, or coercion, or even social disapproval. We want to make religion disappear by persuasion. We want to convince people, in an open marketplace of ideas, that religion is mistaken. Even the most strongly and rudely anti- religion atheists I know are passionate in their defense of religious freedom, and of people's right to believe whatever crazy bullshit they want as long as they don't inflict it on other people. And even though atheists obviously think religion is a mistaken idea about the world, and believers obviously don't... well, we don't have to agree about everything to work together. Atheists and progressive believers have a lot of common ground: a passionate support of religious freedom, a fervent belief in the separation of church and state, an intense respect for diversity. The fact that we don't agree about the existence or non-existence of God doesn't mean we can't work together on issues we share. 4: Speak out against anti-atheist bigotry and other forms of religious intolerance. If you're white, it's important to speak up about racism. If you're male, it's important to speak up about sexism. If you're straight, it's important to speak up about homophobia. Etc. And if you're a religious believer, it's important to speak up about anti-atheist bigotry and ignorance. Familiarize yourself with the common myths about atheism and the truth about those myths (see above)... and when you hear someone repeat the myths, speak out. 5: Be inclusive of atheists. Remember that not everybody is a religious believer. And I don't just mean that not everybody belongs to a traditional religious organization. Many people have no religious or spiritual beliefs at all. So if you're talking to a group, don't ask people to pray. Don't talk about "our Creator." Don't talk about the spirit that moves within all of us. I don't have a creator, and I don't have a spirit, and I don't pray. If you want to talk about your own religious beliefs, then please, by all means, go ahead and do so. Say that you're going to pray. Tell us about your creator. Talk about the spirit that moves within you. But don't assume that everyone you're talking to shares your beliefs, or indeed has any religious beliefs at all. Don't -- as a commenter in this blog observed at a No on Prop 8 rally -- talk about the wonderful work churches are doing for your movement, and the wonderful work being done by people who don't go to church but still believe in God, and neglect to mention the people who don't believe in God but still passionately support your cause. In the same way that (I hope) you try to remember that there are probably people in your audience who aren't white, or college-educated, or able-bodied, or whatever, please try to remember that there are probably people in your audience who aren't religious or spiritual. (And don't do fake inclusion, either. Saying, "No matter what your religious beliefs or lack thereof are, let's all pray or meditate," is like saying, "No matter what your religious beliefs are, let's all give thanks to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." No matter how good your intentions are, it?s not inclusive. It's a back-handed slap.) 6: Don't divide and conquer, and don't try to take away our anger. Don't divide us into "good atheists" and "bad atheists" based on how vocal or angry we are. Don't say things like, "Well, you seem reasonable -- but that Richard Dawkins and that Christopher Hitchens, they're just so mean and intolerant!" I hope I don't have to tell you about the ugly history of dividing activists for social change into "the good ones" who are polite and soft-spoken and easy for the privileged power structure to get along with, and "the bad ones" who are angry, rabble- rousing trouble- makers. I hope I don't have to explain about the not- no- subtle message behind it: "We're fine with you as long as you don't speak up too loudly, and don't make us too uncomfortable, and don't ask for too much." Like every other movement for social change I can think of, the atheist movement has its more diplomatic members and its more confrontational ones. And like every other movement for social change I can think of, the atheist movement needs both. It's more powerful with both. Both methods together work better than either one would work on its own. Besides, we all know that Hitchens is an asshole. It's not news to us. 7: If you're going to accuse an atheist or an atheist group of being intolerant -- be careful, and make sure that's really what they're being. Atheists often get accused of being intolerant for saying things like, "I don't agree with you," or, "You haven't made your case," or, "I think you're mistaken -- and here, exactly, is why." Atheists often get accused of bigotry when, in fact, they've been very careful to criticize specific ideas and actions rather than insult entire classes of people. Atheists often get accused of being close-minded for firmly stating their case and saying that, unless they see some good evidence or arguments to the contrary, they're going to stand by it. Atheists, as Richard Dawkins recently pointed out, often get accused of being insulting or hateful for discussing religion in the kind of language that is commonly accepted in political opinion pieces or restaurant reviews. It's totally fucked up. Please don't do that. Here's the thing. Atheists see religion as (among other things) a hypothesis about the world: an explanation for how the world works and why it is the way it is. We think that, as such, it should be willing to defend itself in the marketplace of ideas, on an even playing field. And we see the "criticism of religion is inherently intolerant" trope as one of the chief ways religion avoids having to do that. It totally gets up our nose. As someone whose name I can't remember recently said: Religion has been discussed in hushed tones for so long, that when people talk about it in a normal tone of voice, it sounds like we're screaming. But most of us are not screaming. Most of us are talking in a normal tone of voice... for the first time in our lives. 8: Do not -- repeat, DO NOT -- talk about "fundamentalist atheists." If you think an atheist or an atheist group is being intolerant, or bigoted, or close-minded, then by all means, say that they're being intolerant or bigoted or close-minded. But please, for the sweet love of all that is beautiful in this world, do not call them "fundamentalist atheists." The "fundamentalist" canard makes most atheists want to scream and tear our hair out. It's a problem for three reasons: 1: It's inaccurate. Atheists do not have a text or a set of basic principles to which they strictly and literally adhere... which is what the word "fundamentalist" means. (See "common myths about atheists" above.) 2: It perpetuates the myth that atheism is just another form of dogmatic religious faith... which it most emphatically is not. (Again, see "common myths about atheists" above.) 3: It divides the atheist movement into the "good" ones and the "bad" ones: the good ones who keep their mouths shut, and the bad ones who speak their opinions loudly and firmly. (See "don't divide and conquer" above.) Think of the phrase "fundamentalist atheist" as an epithet. If you insist on using it, you should expect that no atheist will listen to anything else you say. Finally -- and I think this may be the hardest for a lot of people, especially in the LGBT community: 9: Be aware of how religious belief gives you a place of mainstream and privilege. This is a lot less true for believers in minority religions, like Jews and Muslims in the U.S. But even though the specifics of your belief marginalize you, the fact that you have belief at all does give you some privilege that you may not be aware of. The assumption that everyone believes in some sort of God is so widespread as to be practically invisible. And the assumption that morality must stem from religious faith is incredibly pervasive. Many religious believers -- even the more hard-core ones, maybe especially the more hard-core ones -- are more trusting of other religious believers whose beliefs they don't share than they are of atheists. (Look again at "what it's like to be an atheist" above... and look again the Gallup Poll about how atheists are considered less qualified to be President than any other group that was polled about.) And if you are a Christian? Forget about it. If you are a Christian in the United States, then -- when it comes to this particular area of the "privilege/ marginalization" palette -- your Christianity puts you squarely in the "privileged mainstream" category. Christians are in the clear majority in the United States, and they are in the clear mainstream of politics and culture. You're not being thrown to the lions anymore. You haven't been thrown to the lions for almost 2,000 years. You are in the group that is running the show. And that's fine. That doesn't make you a bad person. When it comes to the "privilege/ marginalization" palette, most people have some of both. I am privileged as a white person, a college- educated person, a middle- to- upper- middle class person, a more or less able bodied person, an American. I am marginalized as a woman, a queer, a bisexual, a fat person, an atheist. And my privileges don't confer wickedness onto me, any more than my marginalizations confer virtue. But my privileges do confer some responsibilities. They confer the responsibility to educate myself about the experiences of marginalized people, and the myths about them. To speak out against bigotry, even and especially when it isn't against me. To not assume that everyone is just like me. To remember that passionate anger is as important to a movement as gentle diplomacy. To learn what kind of language people prefer when talking about them, and what kind of language totally sets their teeth on edge. (Which is just good manners anyway.) To tread carefully when I'm criticizing marginalized people, and to make sure I know what the hell I'm talking about. And to not act like a victim when my privilege is questioned, or indeed simply pointed out. I do think progressive movements should be making alliances with the atheist movement. If for no other reason, I think it's a smart choice pragmatically. It's going to be a force to be reckoned with. You want to get in on the ground floor here, people. Read more of Greta Christina at her blog. ? 2008 Greta Christina's Blog All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/114009/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 10:28:20 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:28:20 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Auto crisis Message-ID: <494F87E5.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> UAW Michigan family holds onto Christmas: http://pww.org/article/articleview/14165/ Why we fight to save autoworker's jobs and link to podcast: http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7886/ Public ownership to save auto jobs and environment, Statement from Communist Party USA: http://pww.org/article/articleview/14153/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 10:35:48 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:35:48 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nationalize GM Message-ID: <494F89A5.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Nationalize GM From: Bill Totten Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:17:04 +0900 User-agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 (X11/20081125) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Or At Least Think About It by Robert Weissman Essential Action (December 02 2008) With the US government offering trillions of dollars in supports for the financial sector, it is startling to witness the casual way in which many policy makers and opinion leaders suggest the US auto companies should be allowed to go bankrupt. In considerable part, this attitude reflects an anti-union and anti-blue collar animus. It also reflects the diminished economic power of what was formerly known as the Big Three (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler). The stakes are too high for policy to be influenced by misinformation and ideological bias. The auto companies need to be saved, on terms that protect workers and communities, and advance public objectives. Congress and the country should be debating those terms, not dithering with unrealistic discussions of bankruptcy or demands to reduce already shrunken union wages and benefits. How can we look at these issues sensibly? First, one must note the awesome disparity in treatment for the auto industry and Wall Street. Government agencies have thrown literally trillions of dollars at the financial sector, with very light conditions, and virtually no discussion of industry salary structures (aside from limited restraints on top executive compensation). By contrast, there has been endless fulmination about supposedly excessively generous wages for unionized auto workers, and much more severe financial and oversight conditions proposed for an industry bailout. Second, the costs of inaction to support the auto industry dwarf the cost of a bailout - even if much more than the requested $25 billion is needed. The industrial Midwest has already been hollowed out by deindustrialization. Auto industry bankruptcy would be a crushing blow. A complete collapse of the US auto companies would cost three million jobs - about 240,000 employees of the companies, a million supplier jobs, and 1.7 million jobs lost from the overall economic effect - according to the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research. In this scenario, the federal government would lose $60 billion in tax revenues and other costs in the first year alone. Even assuming something less than a complete collapse, costs would be devastating. And, as economist Thomas Palley has noted, industry bankruptcies would dramatically worsen the financial crisis. Third, the idea that United Auto Worker members are receiving exorbitant wages putting the US auto companies at competitive disadvantage is a lie. In general, the Japanese plants in the United States ("transplants") pay wages comparable to those at unionized US facilities. This has been central to their anti-union strategy. In some recent years, workers at the transplants have actually made more than their counterparts at the Big Three, thanks to profit-sharing deals. The Big Three employers do have nontrivial healthcare and pension "legacy" costs for retirees, and this is the main employee-related difference in cost structure (the other is more generous healthcare for current Big Three workers). It is true that, historically, auto industry jobs have paid well. Going forward, however, this will be less and less true. The concessionary UAW 2007 contracts call for many new hires to start at $14 an hour, and the UAW is preparing to offer even further concessions. Fourth, manufacturing wages and salaries don't contribute much to the cost of a car. Total labor costs are less than ten percent of list price. If UAW workers donated their time and all savings were passed on to consumers, it would only lower the cost of a car by $2,400. Fifth, although the Big Three have done just about everything possible over the last decades to undermine their strength - including making disastrous long-term product mix choices, and fighting against fuel efficiency standards - but the proximate cause of their desperate status is the economic crisis. It is not true, as has been frequently suggested, that the Japanese companies are doing just fine. Overall auto sales in the United States have fallen by more than a third in just a year, and Toyota, Honda and Nissan have seen drops of 27 percent, 22 percent and 35 percent. It is true that the Japanese companies have a stronger base and are better prepared to weather the storm. But the storm is pouring rain on everyone. Sixth, bankruptcy is no answer for fixing what ails the industry. It is almost certainly true, as the industry argues, that consumers will refuse, or at least be very reluctant, to buy cars from a company in or recently emerged from bankruptcy. Would you? But at least as important for those who want to see the industry aggressively adopt fuel efficient and zero carbon emission technologies is this: Bankruptcy would limit the automakers' flexibility, and make it much harder for them to make expensive, long-term investment decisions. This is particularly true while oil prices are depressed. Things were different six months ago (and likely will be again in the not-distant future), but right now the market signals are wrong for investments in energy efficiency. Focusing on the imperative to rescue the industry, there are two rational policy responses. One is to give the industry loans and other supports, with tight conditions. Under consideration now in Congress is an oversight structure that would give the government authority to veto any investment over $25 million. In contrast to the free hand given to Wall Street, this would help ensure government funds are not diverted into inappropriate purposes. The existing proposal would also require the government be paid back with interest, and/or the right to benefit from subsequent improvements in company share value. But more should be done. There should be requirements that the bailout beneficiaries invest in energy efficiency and safety technologies, with demands that they do much more than required by existing law. To give them a level playing field, these improved standards should be adopted as law, and required of all auto companies. And protections should be built in to protect workers' interests - a key objective should be to preserve good-paying jobs, not drive everyone to Wal-Mart wages The second rational policy approach is simply to nationalize the companies. General Motors now has a market capitalization of $2.8 billion. Ford's market value is $6.1 billion. These are relatively small amounts compared to the $25 billion the companies are requesting - and they are likely to come back for more later. The government has certain advantages over the companies. It can access capital more cheaply, for example. The biggest advantage of buying the companies is that it would enable the public to exert control over the companies commensurate with its investment. There would be no need to negotiate with management, or carefully monitor managerial actions, to review nine-point plans for viability, or create incentives to have them invest in fuel-efficient technology. It would make it possible to undertake long-term, transformative investments in R&D and new transportation technologies, irrespective of today's oil price. It is true that nationalizing the companies implies a commitment to support them despite unknown future challenges. But a commitment of $25 billion itself implies a readiness to do more if necessary, as it likely will be. On the other hand, nationalizing the companies would entail many complications and difficulties, including managing relations with workers and plants around the world, fair dealing with suppliers and workers at suppliers, and the inherent complexity of running multinational auto companies. Is a true nationalization the best option? Maybe, maybe not. But the public would be a lot better off if there could be a serious discussion of the reasonable policy choices, and a lot less breath wasted on overt and disguised attacks on unionized blue-collar workers. _____ Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, DC-based Multinational Monitor and director of Essential Action. http://www.multinationalmonitor.org http://www.essentialaction.org (c) Robert Weissman http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2008/000306.html This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 10:51:53 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:51:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] US Finance capitalism is not free market capitalism in 2008 Message-ID: <494F8D6A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> X. THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORY Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 17 07:12:41 MST 2008 Previous message: [Marxism-Thaxis] IX. CRITIQUE OF IMPERIALISM Next message: [Marxism-Thaxis] Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- X. THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORY We have seen that in its economic essence imperialism is monopoly capitalism. This in itself determines its place in history, for monopoly that grows out of the soil of free competition, and precisely out of free competition, is the transition from the capitalist system to a higher socio-economic order. ^^^^ CB: Paradoxically, Lenin claims that monopoly prepares the "ground" for socialism as step beyond "free" competition. We see the US capitalist rulers have "admitted" that the their finance system is not a free market, but a monopoly capitalist structure by the $8 trillion plus state bailout of huge monopoly finance institutions. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 10:57:04 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:57:04 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] X. THE PLACE OF IMPERIALISM IN HISTORY ( part left off) Message-ID: <494F8EA2.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 11:08:18 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:08:18 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?An_Essential_Condition_of_the_Bolshevi?= =?utf-8?q?ks=E2=80=99_Success?= Message-ID: <494F9144.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> _Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder_ "An Essential Condition of the Bolsheviks? Success" http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch02.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I t is, I think, almost universally realised at present that the Bolsheviks could not have retained power for two and a half months, let alone two and a half years, without the most rigorous and truly iron discipline in our Party, or without the fullest and unreserved support from the entire mass of the working class, that is, from all thinking, honest, devoted and influential elements in it, capable of leading the backward strata or carrying the latter along with them. The dictatorship of the proletariat means a most determined and most ruthless war waged by the new class against a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie, whose resistance is increased tenfold by their overthrow (even if only in a single country), and whose power lies, not only in the strength of international capital, the strength and durability of their international connections, but also in the force of habit, in the strength of small-scale production. Unfortunately, small-scale production is still widespread in the world, and small-scale production engenders capitalism and the bourgeoisie continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale. All these reasons make the dictatorship of the proletariat necessary, and victory over the bourgeoisie is impossible without a long, stubborn and desperate life-and-death struggle which calls for tenacity, discipline, and a single and inflexible will. I repeat: the experience of the victorious dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia has clearly shown even to those who are incapable of thinking or have had no occasion to give thought to the matter that absolute centralisation and rigorous discipline of the proletariat are an essential condition of victory over the bourgeoisie. This is often dwelt on. However, not nearly enough thought is given to what it means, and under what conditions it is possible. Would it not be better if the salutations addressed to the Soviets and the Bolsheviks were more frequently accompanied by a profound analysis of the reasons why the Bolsheviks have been able to build up the discipline needed by the revolutionary proletariat? As a current of political thought and as a political party, Bolshevism has existed since 1903. Only the history of Bolshevism during the entire period of its existence can satisfactorily explain why it has been able to build up and maintain, under most difficult conditions, the iron discipline needed for the victory of the proletariat. The first questions to arise are: how is the discipline of the proletariat?s revolutionary party maintained? How is it tested? How is it reinforced? First, by the class-consciousness of the proletarian vanguard and by its devotion to the revolution, by its tenacity, self-sacrifice and heroism. Second, by its ability to link up, maintain the closest contact, and?if you wish?merge, in certain measure, with the broadest masses of the working people?primarily with the proletariat, but also with the non-proletarian masses of working people. Third, by the correctness of the political leadership exercised by this vanguard, by the correctness of its political strategy and tactics, provided the broad masses have seen, from their own experience, that they are correct. Without these conditions, discipline in a revolutionary party really capable of being the party of the advanced class, whose mission it is to overthrow the bourgeoisie and transform the whole of society, cannot be achieved. Without these conditions, all attempts to establish discipline inevitably fall flat and end up in phrasemongering and clowning. On the other hand, these conditions cannot emerge at once. They are created only by prolonged effort and hard-won experience. Their creation is facilitated by a correct revolutionary theory, which, in its turn, is not a dogma, but assumes final shape only in close connection with the practical activity of a truly mass and truly revolutionary movement. The fact that, in 1917-20, Bolshevism was able, under unprecedentedly difficult conditions, to build up and successfully maintain the strictest centralisation and iron discipline was due simply to a number of historical peculiarities of Russia. On the one hand, Bolshevism arose in 1903 on a very firm foundation of Marxist theory. The correctness of this revolutionary theory, and of it alone, has been proved, not only by world experience throughout the nineteenth century, but especially by the experience of the seekings and vacillations, the errors and disappointments of revolutionary thought in Russia. For about half a century?approximately from the forties to the nineties of the last century?progressive thought in Russia, oppressed by a most brutal and reactionary tsarism, sought eagerly for a correct revolutionary theory, and followed with the utmost diligence and thoroughness each and every "last word" in this sphere in Europe and America. Russia achieved Marxism?the only correct revolutionary theory?through the agony she experienced in the course of half a century of unparalleled torment and sacrifice, of unparalleled revolutionary heroism, incredible energy, devoted searching, study, practical trial, disappointment. verification, and comparison with European experience. Thanks to the political emigration caused by tsarism, revolutionary Russia, in the second half of the nineteenth century, acquired a wealth of international links and excellent information on the forms and theories of the world revolutionary movement, such as no other country possessed. On the other hand, Bolshevism, which had arisen on this granite foundation of theory, went through fifteen years of practical history (1903-17) unequalled anywhere in the world in its wealth of experience. During those fifteen years, no other country knew anything even approximating to that revolutionary experience, that rapid and varied succession of different forms of the movement?legal and illegal, peaceful and stormy, underground and open, local circles and mass movements, and parliamentary and terrorist forms. In no other country has there been concentrated, in so brief a period, such a wealth of forms, shades, and methods of struggle of all classes of modern society, a struggle which, owing to the backwardness of the country and the severity of the tsarist yoke, matured with exceptional rapidity, and assimilated most eagerly and successfully the appropriate "last word" of American and European political experience. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 11:13:29 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:13:29 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] We charge "socialism" Message-ID: <494F927B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 11:18:05 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:18:05 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Principal Stages in the History of Bolshevism Message-ID: <494F938F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder The Principal Stages in the History of Bolshevism http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch03.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The years of preparation for revolution (1903-05) The approach of a great storm was sensed everywhere. All classes were in a state of ferment and preparation. Abroad, the press of the political exiles discussed the theoretical aspects of all the fundamental problems of the revolution. Representatives of the three main classes, of the three principal political trends -- the liberal-bourgeois, the petty-bourgeois-democratic (concealed behind "social-democratic" and "social-revolutionary" labels [2]), and the proletarian-revolutionary?anticipated and prepared the impending open class struggle by waging a most bitter struggle on issues of programme and tactics. All the issues on which the masses waged an armed struggle in 1905-07 and 1917-20 can (and should) be studied, in their embryonic form, in the press of the period. Among these three main trends there were, of course, a host of intermediate, transitional or half-hearted forms. It would be more correct to say that those political and ideological trends which were genuinely of a class nature crystallised in the struggle of press organs, parties, factions and groups; the classes were forging the requisite political and ideological weapons for the impending battles. The years of revolution (1905-07). All classes came out into the open. All programmatical and tactical views were tested by the action of the masses. In its extent and acuteness, the strike struggle had no parallel anywhere in the world. The economic strike developed into a political strike, and the latter into insurrection. The relations between the proletariat, as the leader, and the vacillating and unstable peasantry, as the led, were tested in practice. The Soviet form of organisation came into being in the spontaneous development of the struggle. The controversies of that period over the significance of the Soviets anticipated the great struggle of 1917-20. The alternation of parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of struggle, of the tactics of boycotting parliament and that of participating in parliament, of legal and illegal forms of struggle, and likewise their interrelations and connections?all this was marked by an extraordinary wealth of content. As for teaching the fundamentals of political science to masses and leaders, to classes and parties alike, each month of this period was equivalent to an entire year of "peaceful" and "constitutional" development. Without the "dress rehearsal" of 1905, the victory of the October Revolution in 1917 would have been impossible. The years of reaction (1907-10). Tsarism was victorious. All the revolutionary and opposition parties were smashed. Depression? demoralisation, splits, discord, defection, and pornography took the place of politics. There was an ever greater drift towards philosophical idealism; mysticism became the garb of counter-revolutionary sentiments. At the same time, however, it was this great defeat that taught the revolutionary parties and the revolutionary class a real and very useful lesson, a lesson in historical dialectics, a lesson in an understanding of the political struggle, and in the art and science of waging that struggle. It is at moments of need that one learns who one?s friends are. Defeated armies learn their lesson. Victorious tsarism was compelled to speed up the destruction of the remnants of the pre-bourgeois, patriarchal mode of life in Russia. The country?s development along bourgeois lines proceeded apace. Illusions that stood outside and above class distinctions, illusions concerning the possibility of avoiding capitalism, were scattered to the winds. The class struggle manifested itself in a quite new and more distinct way. The revolutionary parties had to complete their education. They were learning how to attack. Now they had to realise that such knowledge must be supplemented with the knowledge of how to retreat in good order. They had to realise?and it is from bitter experience that the revolutionary class learns to realise this?that victory is impossible unless one has learned how to attack and retreat properly. Of all the defeated opposition and revolutionary parties, the Bolsheviks effected the most orderly retreat, with the least loss to their "army", with its core best preserved, with the least significant splits (in point of depth and incurability), with the least demoralisation, and in the best condition to resume work on the broadest scale and in the most correct and energetic manner. The Bolsheviks achieved this only because they ruthlessly exposed and expelled the revolutionary phrase-mongers, those who did not wish to understand that one had to retreat, that one had to know how to retreat, and that one had absolutely to learn how to work legally in the most reactionary of parliaments, in the most reactionary of trade unions, co-operative and insurance societies and similar organisations. The years of revival (1910-14). At first progress was incredibly slow, then, following the Lena events of 1912, it became somewhat more rapid. Overcoming unprecedented difficulties, the Bolsheviks thrust back the Mensheviks, whose role as bourgeois agents in the working-class movement was clearly realised by the entire bourgeoisie after 1905, and whom the bourgeoisie therefore supported in a thousand ways against the Bolsheviks. But the Bolsheviks would never have succeeded in doing this had they not followed the correct tactics of combining illegal work with the utilisation of "legal opportunities", which they made a point of doing. In the elections to the arch-reactionary Duma, the Bolsheviks won the full support of the worker curia. The First Imperialist World War (1914-17). Legal parliamentarianism? with an extremely reactionary "parliament", rendered most useful service to the Bolsheviks, the party of the revolutionary proletariat. The Bolshevik deputies were exiled to Siberia. [3] All shades of social-imperialism social-chauvinism, social-patriotism, inconsistent and consistent internationalism, pacifism, and the revolutionary repudiation of pacifist illusions found full expression in the Russian emitter press. The learned fools and the old women of the Second International, who had arrogantly and contemptuously turned up their noses at the abundance of "factions" in the Russian socialist movement and at the bitter struggle they were waging among themselves, were unable?when the war deprived them of their vaunted "legality" in all the advanced countries -- to organise anything even approximating such a free (illegal) interchange of views and such a free (illegal) evolution of correct views as the Russian revolutionaries did in Switzerland and in a number of other countries. That was why both the avowed social-patriots and the "Kautskyites" of all countries proved to be the worst traitors to the proletariat. One of the principal reasons why Bolshevism was able to achieve victory in 1917-20 was that, since the end of 1914, it has been ruthlessly exposing the baseness and vileness of social-chauvinism and "Kautskyism" (to which Longuetism [4,5] in France, the views of the Fabians [6] and the leaders of the Independent Labour Party [7] in Britain, of Turati in Italy, etc., correspond), the masses later becoming more and more convinced, from their own experience, of the correctness of the Bolshevik views. The second revolution in Russia (February to October 1917). Tsarism?s senility and obsoleteness had (with the aid of the blows and hardships of a most agonising war) created an incredibly destructive force directed against it. Within a few days Russia was transformed into a democratic bourgeois republic, freer?in war conditions?than any other country in the world. The leaders of the opposition and revolutionary parties began to set up a government, just as is done in the most "strictly parliamentary" republics; the fact that a man had been a leader of an opposition party in parliament?even in a most reactionary parliament?facilitated his subsequent role in the revolution. In a few weeks the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries thoroughly assimilated all the methods and manners, the arguments and sophistries of the European heroes of the Second International, of the ministerialists [8] and other opportunist riff-raff. Everything we now read about the Scheidemanns and Noskes, about Kautsky and Hilferding, Renner and Austerlitz, Otto Bauer and Fritz Adler, Turati and Longuet, about the Fabians and the leaders of the Independent Labour Party of Britain?all this seems to us (and indeed is) a dreary repetition, a reiteration, of an old and familiar refrain. We have already witnessed all this in the instance of the Mensheviks. As history would have it, the opportunists of a backward country became the forerunners of the opportunists in a number of advanced countries. If the heroes of the Second International have all gone bankrupt and have disgraced themselves over the question of the significance and role of the Soviets and Soviet rule; if the leaders of the three very important parties which have now left the Second International (namely, the German Independent Social-Democratic Party, [9] the French Longuetists and the British Independent Labour Party) have disgraced themselves and become entangled in this question in a most "telling" fashion; if they have all shown themselves slaves to the prejudices of petty-bourgeois democracy (fully in the spirit of the petty-bourgeois of 1848 who called themselves "Social-Democrats")?then we can only say that we have already witnessed all this in the instance of the Mensheviks. As history would have it, the Soviets came into being in Russia in 1905; from February to October 1917 they were turned to a false use by the Mensheviks, who went bankrupt because of their inability to understand the role and significance of the Soviets, today the idea of Soviet power has emerged throughout the world and is spreading among the proletariat of all countries with extraordinary speed. Like our Mensheviks, the old heroes of the Second International are everywhere going bankrupt, because they are incapable of understanding the role and significance of the Soviets. Experience has proved that, on certain very important questions of the proletarian revolution, all countries will inevitably have to do what Russia has done. Despite views that are today often to be met with in Europe and America, the Bolsheviks began their victorious struggle against the parliamentary and (in fact) bourgeois republic and against the Mensheviks in a very cautious manner, and the preparations they made for it were by no means simple. At the beginning of the period mentioned, we did not call for the overthrow of the government but explained that it was impossible to overthrow it without first changing the composition and the temper of the Soviets. We did not proclaim a boycott of the bourgeois parliament, the Constituent Assembly, but said?and following the April (1917) Conference of our Party began to state officially in the name of the Party?that a bourgeois republic with a Constituent Assembly would be better than a bourgeois republic without a Constituent Assembly, but that a "workers? and peasants"? republic, a Soviet republic, would be better than any bourgeois-democratic, parliamentary republic. Without such thorough, circumspect and long preparations, we could not have achieved victory in October 1917, or have consolidated that victory. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes [2] The reference is to the Mensheviks (who formed the Right and opportunist wing of Social-Democracy in the R.S.D.L.P.), and to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. [3] The reference is to the Bolshevik deputies to the Fourth Duma, namely, A. Y. Badayev, M. K. Muranov, G. I. Petrovsky, F. N. Samoilov and N. R. Shagov. At the Duma?s session of July 26 (August 8), 1914, at which the representatives of all the bourgeois-landowner Duma groups approved tsarist Russia?s entry into the imperialist war, the Bolshevik Duma group declared a firm protest; they refused to vote for war credits and launched revolutionary propaganda among the people. In November 1914 the Bolshevik deputies were arrested, in February 1915 they were brought to trial, and exiled for life to Turukhansk Territory in Eastern Siberia. The courageous speeches made by the Bolshevik deputies at their trial, exposing the autocracy, played an important part in anti-war propaganda and in revolutionising the toiling masses. [4,5] Longuetism?the Centrist trend within the French Socialist Party, headed by Jean Longuet. During the First World War of 1914-18, the Longuetists conducted a policy of conciliation with the social-chauvinists. They rejected the revolutionary struggle and came out for" defence of country" in the imperialist war. Lenin called them petty-bourgeois nationalists. After the victory of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, the Longuetists called themselves supporters of the proletarian dictatorship, but in fact they remained opposed to it. In December 1920 the Longuetists together with the avowed reformists, broke away from the Party and joined the so-called Two-and-a-Half International. [6] Fabians?members of the Fabian Society, a British reformist organisation founded in 1884. The membership consisted, in the main, of bourgeois intellectuals. The Fabians denied the necessity of the proletariat?s class struggle and the socialist revolution, and contended that the transition from capitalism to socialism was possible only through petty reforms and the gradual reorganisation of society. In 1900 the Fabian Society joined the Labour Party. The Fabians are characterised by Lenin in "British Pacifism and British Dislike of Theory" (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 260-65) and elsewhere. [7] The Independent Labour Party of Britain (I.L.P.)?a reformist organisation founded in 1893 by leaders of the "new trade unions", in conditions of a revival of the strike struggle and the mounting movement for British working-class independence of the bourgeois parties. The I.L.P. included members of the "new trade unions" and those of a number of the old trade unions, as well as intellectuals and petty bourgeoisie who were under the influence of the Fabians. The I.L.P. was headed by James Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald. From its very inception, the I.L.P. took a bourgeois-reformist stand, laying particular stress on parliamentary forms of struggle and parliamentary deals with the Liberals. Lenin wrote of the I.L.P. that "in reality it is an opportunist party always dependent on the bourgeoisie". [8] Ministerialism (or "ministerial socialism", or else Millerandism)?the opportunist tactic of socialists? participation in reactionary bourgeois governments. The term appeared when in 1899, the French socialist Millerand joined the bourgeois government of Waldeck-Rousseau. [9] The Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany?a Centrist party founded in April 1917. A split took place at the Congress of the Independent Social-Democratic Party, held in Halle in October 1920, the majority joining the Communist Party of Germany in December 1920. The Right wing formed a separate party, retaining the old name of the Independent Social-Democratic Party. In 1922 the "Independents" re-joined the German Social-Democratic Party. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 11:29:15 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:29:15 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Sen. Richard Shelby Hates My Dad Message-ID: <494F962D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> _Click here: Sen. Richard Shelby Hates My Dad_ (http://www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/speakout/david_radtke.cfm) solidarity jim This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 22 12:15:02 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:15:02 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] WHY THE UNION WON AT SMITHFIELD Message-ID: <494FA0E6.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> WHY THE UNION WON AT SMITHFIELD By David Bacon The American Prospect | December 17, 2008 | web only http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=unions_come_to_smithfield When immigration agents raided Smithfield Food's huge North Carolina slaughterhouse two years ago, organizer Eduardo Pe?a compared the impact to a "nuclear bomb." The day after, people were so scared that most of the plant's 5,000 employees didn't show up for work. The lines where they kill and cut apart 32,000 hogs every day were motionless. Yet on December 11, when the votes were counted in the same packing plant, 2,041 workers had voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) , while just 1,879 had voted against it. That stunning reversal set off celebrations in house trailers and ramshackle homes in Tarheel, Red Springs, Santa Paula, and all the tiny working class towns spread from Fayetteville down to the South Carolina border. Relief and happiness are understandable in North Carolina, where union membership is the lowest in the country. But Smithfield workers were not just celebrating a vote count. They'd just defeated one of the longest, most bitter anti-union campaigns in modern U.S. labor history. Their victory was the product of an organizing strategy that accomplished what many have said that U.S. unions can no longer do - organize huge, privately-owned factories. In 1994 and 1997, Smithfield workers voted in two union representation elections, both lost by the UFCW. In 1997 the head of plant security, Danny Priest, told local sheriffs he expected violence on election day. Police in riot gear then lined the walkway into the slaughterhouse, and workers had to file past them to cast their ballots. At the end of the vote count union activist Ray Shawn was beaten up inside the plant. Three years later Priest, while still head of plant security, became an auxiliary deputy sheriff, and plant security officers were given the power to arrest and detain people at work. The company maintained a holding area for detainees in a trailer on the property, which workers called the company jail. (Smithfield gave up its deputized force and detention center in 2005.) Management used such extensive intimidation tactics that both elections were thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board. In 2006 the NLRB forced Smithfield to rehire workers fired in 1994 for union activity, and pay them $1.1 million. That was a victory for the union, but workers on the line could also easily see that Smithfield lawyers kept union supporters out of work for over a decade, in violation of the law. In 2003 contract workers for QSI, a company that cleans the machinery at night, finally challenged that atmosphere of fear. According to Julio Vargas, a QSI employee, "the wages were very low and we had no medical insurance. When people got hurt, after being taken to the office they made them go back to work and wear pink helmets [to humiliate them]. We were fed up." Led by Vargas, the cleaning crew refused to go in to work. The company negotiated, and workers won concessions. The following week, however, those identified as ringleaders, like Vargas, lost their jobs. Nevertheless, a new group of UFCW organizers understood the importance of that work stoppage. "We're not going to give the company a chance to use union busters anymore," said Pe?a. "We're asking workers to take direct action on the plant floor to improve their own conditions." So the union set up a workers' center in nearby Red Springs, holding classes in English and labor rights. Vargas and other fired workers went to work for the UFCW, organizing discontent over high line speed and its human cost in injuries. Workers began to stop production lines to get the company to talk with them about health and safety problems. In April, 2006, as immigrant protests spread across the country, 300 Smithfield workers stayed out of work and marched through the streets of nearby Wilmington. On May 1 they paraded again, this time by the thousands. Those heady days, however, were followed by a series of immigration enforcement actions orchestrated between the company and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. On October 30, 2006, the plant's human resources department sent letters to hundreds of immigrant workers, saying the Social Security numbers they'd provided when they were hired didn't match the government's database. Managers gave them two weeks to come up with new ones. "On November 13 over 30 were escorted out of the plant," recalled Pe?a. "Many felt they had nothing to lose." That Thursday over 300 workers walked out. They met at a local hotel, came up with a list of demands, and got church leaders to intercede with the company. Smithfield agreed to a 60-day extension, and to rehire those already terminated. "It's hard to imagine how empowered people felt," Pe?a recalled. The success of the workplace action impressed African American workers, who at the time made up about 40 percent of the workforce. Union supporters collected 4000 signatures asking the company to give employees the day off on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday. A delegation took the petitions to the human resources office, but a company vice-president refused to accept them. When they were denied the holiday, 400 workers didn't come in anyway, and virtually shut down the plant again. "Unity between immigrant Latino and African American workers was essential to organizing a union," said Gene Bruskin, then the director of the UFCW's Justice at Smithfield campaign, and the drive's principal strategist. In the earlier campaigns, divisions between the two groups contributed to the union's defeat. Nine days after the Martin Luther King day action ICE agents came out to the plant in their first raid. After they arrested 21 people for deportation, and questioned hundreds in the factory lunchroom, fear grew so intense that most workers didn't show up the following day. A few months later, a similar raid took place. "Workers think it's happening because people were getting organized," said Vargas at the time. The percentage of immigrants began to decline as many Latino workers were forced out of the plant. Eventually, the ratio between Blacks and Latinos was reversed. The immigrant workforce shrank to about 40 percent, while the percentage of African Americans rose to 60 percent. At that point, however, African American workers became more active in the unionization campaign. Union workers eventually collected the signatures of about half the plant's employees, demanding that the company agree to recognize the UFCW. At the end of a noisy march, they presented the petitions at a company shareholders meeting. Meanwhile, UFCW organizers began using the violation of workers' rights to mobilize customer pressure against Smithfield. Union and community activists collected thousands of signatures on petitions asking store chains to find another pork supplier, and the city of Boston stopped purchasing Smithfield products. Inside the plant, militant activity began to rise again. One key moment came when Juan Navarro wrote "Union Time" with a felt pen on his helmet. Supervisors called him in, and took away his helmet. Navarro worked on the kill floor where a majority of the workers are Black. When he went back to the line, the other workers decided to back him up. "Union Time" appeared on their helmets too, and eventually spread throughout the plant, becoming the slogan of the union campaign. Smithfield was even forced to apologize to Navarro. In the back room of the tiny Mexican market down the road from the plant, the union committee started meeting before and after work. Black and Puerto Rican activists would then take leaflets and union newsletters into the plant and walk through the halls, into the break rooms, handing them to their coworkers. When Martin Luther King's birthday approached in 2008, the union passed out a leaflet telling workers to "hold the date." This time, the company not only gave Tarheel workers the holiday, but let workers take the day off in every non-union Smithfield plant. One union activist observed that the increased activity among African American workers gave a kind of cover to the Mexicans, allowing them to regain some of their former activism without feeling they had a target painted on their backs. At the same time, Puerto Rican workers also became more vocal, giving the union another voice in Spanish from workers who aren't immigrants at all. The company responded to rising pressure both inside and outside the plant by filing a racketeering suit against the union. It demanded the same kind of NLRB election it had won in 1994 and 1997, and accused the union of being anti-democratic when it would not agree to repeat the bitter experience of the past. As a trial grew close, the union and the company agreed to an election procedure that workers and organizers felt would keep Smithfield from using the old bare-knuckle tactics. The union won the right to access to the plant premises, and organizers were able to walk the halls themselves, to sit in the lunchrooms and talk with workers, explaining the potential benefits of unionization. The company was able to hold a limited set of "captive audience" meetings, which workers were required to attend, where they heard management's anti-union speeches and watched anti-union videos. But the union also won the right to limit those speeches, keeping out threats and overt intimidation. In the meantime, the lunchrooms became hubs of union activity, with "Union Time" visible on helmets, leaflets, and buttons To union activists, visibility inside the plant meant that, in the eyes of workers, the union had some power. Coupled with concessions on things like the King holiday, and a history of protest over accidents and line speed, it became clear the union could actually win changes. At the same time, workers were the union's visible leaders. Despite the firings and immigration raids, many veteran union supporters stayed active in the campaign. Union organizers spent countless hours with those leaders, talking about tactics and helping make decisions about the course of the campaign. And when the ballots were counted, the union won. Efforts by the modern U.S. labor movement to organize factories the size of the Tarheel plant have not been very successful for the last two decades. In fact, private-sector unionization has fallen below 8 percent of the workforce. The giant electronics plants of Silicon Valley have an anti-union strategy so intimidating that unions haven't even tried to organize them for years. Japanese car manufacturers have built assembly plants and successfully kept workers from organizing, in spite of efforts by the auto union. The price for the lack of a successful strategy to organize those Japanese plants became clear in December's Congressional debate over the auto bailout proposal, when Southern Republican Senators demanded that the United Auto Workers agree to gut its union contracts to match the non-union wages and conditions at Nissan, Honda and BMW. The presence of the non-union plants now threatens to destroy the union. The same dilemma exists in industry after industry. To get out of the box, today's labor movement pins its hopes on the Employee Free Choice Act. This proposal would require a company like Smithfield to negotiate a union contract if a majority of workers sign union cards. It would avoid the kind of union election that took place in 1997, where the idea of voting freely became a farce in an atmosphere of violence and terror. EFCA would also put penalties on employers who fire workers for union activity. At Smithfield, the company was only obliged to pay fired workers for their lost wages, and even then was allowed to deduct any money they'd earned during the decade their cases wound through the legal system. EFCA would substantially restrict the kind of anti-union campaign Smithfield mounted for 15 years. But EFCA by itself will not build strong unions, which workers can use not just to win elections but to make substantial changes in the workplace itself. The union at Smithfield wasn't created on election day by a fairer legal process. Workers had already organized it in the battles that preceded the vote. They did much more than sign union cards, go to a few meetings, or cast ballots. They had to lose their fear, show open support for the demands they'd chosen themselves, and learn to make management listen to those demands by slowing down lines, circulating petitions and forming delegations to demand changes. Those battles hardened the leaders who survived. And if African American and Latino immigrant workers hadn't found a way to work together, the union drive would have ended with the immigration raids. Immigration enforcement was used to attack the union drive, and for months after the no-match letter and the two raids, the organizing campaign was effectively dead. At Smithfield and elsewhere, enforcement of immigration law itself has become a way to punish workers when they try to improve conditions. It was only when the African American workers who'd fought the first battle for the King holiday became the core of a new generation of leaders that the struggle to build the union could continue. Immigration raids didn't help Black or other citizen workers - they increased the fear, reduced the activity, eliminated leaders, and added months, if not years, to the time needed to rebuild. In the end, both African Americans and immigrant workers found a common interest in better wages and working conditgions. But they also had to agree to defend the right of each worker to her or his job - any unfair firing was an attack on the union, whether the victim was Black, Mexican, or Puerto Rican. If the company and ICE had been successful in convincing half the plant that the other half really had no right to work because of their immigration status, workers would have been unwilling and unable to defend each other. The root of the problem lies in employer sanctions, the provision of Federal law that prohibits employers from hiring undocumented workers. The law, in effect makes working a crime for people without papers, and hands employers a weapon to fight their own workforce. When unions decided at the AFL-CIO convention in 1999 to call for repeal of sanctions, they recognized that changing immigration law was just as necessary for organizing unions as passing reforms like EFCA. Outside the Tarheel plant, the union grew roots in working-class communities. It organized a permanent coalition with churches and community organizations, not just a temporary arrangement of convenience. It became part of workers' lives. They met in its office, took English classes there, and marched in demonstrations for civil rights. And that coalition was able to turn the company's anti-labor activity against it, exposing its record in the place where Smithfield was most vulnerable - in the eyes of consumers. Without pressure from workers and their communities, Smithfield had no motivation to reach an agreement on a fair election process. The election result, therefore, was the product of a long-term organizing effort and commitment. Smithfield workers and the UFCW have shown that with a similar commitment organizing is possible, no matter how big the plant or anti-union the employer. But it takes a strategy based on building a real union in the workplace and community. And with changes in labor and immigration law, workers won't have to conduct a 15-year war to do it. For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org Just out from Beacon Press: Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002 See also the photodocumentary on indigenous migration to the US Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006) http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575 See also The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004) http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html -- __________________________________ David Bacon, Photographs and Stories http://dbacon.igc.org This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From susanfdane at mac.com Tue Dec 23 07:04:47 2008 From: susanfdane at mac.com (Susan F Dane) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 07:04:47 -0700 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: Dear Fellow-Subscribers: I've recently subscribed and am receiving a variety articles. However I'm looking for something specific pertaining to the following: I am currently beginning a study of 'liberation theology'. Marx and his 'dialectic' keep coming up in a way presupposing the reader has some understanding of what this is. I'm pretty clueless and need some help trying to understand what an atheist is doing (albeit not by his own direct actions) in the realm of theology. There have been some indications that this is somehow compatible with or a natural consequence of the confidence human kind has been led to place in 'science'... I'm not seeing a clear connection. I am lacking in the presuppositions to jump into the conversation with much understanding. Anyone care to respond to the issue of "Marxism and 'reductionism'"? Any help is appreciated. Many thanks, Susan Dane From farmelantj at juno.com Tue Dec 23 07:50:56 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:50:56 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: <20081223.095056.10667.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Concerning Marxism and theology, while I am no expert on liberation theology, I am quite aware that many leading 20th century theologians took an interest in old Chuck (along with Feuerbach, Nietzsche and Freud), including such figures as Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebhur, and Paul Tillich, to name just a few names. The old social democrat, Michael Harrington, was pretty good on this in his book, *The Politics at God's Funeral*. Mark Lindley and I discussed Harrington in our essay, "Six Prominent American Freethinkers," which is available online at: http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/fl161208.html. One of our later posters. Ralph Dumain, has discussed the issues of reductionism and emergence on a special blog at: http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/emergence-blog.html Jim Farmelant -- Susan F Dane wrote: Dear Fellow-Subscribers: I've recently subscribed and am receiving a variety articles. However I'm looking for something specific pertaining to the following: I am currently beginning a study of 'liberation theology'. Marx and his 'dialectic' keep coming up in a way presupposing the reader has some understanding of what this is. I'm pretty clueless and need some help trying to understand what an atheist is doing (albeit not by his own direct actions) in the realm of theology. There have been some indications that this is somehow compatible with or a natural consequence of the confidence human kind has been led to place in 'science'... I'm not seeing a clear connection. I am lacking in the presuppositions to jump into the conversation with much understanding. Anyone care to respond to the issue of "Marxism and 'reductionism'"? Any help is appreciated. Many thanks, Susan Dane _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ____________________________________________________________ Save $15 on Flowers and Gifts from FTD! Shop now at http://offers.juno.com/TGL1141/?u=http://www.ftd.com/17007 From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 23 09:12:24 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:12:24 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4950C797.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> Susan F Dane > Dear Fellow-Subscribers: I've recently subscribed and am receiving a variety articles. However I'm looking for something specific pertaining to the following: I am currently beginning a study of 'liberation theology'. Marx and his 'dialectic' keep coming up in a way presupposing the reader has some understanding of what this is. I'm pretty clueless and need some help trying to understand what an atheist is doing (albeit not by his own direct actions) in the realm of theology. There have been some indications that this is somehow compatible with or a natural consequence of the confidence human kind has been led to place in 'science'... I'm not seeing a clear connection. I am lacking in the presuppositions to jump into the conversation with much understanding. Anyone care to respond to the issue of "Marxism and 'reductionism'"? Any help is appreciated. Many thanks, Susan Dane ^^^^^ Hello Susan, I think most people who have read Marx or about Marx have questions about dialectic, so in that regard you are on the regular "road" to understanding Marx. The answers here won't likely be short nor likely the final answer for you on it, but only a start. Dialectic is the logic of change. Marx's dialectic is derived especially from the dialectic of the German philosopher Hegel. Within Marxism, Frederick Engels actually discussed dialectic more completely and explicitly than Marx himself. Engels is the one who uses the heuristic idea that dialectic is the logic of change, as I think of it, change , development, process as opposed to the fixed, static or unchanging. Everything has a beginning , middle and end. Nothing is absolute, except change. These are main principles of dialectics. Hegel was a philosophical idealist. Marx and Engels were materialist dialecticians. So, Marx said. My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of ?the Idea,? he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of ?the Idea.? With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of ?Das Kapital,? it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre Epigonoi [Epigones ? B?chner, D?hring and others] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing?s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a ?dead dog.? I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel?s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell. In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm Marxism and reductionism has to do with the issue of philosophical idealism and materialism that I allude to above. Very roughly speaking for materialists the systems of ideas that guide peoples activities are determined , that is change, based on changes in their systems of activities, productive activities. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 23 09:13:56 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:13:56 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Living Under the Trees Message-ID: <4950C7F3.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Living Under the Trees A photoessay by David Bacon From susanfdane at mac.com Tue Dec 23 11:29:05 2008 From: susanfdane at mac.com (Susan F Dane) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:29:05 -0700 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: <20081223.095056.10667.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> References: <20081223.095056.10667.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <3229BC43-B59B-4236-B700-6F618DD7F027@mac.com> Dear Jim: Thank you so, so much for the references. I'll track them down. I appreciate your help. On Dec 23, 2008, at 7:50 AM, farmelantj at juno.com wrote: Concerning Marxism and theology, while I am no expert on liberation theology, I am quite aware that many leading 20th century theologians took an interest in old Chuck (along with Feuerbach, Nietzsche and Freud), including such figures as Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebhur, and Paul Tillich, to name just a few names. The old social democrat, Michael Harrington, was pretty good on this in his book, *The Politics at God's Funeral*. Mark Lindley and I discussed Harrington in our essay, "Six Prominent American Freethinkers," which is available online at: http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/fl161208.html. One of our later posters. Ralph Dumain, has discussed the issues of reductionism and emergence on a special blog at: http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/emergence-blog.html Jim Farmelant -- Susan F Dane wrote: Dear Fellow-Subscribers: I've recently subscribed and am receiving a variety articles. However I'm looking for something specific pertaining to the following: I am currently beginning a study of 'liberation theology'. Marx and his 'dialectic' keep coming up in a way presupposing the reader has some understanding of what this is. I'm pretty clueless and need some help trying to understand what an atheist is doing (albeit not by his own direct actions) in the realm of theology. There have been some indications that this is somehow compatible with or a natural consequence of the confidence human kind has been led to place in 'science'... I'm not seeing a clear connection. I am lacking in the presuppositions to jump into the conversation with much understanding. Anyone care to respond to the issue of "Marxism and 'reductionism'"? Any help is appreciated. Many thanks, Susan Dane _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ____________________________________________________________ Save $15 on Flowers and Gifts from FTD! Shop now at http://offers.juno.com/TGL1141/?u=http://www.ftd.com/17007 _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 23 11:54:55 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:54:55 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Principal Stages in the History of Bolshevism Message-ID: <4950EDAE.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The Principal Stages in the History of Bolshevism http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch03.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The years of preparation for revolution (1903-05) The approach of a great storm was sensed everywhere. All classes were in a state of ferment and preparation. Abroad, the press of the political exiles discussed the theoretical aspects of all the fundamental problems of the revolution. Representatives of the three main classes, of the three principal political trends -- the liberal-bourgeois, the petty-bourgeois-democratic (concealed behind "social-democratic" and "social-revolutionary" labels [2]), and the proletarian-revolutionary?anticipated and prepared the impending open class struggle by waging a most bitter struggle on issues of programme and tactics. All the issues on which the masses waged an armed struggle in 1905-07 and 1917-20 can (and should) be studied, in their embryonic form, in the press of the period. Among these three main trends there were, of course, a host of intermediate, transitional or half-hearted forms. It would be more correct to say that those political and ideological trends which were genuinely of a class nature crystallised in the struggle of press organs, parties, factions and groups; the classes were forging the requisite political and ideological weapons for the impending battles. The years of revolution (1905-07). All classes came out into the open. All programmatical and tactical views were tested by the action of the masses. In its extent and acuteness, the strike struggle had no parallel anywhere in the world. The economic strike developed into a political strike, and the latter into insurrection. The relations between the proletariat, as the leader, and the vacillating and unstable peasantry, as the led, were tested in practice. The Soviet form of organisation came into being in the spontaneous development of the struggle. The controversies of that period over the significance of the Soviets anticipated the great struggle of 1917-20. The alternation of parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of struggle, of the tactics of boycotting parliament and that of participating in parliament, of legal and illegal forms of struggle, and likewise their interrelations and connections?all this was marked by an extraordinary wealth of content. As for teaching the fundamentals of political science to masses and leaders, to classes and parties alike, each month of this period was equivalent to an entire year of "peaceful" and "constitutional" development. Without the "dress rehearsal" of 1905, the victory of the October Revolution in 1917 would have been impossible. The years of reaction (1907-10). Tsarism was victorious. All the revolutionary and opposition parties were smashed. Depression? demoralisation, splits, discord, defection, and pornography took the place of politics. There was an ever greater drift towards philosophical idealism; mysticism became the garb of counter-revolutionary sentiments. At the same time, however, it was this great defeat that taught the revolutionary parties and the revolutionary class a real and very useful lesson, a lesson in historical dialectics, a lesson in an understanding of the political struggle, and in the art and science of waging that struggle. It is at moments of need that one learns who one?s friends are. Defeated armies learn their lesson. Victorious tsarism was compelled to speed up the destruction of the remnants of the pre-bourgeois, patriarchal mode of life in Russia. The country?s development along bourgeois lines proceeded apace. Illusions that stood outside and above class distinctions, illusions concerning the possibility of avoiding capitalism, were scattered to the winds. The class struggle manifested itself in a quite new and more distinct way. The revolutionary parties had to complete their education. They were learning how to attack. Now they had to realise that such knowledge must be supplemented with the knowledge of how to retreat in good order. They had to realise?and it is from bitter experience that the revolutionary class learns to realise this?that victory is impossible unless one has learned how to attack and retreat properly. Of all the defeated opposition and revolutionary parties, the Bolsheviks effected the most orderly retreat, with the least loss to their "army", with its core best preserved, with the least significant splits (in point of depth and incurability), with the least demoralisation, and in the best condition to resume work on the broadest scale and in the most correct and energetic manner. The Bolsheviks achieved this only because they ruthlessly exposed and expelled the revolutionary phrase-mongers, those who did not wish to understand that one had to retreat, that one had to know how to retreat, and that one had absolutely to learn how to work legally in the most reactionary of parliaments, in the most reactionary of trade unions, co-operative and insurance societies and similar organisations. The years of revival (1910-14). At first progress was incredibly slow, then, following the Lena events of 1912, it became somewhat more rapid. Overcoming unprecedented difficulties, the Bolsheviks thrust back the Mensheviks, whose role as bourgeois agents in the working-class movement was clearly realised by the entire bourgeoisie after 1905, and whom the bourgeoisie therefore supported in a thousand ways against the Bolsheviks. But the Bolsheviks would never have succeeded in doing this had they not followed the correct tactics of combining illegal work with the utilisation of "legal opportunities", which they made a point of doing. In the elections to the arch-reactionary Duma, the Bolsheviks won the full support of the worker curia. The First Imperialist World War (1914-17). Legal parliamentarianism? with an extremely reactionary "parliament", rendered most useful service to the Bolsheviks, the party of the revolutionary proletariat. The Bolshevik deputies were exiled to Siberia. [3] All shades of social-imperialism social-chauvinism, social-patriotism, inconsistent and consistent internationalism, pacifism, and the revolutionary repudiation of pacifist illusions found full expression in the Russian emitter press. The learned fools and the old women of the Second International, who had arrogantly and contemptuously turned up their noses at the abundance of "factions" in the Russian socialist movement and at the bitter struggle they were waging among themselves, were unable?when the war deprived them of their vaunted "legality" in all the advanced countries -- to organise anything even approximating such a free (illegal) interchange of views and such a free (illegal) evolution of correct views as the Russian revolutionaries did in Switzerland and in a number of other countries. That was why both the avowed social-patriots and the "Kautskyites" of all countries proved to be the worst traitors to the proletariat. One of the principal reasons why Bolshevism was able to achieve victory in 1917-20 was that, since the end of 1914, it has been ruthlessly exposing the baseness and vileness of social-chauvinism and "Kautskyism" (to which Longuetism [4,5] in France, the views of the Fabians [6] and the leaders of the Independent Labour Party [7] in Britain, of Turati in Italy, etc., correspond), the masses later becoming more and more convinced, from their own experience, of the correctness of the Bolshevik views. The second revolution in Russia (February to October 1917). Tsarism?s senility and obsoleteness had (with the aid of the blows and hardships of a most agonising war) created an incredibly destructive force directed against it. Within a few days Russia was transformed into a democratic bourgeois republic, freer?in war conditions?than any other country in the world. The leaders of the opposition and revolutionary parties began to set up a government, just as is done in the most "strictly parliamentary" republics; the fact that a man had been a leader of an opposition party in parliament?even in a most reactionary parliament?facilitated his subsequent role in the revolution. In a few weeks the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries thoroughly assimilated all the methods and manners, the arguments and sophistries of the European heroes of the Second International, of the ministerialists [8] and other opportunist riff-raff. Everything we now read about the Scheidemanns and Noskes, about Kautsky and Hilferding, Renner and Austerlitz, Otto Bauer and Fritz Adler, Turati and Longuet, about the Fabians and the leaders of the Independent Labour Party of Britain?all this seems to us (and indeed is) a dreary repetition, a reiteration, of an old and familiar refrain. We have already witnessed all this in the instance of the Mensheviks. As history would have it, the opportunists of a backward country became the forerunners of the opportunists in a number of advanced countries. If the heroes of the Second International have all gone bankrupt and have disgraced themselves over the question of the significance and role of the Soviets and Soviet rule; if the leaders of the three very important parties which have now left the Second International (namely, the German Independent Social-Democratic Party, [9] the French Longuetists and the British Independent Labour Party) have disgraced themselves and become entangled in this question in a most "telling" fashion; if they have all shown themselves slaves to the prejudices of petty-bourgeois democracy (fully in the spirit of the petty-bourgeois of 1848 who called themselves "Social-Democrats")?then we can only say that we have already witnessed all this in the instance of the Mensheviks. As history would have it, the Soviets came into being in Russia in 1905; from February to October 1917 they were turned to a false use by the Mensheviks, who went bankrupt because of their inability to understand the role and significance of the Soviets, today the idea of Soviet power has emerged throughout the world and is spreading among the proletariat of all countries with extraordinary speed. Like our Mensheviks, the old heroes of the Second International are everywhere going bankrupt, because they are incapable of understanding the role and significance of the Soviets. Experience has proved that, on certain very important questions of the proletarian revolution, all countries will inevitably have to do what Russia has done. Despite views that are today often to be met with in Europe and America, the Bolsheviks began their victorious struggle against the parliamentary and (in fact) bourgeois republic and against the Mensheviks in a very cautious manner, and the preparations they made for it were by no means simple. At the beginning of the period mentioned, we did not call for the overthrow of the government but explained that it was impossible to overthrow it without first changing the composition and the temper of the Soviets. We did not proclaim a boycott of the bourgeois parliament, the Constituent Assembly, but said?and following the April (1917) Conference of our Party began to state officially in the name of the Party?that a bourgeois republic with a Constituent Assembly would be better than a bourgeois republic without a Constituent Assembly, but that a "workers? and peasants"? republic, a Soviet republic, would be better than any bourgeois-democratic, parliamentary republic. Without such thorough, circumspect and long preparations, we could not have achieved victory in October 1917, or have consolidated that victory. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes [2] The reference is to the Mensheviks (who formed the Right and opportunist wing of Social-Democracy in the R.S.D.L.P.), and to the Socialist-Revolutionaries. [3] The reference is to the Bolshevik deputies to the Fourth Duma, namely, A. Y. Badayev, M. K. Muranov, G. I. Petrovsky, F. N. Samoilov and N. R. Shagov. At the Duma?s session of July 26 (August 8), 1914, at which the representatives of all the bourgeois-landowner Duma groups approved tsarist Russia?s entry into the imperialist war, the Bolshevik Duma group declared a firm protest; they refused to vote for war credits and launched revolutionary propaganda among the people. In November 1914 the Bolshevik deputies were arrested, in February 1915 they were brought to trial, and exiled for life to Turukhansk Territory in Eastern Siberia. The courageous speeches made by the Bolshevik deputies at their trial, exposing the autocracy, played an important part in anti-war propaganda and in revolutionising the toiling masses. [4,5] Longuetism?the Centrist trend within the French Socialist Party, headed by Jean Longuet. During the First World War of 1914-18, the Longuetists conducted a policy of conciliation with the social-chauvinists. They rejected the revolutionary struggle and came out for" defence of country" in the imperialist war. Lenin called them petty-bourgeois nationalists. After the victory of the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, the Longuetists called themselves supporters of the proletarian dictatorship, but in fact they remained opposed to it. In December 1920 the Longuetists together with the avowed reformists, broke away from the Party and joined the so-called Two-and-a-Half International. [6] Fabians?members of the Fabian Society, a British reformist organisation founded in 1884. The membership consisted, in the main, of bourgeois intellectuals. The Fabians denied the necessity of the proletariat?s class struggle and the socialist revolution, and contended that the transition from capitalism to socialism was possible only through petty reforms and the gradual reorganisation of society. In 1900 the Fabian Society joined the Labour Party. The Fabians are characterised by Lenin in "British Pacifism and British Dislike of Theory" (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 260-65) and elsewhere. [7] The Independent Labour Party of Britain (I.L.P.)?a reformist organisation founded in 1893 by leaders of the "new trade unions", in conditions of a revival of the strike struggle and the mounting movement for British working-class independence of the bourgeois parties. The I.L.P. included members of the "new trade unions" and those of a number of the old trade unions, as well as intellectuals and petty bourgeoisie who were under the influence of the Fabians. The I.L.P. was headed by James Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald. From its very inception, the I.L.P. took a bourgeois-reformist stand, laying particular stress on parliamentary forms of struggle and parliamentary deals with the Liberals. Lenin wrote of the I.L.P. that "in reality it is an opportunist party always dependent on the bourgeoisie". [8] Ministerialism (or "ministerial socialism", or else Millerandism)?the opportunist tactic of socialists? participation in reactionary bourgeois governments. The term appeared when in 1899, the French socialist Millerand joined the bourgeois government of Waldeck-Rousseau. [9] The Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany?a Centrist party founded in April 1917. A split took place at the Congress of the Independent Social-Democratic Party, held in Halle in October 1920, the majority joining the Communist Party of Germany in December 1920. The Right wing formed a separate party, retaining the old name of the Independent Social-Democratic Party. In 1922 the "Independents" re-joined the German Social-Democratic Party. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 23 12:03:21 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:03:21 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] We charge "socialism" Message-ID: <4950EFA8.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> We charge "socialism" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: , Subject: [A-List] We charge "socialism" From: "Charles Brown" Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:13:29 -0500 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From all that has been said in this book on the economic essence of imperialism, it follows that we must define it as capitalism in transition, or, more precisely, as moribund capitalism. It is very instructive in this respect to note that bourgeois economists, in describing modern capitalism, frequently employ catchwords and phrases like ?interlocking?, ?absence of isolation?, etc.; ?in conformity with their functions and course of development?, banks are ?not purely private business enterprises: they are more and more outgrowing the sphere of purely private business regulation?. And this very Riesser, whose words I have just quoted, declares with all seriousness that the ?prophecy? of the Marxists concerning ?socialisation? has ?not come true?! ^^^ CB: Most of this Lenin could have written with substantial currency in 2008. One group of the US bourgeoisie was charging other parts of the US bourgeoisie with "socialism" just a few weeks ago. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 23 12:04:41 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:04:41 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Struggle Against Which Enemies Within the Working-Class Movement Message-ID: <4950EFF9.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The Struggle Against Which Enemies Within the Working-Class Movement Helped Bolshevism Develop, Gain Strength, and Become Steeled -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First and foremost, the struggle against opportunism which in 1914 definitely developed into social-chauvinism and definitely sided with the bourgeoisie, against the proletariat. Naturally, this was Bolshevism?s principal enemy within the working-class movement. It still remains the principal enemy on an international scale. The Bolsheviks have been devoting the greatest attention to this enemy. This aspect of Bolshevik activities is now fairly well known abroad too. It was, however, different with Bolshevism?s other enemy within the working-class movement. Little is known in other countries of the fact that Bolshevism took shape, developed and became steeled in the long years of struggle against petty-bourgeois revolutionism, which smacks of anarchism, or borrows something from the latter and, in all essential matters, does not measure up to the conditions and requirements of a consistently proletarian class struggle. Marxist theory has established?and the experience of all European revolutions and revolutionary movements has fully confirmed?that the petty proprietor, the small master (a social type existing on a very extensive and even mass scale in many European countries), who, under capitalism, always suffers oppression and very frequently a most acute and rapid deterioration in his conditions of life, and even ruin, easily goes to revolutionary extremes, but is incapable of perseverance, organisation, discipline and steadfastness. A petty bourgeois driven to frenzy by the horrors of capitalism is a social phenomenon which, like anarchism, is characteristic of all capitalist countries. The instability of such revolutionism, its barrenness, and its tendency to turn rapidly into submission, apathy, phantasms, and even a frenzied infatuation with one bourgeois fad or another?all this is common knowledge. However, a theoretical or abstract recognition of these truths does not at all rid revolutionary parties of old errors, which always crop up at unexpected occasions, in somewhat new forms, in a hitherto unfamiliar garb or surroundings, in an unusual?a more or less unusual?situation. Anarchism was not infrequently a kind of penalty for the opportunist sins of the working-class movement. The two monstrosities complemented each other. And if in Russia?despite the more petty-bourgeois composition of her population as compared with the other European countries?anarchism?s influence was negligible during the two revolutions (of 1905 and 1917) and the preparations for them, this should no doubt stand partly to the credit of Bolshevism, which has always waged a most ruthless and uncompromising struggle against opportunism. I say "partly", since of still greater importance in weakening anarchism?s influence in Russia was the circumstance that in the past (the seventies of the nineteenth century) it was able to develop inordinately and to reveal its absolute erroneousness, its unfitness to serve the revolutionary class as a guiding theory. When it came into being in 1903, Bolshevism took over the tradition of a ruthless struggle against petty-bourgeois, semi-anarchist (or dilettante-anarchist) revolutionism, a tradition which had always existed in revolutionary Social-Democracy and had become particularly strong in our country during the years 1900-03, when the foundations for a mass party of the revolutionary proletariat were being laid in Russia. Bolshevism took over and carried on the struggle against a party which, more than any other, expressed the tendencies of petty-bourgeois revolutionism, namely, the "Socialist-Revolutionary" Party, and waged that struggle on three main issues. First, that party, which rejected Marxism, stubbornly refused (or, it might be more correct to say: was unable) to understand the need for a strictly objective appraisal of the class forces and their alignment, before taking any political action. Second, this party considered itself particularly "revolutionary", or "Left", because of its recognition of individual terrorism, assassination?something that we Marxists emphatically rejected. It was, of course, only on grounds of expediency that we rejected individual terrorism, whereas people who were capable of condemning "on principle" the terror of the Great French Revolution, or, in general, the terror employed by a victorious revolutionary party which is besieged by the bourgeoisie of the whole world, were ridiculed and laughed to scorn by Plekhanov in 1900-03, when he was a Marxist and a revolutionary. Third, the "Socialist-Revolutionaries," thought it very "Left" to sneer at the comparatively insignificant opportunist sins of the German Social-Democratic Party, while they themselves imitated the extreme opportunists of that party, for example, on the agrarian question, or on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. History, incidentally, has now confirmed on a vast and world-wide scale the opinion we have always advocated, namely, that German revolutionary Social-Democracy (note that as far back as 1900-03 Plekhanov demanded Bernstein?s expulsion from the Party, and in 1913 the Bolsheviks, always continuing this tradition, exposed Legien?s [10] baseness, vileness and treachery) came closest to being the party the revolutionary proletariat needs in order to achieve victory. Today, in 1920, after all the ignominious failures and crises of the war period and the early post-war years, it can be plainly seen that, of all the Western parties, the German revolutionary Social-Democrats produced the finest leaders, and recovered and gained new strength more rapidly than the others did. This may be seen in the instances both of the Spartacists [11]and the Left, proletarian wing of the Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, which is waging an incessant struggle against the opportunism and spinelessness of the Kautskys, Hilferdings, Ledebours and Crispiens. If we now cast a glance to take in a complete historical period, namely, from the Paris Commune to the first Socialist Soviet Republic, we shall find that Marxism?s attitude to anarchism in general stands out most definitely and unmistakably. In the final analysis, Marxism proved to be correct, and although the anarchists rightly pointed to the opportunist views on the state prevalent among most of the socialist parties, it must be said, first, that this opportunism was connected with the distortion, and even deliberate suppression, of Marx?s views on the state (in my book, The State and Revolution, I pointed out that for thirty-six years, from 1875 to 1911, Bebel withheld a letter by Engels [12], which very clearly, vividly, bluntly and definitively exposed the opportunism of the current Social-Democratic views on the state); second, that the rectification of these opportunist views, and the recognition of Soviet power and its superiority to bourgeois parliamentary democracy proceeded most rapidly and extensively among those trends in the socialist parties of Europe and America that were most Marxist. The struggle that Bolshevism waged against "Left" deviations within its own Party assumed particularly large proportions on two occasions: in 1908, on the question of whether or not to participate in a most reactionary "parliament" and in the legal workers? societies, which were being restricted by most reactionary laws; and again in 1918 (the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk [13]), on the question of whether one "compromise" or another was permissible. In 1908 the "Left" Bolsheviks were expelled from our Party for stubbornly refusing to understand the necessity of participating in a most reactionary "parliament". [14] The "Lefts"?among whom there were many splendid revolutionaries who subsequently were (and still are) commendable members of the Communist Party?based themselves particularly on the successful experience of the 1905 boycott. When, in August 1905, the tsar proclaimed the convocation of a consultative "parliament", [15] the Bolsheviks called for its boycott, in the teeth of all the opposition parties and the Mensheviks, and the "parliament" was in fact swept away by the revolution of October 1905. [16] The boycott proved correct at the time, not because nonparticipation in reactionary parliaments is correct in general, but because we accurately appraised the objective situation, which was leading to the rapid development of the mass strikes first into a political strike, then into a revolutionary strike, and finally into an uprising. Moreover, the struggle centred at that time on the question of whether the convocation of the first representative assembly should be left to the tsar, or an attempt should be made to wrest its convocation from the old regime. When there was not, and could not be, any certainty that the objective situation was of a similar kind, and when there was no certainty of a similar trend and the same rate of development, the boycott was no longer correct. The Bolsheviks? boycott of "parliament" in 1905 enriched the revolutionary proletariat with highly valuable political experience and showed that, when legal and illegal parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of struggle are combined, it is sometimes useful and even essential to reject parliamentary forms. It would, however, be highly erroneous to apply this experience blindly, imitatively and uncritically to other conditions and other situations. The Bolsheviks, boycott of the Duma in 1906 was a mistake although a minor and easily remediable one. [*] The boycott of the Duma in 1907, 1908 and subsequent years was a most serious error and difficult to remedy, because, on the one hand, a very rapid rise of the revolutionary tide and its conversion into an uprising was not to be expected, and, on the other hand, the entire historical situation attendant upon the renovation of the bourgeois monarchy called for legal and illegal activities being combined. Today, when we look back at this fully completed historical period, whose connection with subsequent periods has now become quite clear, it becomes most obvious that in 1908-14 the Bolsheviks could not have preserved (let alone strengthened and developed) the core of the revolutionary party of the proletariat, had they not upheld, in a most strenuous struggle, the viewpoint that it was obligatory to combine legal and illegal forms of struggle, and that it was obligatory to participate even in a most reactionary parliament and in a number of other institutions hemmed in by reactionary laws (sick benefit societies, etc.). In 1918 things did not reach a split. At that time the "Left" Communists formed only a separate group or "faction" within our Party, and that not for long. In the same year, 1918, the most prominent representatives of "Left Communism", for example, Comrades Radek and Bukharin, openly acknowledged their error. It had seemed to them that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a compromise with the imperialists, which was inexcusable on principle and harmful to the party of the revolutionary proletariat. It was indeed a compromise with the imperialists, but it was a compromise which, under the circumstances, had to be made. Today, when I hear our tactics in signing the Brest-Litovsk Treaty being attacked by the Socialist-Revolutionaries, for instance, or when I hear Comrade Lansbury say, in a conversation with me, "Our British trade union leaders say that if it was permissible for the Bolsheviks to compromise, it is permissible for them to compromise too", I usually reply by first of all giving a simple and "popular" example: Imagine that your car is held up by armed bandits. You hand them over your money, passport, revolver and car. In return you are rid of the pleasant company of the bandits. That is unquestionably a compromise. "Do ut des" (I "give" you money, fire-arms and a car "so that you give" me the opportunity to get away from you with a whole skin). It would, however, be difficult to find a sane man who would declare such a compromise to be "inadmissible on principle", or who would call the compromiser an accomplice of the bandits (even though the bandits might use the car and the firearms for further robberies). Our compromise with the bandits of German imperialism was just that kind of compromise. But when, in 1914-18 and then in 1918-20, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in Russia, the Scheidemannites (and to a large extent the Kautskyites) in Germany, Otto Bauer and Friedrich Adler (to say nothing of the Renners and Co.) in Austria, the Renaudels and Longuets and Co. in France, the Fabians, the Independents and the Labourites in Britain entered into compromises with the bandits of their own bourgeoisie, and sometimes of the "Allied" bourgeoisie, and against the revolutionary proletariat of their own countries, all these gentlemen were actually acting as accomplices in banditry. The conclusion is clear: to reject compromises "on principle", to reject the permissibility of compromises in general, no matter of what kind, is childishness, which it is difficult even to consider seriously. A political leader who desires to be useful to the revolutionary proletariat must be able to distinguish concrete cases of compromises that are inexcusable and are an expression of opportunism and treachery; he must direct all the force of criticism, the full intensity of merciless exposure and relentless war, against these concrete compromises, and not allow the past masters of "practical" socialism and the parliamentary Jesuits to dodge and wriggle out of responsibility by means of disquisitions on "compromises in general". It is in this way that the "leaders,, of the British trade unions, as well as of the Fabian society and the "Independent" Labour Party, dodge responsibility for the treachery they have perpetrated? for having made a compromise that is really tantamount to the worst kind of opportunism, treachery and betrayal. There are different kinds of compromises. One must be able to analyse the situation and the concrete conditions of each compromise, or of each variety of compromise. One must learn to distinguish between a man who has given up his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to lessen the evil they can do and to facilitate their capture and execution, and a man who gives his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to share in the loot. In politics this is by no means always as elementary as it is in this childishly simple example. However, anyone who is out to think up for the workers some kind of recipe that will provide them with cut-and-dried solutions for all contingencies, or promises that the policy of the revolutionary proletariat will never come up against difficult or complex situations, is simply a charlatan. To leave no room for misinterpretation, I shall attempt to outline, if only very briefly, several fundamental rules for the analysis of concrete compromises. The party which entered into a compromise with the German imperialists by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk had been evolving its internationalism in practice ever since the end of 1914. It was not afraid to call for the defeat of the tsarist monarchy and to condemn "defence of country" in a war between two imperialist robbers. The parliamentary representatives of this party preferred exile in Siberia to taking a road leading to ministerial portfolios in a bourgeois government. The revolution that overthrew tsarism and established a democratic republic put this party to a new and tremendous test?it did not enter into any agreements with its "own" imperialists, but prepared and brought about their overthrow. When it had assumed political power, this party did not leave a vestige of either landed or capitalist ownership. After making public and repudiating the imperialists? secret treaties, this party proposed peace to all nations, and yielded to the violence of the Brest-Litovsk robbers only after the Anglo-French imperialists had torpedoed the conclusion of a peace, and after the Bolsheviks had done everything humanly possible to hasten the revolution in Germany and other countries. The absolute correctness of this compromise, entered into by such a party in such a situation, is becoming ever clearer and more obvious with every day. The Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries in Russia (like all the leaders of the Second International throughout the world, in 1914-20) began with treachery?by directly or indirectly justifying "defence of country", i.e., the defence of their own predatory bourgeoisie. They continued their treachery by entering into a coalition with the bourgeoisie of their own country, and fighting, together with their own bourgeoisie, against the revolutionary proletariat of their own country. Their bloc, first with Kerensky and the Cadets, and then with Kolchak and Denikin in Russia?like the bloc of their confreres abroad with the bourgeoisie of their respective countries?was in fact desertion to the side of the bourgeoisie, against the proletariat. From beginning to end, their compromise with the bandits of imperialism meant their becoming accomplices in imperialist banditry. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes [10] Lenin is referring probably to his article "What Should Not Be Copied from the Gennan Labour Movement", published in the Bolshevik magazine Prosveshcheniye in April 1914 (see present edition, Vol. 20, pp. 254-58). Here Lenin exposed the treacherous behaviour of Karl Legien, the German Social-Democrat who in 1912, in addressing the Congress of the U.S.A., praised U.S. official circles and bourgeois parties. [11] Spartacists?members of the Spartacus League founded in January 1916, during the First World War, under the leadership of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring and Clara Zetkin. The Spartacists conducted revolutionary anti-war propaganda among the masses, and exposed the expansionist policy of German imperialism and the treachery of the Social-Democratic leaders. However, the Spartacists?the German Left wing?did not get rid of their semi-Menshevik errors on the most important questions of theory and tactics. A criticism of the German Left-wing?s mistakes is given in Lenin?s works "On Junius?s Pamphlet" (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 297-305), "A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism" (see Vol. 23, pp. 28-76) and elsewhere. In April 1917, the Spartacists joined the Centrist Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, preserving their organisational independence. After the November 1918 revolution in Germany, the Spartacists broke away from the "Independents", and in December of the same year founded the Communist Party of Germany. [12] The reference is to Frederick Engels?s letter to August Bebel, written on March 18-28, 1875. [13] The Treaty of Brest Litovsk was signed between Soviet Russia and the powers of the Quadruple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey) on March 3, 1918, at Brest Litovsk and ratified on March 15 by the Fourth (Extraordinary) All-Russia Congress of Soviets. The peace terms were very harsh for Soviet Russia. According to the treaty, Poland, almost all the Baltic states, and part of Byelorussia were placed under the control of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Ukraine was separated from Soviet Russia, becoming a state dependent on Germany. Turkey gained control of the cities of Kars, Batum and Ardagan. In August 1918, Germany imposed on Soviet Russia a supplementary treaty and a financial agreement containing new and exorbitant demands. The treaty prevented further needless loss of life, and gave the R.S.F.S.R. the ability to shift it?s attention to urgent domestic matters. The signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk promoted the struggle for peace among the broad masses of all the warring nations, and denounced the war as a struggle between imperialist powers. On November 13, 1918, following the November revolution in Germany--the overthrow of the monarchist regime?the All-Russia Central Executive Committee annulled the predatory Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. [14] The reference is to the otzovists [the term otzovist derives from the Russian verb "otozvat" meaning "to recall".?Ed.] and ultimatumists, the struggle against whom developed in 1908, and in 1909 resulted in the expulsion of A. Bogdanov, the otzovist leader, from the Bolshevik Party. Behind a screen of revolutionary phrases, the otzovists demanded the recall of the Social-Democrat deputies from the Third Duma and the cessation of activities in legal organisations such as the trade unions, the co-operatives, etc. Ultimatumism was a variety of otzovism. The ultimatumists did not realise the necessity of conducting persistent day-by-day work with the Social-Democrat deputies, so as to make them consistent revolutionary parliamentarians. They proposed that an ultimatum should be presented to the Social-Democratic group in the Duma, demanding their absolute subordination to decisions of the Party?s Central Committee; should the deputies fail to comply, they were to be recalled from the Duma. A conference of the enlarged editorial board of the Bolshevik paper Proletary, held in June 1909, pointed out in its decision that "Bolshevism, as a definite trend in the R.S.D.L.P., had nothing in common either with otzovism or with ultimatumism". The conference urged the Bolsheviks "to wage a most resolute struggle against these deviations from the path of revolutionary Marxism" (KPSS v rezolutsiyakh i resheniyakh syezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK [The C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of Its Congresses, Conferences and Plenums of the Central Committee], Part I, 1954, p. 221). [15] On August 6 (19), 1905, the tsar?s manifesto was made public, proclaiming the law on the setting up of the Duma and the election procedures. This body was known as the Bulygin Duma, after A.G. Bulygin, the Minister of the Interior, whom the tsar entrusted with drawing up the Duma draft. According to the latter, the Duma had no legislative functions, but could merely discuss certain questions as a consultative body under the tsar. The Bolsheviks called upon the workers and peasants to actively boycott the Bulygin Duma, and concentrate all agitation on the slogans of an armed uprising, a revolutionary army, and a provisional revolutionary government. The boycott campaign against the Bulygin Duma was used by the Bolsheviks to mobilise all the revolutionary forces, organise mass political strikes, and prepare for an armed uprising. Elections to the Bulygin Duma were not held and the government was unable to convene it. The Duma was swept away by the mounting tide of the revolution and the all-Russia October political strike of 1905. [16] Lenin is referring to the all-Russia October political strike of 1905 during the first Russian revolution. This strike, which involved over two million people, was conducted under the slogan of the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy, an active boycott of the Bulygin Duma, the summoning of a Constituent Assembly and the establishment of a democratic republic. The all-Russia political strike showed the strength of the working-class movement, fostered the development of the revolutionary struggle in the countryside, the army and the navy. The October strike led the proletariat to the December armed uprising. Concerning the October strike, see the article by V. I. Lenin ?The All-Russia Political Strike". [*] What applies to individuals also applies?with necessary modifications?to politics and parties. It is not he who makes no mistakes that is intelligent. There are no such men, nor can there be. It is he whose errors are not very grave and who is able to rectify them easily and quickly that is intelligent. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From farmelantj at juno.com Tue Dec 23 12:13:16 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:13:16 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: <20081223.141316.4378.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Ralph Dumain posted a response which bounced to me. I approved it for the list, but it seems that it has gotten lost in cyberspace. So, I would suggest that Ralph either try posting it again, or send it directly to me, so I can post it. Jim Farmelant -- Susan F Dane wrote: Dear Jim: Thank you so, so much for the references. I'll track them down. I appreciate your help. ____________________________________________________________ Develop a fitness program that works for you. Click here for free info and revolutionary products. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw2aeoIc78l6B3dKqm8v3ghGf9bmgus0WG3ki018wmwOmQ7ap/ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 23 12:56:16 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:56:16 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The time for a revolution Message-ID: <4950FC10.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=76&twindow=Default&mad=No&sdetail=6815&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1070&hn=michigancitizen&he=.com The time for a revolution By Ron Walters NNPA Columnist It struck me while analyzing the current victory of Barack Obama that the last time there had been such a formidable Democratic landslide was in 1964 and the election of Lyndon Johnson made possible the mandate he used to create the Great Society. At that time, the racial progress of Blacks was at the center of the ?64 election, but today the fears and anxiety of Americans for their own economic viability drove the 2008 election. Given the difference, the great question that Blacks must face now is whether they yield their own needs for change entirely, in light of the fact that they have been the most damaged recipients of both the inhumane policies of the past 30 years of conservative government and have doubly suffered disproportionally in the current economic crisis. The answer to that question may be that in binding up the wounds of the nation, the Obama administration should be demanded to consider the truth of the previous statement and find a way to attend to the Black community simultaneously. Blacks may benefit from ratcheting down spending for the war in Iraq, or from universal health care, or creating jobs from the stimulus package. But while it may be obvious that they are conjoined, many analysts also feel that although occasionally strong patterns of general economic growth have lifted Blacks too, they have not lifted them sufficiently to overcome the inequalities that persist without targeted policies. In the last 30 years, legislators have pulled back from policies that favored disadvantaged adults, leaving them to the vagaries of the demand and supply of capitalism. They have also eliminated policies that appeared to favor racial or ethnic groups of color, viewing that as ?preferential treatment.? Yet, there were few Blacks who have profited from the tax cuts or no-bid contracts; instead they fought the wars, filled the jails and survived on their ?personal responsibility.? I believe that a revolutionary approach to the current crises is absolutely necessary, since what has happened to America is not just the fault of a few bad decisions, but a structural crisis, produced by a way of thinking about privilege and the use of power. Events from Katrina to the present have uncovered the inability of government institutions to address the needs of people because they were not fundamentally structured for that purpose, but to serve powerful interests. Bayard Rustin, an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said in a 1965 Commentary article that the movement from protest to politics could affect American institutions. Rustin felt that the participation of Civil Rights leaders in the 1964 election proved their capacity to promote such a project to launch a new revolution that would transform American institutions that served human needs. By 1967, Dr. King was convinced that political and moral corruption had led to the Vietnam War and what was needed to restore American morality was ?a true revolution of values.? In his speech, ?A Time To Break Silence,? he said that this kind of revolution would ?look uneasily? and say ?this is not just,? to the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth, to capitalists who invest but care little for the people whose profits they take out, to Western arrogance which has everything to teach people and nothing to learn, to people who believe that war is the only way settling human differences, to those who inject the poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of normally humane people. With a strong election mandate, an equally strengthened political party in government, the wealth of the resources from his campaign, his positive personal appeal in the U.S. and around the world and the abilities of those around him, Obama is in an important posture for historically significant change. His approach has been not just been focused on immediate fixes, but to embed in them the seeds of long-term change as well. Furthermore, the depth, severity and comprehensive nature of these crises should lead any logical observer to conclude that they cannot be fixed by merely returning to business as usual, Obama must go beyond that, he must affect a ?true revolution of values? that affects the structure and mission of American governmental institutions. If this project is done right ? and if it includes and is sensitive to ? the relevant leadership of those communities who have the most to gain from a new American revolution, then perhaps many of the problems that African American people face could be addressed. Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (Rowman and Littlefield). This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From farmelantj at juno.com Tue Dec 23 13:08:52 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:08:52 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: <20081223.150852.4378.2@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Ralph Dumain wrote the following: -------------------- I am puzzled as to how the question of reductionism is related to the question of liberation theology. Perhaps these were intended as separate questions. Re reductionism: note that the current location of my Emergence blog is: http://www.autodidactproject.org/blog/emergence/ If you read my introduction, you will see the main purpose of this blog: http://autodidactproject.org/blog/emergence/index.php/about/ I am attempting to track the divergent interpretations of emergence and their ideological and social motivations, some of which are quiter suspect. Does this at all relate to liberation theology? Perhaps there are links. For example, the obscurantist mystical-religious emergentism that comprises one strand of emergentism relates to the crisis of bourgeois society and its reversion to irrationalism. This strand of emergentism is financed in the millions of dollars by the reactionary Templeton Foundation. There have been linkages, affrimative linkages, between Marxism and religionism prior to the current epoch in which "liberation theology" was labeled as a trend. I will only single out one that points to one source of mystification: ?Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law? by Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury (http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/HJ-SP1.html) This is a chapter from the Red Dean Johnson's 1940 pro-Stalinist apologia The Soviet Power. Note his sophistical argument allying dialectical materialism with Christianity and opposing both to materialism. Presumably the latter is inter alia implicitly condemned as reductionist while diamat is consonant with a religious point of view. This, however, is not what we think of in the past decades as liberation theology. Formally, there is a trend in Latin America known as liberation theology. But of course there are various liberation theologies of various individuals, religions, dominations, and populations. Cornel West's "prophetic pragmatism" is one example, perhaps not as obnoxious as the black liberation theology that developed in the late '60s, but just as dishonest and retrograde in its intellectual content. On the Marxist side, attachment to liberation theology is either opportunistic or self-deceiving. Radical religionists attach themselves to various desired aspects of Marxism, but amalgamating class analysis with the obscurantist metaphysics of their religions, suitably sanitized to render them revolutionary. Aside from philosophical falsification, there is the deeper issue of the relation of social development to forms of consciousness, suitably repressed by both Stalinism and liberation theology. The deeper issue of dialectic is not simply one of materialism vs idealism, but the dialectical relation between consciousness and the state of society. -----Original Message----- From: "farmelantj at juno.com" Sent: Dec 23, 2008 6:50 AM To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Concerning Marxism and theology, while I am no expert on liberation theology, I am quite aware that many leading 20th century theologians took an interest in old Chuck (along with Feuerbach, Nietzsche and Freud), including such figures as Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebhur, and Paul Tillich, to name just a few names. The old social democrat, Michael Harrington, was pretty good on this in his book, *The Politics at God's Funeral*. Mark Lindley and I discussed Harrington in our essay, "Six Prominent American Freethinkers," which is available online at: http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/fl161208.html. One of our later posters. Ralph Dumain, has discussed the issues of reductionism and emergence on a special blog at: http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/emergence-blog.html Jim Farmelant -- Susan F Dane wrote: Dear Fellow-Subscribers: I've recently subscribed and am receiving a variety articles. However I'm looking for something specific pertaining to the following: I am currently beginning a study of 'liberation theology'. Marx and his 'dialectic' keep coming up in a way presupposing the reader has some understanding of what this is. I'm pretty clueless and need some help trying to understand what an atheist is doing (albeit not by his own direct actions) in the realm of theology. There have been some indications that this is somehow compatible with or a natural consequence of the confidence human kind has been led to place in 'science'... I'm not seeing a clear connection. I am lacking in the presuppositions to jump into the conversation with much understanding. Anyone care to respond to the issue of "Marxism and 'reductionism'"? Any help is appreciated. Many thanks, Susan Dane -----Original Message----- From: Ralph Dumain Sent: Dec 23, 2008 8:45 AM To: "marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu" Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested I am puzzled as to how the question of reductionism is related to the question of liberation theology. Perhaps these were intended as separate questions. Re reductionism: note that the current location of my Emergence blog is: http://www.autodidactproject.org/blog/emergence/ If you read my introduction, you will see the main purpose of this blog: http://autodidactproject.org/blog/emergence/index.php/about/ I am attempting to track the divergent interpretations of emergence and their ideological and social motivations, some of which are quiter suspect. Does this at all relate to liberation theology? Perhaps there are links. For example, the obscurantist mystical-religious emergentism that comprises one strand of emergentism relates to the crisis of bourgeois society and its reversion to irrationalism. This strand of emergentism is financed in the millions of dollars by the reactionary Templeton Foundation. There have been linkages, affrimative linkages, between Marxism and religionism prior to the current epoch in which "liberation theology" was labeled as a trend. I will only single out one that points to one source of mystification: ?Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law? by Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury This is a chapter from the Red Dean Johnson's 1940 pro-Stalinist apologia The Soviet Power. Note his sophistical argument allying dialectical materialism with Christianity and opposing both to materialism. Presumably the latter is inter alia implicitly condemned as reductionist while diamat is consonant with a religious point of view. This, however, is not what we think of in the past decades as liberation theology. Formally, there is a trend in Latin America known as liberation theology. But of course there are various liberation theologies of various individuals, religions, dominations, and populations. Cornel West's "prophetic pragmatism" is one example, perhaps not as obnoxious as the black liberation theology that developed in the late '60s, but just as dishonest and retrograde in its intellectual content. On the Marxist side, attachment to liberation theology is either opportunistic or self-deceiving. Radical religionists attach themselves to various desired aspects of Marxism, but amalgamating class analysis with the obscurantist metaphysics of their religions, suitably sanitized to render them revolutionary. Aside from philosophical falsification, there is the deeper issue of the relation of social development to forms of consciousness, suitably repressed by both Stalinism and liberation theology. The deeper issue of dialectic is not simply one of materialism vs idealism, but the dialectical relation between consciousness and the state of society. -----Original Message----- From: "farmelantj at juno.com" Sent: Dec 23, 2008 6:50 AM To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Concerning Marxism and theology, while I am no expert on liberation theology, I am quite aware that many leading 20th century theologians took an interest in old Chuck (along with Feuerbach, Nietzsche and Freud), including such figures as Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebhur, and Paul Tillich, to name just a few names. The old social democrat, Michael Harrington, was pretty good on this in his book, *The Politics at God's Funeral*. Mark Lindley and I discussed Harrington in our essay, "Six Prominent American Freethinkers," which is available online at: http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/fl161208.html. One of our later posters. Ralph Dumain, has discussed the issues of reductionism and emergence on a special blog at: http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/emergence-blog.html Jim Farmelant -- Susan F Dane wrote: Dear Fellow-Subscribers: I've recently subscribed and am receiving a variety articles. However I'm looking for something specific pertaining to the following: I am currently beginning a study of 'liberation theology'. Marx and his 'dialectic' keep coming up in a way presupposing the reader has some understanding of what this is. I'm pretty clueless and need some help trying to understand what an atheist is doing (albeit not by his own direct actions) in the realm of theology. There have been some indications that this is somehow compatible with or a natural consequence of the confidence human kind has been led to place in 'science'... I'm not seeing a clear connection. I am lacking in the presuppositions to jump into the conversation with much understanding. Anyone care to respond to the issue of "Marxism and 'reductionism'"? Any help is appreciated. Many thanks, Susan Dane ____________________________________________________________ Criminal Lawyers - Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw3dDDJbaxKMaGJYM5Dys7pTexIZlAFbgQtZJho5P4kQz6JtX/ From farmelantj at juno.com Tue Dec 23 13:14:47 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:14:47 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Korsch revisited (from Ralph Dumain) Message-ID: <20081223.151447.4378.3@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> Well, revisited only briefly, but I will have to make a careful study of Karl Korsch?s 1923 book Marxism and Philosophy when I can squeeze it into my reading schedule. These issues are all old now, but they were new then, and they continue to resurface in our milieu. I?ve just read a few essays by Korsch on the Marxist Internet Archive and I just want to relate a few impressions. I have mixed reactions. On the one hand, Korsch laudably attempts to relate philosophies as forms of consciousness to moments in social and political development, opposing the tendency, also purportedly rife within Marxism, as treating philosophies as detached abstractions at war with one another, such as the struggle between idealism and materialism. At the same time, Korsch seems to avoid politicizing philosophy in a way that would suppress its intellectual content in favor of purely pragmatic political exigencies. It seems that Korsch consciously opposes both tendencies in order to restore what he considers to be the original Marxian approach, which finds its precedent in Hegel. For example, in a section reproduced from Marxism and Philosophy, Korsch states: Hegel wrote that in the philosophic systems of this fundamentally revolutionary epoch, ?revolution was lodged and expressed as if in the very form of their thought?. Hegel?s accompanying statements make it quite clear that he was not talking of what contemporary bourgeois historians of philosophy like to call a revolution in thought ? a nice, quiet process that takes place in the pure realm of the study and far away from the crude realm of real struggles. The greatest thinker produced by bourgeois society in its revolutionary period regarded a ?revolution in the form of thought? as an objective component of the total social process of a real revolution. Only two peoples, the German and the French ? despite or precisely because of their contrasts ? took part in this great epoch of world history, whose deepest essence is grasped by the philosophy of history. ____________________________________________________________ Click to get free information on Pigeon Forge vacations. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw2hpWzMrlKb8K5omGKsWiVZm9KnB1Vg5U8Nq0xPJR1RjnbCB/ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 23 13:20:17 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:20:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] GM "nationalization" Message-ID: <495101B1.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> December 23, 2008 http://www.freep.com/article/20081223/BUSINESS01/812230364 U.S. gets big bite of GM Government can buy stock equal to all outstanding shares BY KATIE MERX FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER As GM goes, so goes the nation. That saying has never been more true than now, as the government stands to become a big owner of General Motors Corp., with its new stock warrants for a financial rescue package worth nearly as much as all of the automaker's outstanding stock. The warrants allow the government to buy about 20% of the value of the loans to GM in nonvoting shares. If GM receives $9.4 billion in federal loans, the U.S. Treasury is entitled to buy $1.88 billion worth of stock. If GM receives $13.4 billion, the U.S. Treasury is entitled to $2.68 billion. On Monday, GM's market capitalization -- the value of all of its outstanding shares -- was $2.15 billion. And the U.S. government isn't the only one obtaining warrants. Canadian provincial and federal governments also have obtained warrants to acquire nonvoting shares as a condition of a $3-billion package of loans for GM. That entitles Canada to $600 million in stock. And Germany and Sweden also have signaled they might make loans. The warrants are intended to allow the governments to profit if GM makes a successful turnaround, and provides them seniority over most of the automaker's other debt if it fails. In 1983, the U.S. government made a profit of about $125 million on warrants it acquired in exchange for aiding Chrysler. But this time, analysts remain skeptical that warrants could lead to profit and instead believe they will simply lead to a significant decrease in value for unsecured debt holders in the event of a bankruptcy or payment default. Analyst Chris Ceraso of Credit Suisse wrote Monday that guarantees for the government loans are expected to dilute or eliminate the value to existing equity holders. "In light of the complete overhaul of GM's capital structure that will likely be required to turn the company into a viable entity and to comply with the government's requirements," Ceraso wrote, "we think existing equity holders will be largely, if not entirely, wiped out." Contact KATIE MERX at 313-222-8762 or kmerx at freepress.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Dec 23 13:25:31 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:25:31 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] America cares little about fate of Detroit's Big Three Message-ID: <495102EB.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Tuesday, December 23, 2008 Daniel Howes Commentary: America cares little about fate of Detroit's Big Three Forget the politicians and their calculated "rescue" of Detroit's automakers. They won't be the ones who save, or kill, the Big Three where it matters most -- in the marketplace. It'll be the real people, would-be customers who decide to give General Motors Corp. metal another look or who credit Ford's Blue Oval for trying to make it without federal help. Or it'll be the people who long ago gave up on Detroit, who conflate bad experiences of a generation ago into sweeping condemnations of the companies today. I bring this up now because the bailout debate, punctuated by President George W. Bush's decision to throw the automakers a $17.4 billion lifeline, is delivering Detroit more attention than it wants or needs. And government largesse for GM and Chrysler LLC will keep this complex, politicized restructuring in front of taxpayers for months to come. Which means those inside the Detroit Bubble eager to remind folks on the outside that the automakers were FDR's "Arsenal of Democracy," that Detroit "created the middle class, and that an independent, U.S.-owned auto industry is an economic cornerstone may find most of the Bigger America doesn't agree and doesn't much care. Yes, federal officials are lending GM and Chrysler help, but they are clearly doing so while holding their collective noses with one hand and wagging their fingers with the other. Could it be that the politicians know their constituents are as fatigued by Detroit's troubles as the rest of us mired in this morass? Readers periodically e-mail objections to suggestions (from me and others) of an anti-Detroit Auto bias around the country. After the inquisitions called congressional hearings, the misinformed sanctimony from members of the California, New York and Massachusetts delegations and the snide slaps of Senate Republicans from the South, I'm not at all sure the e-mailers have much (if any?) evidence to buttress their point. Then, in today's e-mail, arrives more data to bolster mine: A CNN-Opinion Research poll reports that 70 percent of 1,013 Americans polled over the weekend said they opposed extending any additional aid to Detroit's automakers beyond March 31. Even as two-thirds said a bankruptcy of one or more automakers would be "a crisis" or would cause "major problems," more than 80 percent said an automaker bankruptcy would cause "minor problems" or "no problems at all" for their personal financial situation. And 65 percent said they would not be likely to consider buying a car from a bankrupt automaker. Translation: Detroit, you're on your own, though I'm not at all sure the message is resonating where it matters most. 'A way of life' under siege Over the weekend, I ran into a prominent, thoughtful and recently retired Detroit auto executive out with his family for a holiday dinner. Amid the handshakes he looked at me and matter-of-factly said, "We're dismantling a way of life." He's right. But how many people in your workplace or neighborhood or school district realize it? Do they understand that the culture defined by Big Three salaries, benefits, expectations, vacation schedules -- where else in the country do people get a four-day weekend around Easter? -- will be torn apart over the next three months because it has to be? And if it isn't -- if United Auto Workers brass can call in enough political chits with congressional Democrats and Team Obama to keep from having to ask their members to vote on wage cuts and work rule changes next year -- what guarantee is there that it won't happen in bankruptcy anyway? None. On Sunday, an e-mail landed from Robert F. in Marin County, Calif. "Hello from the Left Coast," he began. "Here in California we don't much care about Ford, GM, Chrysler. We gave up on them years ago, (and) the rest of the country is following California's lead." A view from the 'Left Coast' I read on, marveling (but not surprised) that decades-old experiences with a '67 Olds Cutlass, an '81 Dodge Omni, a '91 Jeep and a '99 Ford Contour shaped a mind-set that Detroit probably could not break, no matter what it does. Add, too, his self-described "gold standard" -- "the '98 Camry LE I sold with 226,000 miles, with only a starter motor replacement at 180,000." "Quite honestly, it does not matter to the Left Coast if they all go bankrupt and take that greedy UAW with their incessant petty work-rule nonsense with them," he wrote. "Those idiots shut down GM in the summer over some ridiculous issues totally oblivious to the disaster upcoming." Yes, Robert, they did. "Good luck," he added. "You will need it." Yes, that too. A more contemporary understanding of Detroit's new metal also would help, but that's probably too much to expect when generalizations rooted in personal experience can suffice -- and show Detroit, yet again, just how problematic its revival truly will be among fellow Americans. Daniel Howes' column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. He can be reached at (313) 222-2106, dchowes at detnews.com or detnews.com/howes. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Tue Dec 23 13:32:18 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:32:18 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Korsch revisited (from Ralph Dumain) Message-ID: <17762273.1230064338802.JavaMail.root@whwamui-deputy.pas.sa.earthlink.net> This is only a fragment of my post. Furthermore, I'm tired of each of my posts bouncing. Perhaps I should just unsubscribe. -----Original Message----- >From: "farmelantj at juno.com" >Sent: Dec 23, 2008 12:14 PM >To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu >Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Korsch revisited (from Ralph Dumain) > > >Well, revisited only briefly, but I will have to make a careful study of Karl Korsch?s 1923 book Marxism and Philosophy when I can squeeze it into my reading schedule. These issues are all old now, but they were new then, and they continue to resurface in our milieu. I?ve just read a few essays by Korsch on the Marxist Internet Archive and I just want to relate a few impressions. > > > >I have mixed reactions. On the one hand, Korsch laudably attempts to relate philosophies as forms of consciousness to moments in social and political development, opposing the tendency, also purportedly rife within Marxism, as treating philosophies as detached abstractions at war with one another, such as the struggle between idealism and materialism. At the same time, Korsch seems to avoid politicizing philosophy in a way that would suppress its intellectual content in favor of purely pragmatic political exigencies. It seems that Korsch consciously opposes both tendencies in order to restore what he considers to be the original Marxian approach, which finds its precedent in Hegel. > > > >For example, in a section reproduced from Marxism and Philosophy, Korsch states: > > > >Hegel wrote that in the philosophic systems of this fundamentally revolutionary epoch, ?revolution was lodged and expressed as if in the very form of their thought?. Hegel?s accompanying statements make it quite clear that he was not talking of what contemporary bourgeois historians of philosophy like to call a revolution in thought ? a nice, quiet process that takes place in the pure realm of the study and far away from the crude realm of real struggles. The greatest thinker produced by bourgeois society in its revolutionary period regarded a ?revolution in the form of thought? as an objective component of the total social process of a real revolution. Only two peoples, the German and the French ? despite or precisely because of their contrasts ? took part in this great epoch of world history, whose deepest essence is grasped by the philosophy of history. > >____________________________________________________________ >Click to get free information on Pigeon Forge vacations. >http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw2hpWzMrlKb8K5omGKsWiVZm9KnB1Vg5U8Nq0xPJR1RjnbCB/ > >_______________________________________________ >Marxism-Thaxis mailing list >Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu >To change your options or unsubscribe go to: >http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From farmelantj at juno.com Tue Dec 23 13:58:18 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:58:18 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Korsch revisited (from Ralph Dumain) Message-ID: <20081223.155818.1507.0@webmail11.vgs.untd.com> Ralph, I think I need to email Hans about this issue, since it seems that you're practically the only poster here that runs into this problem on a regular basis. Jim Farmelant -- Ralph Dumain wrote: This is only a fragment of my post. Furthermore, I'm tired of each of my posts bouncing. Perhaps I should just unsubscribe. -----Original Message----- >From: "farmelantj at juno.com" >Sent: Dec 23, 2008 12:14 PM >To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu >Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Korsch revisited (from Ralph Dumain) > > >Well, revisited only briefly, but I will have to make a careful study of Karl Korsch?s 1923 book Marxism and Philosophy when I can squeeze it into my reading schedule. These issues are all old now, but they were new then, and they continue to resurface in our milieu. I?ve just read a few essays by Korsch on the Marxist Internet Archive and I just want to relate a few impressions. > > > >I have mixed reactions. On the one hand, Korsch laudably attempts to relate philosophies as forms of consciousness to moments in social and political development, opposing the tendency, also purportedly rife within Marxism, as treating philosophies as detached abstractions at war with one another, such as the struggle between idealism and materialism. At the same time, Korsch seems to avoid politicizing philosophy in a way that would suppress its intellectual content in favor of purely pragmatic political exigencies. It seems that Korsch consciously opposes both tendencies in order to restore what he considers to be the original Marxian approach, which finds its precedent in Hegel. > > > >For example, in a section reproduced from Marxism and Philosophy, Korsch states: > > > >Hegel wrote that in the philosophic systems of this fundamentally revolutionary epoch, ?revolution was lodged and expressed as if in the very form of their thought?. Hegel?s accompanying statements make it quite clear that he was not talking of what contemporary bourgeois historians of philosophy like to call a revolution in thought ? a nice, quiet process that takes place in the pure realm of the study and far away from the crude realm of real struggles. The greatest thinker produced by bourgeois society in its revolutionary period regarded a ?revolution in the form of thought? as an objective component of the total social process of a real revolution. Only two peoples, the German and the French ? despite or precisely because of their contrasts ? took part in this great epoch of world history, whose deepest essence is grasped by the philosophy of history. > >____________________________________________________________ >Click to get free information on Pigeon Forge vacations. >http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw2hpWzMrlKb8K5omGKsWiVZm9KnB1Vg5U8Nq0xPJR1RjnbCB/ > >_______________________________________________ >Marxism-Thaxis mailing list >Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu >To change your options or unsubscribe go to: >http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ____________________________________________________________ Get the shot you need with a discreet new spy camera. Click now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw2NoOALia1zxW7ZqeHRsaJqKp0dFLqfoTpJxZXVvLj2Cd0lD/ From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 24 10:01:26 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 12:01:26 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama, Wall Street and the US Automakers Message-ID: Obama, Wall Street and the US Automakers Weakening the economy, leaving it even more debt-strapped. by Michael Hudson Global Research, December 7, 2008 There is a strange double standard in President-elect Obama's largess with the public purse when it comes to Wall Street's banks and insurance companies as compared to his more prudent stance toward bailing out the U.S. auto industry. In his December 7, 2008 interview with Meet the Press he set conditions for an auto industry bailout, but said nothing about setting similar conditions for the financial sector. His words regarding Detroit could just as well have been directed at Wall Street. But they were not. I think that the Big Three U.S. automakers have made repeated strategic mistakes. They have not managed that industry the way they should have. ? What we have to do is to provide them with assistance, but that assistance is conditioned on them making significant adjustments. They're going to have to restructure, and all their stakeholders are going to have to restructure. Labor, management, shareholders, creditors - everybody's going to recognize that they have-they do not have a sustainable business model right now. And if they expect taxpayers to help in that adjustment process, then they can't keep on putting off the kinds of changes that they, frankly, should have made 20 or 30 years ago. Later in the interview he repeated this position: ? if taxpayer money is at stake ? we want to make sure that it is conditioned on a auto industry emerging at the end of the process that actually works, that actually functions. ... But I'm also concerned that we don't put 10 or 20 or 30 or whatever billion dollars into an industry, and then, six months to a year later, they come back hat in hand and say, "Give me more." Taxpayers, I think, are fed up. Fair enough. But isn't this just what Wall Street is asking for? Isn't it coming back for the remaining $350 billion unallocated under the Treasury plan approved by Congress (and endorsed by President-elect Obama) in October, while the Federal Reserve continues to provide "cash for trash" to banks and insurance companies at a rate now approaching $2 trillion? One may ask why Wall Street's leading offenders - Hank Greenberg of A.I.G., Charles Prince at Citibank - were bailed out as if saving them was saving "the economy" itself, while only the auto executives were told not to pay themselves such exorbitant salaries and bonuses. If the auto industry has a "bad engineering" problem for which it is being held responsible, why aren't the banks, A.I.G. and their enablers - hedge funds on the other side of the deals that the smart boys won and the careless boys let them win - not being held to a similar standard? The explanation seems to be that the auto executives didn't have a cabinet official like Secretary Paulson working on their behalf to represent their special interests as being in the interest of the economy as a whole. On their own, they were not in a position to bring the economy crashing down around them if they did not get what they wanted. Only Wall Street is in a position to wreck the economy by plunging it into bankruptcy. It is this power that enables it to represent its interests as being that of the economy at large, and hence deserving protection that no other sector receives, certainly not labor. What is important to understand is that the bad-loan problem is concentrated at the top layer (the 15% or so wealthiest banks), the big Wall Street conglomerates created after the Clinton Administration embraced the Republican policy of repealing Glass-Steagall and letting banks form non-bank conglomerates. The bailouts do not end up with these banks or with A.I.G. itself, but with their counterparties on the winning side of bets made against the banks and A.I.G. who now want to collect from financial institutions that can't pay. It's like gamblers in a casino that's gone broke, asking the government to bail them out or "the system" will collapse. What is this system that Congress and Mr. Obama are rushing to strenuously to rescue? Essentially, bank officers and A.I.G. insurance salesmen behaved like casino dealers who did not mind losing as long as they got a paycheck enabling them to live very, very well. Not all casinos go broke, and the vast majority of U.S. banks and insurance companies avoided making big gambles. The bailout has little to do with them. And it has little to do with "the economy." It has to do with crooked mortgage brokers working for crooked banks who corrupted the political process with their campaign contributions, to make losing bets against clever financial gamblers who borrowed huge enough sums at interest from these banks to leverage their bets that the banks now hold to at least let investment bankers and commercial bankers become the highest paid individuals in human history. But should one say that this unique historical event really is "the economy"? Or is it an excrescence? Would the economy be better off WITHOUT these bank and A.I.G. debts being "made whole"? Mr. Obama explained that his administration's solution to the bad debt problem will be for the banks to "earn their way out of debt" to the U.S. Government by loading down American homeowners, households and industry with so much MORE debt that the interest charges will rebuild bank balance sheets. What the banks are selling, in short, is debt. This may be thought of as financial pollution. The banks are to make money by pumping debt pollution into the economy. Is it not hypocritical for Mr. Obama to criticize the auto companies for producing gas guzzlers that pollute the physical environment, without criticizing the big Wall Street campaign contributors for doing the same to the economic environment? "I've had my team have conversations with these folks to see how can you keep the automakers' feet to the fire in making the changes that are necessary," Mr. Obama explained to Tom Brokow, "some people have said let's just send them through a bankruptcy process. Well, even as large a company as GM, in ordinary times, might be able to go through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, restructure, and still keep their business operations going. When you are seeing this kind of collapse at the same time as you've got the financial system as shaky as, as it is, that means that we're going to have to figure out ways to put the pressure on the way a bankruptcy court would, demand accountability, demand serious changes." Mr. Obama finished up by saying that "we have to put an end to is the head-in-the-sand approach ? And what we still see are executive compensation packages for the auto industry that are out of line compared to their competitors," adding that "it's not unique to the auto industry. We have seen that across the board. Certainly, we saw it on Wall Street." But he seems not to understand what the problem is. Turning explicitly to the financial crisis, Mr. Obama said, "you, you had a huge amount of debt, a huge amount of other people's money that was being lent, and speculation was taking place on-based on these home mortgages. And if we can strengthen those assets, then that will strengthen the financial system as a whole." What is wrong with this picture? First of all, the banks were NOT lending out "other peoples' money." This is a myth promoted by Wall Street's academic lobby, the University of Chicago "monetarist" school. Banks create credit - that is, interest-bearing debt - freely, whenever they can get a borrower to sign a promissory note. The loan creates a deposit ("saving," "other peoples' money"). That is the financial reality. Banking is a public monopoly able to create and monetize credit. This monopoly is granted in order to create a financial system that is supposed to finance capital investment in economic growth. But if banks had done this, they would not have the bad-debt problem stemming from options gambles and fraudulent real estate loans by their immensely profitable mortgage-brokerage subsidiaries and their enormously remunerative predatory legal offices drawing up predatory mortgage contracts. Capital investment today is financed by industrial companies out of retained earnings - if they are able to retain much after paying the junk-bond holders who have borrowed money from banks to take them over and carve them up, not increase their long-term capital investment, research and development. What is needed is to restructure the financial system so that it does what its lobbyists and academic shills pretend that it does: promote economic growth rather than merely loan the economy down with debt as a means to extract interest charges. Mr. Obama's second part of his sentence recommending reform proposes to do just the opposite. He has thrown his support fully behind Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, by pretending that the way to revive the economy and banks it to inflate a debt-fueled real estate boom once again. Prospective home buyers are supposed to go even further into debt in order to provide the banks with enough extra interest charges to earn the money to become solvent again. (They are as deep in Negative Equity as are the subprime mortgage debtors they and their affiliates have victimized.) When Mr. Obama speaks of "strengthen[ing] those assets," namely, homes and office buildings, "then that will strengthen the financial system as a whole." But it will weaken the economy, leaving it even more debt-strapped. Michael Hudson is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Michael Hudson **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Wed Dec 24 10:58:42 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:58:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Korsch revisited (reposted) Message-ID: <7855383.1230141522974.JavaMail.root@whwamui-soar.pas.sa.earthlink.net> Well, revisited only briefly, but I will have to make a careful study of Karl Korsch?s 1923 book Marxism and Philosophy when I can squeeze it into my reading schedule. These issues are all old now, but they were new then, and they continue to resurface in our milieu. I?ve just read a few essays by Korsch on the Marxist Internet Archive and I just want to relate a few impressions. I have mixed reactions. On the one hand, Korsch laudably attempts to relate philosophies as forms of consciousness to moments in social and political development, opposing the tendency, also purportedly rife within Marxism, as treating philosophies as detached abstractions at war with one another, such as the struggle between idealism and materialism. At the same time, Korsch seems to avoid politicizing philosophy in a way that would suppress its intellectual content in favor of purely pragmatic political exigencies. It seems that Korsch consciously opposes both tendencies in order to restore what he considers to be the original Marxian approach, which finds its precedent in Hegel. For example, in a section reproduced from Marxism and Philosophy, Korsch states: ----- Hegel wrote that in the philosophic systems of this fundamentally revolutionary epoch, ?revolution was lodged and expressed as if in the very form of their thought?. Hegel?s accompanying statements make it quite clear that he was not talking of what contemporary bourgeois historians of philosophy like to call a revolution in thought ? a nice, quiet process that takes place in the pure realm of the study and far away from the crude realm of real struggles. The greatest thinker produced by bourgeois society in its revolutionary period regarded a ?revolution in the form of thought? as an objective component of the total social process of a real revolution. Only two peoples, the German and the French ? despite or precisely because of their contrasts ? took part in this great epoch of world history, whose deepest essence is grasped by the philosophy of history. --------- Korsch relates this perspective to the history of bourgeois philosophy (which lost this sense of connection) and Marxist philosophy. Korsch is equally critical of artificial supplements to Marxist philosophy, e.g. Neo-Kantianism. Orthodox Marxism too suffers the same defect, of attempting to construct a philosophical system and thus freeze itself in opposition to a fluid, developing social reality. According to Korsch, Marx and Engels? abandonment of philosophy in the 1840s is chronically misunderstood, as are Marx?s theses on Feuerbach. This text can be found at http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1923/marxism-philosophy.htm Next, see Marxism and Philosophy: An Anti-critique, 1930. http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/19xx/anti-critique.htm Here Korsch reacts to the attack on his book by both the Social Democrats and Communists, based on the same premises, not surprisingly, given their affinity in spite of their historic antagonism. Korsch?s ?conception involved the application of the materialist conception of history to the materialist conception of history itself.? In responses to attacks, Korsch reiterates his tripartite division of the history of Marxism and philosophy: 1843-1848, 1848-1900 (approximately), and the current period. Korsch claims that the Social Democratic movement never adopted Marxism as a whole but only ?isolated economic, political and social ?theories?, extracted from the general context of revolutionary Marxism.? It was not an improvement or progressive development of Marxisan theory, but a new theory adapted to the conditions of the time. The gap between theory and practice was never properly formulated by Kautsky, Luxemburg, or Lenin. While the Second International had essentially dismissed philosophy, the philosophical ideology of the Soviet power was foisted on the entire Communist movement, coinciding with the condemnation of Lukacs and Korsch. ------- [. . . ] I assumed rather than spelt out this critique of a primitive, pre-dialectical and even pre-transcendental conception of the relation between consciousness and being. But without realizing it I had hit on the very key to the ?philosophical? outlook which was then due to be dispensed from Moscow to the whole of the Western Communist world. Indeed it formed the basis of the new orthodox theory, so-called ?Marxism-Leninism?. The professional exponents of the new Russian ?Marxism-Leninism? then replied to this supposedly ?idealist? attack by repeating the ABC of the ?materialist? alphabet they had learnt by heart.[21] This they did with a naivete that can only appear as a ?state of philosophical innocence? to corrupt ?Westerners?. ------------ Korsch also claims that Lenin?s interventions were essentially political, not theoretical, and were motivated by the exigencies of party work, even when defending philosophical materialism on principle. Korsch deems this anti-Marxian. ------ Lenin argued that there had been a change in the whole intellectual climate which made it necessary when dealing with dialectical materialism to stress materialism against certain fashionable tendencies in bourgeois philosophy, rather than to stress dialectics against the vulgar, pre-dialectical and in some cases explicitly undialectical and anti-dialectical materialism of bourgeois science. The question is whether there had been such a change. What I have written elsewhere shows that I do not think this is really the case. There are some superficial aspects of contemporary bourgeois philosophy and science which appear to contradict this, and there certainly are some trends which genuinely do so. Nevertheless the dominant basic trend in contemporary bourgeois philosophy, natural science and humanities is the same as it was sixty or seventy years ago. It is inspired not by an idealist outlook but by a materialist outlook that is coloured by the natural sciences. Lenin?s position, which disputes this, is in close ideological relation to his politico-economic theory of ?imperialism?. Both have their material roots in the specific economic and social situation of Russia and the specific practical and theoretical political tasks that seemed, and for a short period really were, necessary to accomplish the Russian Revolution. This means that the ?Leninist? theory is not theoretically capable of answering the practical needs of the international class struggle in the present period. Consequently, Lenin?s materialist philosophy, which forms the ideological basis of this theory, cannot constitute the revolutionary proletarian philosophy that will answer the needs of today. -------------- In the next two paragraphs Korsch outlines what he considers Lenin?s philosophical blunders and finds Lenin pre-Hegelian in his philosophical outlook: -------------- Not content with this, they [Lenin et al] have abandoned the question of the relationship between the totality of historical being and all historically prevalent forms of consciousness. This was first posed by Hegel?s dialectic and was then given a more comprehensive elaboration by the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels. Lenin and those like him have revised it in a retrograde way by replacing it with the much narrower epistemological or ?gnoseological? question of the relationship between the subject and object of knowledge. Nor is this all. They present knowledge as a fundamentally harmonious evolutionary progress and an infinite progression towards absolute truth. ----------------- Some other key assertions: -------------- There is another inevitable consequence of this displacement of the accent from the dialectic to materialism. It prevents materialist philosophy from contributing to the further development of the empirical sciences of nature and society. In the dialectic method and content are inseparably linked. [. . . . ] It is therefore completely against the spirit of the dialectic, and especially of the materialist dialectic, to counterpose the dialectical materialist ?method? to the substantive results achieved by applying it to philosophy and the sciences.? [. . . . ] When the revolutionary movement and its practice came to a halt in the 1850s, there inevitably developed an increasing gap between the evolution of philosophy and that of the positive sciences, between the evolution of theory and that of practice: this has already been explained in Marxism and Philosophy. The result was that for a long period the new revolutionary conceptions of Marx and Engels survived and developed mainly through their application as a dialectical materialist method to the empirical sciences of society and nature. It is in this period that one finds statements, especially by the later Engels, formally proclaiming individual sciences to be independent of ?all philosophy?, and asserting that philosophy has been ?driven from nature and from history? into the only field of activity left to it: ?the theory of thought and its laws ? formal logic and dialectics?. [. . . . ] -------------------- By contrast, Lenin was interested only in maintaining a rigid adherence to materialist doctrine, and ?Marxism-Leninism? is even worse. ------------------ His ?materialist philosophy? becomes a kind of supreme judicial authority for evaluating the findings of individual sciences, past, present or future. This materialist ?philosophical? domination covers all the sciences, whether of nature or society, as well as all other cultural developments in literature, drama, plastic arts and so on; and Lenin?s epigones have taken it to the most absurd lengths. This has resulted in a specific kind of ideological dictatorship which oscillates between revolutionary progress and the blackest reaction. -------------- While in my view this essay lacks precision and specific reference at some key points, there is a central premise which I think lies at the foundation of the issues, and which remains inadequately understood today: the ?relationship between the totality of historical being and all historically prevalent forms of consciousness.? Here is where I get troubled about Korsch?s philosophical perspective: Lenin as Philosopher, 1938. http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1938/lenin-philosophy.htm Korsch takes off from Pannekoek?s analysis of Lenin as philosopher, which Korsch considers to be the first serious analysis. Pannekoek upholds the ideas of Dietzgen, Mach, and Avenarius. Not only does Korsch find Lenin?s grasp of contemporary scientific and philosophical developments fundamentally misguided as well as defamatory in orientation, but Korsch thinks that Lenin?s 1914 notebooks on Hegel as a symptom of the same malady. Korsch is much harsher than Pannekoek, who saw some justice in Lenin?s 1908 philosophical struggle against Bogdanov et al. ----------- This fallacy is that the militant character of a revolutionary materialist theory can and must be maintained against the weakening influences of other apparently hostile theoretical tendencies by any means to the exclusion of modifications made imperative by further scientific criticism and research. This fallacious conception caused Lenin to evade discussion on their merits of such new scientific concepts and theories that in his judgement jeopardised the proved fighting value of that revolutionary (though not necessarily proletarian revolutionary) materialist philosophy that his Marxist party had adopted, less from Marx and Engels than from their philosophical teachers, the bourgeois materialists from Holbach to Feuerbach and their idealistic antagonist, the dialectical philosopher Hegel. Rather he stuck to his guns, preferring the immediate practical utility of a given ideology to its theoretical truth in a changing world. This doctrinaire attitude, by the way, runs parallel to Lenin?s political practice. ------------ The attacks on the logical positivists as well as on Machian positivism are also based on ignorance and a misguided sense of militancy. ---------------- It is easy to see that this argument can be used in a twofold manner, as a theoretical attack against the confusion between philosophy and science underlying the earlier phases of positivism, and as a practical justification for keeping up that philosophical basis in spite of the belated discovery of its scientific unsoundness. However, the whole argument is not founded on any sound logical or empirical reasoning. There is no need either for the modern bourgeois scientist or for the Marxist to stick to an obsolete (positivistic or materialistic) ?philosophy? for the purpose of preserving his full and unbroken ?militancy? in the fight against that necessarily in all its forms ?idealistic? system of ideas which during the last century under the name of ?philosophy? has widely (though not completely) replaced medieval religious faith in the ideology of modern society. ------------------ Korsch as well as Pannekoek maintain that Leninist philosophy is unfit for revolutionary aims; at best it serves the needs of the Popular Front, concluding: ------------- This present-day Leninist ideology of the Communist parties which in principle conforms to the traditional ideology of the old Social Democratic party does no longer express any particular aims of the proletarian class. According to Pannekoek, it is rather a natural expression of the aims of the new class of the intelligentsia i.e., an ideology which the various strata belonging to this so-called new class would be likely to adopt as soon as they were freed from the ideological influence of the decaying bourgeoisie. Translated into philosophical terms, this means that the ?new materialism? of Lenin is the great instrument which is now used by the Communist parties in the attempt to separate an important section of the bourgeoisie from the traditional religion and idealistic philosophies upheld by the upper and hitherto ruling strata of the bourgeois class, and to win them over to that system of state capitalistic planning of industry which for the workers means just another form of slavery and exploitation. This, according to Pannekoek, is the true political significance of Lenin?s materialistic philosophy. ------------------------ This gets to the social root of the matter, although I would qualify the final sentence, replacing ?Lenin? with ?Marxist-Leninist?. Lenin himself both philosophically and politically is not so cut-and-dried a matter. I would question Korsch?s defense of Mach and Avenarius as constituting an advance in materialist philosophy, same with the logical positivists, though I would concur with objections to crude characterizations and defamation. Korsch?s thesis is comparable to Lukacs? argument in his lost ms Tailism and the Dialectic. See my review: Luk?cs? Lost Manuscript Tailism and the Dialectic Reviewed http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/lukacs-tailism.html Lukacs, unlike Korsch, capitulated to Stalinism, and so we didn?t know his manuscript existed until the Soviet archives were opened. The implied or explicit criticism of Soviet Marxism-Leninism and the pace of philosophical materialism in it to be found in Lukacs, Korsch, and Pannekoek can be found elsewhere, for example in the Johnson-Forest Tendency, which to my knowledge was influenced by neither (unless indirectly via Sidney Hook, which would just be speculation on my part). Presumably Korsch explains himself more thoroughly in his book, as I find in these essays gaps in the argument calibrating the relations among pre-critical materialism, dialectical materialism, science, praxis, etc. The key issue is, I reiterate, the ?relationship between the totality of historical being and all historically prevalent forms of consciousness.? I?m not immediately convinced that Korsch has solved this problem with respect to science, positivism, materialism, and Lenin?s philosophy, but it raises a fundamental dialectical perspective which the history of Marxist politics has effectively obscured. From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Wed Dec 24 11:34:16 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:34:16 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: <25416567.1230143656500.JavaMail.root@whwamui-soar.pas.sa.earthlink.net> "Condescension, and thinking oneself no better, are the same. To adapt to the weakness of the oppressed is to affirm in it the pre-condition of power, and to develop in oneself the coarseness, insensibility and violence needed to exert domination . . . . " -- Theodor W. Adorno I have re-posted my message on Karl Korsch. While it results from a different line of inquiry, its conclusions relate to the question of Marxism and religion. Let me reference again Korsch, in whose cited writings I see the key issue as the ?relationship between the totality of historical being and all historically prevalent forms of consciousness.? I also suggested that this issue foregrounds "a fundamental dialectical perspective which the history of Marxist politics has effectively obscured." I did not elaborate further. Now I'll just add a few relevant comments. It is a fundamental error to diagnose a situation solely from the perspective of instrumental politics. It has been virtually axiomatic among Marxists, save for sectarians, and as opposed to anarchists, not to make irreligion a criterion or policy for mass organizing, even while promoting a materialist philosophy among intellectually engaged people. Diplomacy is a tactical issue, not a matter of intellectual principle. The fact is, no matter how outspoken one may be, and I am more outspoken than most, no one can reveal all he thinks in all situations, but it is wise to know whom one is dealing with at all times and the implications of the mentalities one encounters, for how people think is indicative of the state of social evolution, whether one is in a position to change other people's minds or not. Hence, there is no issue with making qualified alliances with religious people, but it would be remiss to kowtow to the backward nonsense of liberation theology, which, after all, is a creation of intellectuals anyway. The physician's first duty is to cause no harm. If you fear contradicting other people's illusions, keep your mouth shut rather than encourage them. Surely we all have to do this. Many folks at Christmas gatherings tomorrow will have to bite their tongues, for example. Since almost all of the religious people I deal with are black Christians, I have to endure some ten-ton ignorance. I don't impose on them, and I'm not going to allow them to impose on me and mine. Let me repeat Korsch's phrase: ?relationship between the totality of historical being and all historically prevalent forms of consciousness.? This requires a broader view than the pragmatic question of whose ass I have to kiss to get over. Or for that matter, than the tacit motivation which feeds much of this kowtowing: "I feel guilty because I am not as miserable as those people and I shouldn't feel superior and I feel the need to belong, to join in, or suck up to them." There have been Marxist as well as generic secular humanist/atheist critiques of liberation theology, specifically Latin American liberation theology. I know I've read them but can't offer any references at this point. I use the term loosely to cover all manifestations of same, which I find quite repulsive. See for example my recent blog entry: Eddie Glaude Jr. & the bankruptcy of the black religious intellectual http://reasonsociety.blogspot.com/2008/12/eddie-glaude-jr-bankruptcy-of-black.html May you all enjoy Isaac Newton's birthday tomorrow to the fullest. -----Original Message----- > From: Ralph Dumain > Sent: Dec 23, 2008 8:45 AM > To: "marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu" > Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested > > I am puzzled as to how the question of reductionism is related to the question of liberation theology. Perhaps these were intended as separate questions. > > Re reductionism: note that the current location of my Emergence blog is: > > http://www.autodidactproject.org/blog/emergence/ > > If you read my introduction, you will see the main purpose of this blog: > > http://autodidactproject.org/blog/emergence/index.php/about/ > > I am attempting to track the divergent interpretations of emergence and their ideological and social motivations, some of which are quiter suspect. > > Does this at all relate to liberation theology? Perhaps there are links. For example, the obscurantist mystical-religious emergentism that comprises one strand of emergentism relates to the crisis of bourgeois society and its reversion to irrationalism. This strand of emergentism is financed in the millions of dollars by the reactionary Templeton Foundation. > > There have been linkages, affrimative linkages, between Marxism and religionism prior to the current epoch in which "liberation theology" was labeled as a trend. I will only single out one that points to one source of mystification: > > ?Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law? by Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury > > This is a chapter from the Red Dean Johnson's 1940 pro-Stalinist apologia The Soviet Power. Note his sophistical argument allying dialectical materialism with Christianity and opposing both to materialism. Presumably the latter is inter alia implicitly condemned as reductionist while diamat is consonant with a religious point of view. > > This, however, is not what we think of in the past decades as liberation theology. Formally, there is a trend in Latin America known as liberation theology. But of course there are various liberation theologies of various individuals, religions, dominations, and populations. Cornel West's "prophetic pragmatism" is one example, perhaps not as obnoxious as the black liberation theology that developed in the late '60s, but just as dishonest and retrograde in its intellectual content. > > On the Marxist side, attachment to liberation theology is either opportunistic or self-deceiving. Radical religionists attach themselves to various desired aspects of Marxism, but amalgamating class analysis with the obscurantist metaphysics of their religions, suitably sanitized to render them revolutionary. > > Aside from philosophical falsification, there is the deeper issue of the relation of social development to forms of consciousness, suitably repressed by both Stalinism and liberation theology. The deeper issue of dialectic is not simply one of materialism vs idealism, but the dialectical relation between consciousness and the state of society. > > -----Original Message----- > From: "farmelantj at juno.com" > Sent: Dec 23, 2008 6:50 AM > To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested > > > Concerning Marxism and theology, while I am > no expert on liberation theology, I am quite > aware that many leading 20th century theologians > took an interest in old Chuck (along with > Feuerbach, Nietzsche and Freud), including such > figures as Karl Barth, Reinhold Niebhur, and > Paul Tillich, to name just a few names. > The old social democrat, Michael Harrington, > was pretty good on this in his book, > *The Politics at God's Funeral*. Mark > Lindley and I discussed Harrington in > our essay, "Six Prominent American Freethinkers," > which is available online at: > http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/fl161208.html. > > One of our later posters. Ralph Dumain, has discussed > the issues of reductionism and emergence on a special > blog at: > http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/emergence-blog.html > > Jim Farmelant > > -- Susan F Dane wrote: > Dear Fellow-Subscribers: > I've recently subscribed and am receiving a variety articles. However > I'm looking for something specific pertaining to the following: > > I am currently beginning a study of 'liberation theology'. Marx and > his 'dialectic' keep coming up in a way presupposing the reader has > some understanding of what this is. > I'm pretty clueless and need some help trying to understand what an > atheist is doing (albeit not by his own direct actions) in the realm > of theology. > There have been some indications that this is somehow compatible with > or a natural consequence of the confidence human kind has been led to > place in 'science'... I'm not seeing a clear connection. > > I am lacking in the presuppositions to jump into the conversation > with much understanding. > > Anyone care to respond to the issue of "Marxism and 'reductionism'"? > > Any help is appreciated. Many thanks, Susan Dane From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Wed Dec 24 12:27:03 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 11:27:03 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: <20434877.1230146823550.JavaMail.root@whwamui-soar.pas.sa.earthlink.net> I think the link may have dropped out of this reference: ?Love Is the Fulfilling of the Law? by Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury So here it is: http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/HJ-SP1.html The Red Dean was hardly atypical of fellow-traveling Christian socialists who pimped for Stalinism. -----Original Message----- ....... >> This is a chapter from the Red Dean Johnson's 1940 pro-Stalinist apologia The Soviet Power. Note his sophistical argument allying dialectical materialism with Christianity and opposing both to materialism. Presumably the latter is inter alia implicitly condemned as reductionist while diamat is consonant with a religious point of view. .............. From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 24 18:41:18 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 20:41:18 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Revolutionary Role of the Human Mind Message-ID: Editorial: The Revolutionary Role of the Human Mind ?I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.? - Harriet Tubman, abolitionist and a conductor on the underground railroad. The historical truth of Harriet Tubman's words applies, not only to those held in human bondage, but also, to the indispensable role of the human mind in human liberation. She and the other abolitionists who fought to end slavery knew that as long as white Americans believed in, or complacently accepted, the existence of human slavery the country would never be able to free itself from the tyrannical and immoral sway of the slave power. They took every instance of injustice and cruelty and forced America to look not only at the barbarity of human bondage, but to look at itself, to judge itself against the ideals it espoused to the world. They forced whites to see that none could be free while millions remained in bondage. In so doing, they played the role of revolutionaries throughout history - freeing the mind to envision a different world, making possible the creation of something new. Society today is undergoing a great and perilous transition, or leap, one far more profound and far reaching than the transition to industry which began the break up of the slave order. The article ?Capitalism? examines the inner workings of capitalism and explores this shift and its meaning for revolutionaries. Electronic production has introduced a radically new means of production into the economy that is destroying capitalism ? the current stage of private property. As the report of the LRNA Standing Committee ?Private Property or Communism?? shows this revolutionary new technology wreaks havoc wherever it is introduced, tearing up the old order, and creating the possibility of a break in the continuity of private property itself. A new society will have to be built. But what will that society be and in whose interests will it be constructed? The American people will not be able to resolve this question in their favor unless they hold a vision of where they want to go and what they want to be. Revolutionaries are like the abolitionists of old, called to unshackle the mind, disseminate a vision of what is possible, and a strategy for its realization. As conditions grow worse, and they see their futures slipping away the American people are becoming more discontented, more restive. Yet, the American people still yearn to believe, are still tied by a million threads to the capitalists, are still vulnerable to their hope that their lives will be salvaged somehow and all will be as it was, or even how it was promised. full: _http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed4art3.html_ (http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed4art3.html) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 24 18:50:06 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 20:50:06 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Revolution in the Means of Production Message-ID: Revolution in the Means of Production In the context of the industrial revolution Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels discovered that social revolution is defined by a series of stages whose fundamental origins are technological revolution in the means ofproduction. As the technological revolution unfolds, the qualitatively new forces of production come into conflict with existing productive relations, and thus begins an epoch of social revolution that ends with new productive relations corresponding to the new technology. This discovery marks the beginning of genuine social science, and is the theoretical foundation for comprehending and facilitating the revolutionary process. The current revolution in the means of production that we are witnessing in the world today is the beginning of just such a process, the beginning stages of a revolution that fully confirms Marx and Engels' scientific discovery. In vol. 1 of Capital, Marx identifies the technological catalyst for the industrial revolution as the steam engine that revolutionized labor productivity in the existing European handicraft industries, concentrated the working class in urban settlements, and created an integrated world market. Improvements in steam technology by inventors such as James Watt are related to advances in the science of mechanics by thinkers such as Isaac Newton. These improvements transformed a local weaving industry into a global system of textile production and distribution, which led to the reconfiguration of the world economy and to political revolutions that swept feudalism off the map of Europe. Marx and Engels directly witnessed how the industrial revolution created a new class of proletarians that possessed no property other than their labor power. In the Communist Manifesto in 1848, Marx and Engels projected that this class would overthrow capitalism and create a communist society. We now know that this projection was premature: without the introduction of a new quality into the means of production which could facilitate the overthrow of capitalist relations, the industrial proletariat in Europe, North America and Japan fought fiercely with its capitalist employers for a share in the benefits of industrialization (e.g., higher wages, better working conditions,political rights, and so on). full: _http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed2art4.html_ (http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed2art4.html) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 24 18:55:04 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 20:55:04 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reorganization of the American State Message-ID: Reorganization of the American State full: _http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed2art5.html_ (http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed2art5.html) One, two and three-strike laws with long mandatory sentences, laws to try children as adults, the advent of zero-tolerance laws, the rise of ? quality-of-life? policing, and the aggressive enforcement of even the most petty of municipal codes, have served to both terrorize the poor and to make Americans the most incarcerated population on the globe. California alone holds more inmates than France, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands combined. The Bureau of Justice reported that in December 2006 over 2.25 million people were incarcerated in America?s jails and prisons. Most of them are poor and disproportionate numbers are African-American and growing numbers of Latin-American immigrants. Another three million people are on parole. The poor are arrested for asking for food, for sitting on a park bench, for jaywalking, or sleeping on the sidewalk. Parole requirements are so repressive that joblessness itself can be grounds to be returned to prison. As factories close their doors forever, prisons have become a crucial source of jobs. Over 700,000 people are currently employed by U.S. jails and prisons. Prisons and jails have become indispensable to many small towns and rural areas as the sole source of employment and the mainstay of local businesses. Profit making from Prisons The commodification, militarization and privatization of prisons full **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 24 19:16:21 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 21:16:21 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Populism in America Message-ID: Populism in America Editor?s note: Excerpted from the March 2005 report of The LRNA Steering Committee. America is heading toward a class confrontation. Every facet of society is beginning to polarize. Underlying it all is the qualitative change in the economy and the resulting antagonism between wealth and poverty. Polarization ? the separation and destruction of the bonds that hold a process together ? is a focal point for revolutionaries. Social transformation cannot take place without it. The polarization we are seeing today offers the opportunity for a historically new class movement for a cooperative world. For the process to reach fruition revolutionaries must provide the ideology, vision and scientific strategy needed to break the myriad of ideological and organizational bonds that tie the class to capitalism, freeing it to become a class for itself. This quantitative stage of the revolutionary process will be expressed in the class breaking its acceptance of capitalism and creating its own political party. Populism remains one of the main ideological weapons the rulers are using to prevent this from happening. Populism in American history The most important aspect of U.S. populism is its non-class outlook. This idea is based on the proposition from the 1776 Declaration of Independence that ?all men are created equal? and it has been reinforced by the specific history of the U.S.. This history has included political movements for reform in which sections of different classes have found themselves in temporary political alliances. full: _http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v17ed3art3.html_ (http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v17ed3art3.html) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Dec 24 19:20:56 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 21:20:56 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Human mind: The Key to Revolution . . . Free yo mind and yo ass will follow Message-ID: Editorial: The Key to Revolution Humans learning to create fire by friction laid the foundations for an entirely new world. No longer bound (or protected) by the natural laws of the animal kingdom, mankind had to learn to think. The long painful bloody journey from superstition to science is what human history is really all about. The women and men who struggled to understand the social significance of their ever-changing economic environment are the heroes of that history. As science emerged, outstanding thinkers struggled to apply scientific methodology - so successful in understanding the physical world - to understanding the evolution of society. Once it was understood that humanity's visions and beliefs were essentially the result - rather than the creator - of the real world, it was possible to develop a social science. Belief that the social order of exploiter and exploited was the natural order of things could be and was challenged. On the basis of social science it was possible to think creatively - to project what is possible under what conditions. In this way science transformed socialism from an unattainable dream into an attainable practical goal. Creative thinking does not mirror reality. It is abstract from and ahead of reality. No scientific projection can fully account for the millions of objective and subjective factors that shape and determine a future reality. Therefore, there are bound to be errors. As scientific thinkers projected new possibilities or probabilities, a tendency developed to form cults of true believers around their projections to protect them from these millions of factors. This, in turn, inhibited the actual development of the new, since it repressed any further new thinking. The political revolutionary movement, which is based on vision, must merge with a scientific understanding of the social significance of the constant quantitative and qualitative development of the means of production, since they define the possibilities of that political movement. Our social and economic conditions are in global revolution. Revolutionary thinking must change and keep up with these changing conditions. However, too many revolutionaries are stuck in the mud of yesteryear and attempt to make new realities fit the theories of a passing period. This compels them to cling more stubbornly to the written word and defend it against the very thing they are fighting for - that is, change. The heroic history-determining revolutionary movement based on the industrial worker in the mass industries is dying, because - despite their daily confrontation with a new reality - they cannot move past the scientific projections of yesteryear. This can and will happen to us unless every comrade feels obligated to intellectually contribute to the development of the movement. When it becomes acceptable to answer questions with a quote from an outstanding thinker rather than a concrete examination of a concrete problem, then that is no longer science. When ideology takes the place of theory as a guide to action, then the political movement has become separated from the practical activity of the class. When organizations are built around and restricted to the thinking of individuals, then the cause is lost. Global society has begun a leap comparable to the conquest of fire. Somewhere, a Capital for this epoch must be written. Development does not mean abandoning the old. It means absorbing and moving beyond it. History shows us that even a small organization of intelligent people, who have truly freed their minds of dogma and are willing to contribute their intellectual capital, are capable of using the vast social energy generated by economic revolution to create a new world. Karl Marx, undoubtedly the world's greatest revolutionary thinker, summed up all of his vast writing with the statement that the only truly revolutionary instrument is the human mind. Without it, nothing is possible. With it there is no force of earth capable of stopping us. _http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v17ed3art4.html_ (http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v17ed3art4.html) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Dec 24 19:32:55 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:32:55 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: It is not quite as interesting a question as say, questions that fall under "What does Marxism have to do with structuralism or with philosophy in general. " Theology finds a better fit with issues in hermeneutics or pondering Wittgenstein (who has been described as non-religious as well as Christian fundamentalist by his biographers). Liberation theology as I was forced to study it seems to emanate from European protestant Christianity of the 'catholic' type (e.g., Lutheranism). The Latin American versions seem to me to emphasize praxis and led to a split within the RCC, including a clamp-down from above and excommunications of priests and nuns. Some of this could be read in terms of a bottom-up RCC response to forms of fundamentalist and pentecostal Christianity and the huge in-roads these forms have made in the developing world. It seems to recapitulate the ways in which Jesuits, as footsoldiers for their God, ended up in conflict with the Pope as well as kings. The European Protestant versions sometimes results in high-church theologian types reaching the intellecutal conclusion that they are materialist atheists. See also the developments of European existentialism, both of a Christian and secular nature. I suggest this book, much of which you can access online, as a start. http://books.google.com/books?id=roYDpWaUicgC Page 11 Moreover, the encounter with Marxist analysis that enters into my argument has forced me to confront as well problems raised by Hegel. ... Page 34 The dialectic with Marx, as we will also see in greater detail later, would display at least four points of divergence from Marxist analysis: (1) the ... Page 93 We will see in the course of our argument that the scale of values is also the basic feature in an understanding of society that would reorient Marxist ... Page 94 A reorientation of Marxist analysis must be part of the work of what we will call a cosmopolitan intellectual collaboration devoted to the reversal of the ... Page 101 ... Marxist ... more ? Page 156 ... Marxist ... Page 208 ... Marxist ... Page 359 ... Marxist ... Page 361 The praxis of Marxist revolutionaries can easily be seen to appeal to this autonomous factor, while their theory does not acknowledge it in its autonomous ... Page 387 The application of this notion that we will make here will entail an encounter with some of the fundamental principles of the Marxist analysis of society. ... Page 388 Second, the real crux of the difference between the Marxist position and the view offered here - that is, my position on the relation of cultural values to ... Page 389 Moreover, the mistaken apprehensions of Marxist analysis, when joined to the passionate motivation that energizes Marxist praxis, are generative of a ... Page 390 pronounced and violent when rationalized by a persuasive ideology, whether that informing Marxist praxis or that constitutive of late liberalism. ... Page 401 There are certain constants in the Marxist perspective that skew the tension of limitation and transcendence throughout, and these must be kept in mind as ... Page 410 In the face of Marxist analysis, we shall argue with Lonergan that, while Marx indeed presented an analysis of what in fact can happen when group bias holds ... Page 411 Marxist positivism is far more subtle than most other varieties of intellectual capitulation to the status quo, but it is just as subject as these other ... Page 412 But the critique must awaken the real principle of reversal, and Marxist analysis does not meet the challenge. The principle of reversal is, again, ... Page 413 One merit of John McMurtry's book is that it answers this question in generalized Marxist terms, and thus displays a glaring discrepancy between the Marxist ... Page 414 Fourth, the fact that Marxist analysis can be turned on Marxist states is due, I believe, to a distortion of the dialectic of community that is structurally ... Page 427 Neither the mainline sociology of North America, which still prevails in many Latin American academic contexts, nor Marxist sociology, has proven adequate ... Page 434 ... of mainline North American sociology and of Marxist thought for providing an adequate tool of social analysis for theologians intent on liberation. ... Page 435 At this point, then, I must question the move that Segundo makes after he discloses the inadequacies of mainline North American and Marxist sociologies for ... Page 466 If one answers, the dialectic of community, one joins hands with a Marxist subordination of cultural and personal values to the social infrastructure, ... Page 474 Liberal democratic and Marxist political philosophies, albeit in quite different ways, in effect collapse the scale of values into the two more basic levels ... Page 475 We will grant that Marxist critique forces a dialectical clarification of the nature of genuine cultural, personal, and religious values; but we will agree ... Page 476 Regarding the second, Marxist analysis forces a specification from below, from the underside, of what precisely are the autonomous cultural values that ... Page 482 One of these, surely, is the global network constructed from the implementation of Marxist contradictions. But the other is the equally tentacular reach of ... Page 555 ... the Marxist assumption that out of more and more conflict utopia would emerge, the confusion of shorter and longer cycles, was clearly an anticipation ... Page 652 An exclusively suspicious hermeneutic of the human situation, whether Freudian, Marxist, or Nietzschean, is an invitation to nihilism, ... Page 708 ... is to state my own position in the context afforded by the effects of Marxist analysis (among which are various interpretations of Marxist texts). ... From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Wed Dec 24 21:54:56 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 20:54:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: <32186118.1230180896961.JavaMail.root@whwamui-ascend.pas.sa.earthlink.net> Thanks for the reference to this loathsome piece of shit, which reminds me that I neglected to mention the liberation theologians' critical engagement with Marxism, which involves points of agreement as well as metaphysical and theological disagreements. One major publisher for this srot of thing, I believe, is Orbis. I find this book interesting only in the sense that it can be useful to know one's enemies, particularly the depth at which their intellectual dishonesty operates. -----Original Message----- >From: CeJ >Sent: Dec 24, 2008 6:32 PM >To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu >Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested > >It is not quite as interesting a question as say, questions that fall >under "What does Marxism have to do with structuralism or with >philosophy in general. " Theology finds a better fit with issues in >hermeneutics or pondering Wittgenstein (who has been described as >non-religious as well as Christian fundamentalist by his biographers). > >Liberation theology as I was forced to study it seems to emanate from >European protestant Christianity of the 'catholic' type (e.g., >Lutheranism). > >The Latin American versions seem to me to emphasize praxis and led to >a split within the RCC, including a clamp-down from above and >excommunications of priests and nuns. > >Some of this could be read in terms of a bottom-up RCC response to >forms of fundamentalist and pentecostal Christianity and the huge >in-roads these forms have made in the developing world. It seems to >recapitulate the ways in which Jesuits, as footsoldiers for their God, >ended up in conflict with the Pope as well as kings. > >The European Protestant versions sometimes results in high-church >theologian types reaching the intellecutal conclusion that they are >materialist atheists. See also the developments of European >existentialism, both of a Christian and secular nature. > >I suggest this book, much of which you can access online, as a start. > >http://books.google.com/books?id=roYDpWaUicgC > > >Page 11 > >Moreover, the encounter with Marxist analysis that enters into my >argument has forced me to confront as well problems raised by Hegel. >... >Page 34 >The dialectic with Marx, as we will also see in greater detail later, >would display at least four points of divergence from Marxist >analysis: (1) the ... >Page 93 >We will see in the course of our argument that the scale of values is >also the basic feature in an understanding of society that would >reorient Marxist ... >Page 94 >A reorientation of Marxist analysis must be part of the work of what >we will call a cosmopolitan intellectual collaboration devoted to the >reversal of the ... >Page 101 >... Marxist ... >more ? >Page 156 >... Marxist ... >Page 208 >... Marxist ... >Page 359 >... Marxist ... >Page 361 >The praxis of Marxist revolutionaries can easily be seen to appeal to >this autonomous factor, while their theory does not acknowledge it in >its autonomous ... >Page 387 >The application of this notion that we will make here will entail an >encounter with some of the fundamental principles of the Marxist >analysis of society. ... >Page 388 >Second, the real crux of the difference between the Marxist position >and the view offered here - that is, my position on the relation of >cultural values to ... >Page 389 >Moreover, the mistaken apprehensions of Marxist analysis, when joined >to the passionate motivation that energizes Marxist praxis, are >generative of a ... >Page 390 >pronounced and violent when rationalized by a persuasive ideology, >whether that informing Marxist praxis or that constitutive of late >liberalism. ... >Page 401 >There are certain constants in the Marxist perspective that skew the >tension of limitation and transcendence throughout, and these must be >kept in mind as ... >Page 410 >In the face of Marxist analysis, we shall argue with Lonergan that, >while Marx indeed presented an analysis of what in fact can happen >when group bias holds ... >Page 411 >Marxist positivism is far more subtle than most other varieties of >intellectual capitulation to the status quo, but it is just as subject >as these other ... >Page 412 >But the critique must awaken the real principle of reversal, and >Marxist analysis does not meet the challenge. The principle of >reversal is, again, ... >Page 413 >One merit of John McMurtry's book is that it answers this question in >generalized Marxist terms, and thus displays a glaring discrepancy >between the Marxist ... >Page 414 >Fourth, the fact that Marxist analysis can be turned on Marxist states >is due, I believe, to a distortion of the dialectic of community that >is structurally ... >Page 427 >Neither the mainline sociology of North America, which still prevails >in many Latin American academic contexts, nor Marxist sociology, has >proven adequate ... >Page 434 >... of mainline North American sociology and of Marxist thought for >providing an adequate tool of social analysis for theologians intent >on liberation. ... >Page 435 >At this point, then, I must question the move that Segundo makes after >he discloses the inadequacies of mainline North American and Marxist >sociologies for ... >Page 466 >If one answers, the dialectic of community, one joins hands with a >Marxist subordination of cultural and personal values to the social >infrastructure, ... >Page 474 >Liberal democratic and Marxist political philosophies, albeit in quite >different ways, in effect collapse the scale of values into the two >more basic levels ... >Page 475 >We will grant that Marxist critique forces a dialectical clarification >of the nature of genuine cultural, personal, and religious values; but >we will agree ... >Page 476 >Regarding the second, Marxist analysis forces a specification from >below, from the underside, of what precisely are the autonomous >cultural values that ... >Page 482 >One of these, surely, is the global network constructed from the >implementation of Marxist contradictions. But the other is the equally >tentacular reach of ... >Page 555 >... the Marxist assumption that out of more and more conflict utopia >would emerge, the confusion of shorter and longer cycles, was clearly >an anticipation ... >Page 652 >An exclusively suspicious hermeneutic of the human situation, whether >Freudian, Marxist, or Nietzschean, is an invitation to nihilism, ... >Page 708 >... is to state my own position in the context afforded by the effects >of Marxist analysis (among which are various interpretations of >Marxist texts). ... > From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Dec 24 23:30:59 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 15:30:59 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Follow up. Try reading about and reading some of the works of: Ernst Bloch J?rgen Moltmann Rudolf Bultmann For secondary sources, for example, see: http://crs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/1-2/115 http://www.jstor.org/pss/2381215 CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 00:20:51 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:20:51 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Second and most likely last follow up: Starting with Hegel's dialectic, we could go very nicely to Feuerbach and Bruner, and then on to Marx--but also Kierkegaard as well. I've never approached Marx from a religious angle (had a religious angle forced down my throat while studying Wittgenstein though). However, it is actually a fascinating way to get a fresh handle on some rather old topics. So, starting with the 'Young Hegelians', we see how many had theology as their focus. We can even see prefiguring of where much of theology would go in the 20th century (though Stirner is interesting as a prefigurement of Nietzsche, as well as perhaps direct influence, but he is interesting in this discussion because he mocked not only religion but European atheist ideologies as crypto-Christian, a charge that would be brought against 'scientific socialism' in the term 'messianism'). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Hegelians Main Members [edit] David Strauss David Strauss wrote Das Leben Jesu (The Life of Jesus|The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined) in 1835, in which he argued - in a Hegelian framework - against both the supernatural elements of the Gospel and the idea that the Christian church was the sole bearer of absolute truth. He believed the Gospel stories were mythical responses to the situation the Jewish community at the time found themselves in. The idea that 'infinite reason' or 'the absolute' (i.e. broadly Hegelian notions of God) could be incarnated within a finite human being was particularly absurd. Moreover, the original teachings of Jesus, which were aimed at aiding the poor and downtrodden, had slowly been perverted and usurped by the establishment to manipulate and oppress the populaces of the world by promising them a reward in the afterlife if they refrained from rebellion against the powers that be in this. [edit] Bruno Bauer Bruno Bauer went further, and claimed that the entire story of Jesus was a myth. He found no record of anyone named "Yeshua of Nazareth" in any then-extant Roman records. (Subsequent research has, in fact, found such citations, notably by the Roman historian Tacitus and the Jewish historian Josephus, although these citations are not contemporaneous with Jesus' life and are widely viewed as forgeries.) Bauer argued that almost all prominent historical figures in antiquity are referenced in other works (e.g., Aristophanes mocking Socrates in his plays), but as he could not find any such references to Jesus, it was likely that the entire story of Jesus was fabricated [edit] Ludwig Feuerbach Ludwig Feuerbach wrote a psychological profile of a believer called Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity). He argues that the believer is presented with a doctrine that encourages the projection of fantasies onto the world. Believers are encouraged to believe in miracles, and to idealize all their weaknesses by imagining an omnipotent, omniscient, immortal God who represents the antithesis of all human flaws and shortcomings. [edit] Karl Neuwerck Karl Neuwerck was a lecturer of Hegelian philosophy in Berlin who lost his teaching license along with Bruno Bauer in 1842.[3] [edit] Arnold Ruge As an advocate of a free and united Germany, Arnold Ruge shared Hegel's belief that history is a progressive advance towards the realization of freedom, and that freedom is attained in the State, the creation of the rational General Will. At the same time he criticized Hegel for having given an interpretation of history which was closed to the future, in the sense that it left no room for novelty.[4] [edit] Max Stirner Max Stirner would occasionally socialize with the Young Hegelians, but held views much to the contrary of these thinkers, all of whom he consequently satirized and mocked in his nominalist masterpiece Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum (The Ego and Its Own). [edit] Younger Members [edit] Karl Marx Another Young Hegelian, Karl Marx, was at first sympathetic with this strategy of attacking Christianity to undermine the Prussian establishment, but later formed divergent ideas and broke with the Young Hegelians, attacking their views in works such as The German Ideology. Marx concluded that religion is not the basis of the establishment's power, but rather ownership of capital -- land, money, and the means of production -- lie at the heart of the establishment's power. Marx felt religion was just a smokescreen to obscure this true basis of establishment power, and indeed, was a vital crutch for the oppressed proletariat -- "the opium of the people," their sole solace in life which he would not wish to take away. [edit] Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels contributed alongside Karl Marx to The Communist Manifesto. Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (May 2008) [edit] August von Cieszkowski August Cieszkowski focused on Hegel's view of world history and reformed it to better accommodate Hegelian Philosophy itself by dividing it into Past, Present, and Future. In his Prolegomena to Historiosophy, Cieszkowski argues that we have gone from Art (the Past), which was a stage of contemplating the Real, to Philosophy (the Present), which is a contemplation of the Ideal, and that since Hegel's philosophy was the summing-up and perfection of Philosophy, the time of Philosophy was up, and the time for a new era has dawned - the era of Action. [5] [edit] Karl Schmidt [edit] Edgar Bauer Edgar Bauer, 1820-1886, was the younger brother of Bruno Bauer. According to Lawrence S. Stepelevich, Edgar Bauer was the most anarchistic of the Young Hegelians, and "...it is possible to discern, in the early writings of Edgar Bauer, the theoretical justification of political terrorism." [6] [edit] Legacy The Young Hegelians were not popular at the university due to their radical views on religion and society. Bauer was dismissed from his teaching post in 1842, and Marx and other students were warned that they should not bother submitting their dissertations at the University of Berlin, as they would certainly be poorly received due to their reputations. Then we could move on to the importance of further development of dialectic. Such as Marx but also Kierkegaard (noted for his application of a negative dialectic to his Christianity, and then a move towards 'a leap of faith', away from dialectics). Next, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism And then on to the foundations of dialectical theology, in which case see the works of and works about the following: Karl Barth Ernst Bloch Dietrich Bonhoeffer Emil Brunner Rudolf Bultmann Jacques Ellul Paul Lehmann J?rgen Moltmann Reinhold Niebuhr H. Richard Niebuhr William Stringfellow Eduard Thurneysen Paul Tillich ------------------- CJ From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Dec 25 00:36:58 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 02:36:58 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: In a message dated 12/25/2008 2:20:58 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, jannuzi at gmail.com writes: Second and most likely last follow up: Starting with Hegel's dialectic, we could go very nicely to Feuerbach and Bruner, and then on to Marx--but also Kierkegaard as well. I've never approached Marx from a religious angle (had a religious angle forced down my throat while studying Wittgenstein though). However, it is actually a fascinating way to get a fresh handle on some rather old topics. So, starting with the 'Young Hegelians', we see how many had theology as their focus. We can even see prefiguring of where much of theology would go in the 20th century (though Stirner is interesting as a prefigurement of Nietzsche, as well as perhaps direct influence, but he is interesting in this discussion because he mocked not only religion but European atheist ideologies as crypto-Christian, a charge that would be brought against 'scientific socialism' in the term 'messianism'). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Hegelians Main Members [edit] David Strauss David Strauss wrote Das Leben Jesu (The Life of Jesus|The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined) in 1835, in which he argued - in a Hegelian framework - against both the supernatural elements of the Gospel and the idea that the Christian church was the sole bearer of absolute truth. He believed the Gospel stories were mythical responses to the situation the Jewish community at the time found themselves in. The idea that 'infinite reason' or 'the absolute' (i.e. broadly Hegelian notions of God) could be incarnated within a finite human being was particularly absurd. Moreover, the original teachings of Jesus, which were aimed at aiding the poor and downtrodden, had slowly been perverted and usurped by the establishment to manipulate and oppress the populaces of the world by promising them a reward in the afterlife if they refrained from rebellion against the powers that be in this. [edit] Bruno Bauer Bruno Bauer went further, and claimed that the entire story of Jesus was a myth. He found no record of anyone named "Yeshua of Nazareth" in any then-extant Roman records. (Subsequent research has, in fact, found such citations, notably by the Roman historian Tacitus and the Jewish historian Josephus, although these citations are not contemporaneous with Jesus' life and are widely viewed as forgeries.) Bauer argued that almost all prominent historical figures in antiquity are referenced in other works (e.g., Aristophanes mocking Socrates in his plays), but as he could not find any such references to Jesus, it was likely that the entire story of Jesus was fabricated [edit] Ludwig Feuerbach Ludwig Feuerbach wrote a psychological profile of a believer called Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity). He argues that the believer is presented with a doctrine that encourages the projection of fantasies onto the world. Believers are encouraged to believe in miracles, and to idealize all their weaknesses by imagining an omnipotent, omniscient, immortal God who represents the antithesis of all human flaws and shortcomings. [edit] Karl Neuwerck Karl Neuwerck was a lecturer of Hegelian philosophy in Berlin who lost his teaching license along with Bruno Bauer in 1842.[3] [edit] Arnold Ruge As an advocate of a free and united Germany, Arnold Ruge shared Hegel's belief that history is a progressive advance towards the realization of freedom, and that freedom is attained in the State, the creation of the rational General Will. At the same time he criticized Hegel for having given an interpretation of history which was closed to the future, in the sense that it left no room for novelty.[4] [edit] Max Stirner Max Stirner would occasionally socialize with the Young Hegelians, but held views much to the contrary of these thinkers, all of whom he consequently satirized and mocked in his nominalist masterpiece Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum (The Ego and Its Own). [edit] Younger Members [edit] Karl Marx Another Young Hegelian, Karl Marx, was at first sympathetic with this strategy of attacking Christianity to undermine the Prussian establishment, but later formed divergent ideas and broke with the Young Hegelians, attacking their views in works such as The German Ideology. Marx concluded that religion is not the basis of the establishment's power, but rather ownership of capital -- land, money, and the means of production -- lie at the heart of the establishment's power. Marx felt religion was just a smokescreen to obscure this true basis of establishment power, and indeed, was a vital crutch for the oppressed proletariat -- "the opium of the people," their sole solace in life which he would not wish to take away. [edit] Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels contributed alongside Karl Marx to The Communist Manifesto. Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (May 2008) [edit] August von Cieszkowski August Cieszkowski focused on Hegel's view of world history and reformed it to better accommodate Hegelian Philosophy itself by dividing it into Past, Present, and Future. In his Prolegomena to Historiosophy, Cieszkowski argues that we have gone from Art (the Past), which was a stage of contemplating the Real, to Philosophy (the Present), which is a contemplation of the Ideal, and that since Hegel's philosophy was the summing-up and perfection of Philosophy, the time of Philosophy was up, and the time for a new era has dawned - the era of Action. [5] [edit] Karl Schmidt [edit] Edgar Bauer Edgar Bauer, 1820-1886, was the younger brother of Bruno Bauer. According to Lawrence S. Stepelevich, Edgar Bauer was the most anarchistic of the Young Hegelians, and "...it is possible to discern, in the early writings of Edgar Bauer, the theoretical justification of political terrorism." [6] [edit] Legacy The Young Hegelians were not popular at the university due to their radical views on religion and society. Bauer was dismissed from his teaching post in 1842, and Marx and other students were warned that they should not bother submitting their dissertations at the University of Berlin, as they would certainly be poorly received due to their reputations. Then we could move on to the importance of further development of dialectic. Such as Marx but also Kierkegaard (noted for his application of a negative dialectic to his Christianity, and then a move towards 'a leap of faith', away from dialectics). Next, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism And then on to the foundations of dialectical theology, in which case see the works of and works about the following: Karl Barth Ernst Bloch Dietrich Bonhoeffer Emil Brunner Rudolf Bultmann Jacques Ellul Paul Lehmann J?rgen Moltmann Reinhold Niebuhr H. Richard Niebuhr William Stringfellow Eduard Thurneysen Paul Tillich ------------------- CJ _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Dec 25 00:39:27 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 02:39:27 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O101-LiberationTheology.html Liberation Theology From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions | Date: 1997 | Author: JOHN BOWKER | ?? The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions 1997, originally published by Oxford University Press 1997. (Hide copyright information) Copyright information Liberation Theology (perhaps more accurately in the plural, Liberation theologies), an understanding of the role of theology in moving from abstraction to praxis, in which the actual condition of the poor is the starting-point. It was defined by H. Assmann as ?teologia desde la praxis de la liberaci?n? (? theology starting from the praxis of liberation?), and by G. Guti?rrez (b. 1928) as ?a critical reflection both from within, and upon, historical praxis, in confrontation with the word of the Lord as lived and experienced in faith? . Liberation theology arose in S. America out of ?an ethical indignation at the poverty and marginalisation of the great masses of our continent? ( L. Boff), and it is theology both lived and written ?from the underside of history? (Guti?rrez). It is Christian community in action, arising from what Frantz Fanon called The Wretched of the Earth (his final work, publ. months before he died in 1961). From the start, liberation theology saw itself as different from the social gospel programme of the turn of the century, epitomized in W. Rauschenbusch (1861?1919). Liberation theology saw itself facing a different agenda from that of Anglo-Saxon theology: for the latter, the agenda, set by unbelievers, is of how to speak of God in an unbelieving world. For liberation theology, the agenda is set by the question of the non-person: ?Our question is how to tell the non-person, the nonhuman, that God is love, and that this love makes us all brothers and sisters? (Guti?rrez). Major themes of liberation theology can be discerned in the titles of some of the leading books. Jesus Christ Liberator ( L. Boff, 1972) points out that in Christ, not words, but the Word was revealed in act, to make ?the utopia of absolute liberation? a topia, a place here and now. Church: Charism and Power ( L. Boff, 1981) contests the ?institutional fossilisation? of the centuries which has produced a hierarchical Church, oppressive and clerical, which cannot be amended by minor reform; in its place, Boff (and others) propose Iglesia popular, the church arising from the people by the power of the Holy Spirit (desde el pueblo por el Espiritu)?in which connection, the importance of base (ecclesial) communities is paramount. We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People ( G. Guti?rrez, 1984) took the phrase and argument of St Bernard that in matters of the spirit, one must draw first on one's own experience: whereas this has usually, in the past, been a matter of individual process, aimed at an improved interior life, in S. America the experience is communal, and often of solidarity for survival. The Power of the Poor in History ( G. Guti?rrez, 1983) reflects ?the preferential option for the poor ?: by this is meant that ?the poor deserve preference, not because they are morally or religiously better than others, but because God is God, in whose eyes ?the last are first???a mother with a sick child does not love her other children less just because she commits herself immediately to the child in need; it also allows the possibility that violence may be a necessary means of bringing about justice: ?We cannot say that violence is alright when the oppressor uses it to maintain or preserve order, but wrong when the oppressed use it to overthrow this same order.? The response of the Vatican to liberation theology was initially hostile, but became more circumspect. The second Latin American Episcopal Conference at Medell?n (CELAM II) in 1968 condemned institutionalized violence and the alliance of the Church with it; CELAM III at Puebla in 1979 endorsed the preferential option for the poor, commended base communities, and made ?a serene affirmation of Medell?n?. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, ignoring the more reflective findings of the International Theological Commission's Dossier of 1976, issued its Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation in 1984, and it summoned L. Boff to Rome for investigation, forbidding him, as a result, to lecture or publish?a ban that lasted for a year. The poverty of the analysis, thought by many to amount to a caricature, led to a second Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation (1986). This was to be read in conjunction with the first Instruction, and was not to be taken as contradicting it, but it is a far more positive document; nevertheless, Guti?rrez was banned from lecturing in Rome in 1994. Liberation theology has had extensive influence outside S. America. From the Detroit ?Theology in the Americas? Conference in 1975 (Proceedings, ed. S. Torres and J. Eagleson, 1976), the connections with black theology and with feminist theology were so clear that the phrase ?liberation theologies? became preferred. In 1976, the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) held its first meeting in Dar-es-Salaam, with a clear commitment to the struggle for a just society. Equally important has been the determination to require theology to arise from the context of experience (e.g. K. Koyama, Waterbuffalo Theology, 1974; C. S. Song, Third-Eye Theology, 1979; minjung theology in Korea, which takes the concept of people who are ruled and dominated, but who use the process of history to become free subjects). **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Dec 25 00:54:17 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 02:54:17 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: Liberation Theology after the End of History: The Refusal to Cease Suffering by Daniel M. Bell Jr.. 212 pgs. Read the complete book Liberation Theology after the End of History: The Refusal to Cease Suffering by becoming a questia.com member. Choose a membership plan to an academic-level library with more than 67,000 full-text books, 1.5 million articles, an entire reference set with a dictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus plus a collection of digital tools to organize your information. publication details Contributors: Daniel M. Bell Jr Publisher: Routledge Place of Publication: London Publication Year: 2001 Subjects: Liberation Theology, South America--Church History Table of contents CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix Introduction: the end of history 1 1 The infinite undulations of the snake: capitalism, desire, and the state-form 9 Savage capitalism 10 Three theses on contemporary capitalism 10 Capitalism and desire 12 Politics and ontology 13 Desire, capitalism, and the state-form 15 Governmentality and technologies of the self 19 Beheading the king: power beyond the state 19 Technologies of power 21 Pastoral power 21 Reason of state 23 The science of police and the disciplines 24 Economic government and the rise of liberalism 26 Civil society and government through freedom 29 Societies of control 30 Beyond madness? 32 2 The Church of the poor in the wake of capitalism?s triumph 42 The crisis in Latin American liberationist thought 43 Before the revolution: New Christendom in Latin America 45 The origins of New Christendom in Latin America 45 Distinguishing the spiritual and the temporal 46 Politics and the state 48 From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Dec 24 23:54:36 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 06:54:36 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: The crisis of New Christendom 51=20 A theology of liberation 55=20 The autonomy of the temporal 56=20 Salvation and politics 60 =20 Beyond New Christendom and statecraft, or not? 62=20 From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Dec 24 23:54:36 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 06:54:36 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: =20 From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Dec 24 23:54:36 2008 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 06:54:36 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: . . . to civil society 68=20 The Church of the poor after the end of history 70=20 3 Christianity, desire, and the terror of justice 85 =20 Christianity and desire 87=20 Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians 88=20 Objections 96=20 The desire for justice 99=20 What justice? 101=20 Catholic social teaching on justice 102=20 Justice in Latin American liberation theology 110=20 The terror of justice 123=20 Practical efficacy? 124=20 Theological adequacy? 130=20 4 The refusal to cease suffering: forgiveness and the liberation of desire=20 144=20 The gift of forgiveness 145=20 Theological adequacy 146 =20 Practical efficacy 149=20 Forgiveness as surrender? 153=20 Latin American liberationists on forgiveness 154 =20 Beyond justice 154=20 The primacy of justice 156 =20 Reservations concerning forgiveness 159=20 The therapy of forgiveness 161=20 God, grace, and the Church 162 =20 The crucified people 165=20 The judgment of grace 171=20 Honesty about the real 174=20 Conversion and the revolution of the forgiven 177=20 No salvation without reparations? 180=20 Forgiveness in absentia? 184 =20 The redemption of justice 186=20 The refusal to cease suffering: the risk of forgiveness 189=20 Disempowerment or a crucified power? 190=20 Endorsing suffering or suffering against suffering? 192=20 A wager on God 193=20 Index 205=20 =20 I: ROMANTICISM AND RESISTANCE=20 Mary Favret He died, and the world showed no outward sign. . . . He died, and his place= =20 . . . has never been filled up. Mary Shelley, Preface to The Poetical Works= =20 of Percy Bysshe Shelley Any objective method, duly verified, belies the=20 initial contact with the object. It must first scrutinize everything... II: CULTURE AND CRITICISM=20 Laurie Langbauer=20 Writing in the first issue of Cultural Studies , the Australian critic=20 Jennifer Craik cites Stuart Hall and Tony Bennett to argue that "the develo= pment=20 of cultural studies has seen an uneasy alliance. . . which overlooks the=20 intrinsic incommensurability...=20 > view all excerpts Advanced Search =20 =20 **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail,=20 Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now.=20 (http://www.aol.com/?optin=3Dnew-dp&icid=3Daolcom40vanity&ncid=3Demlcntaolco= m00000025) From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 00:56:43 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:56:43 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>Thanks for the reference to this loathsome piece of shit,<< Well for me the topic is something like a glass of sour milk being dashed onto the redhot glowing elements of an electric heater. Could anything good come from it? I tried by going back to the Young Hegelians. I guess some liberation theologians have ended their theological careers and become Marxists. As for knowing your enemies, that book's author, btw, is a disciple of Canadian theologian-philosopher, Bernard Lonergan. Now Lonergan had a lot to say about economics. It's a wonder the current economic transition team isn't dipping into him, looking for any ideas at all that don't have to be attributed to Marx-Engels-Lenin, in order to supplement their attempts to revive Keynes (actually revive the economy). CJ From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Dec 25 01:30:56 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 03:30:56 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: In a message dated 12/25/2008 2:57:08 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, jannuzi at gmail.com writes: >>Thanks for the reference to this loathsome piece of shit,<< Well for me the topic is something like a glass of sour milk being dashed onto the redhot glowing elements of an electric heater. Could anything good come from it? I tried by going back to the Young Hegelians. I guess some liberation theologians have ended their theological careers and become Marxists. CJ Comment I actually took part in the Liberation Theology in the Americas: Detroit 2 conference back in 1975 as a party assignment. 1975 . . . was a lifetime ago and I have long ago discarded the mountainous amount of literature on this subject of "The God of the Oppressed." I believe that there was a brief discussion of Liberation Theology on this list maybe 4 or five years ago with Ralph - being Ralph, being extremely vocal on the hypocrisy of Black Theology and Liberation Theology in general. 1975 was still part of the hay day of the movement and the strike wave in Detroit was in the process of peaking. On this basis a section of the organizing of the Detroit 2 Conference were eager for us "Black Communists" to be a part of this event. Although Cone is credited with the first modern attempts to merge Black Theology - Christianity, with Marxism, I believe - if memory serves me correct, that the young Cornel West did his "ghost writing." Now I remember why Ralph was upset. I stated that I had met Cornel West at this Conference and that he later introduced me to Kant and several other philosophers. At any rate, a Black Theology is rapidly losing its luster and appeal at this stage of post segregation America. Back in 1975 the attempt to merge - actually find common ground, with Marxism and "the Marxists" was due to the impact of the communists on the social struggle in America, and the passing over of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers to the California Communist League. Then again, most of the comrades in Detroit - not all, were not hostile to the Church and especially the small "store front" churches that are abundant in most black areas of any town USA. The Detroit 2 Conference actually bought together real organizers in the social movement. A few of these activists were hostile to the very idea of communism. On the level of "philosophy" absolutely no one - outside reactionaries, can dismiss the brilliance of Marx statement on the revolutionary process society passes through. Marx materialist conception of history is summarized in the Preface to his Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy. As a practical question it never occurred to me to challenge individuals about their belief system and I generally work with people around specific issues that do not require philosophic debate as a precondition for activity. Further, I long ago gave up philosophic discussions under the banner of being "anti-philosophy." After all the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The communist approach is to more accurately describe the world in which we live as the basis to grapple with the practical questions facing the proletarian movement. I leave the great philosophic debates to my betters. Waistline **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 01:38:36 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 17:38:36 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: One correction: >>Feuerbach and Bruner,<< I meant Bruno Bauer there (although see also Brunner in the discussion of dialectic in theology). CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 02:27:39 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 18:27:39 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Freak out of the week: I was trawling for stuff on Lonergan and came up with a Time.com archive article that dates 1965! http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,940894-1,00.html That was when Time still had extended discourse on real topics. I remember reading about how the Vietnam War was going in Time when my classmates were reading 'See Sue run. Sue runs fast. Tom runs fast too. Spot runs faster than either Sue or Tom. Perhaps if I had stuck with the school reading I would be more informed today? CJ From farmelantj at juno.com Thu Dec 25 03:47:08 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 05:47:08 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Have a happy and merry December 25 Message-ID: <20081225.054709.5688.1.farmelantj@juno.com> Today, as the world pauses on the birthday of one of history's greatest men, whose teachings continue to benefit the entire human race, let us join in toasting the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and of all the giants on whose shoulders he stood. Jim Farmelant ____________________________________________________________ Save $15 on Flowers and Gifts from FTD! Shop now at http://offers.juno.com/TGL1141/?u=http://www.ftd.com/17007 From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 03:59:01 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 19:59:01 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Have a happy and merry December 25 Message-ID: Was Newton really that great a man? CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 04:03:31 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 20:03:31 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: WL:>>As a practical question it never occurred to me to challenge individuals about their belief system and I generally work with people around specific issues that do not require philosophic debate as a precondition for activity. Further, I long ago gave up philosophic discussions under the banner of being "anti-philosophy." After all the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The communist approach is to more accurately describe the world in which we live as the basis to grapple with the practical questions facing the proletarian movement. I leave the great philosophic debates to my betters. << The irony being, I should think you could reach more people by trying to have philosophy debates and challenges of belief systems on an e-mail discussion list than you can in any curent 'proletarian movement'. To be quite honest, the communist movements to which you sometimes refer seem like more far-out fantasies than these discussions. CJ From farmelantj at juno.com Thu Dec 25 04:02:30 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 06:02:30 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Have a happy and merry December 25 Message-ID: <20081225.060230.5688.4.farmelantj@juno.com> On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 19:59:01 +0900 CeJ writes: > Was Newton really that great a man? In terms of his achievements, he most definately was. In terms of his personality and character, he was not so great. In fact he was often downright mean and nasty > > CJ > > _______________________________________________ > ____________________________________________________________ Click for free info on college degrees. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw1U6Sd10qGXz3gnGDysVzNIJnUPIXwU3NBypFt8AvEkKUXuB/ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 04:18:16 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 20:18:16 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Have a happy and merry December 25 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I found this one to get me into that holiday mood! http://www.historicist.com/newton/p1c4.htm I beheld, saith Daniel, till the Beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flames. As concerning the rest of the Beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. And therefore all the four Beasts are still alive, though the dominion of the three first be taken away. The nations of Chaldea and Assyria are still the first Beast. Those of Media and Persia are still the second Beast. Those of Macedon, Greece and Thrace, Asia minor, Syria and Egypt, are still the third. And those of Europe, on this side Greece, are still the fourth. Seeing therefore the body of the third Beast is confined to the nations on this side the river Euphrates, and the body of the fourth Beast is confined to the nations on this side Greece; we are to look for all the four heads of the third Beast, among the nations on this side of the river Euphrates; and for all the eleven horns of the fourth Beast, among the nations on this side of Greece. And therefore, at the breaking of the Greek empire into four kingdoms of the Greeks, we include no part of the Chaldeans, Medes and Persians in those kingdoms, because they belonged to the bodies of the two first Beasts. Nor do we reckon the Greek empire seated at Constantinople, among the horns of the fourth Beast, because it belonged to the body of the third. CJ -- Japan Higher Education Outlook http://japanheo.blogspot.com/ From farmelantj at juno.com Thu Dec 25 04:34:23 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 06:34:23 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Have a happy and merry December 25 Message-ID: <20081225.063423.5688.5.farmelantj@juno.com> On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 20:18:16 +0900 CeJ writes: > I found this one to get me into that holiday mood! > > http://www.historicist.com/newton/p1c4.htm > > Wikipedia has an article on Newton's studies of the occult: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton's_occult_studies ____________________________________________________________ Stuck in a dead end job?? Click to start living your dreams by earning an online degree. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw2kE6w78HMAmZuQyDssgHLw13d14PBn1J90AnTjIisQgheU5/ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 05:30:40 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 21:30:40 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Poem for the season Message-ID: http://www.dhfaf.com/poetry.php?name=Poetry&op=shqas&poemsid=422 In Jerusalem In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls, I walk from one epoch to another without a memory to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing the history of the holy . . . ascending to heaven and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love and peace are holy and are coming to town. I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone? Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up? I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me. All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly then I become another. Transfigured. Words sprout like grass from Isaiah's messenger mouth: "If you don't believe you won't believe." I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white biblical rose. And my hands like two doves on the cross hovering and carrying the earth. I don't walk, I fly, I become another, transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I? I am no I in ascension's presence. But I think to myself: Alone, the prophet Mohammad spoke classical Arabic. "And then what?" Then what? A woman soldier shouted: Is that you again? Didn't I kill you? I said: You killed me . . . and I forgot, like you, to die. From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Dec 25 05:36:31 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:36:31 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: In a message dated 12/25/2008 6:03:39 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, jannuzi at gmail.com writes: The irony being, I should think you could reach more people by trying to have philosophy debates and challenges of belief systems on an e-mail discussion list than you can in any curent 'proletarian movement'. To be quite honest, the communist movements to which you sometimes refer seem like more far-out fantasies than these discussions. CJ Comment We perhaps mean different things by communism and communist movement. Communism is not a new phenomenon and did not come into being with Marx. For over thousands of years, human society was organized on the basis of communist economic relations. People lived in gathering and hunting groups where cooperation was essential to survival. Human society organized into economic classes, with a dominant class living off the labor of exploited classes, is relatively new, and the economic system of capitalism has existed for less than 600 years. Almost all of human history is the history of common ownership of the means of production and distribution. By communism movement I generally mean the spontaneous movement of humanity toward cooperation that erupted with the overthrow of primitive communism. I tend to alternate using words like the "Marxist movement" or communist and Marxist movement to distinguish it from the spontaneous communist movement of humanity. There is of course a Marxist current - movement, that is more than 100 years old in America, with a coherent literary tradition at least 80 years old. Personally, I subscribed to a form of communism long before I ever heard of Marx. For those that enjoy it, there is nothing wrong with a philosophic tumble in the hay. Happy holidays. Waistline **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 05:45:47 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 21:45:47 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>By communism movement I generally mean the spontaneous movement of humanity toward cooperation that erupted with the overthrow of primitive communism. I tend to alternate using words like the "Marxist movement" or communist and Marxist movement to distinguish it from the spontaneous communist movement of humanity. There is of course a Marxist current - movement, that is more than 100 years old in America, with a coherent literary tradition at least 80 years old. << Are you sure you aren't talking about a rock concert or something? CJ From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Dec 25 15:04:52 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2008 17:04:52 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested Message-ID: In a message dated 12/25/2008 7:45:52 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, jannuzi at gmail.com writes: >>By communism movement I generally mean the spontaneous movement of humanity toward cooperation that erupted with the overthrow of primitive communism. I tend to alternate using words like the "Marxist movement" or communist and Marxist movement to distinguish it from the spontaneous communist movement of humanity. There is of course a Marxist current - movement, that is more than 100 years old in America, with a coherent literary tradition at least 80 years old. << Are you sure you aren't talking about a rock concert or something? CJ Comment Yea, I am pretty sure that the history of the Marxist movement in America is art best only marginally related to rock concerts, although our Marxist/communist group in Detroit always gave wonderful parties and huge dance fundraiser's. Actually, much of the literary history of the Marxist movement - or organized Marxist political currents, can be traced through their literature, much of it donated to libraries. By the early 1980's I had managed to collect most copies of the CPUSA journal "Political Affairs" between roughly 1930 and 1979. Many people were won over to Marxism on one level or another between 1955 (the outbreak of the Civil Rights moment as mass movement, i.e. Montgomery Alabama., and the peaking of the so-called "Young Communist Movement" in the late and early 1980." In this regard Max Elbuam's "Revolution in the Air" does a fine job of chronicling the Marxist organizations of the 1980s and early 1980's. Then of course those with political Trotskyism in their history can consult the SWP literature. I am convince beyond any doubt that America is on the verge of the outbreak of a different kind of mass movement. No matter how one understands the significance of the Obama election - and it was significance in the meaning of overcoming the historical barrier of racial hate in regard to voting for a black for president, perhaps 2 - 3 million people in total took to out door rally's in support of Obama. Such a movement of people has not been witnessed in America since the stormy days of the Civil Rights Movement. There are many important lessons of history to be gleamed by anyone serious enough to study the history of the American Marxist movement on the one hand and the outbreak of the spontaneous movement of the masses as a mass movement. In as much as there is no evidence I am aware of that capital is going to solve this particular financial and overproduction crisis in the next week, it seems that economic matters for the masses are going to become worse in 2009. Perhaps we will once again see the proliferation of various communist/Marxist press and a demand for Marxist literature of all kinds. Including the relationship of/between Marxism and Theology. Waistline **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Dec 25 19:59:05 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 11:59:05 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Really, WL, your gidiness is contagious. I too am hopeful now that GMAC has become a bank and GM got a federal loan to keep overproducing. And I can't wait for those outdoor Demoncratic Corn Soup Rallies of 2012! CJ -- Japan Higher Education Outlook http://japanheo.blogspot.com/ From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Dec 26 00:28:40 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 02:28:40 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] specific help requested :( Message-ID: In a message dated 12/25/2008 9:59:14 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, jannuzi at gmail.com writes: Really, WL, your gidiness is contagious. I too am hopeful now that GMAC has become a bank and GM got a federal loan to keep overproducing. And I can't wait for those outdoor Demoncratic Corn Soup Rallies of 2012! CJ Comment If I am not mistaken GM/GMAC is 51% own by . . . Cerberus, that happens to own 81% of Chrysler. Daimler owns 19% of Chrysler. I looked at the early talks of a possible merger of Chrysler with GM very suspiciously. I see no way out of the crisis and suspect that both GM and Chrysler will collapse one way or another. Stabilization is not only possible but probable, on the basis of ruining millions. For most of this decade the new vehicle market ran at a 17 million unit clip. If the auto market for new vehicles remain 10.5 million this year and in 2009 - and it probably will, the collapse of one of the Detroit makers are certain. It is not simply a matter of overproduction but overcapacity, which will be further heightened when the production of electric vehicles - which calls for newer factories with another level of advanced technology, begins and then is stabilized. I do remember when it took 120,000 Chrysler workers to produce 2.5 million vehicles, which today can be produced by 43,000. And Chrysler plants are not world class. Further, the first three months of the years are generally the weakest for auto sales even during boom times! Someone is going to hit the wall. Probably Chrysler my old employer. I do not see nationalization of auto or the banking industry as a temporary or partial solution. Nationalization is going to be dangerous and complex in America because a section of capital wants to expand the role of the corporation on the basis of expanded state "intervention" over every aspect of social life and apparently we will be dragged into some form of nationalization willingly or unwillingly. Much of the problem is that the union leaders are more than less hopelessly right wing Social democrats (although many like to think of themselves as left wing) and the mass of auto workers only become revolutionized and open to new ideas in the face of their impending doom or the loss of their historic status as the bulwark of the industrial Middle class. Also hitting the wall is the old stale theory of the industrial proletariat in unions as leader and vanguard of the workers - labor movement. The auto workers should have been hit the street and marching on Washington in protest demanding government protected socially necessary means of life and all the concessions over mortgages and everything else one feels the middle class need. Life is indeed strange. Is it me or is it a more than less fact that only one generation of American workers have gotten a reasonable pension? I think it is going to be relatively easy to educate our working class and present it with some new ideas, provided we actually come up with new ideas.:) I will of course be very glad when someone or a group of folks figure out the path of our own revolution, rather than rehashing Lenin for the millionth time. Hell, Lenin and his crew overthrew the feudal order and later defeated the representatives of capital in the political contest. We need some hard stuff about a modern capitalist country. Ugggghhh, the soup lines have already started. No need to wait for 2012. :( Waistline **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Dec 26 00:47:42 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 02:47:42 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Day the Earth Stood Still: Excellent Review IMO Message-ID: (I did you see the movie and was totally disappointed. Now I know why.:-) Les wrote: "Keanu Reeves was the only good thing about the dreadful remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still ...." I guess in the sense that there was no trace of human personality in the performance, so if your aliens are meant to act like a pet rock, then it makes sense. But the movie was so stupid and incoherent that even this characterization fell apart. First, the idea that the entire biosphere needed to be wiped clean is so monumentally stupid it can only be compared to the infamous "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" from Vietnam. In this sense, this new Klaatu is extremely American. Second, the guy is on a mission to deliver a message to the United Nations. The first person he asks says no, so he decides the entire biosphere has got to go, except that he and his friends had already prepositioned a bunch of arks for such an eventuality. Talk about prejudicing the outcome. And the whole Noah's Ark idea that is central to the movie is just hoaky. "Saving as many species as they can" isn't adequate remediation for ecocide, as a race intelligent enough to recognize humanity is on an ecocidal trajectory would surely understand. The presumably final decision to go ahead and do the wipe is made in the middle of what is in essence an intrusive McDonald's commercial, but the long-time spy the aliens have had on the planet refuses to leave preferring to be destroyed as a human being. You'd think that would have given pause to someone from an advanced civilization that even their own guy found something of such great value here (implausible as that part of the movie is) that he prefers to die with the humans than to go on living without them. Inconsistencies abound. For example, when they get caught by a state trooper, Klaatu chooses to crush him with a car and then resuscitate him, instead of simply disarming him. And Klaatu quite considerately WAITS until AFTER the state trooper has reported in before dealing with him. Similarly, it takes the nanorobotic swarm about three seconds to demolish an entire stadium, but once they get into the kid and his mom, they go into ultra-slo-mo molasses mode so there can be an appropriate amount of time for Keanu Reeves's failed attempts to emote and then for him to cast some more of that alien magic pulling the robotic locusts into his body. We see close-ups of the nanobots a couple of times and see that how they destroy is to simply eat everything in sight. Yet the kid, on the verge of dying with the nanobots in him, makes a miraculous immediate recovery as soon as Klaatu takes them into his own body, never mind the damage they had ALREADY done. And then there's stuff that just grates. Instead of the Einsteinian figure in the original movie, the woman takes Klaatu to meet with John Cleese of Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame. I know, I know, it is supposed to be the world's leading scientist who just happens to be a close pal of the woman, and who won a Nobel Prize for his work in biological altruism. (Altruism! Get it?). But it is John Cleese just the same -- a complete distraction especially as he is only allowed 4 or 5 lines to establish his character, which they fail to do miserably. The blackboard scene from the first movie is repeated except here it makes no sense: what is a Nobel Prize Winning biologist doing writing equations on a blackboard about relativistic physics? Moreover, with the Nobel Laureate's prot?g? (the woman) introducing and vouching for Klaatu, there should be no need for this sort of demonstration on Klaatu's part. And finally, who uses chalk on a blackboard any more? Shouldn't the world's leading biologist AND physicist at least have a whiteboard, if not a touch-screen five-foot-tall plasma display, like the way-cool ones CNN had for the elections to graphically plumb the heights of electoral cretinism? And then of course there's the final tidbit -- after having committed genocide and ecocide on a massive albeit not complete scale, and WRONGLY so, because he reverses course, Klaatu then hops into his sphere and turns out the lights -- not on the preposterous looking spaceship, but throughout the entire planet. Then without even a mumbling word of apology or explanation, he just leaves. At least the dolphins had the decency to say, "So long, and thanks for all the fish." As the credits begin to roll we're left wondering whether Klaatu implicitly lied to the woman and kid, making it SEEM like they would survive but instead, by making human technology useless, causing the collapse of civilization and thereby the elimination of nearly the entire human race by a long-term turning off of the lights. And if that option WAS available, wasn't the planned ecocide even more of a crime, not only against humanity, but against nature, the earth, itself? Or if the effect was just short term, and the laws if physics would soon be back to normal, was Klaatu too dense to see that what he had just done --wiped out the heart of the eastern United States-- would undoubtedly lead the humans to subordinate EVERYTHING ELSE, including the environment, to developing the technology that might fend of another such unprovoked (as far as the humans know) attack and to eventually enable humanity to search the heavens for the perpetrators in order to prevent another such attack by wiping them out? In other words, is Klaatu entirely clueless that the likely consequences of his intervention would be PRECISELY the opposite of those presumably intended by him? * * * The classic science fiction movies of the 1950's really made their mark a few years later, as TV stations experimenting with post-prime-time programming broadcast them and they found a ready audience among radicalizing young people. They found an audience because they were socially relevant --the anti-communist hysteria, for example, mirrored in the attitude towards Klaatu in the 1951 "The Day the Earth Stood Still," in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and in a different way by the monsters from the ID of "Forbidden Planet." There were, of course, many other "lesser" movies, mostly produced as low-budget "B" movies (filler for Saturday afternoon "double features"). The truth is that in the 50's and much of the 60's, there was no room in the very limited mainstream media of those days for a frontal attack on the government or U.S. society. So seemingly quite distant settings became the vehicles not exactly for dissident views, but mostly for posing questions in a dissident way or whose answers pointed in a dissident direction. How much of it was due to the zeitgeist and how much due to conscious and even self-conscious choice by filmmakers is an open question. George A. Romero, Night of the Living Dead "auteur," denies that the execution of Ben in that movie, the lead anti-zombie character, who is Black, by an anti-zombie white cracker posse, was at all a reference to the "racial tensions" of the late 60's, and that a Black actor was cast in the lead simply because he was the best actor they could get on an extremely limited budget. But the plain fact is that the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King took place shortly before Romero and his friends started shooting, and still traumatized the nation towards the end of the year when the movie was released. And as a High School senior who managed to catch the film when it was fleetingly shown in Miami one weekend, I had no doubt what its message was. Shot in stark, black and white tones reminiscent of Vietnam news footage, it would be decades before I learned Romero also always claimed they did it in black and white because they couldn't afford color. Whatever. I could cite other incidents of those years to make my point. I think it was the summer of 1964, I got to go to the Miami premiere of a Hard Day's Night by winning a radio contest, which asked listeners to call in with the line the alien said to the woman in the Day the Earth Stood still to tell the robot not to destroy the earth. "Platu Mirada Nick Toe" is what I heard, (not the "Klaatu barada nicto" that seems to be the more precise transcription) but it was close enough and I won the prize -- tickets to the premiere and a copy of the album. WHY did I as a 13-year-old remember the phrase from some 1951 B-movie that I'd seen on late-night TV? Because even then I was starting to radicalize, I think, and the movie spoke, not just to my concerns, but to those of a generation. Not the generation for which it was made, but the one that came after. That is, I think, the *fundamental* problem with this remake, and not just this one. This production was billed as a "re-imagining" of the movie in the present day, i.e., the waning phase of Bush's second term. But they did not have the courage to raise the real hot-button issues of THIS day and age. Early in the new movie, Klaatu is subjected to interrogation. But it is brief, and after the interrogator refuses to even acknowledge Klaatu's EXTREMELY flat statement to the effect that "you should let me go," Klaatu uses his magical powers to bust loose and move on to the chase sequences that replace the missing heart of this movie. To make the 1951 movie for today, Klaatu would need to be electro-shocked, beaten and water-boarded. And the character would have to have some good, rational motivation for putting up with it, without exercising his super-powers, and then eventually deciding to make use of them. Instead, the movie chooses to take up the use of --presumably-- a "truth serum" in the interrogation. No guts, none whatsoever. But perhaps even taking on torture would not have worked, because the point of the Day the Earth Stood Still in the 50's and early 60's is that it evoked the madness of the arms race and "Mutually Assured Destruction," the commies-under-the-bed hysteria which had begun to wane but was still being crammed down the throats of high school students in courses with names like "Americanism versus Communism." And you could not find any criticism of those things in the "mainstream" media which is the only media 99% of us had access to. TODAY it may not be mainstream, but a criticism, nay, denunciation of U.S. torture policy and the U.S. role in the world in general is easily accessible to virtually all high schoolers in the U.S. via the Internet. Back then, I remember scouring libraries and bookstores in Miami looking for Bernard B. Fall's book, "The Two Vietnams" and treasuring the "Where is Vietnam?" collection of poems that I'd found at the "beatnik" bookstore in Coconut Grove. But in an age when "An inconvenient Truth" can win Oscars and the book version top the New York Times best-seller list for weeks, what point is there to a movie like this? Sure the 1951 original pulled its punches, but at least they were punches. But you can't make that movie today. To me, one of the strongest, perhaps the strongest scene in the 1951 original is where we scan the faces of the various kinds of people present at this world assemblage pulled together by the film's Einstein character, and we come across a Black man's face. Yes, they pulled that punch. The man was wearing a clerical collar. But in a film set in DC, then as now heavily Black, which had not yet strayed across a Black face, not even mopping a floor, that the wisest of the wise would INCLUDE a Black person in the assembly to listen to Klaatu's message was a powerful statement. The new version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" fails because it is a fake and a fraud. A phony. In 1951, some filmmakers had the courage to at least RAISE important issues that were censored out of public discourse. No matter how indirectly these were raised, nor how many punches they pulled, they did something socially significant. TODAY gutless wonders like studio execs and Keanu Reeves (who not only "starred" but played a significant role in shaping the script and story line) don't even dare raise the issue of torture and raise environmental concerns only to make their movie seem "relevant" and "edgy" while having such contempt for their audience that the "environmental" champion in their movie proposes to destroy the planet in order to "save" it -- and makes a fairly good start of it before changing his mind. But EVEN IF they had not completely messed it up the movie still would not have worked. It was the broader social context and atmosphere that made those films of the 50's great. It is not enough to "re-imagine" for today by changing the issue from war to the environment and the alien's action from a stunning yet basically harmless parlor trick by way of warning to genocide. What they did in the 50's was to *create* something new -- which is the last thing media conglomerates have a stomach for. Joaqu?n ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: _Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu_ (mailto:Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Dec 26 03:53:51 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:53:51 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Recession Sparks Huge Jump In Shoplifting Message-ID: Recession Sparks Huge Jump In Shoplifting The vast majority of crime is ultimately economic in nature, despite the way we are often portrayed in the media as natural-born criminals. As the economy plunges or stagnates we will continue to see crime of this nature increase. Robberies, house break-ins, shoplifting, and drug-dealing will definitely increase as people do anything to make ends meet. It is a sad situation, and on top of it all they are going to portray us as criminal when the real criminals are the people who put us in the situation where we can?t make ends meet. To villify and slander broke people as they scramble for some crumbs doesn ?t make much sense to me, but that is their only option other than actually looking at the system and the vast inequality in this country (and world). Since they will never take a deeper look at it, it is up to us to defend so-called ?criminals? against being the scapegoats for a bankrupt system that puts profit above people. full: http://www.malcolm-che.com/category/economics/ **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Fri Dec 26 05:36:48 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 04:36:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Day the Earth Stood Still: Excellent Review IMO Message-ID: <8761393.1230295010323.JavaMail.root@whwamui-ascend.pas.sa.earthlink.net> So none of you folks actually slept last night? No one slept off Xmas? I slept like a baby after a long day of preparing for guests and then eating like a maniac. Anyway, I'm gladder than ever I decided not to see this travesty. The original "THe Day the Earth Stood Still" was a classic that still holds up remarkably. Anjd I used to live a couple blocks away from where Klaatu took up residence. There is an ineresting backstory to the film. The movie mogul who greenlighted the original--I forget which SOB it was--did so, disregarding its pacifist message, simply because he saw it was a good story and good make money. And voila. I hate all these remakes, because it's all about ramped up special effects, whilst whatever content the originals had is gutted. Hollywood fucked up the remake "Planet of the Apes" as they did so many other classics. It's bad enough these motherfuckers can't come up with new ideas, but they have to go and defile the good movies they managed to crap out. Yet another symptom of the dumbed-down millennium. -----Original Message----- >From: Waistline2 at aol.com >Sent: Dec 25, 2008 11:47 PM >To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu >Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Day the Earth Stood Still: Excellent Review IMO > >(I did you see the movie and was totally disappointed. Now I know why.:-) > > >Les wrote: "Keanu Reeves was the only good thing about the dreadful remake >of The Day the Earth Stood Still ...." > >I guess in the sense that there was no trace of human personality in the >performance, so if your aliens are meant to act like a pet rock, then it >makes sense. > >But the movie was so stupid and incoherent that even this characterization >fell apart. > >First, the idea that the entire biosphere needed to be wiped clean is so >monumentally stupid it can only be compared to the infamous "we had to >destroy the village in order to save it" from Vietnam. In this sense, this >new Klaatu is extremely American. > >Second, the guy is on a mission to deliver a message to the United Nations. >The first person he asks says no, so he decides the entire biosphere has got >to go, except that he and his friends had already prepositioned a bunch of >arks for such an eventuality. Talk about prejudicing the outcome. > >And the whole Noah's Ark idea that is central to the movie is just hoaky. >"Saving as many species as they can" isn't adequate remediation for ecocide, >as a race intelligent enough to recognize humanity is on an ecocidal >trajectory would surely understand. > >The presumably final decision to go ahead and do the wipe is made in the >middle of what is in essence an intrusive McDonald's commercial, but the >long-time spy the aliens have had on the planet refuses to leave preferring >to be destroyed as a human being. You'd think that would have given pause to >someone from an advanced civilization that even their own guy found >something of such great value here (implausible as that part of the movie >is) that he prefers to die with the humans than to go on living without >them. > >Inconsistencies abound. For example, when they get caught by a state >trooper, Klaatu chooses to crush him with a car and then resuscitate him, >instead of simply disarming him. And Klaatu quite considerately WAITS until >AFTER the state trooper has reported in before dealing with him. Similarly, >it takes the nanorobotic swarm about three seconds to demolish an entire >stadium, but once they get into the kid and his mom, they go into >ultra-slo-mo molasses mode so there can be an appropriate amount of time for >Keanu Reeves's failed attempts to emote and then for him to cast some more >of that alien magic pulling the robotic locusts into his body. We see >close-ups of the nanobots a couple of times and see that how they destroy is >to simply eat everything in sight. >Yet the kid, on the verge of dying with the nanobots in him, makes a >miraculous immediate recovery as soon as Klaatu takes them into his own >body, never mind the damage they had ALREADY done. > >And then there's stuff that just grates. Instead of the Einsteinian figure >in the original movie, the woman takes Klaatu to meet with John Cleese of >Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fame. I know, I know, it is supposed to be >the world's leading scientist who just happens to be a close pal of the >woman, and who won a Nobel Prize for his work in biological altruism. >(Altruism! Get it?). But it is John Cleese just the same -- a complete >distraction especially as he is only allowed 4 or 5 lines to establish his >character, which they fail to do miserably. > >The blackboard scene from the first movie is repeated except here it makes >no sense: what is a Nobel Prize Winning biologist doing writing equations on >a blackboard about relativistic physics? Moreover, with the Nobel Laureate's >prot?g? (the woman) introducing and vouching for Klaatu, there should be no >need for this sort of demonstration on Klaatu's part. And finally, who uses >chalk on a blackboard any more? Shouldn't the world's leading biologist AND >physicist at least have a whiteboard, if not a touch-screen five-foot-tall >plasma display, like the way-cool ones CNN had for the elections to >graphically plumb the heights of electoral cretinism? > >And then of course there's the final tidbit -- after having committed >genocide and ecocide on a massive albeit not complete scale, and WRONGLY so, >because he reverses course, Klaatu then hops into his sphere and turns out >the lights -- not on the preposterous looking spaceship, but throughout the >entire planet. Then without even a mumbling word of apology or explanation, >he just leaves. > >At least the dolphins had the decency to say, "So long, and thanks for all >the fish." > >As the credits begin to roll we're left wondering whether Klaatu implicitly >lied to the woman and kid, making it SEEM like they would survive but >instead, by making human technology useless, causing the collapse of >civilization and thereby the elimination of nearly the entire human race by >a long-term turning off of the lights. And if that option WAS available, >wasn't the planned ecocide even more of a crime, not only against humanity, >but against nature, the earth, itself? > >Or if the effect was just short term, and the laws if physics would soon be >back to normal, was Klaatu too dense to see that what he had just done >--wiped out the heart of the eastern United States-- would undoubtedly lead >the humans to subordinate EVERYTHING ELSE, including the environment, to >developing the technology that might fend of another such unprovoked (as far >as the humans know) attack and to eventually enable humanity to search the >heavens for the perpetrators in order to prevent another such attack by >wiping them out? > >In other words, is Klaatu entirely clueless that the likely consequences of >his intervention would be PRECISELY the opposite of those presumably >intended by him? > >* * * > >The classic science fiction movies of the 1950's really made their mark a >few years later, as TV stations experimenting with post-prime-time >programming broadcast them and they found a ready audience among >radicalizing young people. They found an audience because they were socially >relevant --the anti-communist hysteria, for example, mirrored in the >attitude towards Klaatu in the 1951 "The Day the Earth Stood Still," in >"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and in a different way by the monsters from >the ID of "Forbidden Planet." > >There were, of course, many other "lesser" movies, mostly produced as >low-budget "B" movies (filler for Saturday afternoon "double features"). > >The truth is that in the 50's and much of the 60's, there was no room in the >very limited mainstream media of those days for a frontal attack on the >government or U.S. society. So seemingly quite distant settings became the >vehicles not exactly for dissident views, but mostly for posing questions in >a dissident way or whose answers pointed in a dissident direction. > >How much of it was due to the zeitgeist and how much due to conscious and >even self-conscious choice by filmmakers is an open question. George A. >Romero, Night of the Living Dead "auteur," denies that the execution of Ben >in that movie, the lead anti-zombie character, who is Black, by an >anti-zombie white cracker posse, was at all a reference to the "racial >tensions" of the late 60's, and that a Black actor was cast in the lead >simply because he was the best actor they could get on an extremely limited >budget. > >But the plain fact is that the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King took >place shortly before Romero and his friends started shooting, and still >traumatized the nation towards the end of the year when the movie was >released. And as a High School senior who managed to catch the film when it >was fleetingly shown in Miami one weekend, I had no doubt what its message >was. Shot in stark, black and white tones reminiscent of Vietnam news >footage, it would be decades before I learned Romero also always claimed >they did it in black and white because they couldn't afford color. > >Whatever. > >I could cite other incidents of those years to make my point. > >I think it was the summer of 1964, I got to go to the Miami premiere of a >Hard Day's Night by winning a radio contest, which asked listeners to call >in with the line the alien said to the woman in the Day the Earth Stood >still to tell the robot not to destroy the earth. "Platu Mirada Nick Toe" is >what I heard, (not the "Klaatu barada nicto" that seems to be the more >precise transcription) but it was close enough and I won the prize -- >tickets to the premiere and a copy of the album. > >WHY did I as a 13-year-old remember the phrase from some 1951 B-movie that >I'd seen on late-night TV? Because even then I was starting to radicalize, I >think, and the movie spoke, not just to my concerns, but to those of a >generation. Not the generation for which it was made, but the one that came >after. > >That is, I think, the *fundamental* problem with this remake, and not just >this one. This production was billed as a "re-imagining" of the movie in the >present day, i.e., the waning phase of Bush's second term. But they did not >have the courage to raise the real hot-button issues of THIS day and age. > >Early in the new movie, Klaatu is subjected to interrogation. But it is >brief, and after the interrogator refuses to even acknowledge Klaatu's >EXTREMELY flat statement to the effect that "you should let me go," Klaatu >uses his magical powers to bust loose and move on to the chase sequences >that replace the missing heart of this movie. > >To make the 1951 movie for today, Klaatu would need to be electro-shocked, >beaten and water-boarded. And the character would have to have some good, >rational motivation for putting up with it, without exercising his >super-powers, and then eventually deciding to make use of them. Instead, the >movie chooses to take up the use of --presumably-- a "truth serum" in the >interrogation. No guts, none whatsoever. > >But perhaps even taking on torture would not have worked, because the point >of the Day the Earth Stood Still in the 50's and early 60's is that it >evoked the madness of the arms race and "Mutually Assured Destruction," the >commies-under-the-bed hysteria which had begun to wane but was still being >crammed down the throats of high school students in courses with names like >"Americanism versus Communism." And you could not find any criticism of >those things in the "mainstream" media which is the only media 99% of us had >access to. > >TODAY it may not be mainstream, but a criticism, nay, denunciation of U.S. >torture policy and the U.S. role in the world in general is easily >accessible to virtually all high schoolers in the U.S. via the Internet. >Back then, I remember scouring libraries and bookstores in Miami looking for >Bernard B. Fall's book, "The Two Vietnams" and treasuring the "Where is >Vietnam?" collection of poems that I'd found at the "beatnik" bookstore in >Coconut Grove. > >But in an age when "An inconvenient Truth" can win Oscars and the book >version top the New York Times best-seller list for weeks, what point is >there to a movie like this? Sure the 1951 original pulled its punches, but >at least they were punches. But you can't make that movie today. To me, one >of the strongest, perhaps the strongest scene in the 1951 original is where >we scan the faces of the various kinds of people present at this world >assemblage pulled together by the film's Einstein character, and we come >across a Black man's face. Yes, they pulled that punch. The man was wearing >a clerical collar. But in a film set in DC, then as now heavily Black, which >had not yet strayed across a Black face, not even mopping a floor, that the >wisest of the wise would INCLUDE a Black person in the assembly to listen to >Klaatu's message was a powerful statement. > >The new version of "The Day the Earth Stood Still" fails because it is a >fake and a fraud. A phony. > >In 1951, some filmmakers had the courage to at least RAISE important issues >that were censored out of public discourse. No matter how indirectly these >were raised, nor how many punches they pulled, they did something socially >significant. TODAY gutless wonders like studio execs and Keanu Reeves (who >not only "starred" but played a significant role in shaping the script and >story line) don't even dare raise the issue of torture and raise >environmental concerns only to make their movie seem "relevant" and "edgy" >while having such contempt for their audience that the "environmental" >champion in their movie proposes to destroy the planet in order to "save" it >-- and makes a fairly good start of it before changing his mind. But EVEN IF >they had not completely messed it up the movie still would not have worked. >It was the broader social context and atmosphere that made those films of >the 50's great. > >It is not enough to "re-imagine" for today by changing the issue from war to >the environment and the alien's action from a stunning yet basically >harmless parlor trick by way of warning to genocide. What they did in the >50's was to *create* something new -- which is the last thing media >conglomerates have a stomach for. > >Joaqu?n > > >________________________________________________ >YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. >Send list submissions to: _Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu_ >(mailto:Marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu) > >**************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, >Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. >(http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) > >_______________________________________________ >Marxism-Thaxis mailing list >Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu >To change your options or unsubscribe go to: >http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Dec 24 08:15:58 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:15:58 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reluctance to Help Detroit Reeks of Class Bias Message-ID: <49520BDE.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Not to mention racism. CB Reluctance to Help Detroit Reeks of Class Bias By Warren Brown December 7, 2008 Washington Post It has happened repeatedly in the last several weeks -- well-paid, well-known journalists questioning the wisdom of "bailing out Detroit," of helping an industry whose union-represented workers have substantially better wages and benefits than other manual or skilled laborers, or, more precisely, who are better compensated than their nonunion counterparts working at foreign-owned rival companies building cars and trucks in the United States. The questions are tinged with outrage and ridicule: Why should Americans who earn less, have inferior pension and health-care plans, help the United Auto Workers union? Why can't the UAW be satisfied with the same pay packages given at Honda, or with an even less-expensive compensation agreement for workers at the Hyundai assembly plant in Montgomery, Ala.? The queries often come from people who earn substantially more than the estimated $71,000 annually in wages and benefits paid to UAW members. They come from people who, having reached upper-middle-class status by virtue of their college educations and communication skills, certainly wouldn't settle for earning less. So, why are the questions being asked? Might I suggest class bias? There is a feeling in this country -- apparent in the often condescending, dismissive way Detroit's automobile companies have been treated on Capitol Hill -- that people who work with their hands and the companies that employ them are inferior to those who work with their minds and plow profit from information. How else to explain the clearly disparate treatment given to companies such as Citigroup and General Motors? Let us stipulate for the record that both Citigroup and GM have made their share of management errors. Citigroup made loans it should not have made and sold lots of commercial paper it should have trashed. But Congress offered barely a whimper of protest to the government's emergency action granting Citigroup $25 billion in bailout money. Similarly, the Mob of Pundits seemed not to care much that many of Citigroup's managers remained just as rich after the federal bailout as they did before receiving the government's aid. What Citigroup manager was dragged to Capitol Hill to publicly present a long-term plan for business profitability and viability? Did I miss something? Now comes GM, Ford and Chrysler -- supplicants all, companies that bet wrong on U.S. gasoline prices (the same error made by Toyota with its Tundra pickup, by the way) and that were as shocked as the rest of us by the fiscal carnage caused by bad loans made by banks such as Citigroup. It apparently matters not that the domestic car manufacturers account for 3 million to 5 million U.S. jobs. It matters not that, despite some bad guesses on product development, they've remained engines of U.S. innovation. (Their work with biologically derived fuels and emergency communications systems are examples.) Nor does it matter that they pulled us through several wars and one terrorist attack (GM's zero-percent financing plan after the Sept. 11, 2001, horror). And, of course, it does not matter that the domestic manufacturers for decades have been operating in a country wide open to foreign competition, but bereft of anything resembling a sensible industrial or energy policy. That's quite different from Japanese car manufacturers that have benefited mightily from financing and cooperation via Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry. No. The only thing that matters is that Detroit's automobile workers have earned enough money to allow their families to dream, to send their children to the colleges and universities from which many of their critics in the media graduated. How dare they! Implicit in the criticism of UAW compensation packages is that union-represented automobile workers are being paid above their social class. Greedy, bad people. They are supposed to be satisfied with wages that cover only the basics -- food, acceptable clothing and housing. They are not supposed to receive pay that allows them to aspire to or dream of more. They should be happy with the development of America's Wal-Mart economy, one in which less-expensive skills, talents, products and services are imported to satisfy the American consumer's insatiable lust for the highest-quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices. That is what stuff-makers and other manual laborers deserve. Wall Street's money people and well-paid journalists, on the other hand, deserve much better. They studied, went to college. They use their brains. They should be paid more. So, let Detroit's automobile companies slide into bankruptcy. We'll lose a few million more jobs. But those of us lucky enough to remain employed will still be able to buy cars from Honda, Hyundai, Nissan and Toyota. Or, if we are doing quite well, we can snatch something from BMW, Porsche or Mercedes-Benz. What the heck? If things get really rough, we can always catch a sale at Wal-Mart. Citigroup most certainly would be willing to finance our purchases at favorable interest rates. What a country! We once rejoiced in building things, innovating, racing to the top. Now, at least for the people who use their hands to make this country go, we're celebrating a mad dash to the bottom. Are we not better than this? Is this the America we want to be? Warren Brown has covered the automobile industry for the Washington Post for over 26 years. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 26 09:34:53 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 11:34:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Factory output in Japan sees biggest monthly fall Message-ID: <4954C15D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Factory output in Japan sees biggest monthly fall By JAY ALABASTER ? Associated Press ? December 26, 2008 ! TOKYO ? Japan?s contracting economy got more bad news Friday when the government said industrial production plunged by its biggest margin since records were started in 1953, the jobless rate jumped and household spending fell. Output at the nation?s vital manufacturers fell 8.1% from October as Japan?s automakers and others slashed output to cope with slowing global demand. The drop was worse than analysts? forecasts, and a survey predicted a similar 8% decline in December. The monthly drop in factory production is nearly double the previous record fall of 4.3% in January 2001, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Earlier this week, trade data showed that Japanese exports plunged a record 26.7% in November. Many companies, including big names like Toyota Motor Corp. and Sony Corp., have announced plans to cut production and workers. The yen?s recent strength against the dollar and euro has also dealt a huge blow to this export-oriented economy ? the world?s second-largest ? by eroding overseas earnings. The job cuts are already being reflected in a higher unemployment rate, which rose to 3.9% in November from 3.7% in October, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said. The figure does not include those who have given up looking for work and exited the labor market entirely. The ministry said 2.56 million people were unemployed in Japan in November, an increase of 100,000 from a year earlier. Consumers are also holding back. Retail sales fell 0.9% in November from last year, the third straight monthly decline. And average monthly household spending dipped 0.5% in November from a year earlier, for the ninth straight monthly decline. Still, the drop was smaller than expected, beating the 3.6% decline forecast by a Kyodo News survey. Household spending is a key indicator of consumer spending, which makes up more than half of Japan?s gross domestic product. Inflation, meanwhile, eased. Core consumer prices ? which excludes volatile fresh food prices ? rose 1% after a 1.9% in October. Stock investors seemed to brush off the bevy of negative numbers. The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average rose 1.6% to 8,739.52. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 26 10:53:20 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 12:53:20 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Korsch revisited (reposted) Message-ID: <4954D3C0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Well, revisited only briefly, but I will have to make a careful study of Karl Korsch?s 1923 book Marxism and Philosophy when I can squeeze it into my reading schedule. These issues are all old now, but they were new then, and they continue to resurface in our milieu. I?ve just read a few essays by Korsch on the Marxist Internet Archive and I just want to relate a few impressions. I have mixed reactions. On the one hand, Korsch laudably attempts to relate philosophies as forms of consciousness to moments in social and political development, opposing the tendency, also purportedly rife within Marxism, as treating philosophies as detached abstractions at war with one another, such as the struggle between idealism and materialism. ^^^ CB: "Idealism and materialism _is_ relating philosophies as forms of consciousness to moments in social and political development, ^^^ At the same time, Korsch seems to avoid politicizing philosophy in a way that would suppress its intellectual content in favor of purely pragmatic political exigencies. ^^^ CB: This seems to posit, in Marxism, a "pure" philosophy unrelated to changing the world. Marxist politics is having to do with changing the world based on interpreting it. ^^^ It seems that Korsch consciously opposes both tendencies in order to restore what he considers to be the original Marxian approach, which finds its precedent in Hegel. For example, in a section reproduced from Marxism and Philosophy, Korsch states: ----- Hegel wrote that in the philosophic systems of this fundamentally revolutionary epoch, ?revolution was lodged and expressed as if in the very form of their thought?. Hegel?s accompanying statements make it quite clear that he was not talking of what contemporary bourgeois historians of philosophy like to call a revolution in thought - a nice, quiet process that takes place in the pure realm of the study and far away from the crude realm of real struggles. The greatest thinker produced by bourgeois society in its revolutionary period regarded a ?revolution in the form of thought? as an objective component of the total social process of a real revolution. ^^^ CB: In politics, no doubt; dealing with state power. ^^^ Only two peoples, the German and the French - despite or precisely because of their contrasts - took part in this great epoch of world history, whose deepest essence is grasped by the philosophy of history. ^^^^ CB: This is a bit of Continental Narcissism ^^^^ --------- Korsch relates this perspective to the history of bourgeois philosophy (which lost this sense of connection) ^^^ CB: Of course it did. As the bourgeois became more and more the new dominant ruling class, replacing the aristocracy, ?revolution was DIS- lodged and expeLLed from the very form of their thought?, as super-structure was brought into consonance with infra-structure. and Marxist philosophy. Korsch is equally critical of artificial supplements to Marxist philosophy, e.g. Neo-Kantianism. ^^^ CB: Good for him. ^^^ Orthodox Marxism too suffers the same defect, of attempting to construct a philosophical system and thus freeze itself in opposition to a fluid, developing social reality. According to Korsch, Marx and Engels? abandonment of philosophy in the 1840s is chronically misunderstood, as are Marx?s theses on Feuerbach. This text can be found at http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1923/marxism-philosophy.htm Next, see Marxism and Philosophy: An Anti-critique, 1930. http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/19xx/anti-critique.htm Here Korsch reacts to the attack on his book by both the Social Democrats and Communists, based on the same premises, not surprisingly, given their affinity in spite of their historic antagonism. Korsch?s ?conception involved the application of the materialist conception of history to the materialist conception of history itself.? ^^^^ CB: As Eubulides on LBO-talk might say "reflexivity alert" ! ^^^ In responses to attacks, Korsch reiterates his tripartite division of the history of Marxism and philosophy: 1843-1848, 1848-1900 (approximately), and the current period. Korsch claims that the Social Democratic movement never adopted Marxism as a whole but only ?isolated economic, political and social ?theories?, extracted from the general context of revolutionary Marxism.? It was not an improvement or progressive development of Marxisan theory, but a new theory adapted to the conditions of the time. The gap between theory and practice was never properly formulated by Kautsky, Luxemburg, or Lenin. While the Second International had essentially dismissed philosophy, the philosophical ideology of the Soviet power was foisted on the entire Communist movement, coinciding with the condemnation of Lukacs and Korsch. ------- [. . . ] I assumed rather than spelt out this critique of a primitive, pre-dialectical and even pre-transcendental conception of the relation between consciousness and being. But without realizing it I had hit on the very key to the ?philosophical? outlook which was then due to be dispensed from Moscow to the whole of the Western Communist world. Indeed it formed the basis of the new orthodox theory, so-called ?Marxism-Leninism?. The professional exponents of the new Russian ?Marxism-Leninism? then replied to this supposedly ?idealist? attack by repeating the ABC of the ?materialist? alphabet they had learnt by heart.[21] This they did with a naivete that can only appear as a ?state of philosophical innocence? to corrupt ?Westerners?. ^^^^ CB: Marxist-Leninists were "innocent" in philosophy and "street-smart" on the Central Committee. What's wrong with this picture ? ^^^^^ ------------ Korsch also claims that Lenin?s interventions were essentially political, not theoretical, and were motivated by the exigencies of party work, even when defending philosophical materialism on principle. Korsch deems this anti-Marxian. ^^^ CB: Marxist theory of knowledge or epistemology is practical-critical, i.e. political or revolutionary. Lenin was hardly without revolutionary theory and philosophy the Marxist way: through party work. ^^^ ------ Lenin argued that there had been a change in the whole intellectual climate which made it necessary when dealing with dialectical materialism to stress materialism against certain fashionable tendencies in bourgeois philosophy, rather than to stress dialectics against the vulgar, pre-dialectical and in some cases explicitly undialectical and anti-dialectical materialism of bourgeois science. The question is whether there had been such a change. What I have written elsewhere shows that I do not think this is really the case. There are some superficial aspects of contemporary bourgeois philosophy and science which appear to contradict this, and there certainly are some trends which genuinely do so. Nevertheless the dominant basic trend in contemporary bourgeois philosophy, natural science and humanities is the same as it was sixty or seventy years ago. ^^^ CB: In 2008 or 1908 ? ^^^^ It is inspired not by an idealist outlook but by a materialist outlook that is coloured by the natural sciences. Lenin?s position, which disputes this, is in close ideological relation to his politico-economic theory of ?imperialism?. ^^^^ CB: Marxism has this level of integration between natural and historical science. In fact, for Marxism , there is but one science , the science of history. Anyway, Lenin's intervention in natural science is against drawing neo-Kantian or dualist philosophical conclusions ( Engels called them half-hearted materialists or something like that) in 1910 or so from the amazing atomic and nuclear physical discoveries as Mach was. ^^^^ Both have their material roots in the specific economic and social situation of Russia and the specific practical and theoretical political tasks that seemed, and for a short period really were, necessary to accomplish the Russian Revolution. This means that the ?Leninist? theory is not theoretically capable of answering the practical needs of the international class struggle in the present period. ^^^ CB: In _Leftwing Communism_ , Lenin summarizes the international significance of the Russian Rev. In What Sense we can Speak of the International Significance of the Russian Revoluion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch01.htm ^^^^ Consequently, Lenin?s materialist philosophy, which forms the ideological basis of this theory, cannot constitute the revolutionary proletarian philosophy that will answer the needs of today. ^^^ CB: The premises for this conclusion are faulty. ^^^^ -------------- In the next two paragraphs Korsch outlines what he considers Lenin?s philosophical blunders and finds Lenin pre-Hegelian in his philosophical outlook: ^^^^ CB: Probably more accurate to say that Lenin is post-Hegelian in his outlook ^^^^^ -------------- Not content with this, they [Lenin et al] have abandoned the question of the relationship between the totality of historical being and all historically prevalent forms of consciousness. This was first posed by Hegel?s dialectic and was then given a more comprehensive elaboration by the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels. Lenin and those like him have revised it in a retrograde way by replacing it with the much narrower epistemological or ?gnoseological? question of the relationship between the subject and object of knowledge. Nor is this all. They present knowledge as a fundamentally harmonious evolutionary progress and an infinite progression towards absolute truth. ^^^^^ CB: Actually, "they" present it as a fundamentally contradictory process. Lenin says it is important to understand how truth derives from the correction of error. Trial and error is hardly a "harmonious" process. For Leninists, there is a struggle for knowledge. Nor is the process "evolutionary" . It is a _revolutionary_ process, that is it has _leaps_, a la Hegel, not Darwin. See Lenin's essay on Karl Marx. Lenin , after Engels and Hegel, does recognize progress in knowledge, i.e. there are relative truths. But absolute truth is explicitly said to be unattainable, because it is infinite and we are finite beings. ^^^^ ^^^^^ ----------------- Some other key assertions: -------------- There is another inevitable consequence of this displacement of the accent from the dialectic to materialism. It prevents materialist philosophy from contributing to the further development of the empirical sciences of nature and society. ^^^ CB: But of course, empirically speaking ( smile) Soviet science imbued with a Leninist materialist philosophical outlook made major contributions to all the sciences of natural history and human history. ^^^^^ In the dialectic method and content are inseparably linked. [. . . . ] It is therefore completely against the spirit of the dialectic, and especially of the materialist dialectic, to counterpose the dialectical materialist ?method? to the substantive results achieved by applying it to philosophy and the sciences.? [. . . . ] When the revolutionary movement and its practice came to a halt in the 1850s, ^^^^ CB: Only to begin again when Korsch picked it up ? ^^^^6 there inevitably developed an increasing gap between the evolution of philosophy and that of the positive sciences, between the evolution of theory and that of practice: this has already been explained in Marxism and Philosophy. The result was that for a long period the new revolutionary conceptions of Marx and Engels survived and developed mainly through their application as a dialectical materialist method to the empirical sciences of society and nature. It is in this period that one finds statements, especially by the later Engels, formally proclaiming individual sciences to be independent of ?all philosophy?, and asserting that philosophy has been ?driven from nature and from history? into the only field of activity left to it: ?the theory of thought and its laws - formal logic and dialectics?. [. . . . ] ^^^^^^ CB: That's right. The title of his book is _Ludwig Feuerbach and the _END_ of Classical German Philosophy_. Engels declared the end of philosophy way back when . We have been post-philosophy since the end of the 1800's (smile). -------------------- By contrast, Lenin was interested only in maintaining a rigid adherence to materialist doctrine, and ?Marxism-Leninism? is even worse. ^^^ CB: We prefer to call this a rigorous adherence to the principles of the discipline of Marxist science. ^^^^ ------------------ His ?materialist philosophy? becomes a kind of supreme judicial authority for evaluating the findings of individual sciences, past, present or future. This materialist ?philosophical? domination covers all the sciences, whether of nature or society, as well as all other cultural developments in literature, drama, plastic arts and so on; and Lenin?s epigones have taken it to the most absurd lengths. This has resulted in a specific kind of ideological dictatorship which oscillates between revolutionary progress and the blackest reaction. ^^^^^ CB: Black is beautiful ? So, is red. ^^^^ -------------- While in my view this essay lacks precision and specific reference at some key points, there is a central premise which I think lies at the foundation of the issues, and which remains inadequately understood today: the ?relationship between the totality of historical being and all historically prevalent forms of consciousness.? Here is where I get troubled about Korsch?s philosophical perspective: Lenin as Philosopher, 1938. http://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1938/lenin-philosophy.htm Korsch takes off from Pannekoek?s analysis of Lenin as philosopher, which Korsch considers to be the first serious analysis. Pannekoek upholds the ideas of Dietzgen, Mach, and Avenarius. Not only does Korsch find Lenin?s grasp of contemporary scientific and philosophical developments fundamentally misguided as well as defamatory in orientation, but Korsch thinks that Lenin?s 1914 notebooks on Hegel as a symptom of the same malady. Korsch is much harsher than Pannekoek, who saw some justice in Lenin?s 1908 philosophical struggle against Bogdanov et al. ----------- This fallacy is that the militant character of a revolutionary materialist theory can and must be maintained against the weakening influences of other apparently hostile theoretical tendencies by any means to the exclusion of modifications made imperative by further scientific criticism and research. ^^^ CB : What more specifically are these modifications, how are they made imperative, and what was this scientific criticism and research ? ^^^^^ , This fallacious conception caused Lenin to evade discussion on their merits of such new scientific concepts and theories that in his judgement jeopardised the proved fighting value of that revolutionary (though not necessarily proletarian revolutionary) materialist philosophy that his Marxist party had adopted, less from Marx and Engels than from their philosophical teachers, the bourgeois materialists from Holbach to Feuerbach and their idealistic antagonist, the dialectical philosopher Hegel. ^^^ CB: Reading Lein on these issues, he seems to stick to Marx and Engels in the first place with thorough references and quotations. ^^^^ Rather he stuck to his guns, preferring the immediate practical utility of a given ideology to its theoretical truth in a changing world. ^^^^ CB: He seemed to prove the truth of his theoretical perspective by changing the world based on it, exactly Marx and Engels' clearly articulated principle of epistemology , theory of knowledge, from the Second Thesis on Feuerbach: the test of theory is practice. ^^^^ This doctrinaire attitude, by the way, runs parallel to Lenin?s political practice. ^^^^ CB: Which practice was superb ( and certainly superior to Korsch's practice) thereby proving his "doctrine" in the Marxist way, through the test of practice. ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ------------ The attacks on the logical positivists as well as on Machian positivism are also based on ignorance and a misguided sense of militancy. ^^^^^^ CB: Says who ? Lenin ain't hardly ignorant. ^^^^ ---------------- It is easy to see that this argument can be used in a twofold manner, as a theoretical attack against the confusion between philosophy and science underlying the earlier phases of positivism, and as a practical justification for keeping up that philosophical basis in spite of the belated discovery of its scientific unsoundness. ^^^ CB: It's not easy to see what you are saying here. ^^^^ However, the whole argument is not founded on any sound logical or empirical reasoning. ^^^ CB: This conclusion is not warranted by the discussion above. ^^^ There is no need either for the modern bourgeois scientist or for the Marxist to stick to an obsolete (positivistic or materialistic) ?philosophy? for the purpose of preserving his full and unbroken ?militancy? in the fight against that necessarily in all its forms ?idealistic? system of ideas which during the last century under the name of ?philosophy? has widely (though not completely) replaced medieval religious faith in the ideology of modern society. ^^^ CB: It's not obsolete. Leninist philosophy is alive and well. ^^^^^ ------------------ Korsch as well as Pannekoek maintain that Leninist philosophy is unfit for revolutionary aims; at best it serves the needs of the Popular Front, concluding: ^^^ CB: Korsch and Pannekoek arguments as summarized are not persuasive; nor are their practices effective when compared with Lenin's. Their theories fail the Marxist test of practice. ^^^^ ------------- This present-day Leninist ideology of the Communist parties which in principle conforms to the traditional ideology of the old Social Democratic party does no longer express any particular aims of the proletarian class. ^^^^^ CB: Yes it does. Yes we can ! ^^^^ According to Pannekoek, it is rather a natural expression of the aims of the new class of the intelligentsia i.e., an ideology which the various strata belonging to this so-called new class would be likely to adopt as soon as they were freed from the ideological influence of the decaying bourgeoisie. Translated into philosophical terms, this means that the ?new materialism? of Lenin is the great instrument which is now used by the Communist parties in the attempt to separate an important section of the bourgeoisie from the traditional religion and idealistic philosophies upheld by the upper and hitherto ruling strata of the bourgeois class, and to win them over to that system of state capitalistic planning of industry which for the workers means just another form of slavery and exploitation. This, according to Pannekoek, is the true political significance of Lenin?s materialistic philosophy. ------------------------ This gets to the social root of the matter, although I would qualify the final sentence, replacing ?Lenin? with ?Marxist-Leninist?. Lenin himself both philosophically and politically is not so cut-and-dried a matter. I would question Korsch?s defense of Mach and Avenarius as constituting an advance in materialist philosophy, same with the logical positivists, though I would concur with objections to crude characterizations and defamation. Korsch?s thesis is comparable to Lukacs? argument in his lost ms Tailism and the Dialectic. See my review: Luk?cs? Lost Manuscript Tailism and the Dialectic Reviewed http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/lukacs-tailism.html Lukacs, unlike Korsch, capitulated to Stalinism, and so we didn?t know his manuscript existed until the Soviet archives were opened. The implied or explicit criticism of Soviet Marxism-Leninism and the pace of philosophical materialism in it to be found in Lukacs, Korsch, and Pannekoek can be found elsewhere, for example in the Johnson-Forest Tendency, which to my knowledge was influenced by neither (unless indirectly via Sidney Hook, which would just be speculation on my part). Presumably Korsch explains himself more thoroughly in his book, as I find in these essays gaps in the argument calibrating the relations among pre-critical materialism, dialectical materialism, science, praxis, etc. The key issue is, I reiterate, the ?relationship between the totality of historical being and all historically prevalent forms of consciousness.? I?m not immediately convinced that Korsch has solved this problem with respect to science, positivism, materialism, and Lenin?s philosophy, but it raises a fundamental dialectical perspective which the history of Marxist politics has effectively obscured. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 26 11:53:53 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 13:53:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Saint-Simon Message-ID: <4954E1F1.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon Henri de Saint-SimonNote: This article is almost entirely based on, and includes large transcripts from, Thomas Kirkup, 'History of Socialism', London, 1892. Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon (17 October 1760?19 May 1825) was a French utopian socialist thinker. Contents [hide] 1 Early years 2 Early career 3 Views 3.1 Politics 3.2 Religion 4 Influence 4.1 End of the sect 5 Theory 6 Works 7 Death 8 Popular References 9 External links 10 References [edit] Early years Saint-Simon was born in Paris. He belonged to a younger branch of the family of the duc de Saint-Simon. He claimed his education was directed by Jean le Rond d'Alembert, though no proof of this exists; it is likely that Saint-Simon himself invented this false intellectual pedigree. At the age of sixteen he was in America helping the Thirteen Colonies in the American Revolution against Britain. From his youth, Saint-Simon was highly ambitious. He ordered his valet to wake him every morning with, "Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do."[1] Among his early schemes was one to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific by a canal, and another to construct a canal from Madrid to the sea.[2] He was imprisoned in the Palais de Luxembourg in Paris during the Terror. He took no part of any importance in the Revolution, although he profited from it by amassing a sizable fortune through land speculation; he said that this was motivated not by self-interest but by the desire to facilitate his future projects. [edit] Early career When he was nearly 40 he went through a varied course of study and experiment to enlarge and clarify his view of things. One of these experiments was an unhappy marriage ? undertaken so that he might have a salon. After a year's duration the marriage was dissolved by mutual consent. The result of his experiments was that he found himself completely impoverished, and lived in penury for the remainder of his life. The first of his numerous writings, Lettres d'un habitant de Gen?ve, appeared in 1802; but his early writings were mostly scientific and political. In 1817 he began in a treatise entitled L'Industrie to propound his socialistic views, which he further developed in L'Organisateur (1819), a periodical on which Augustin Thierry and Auguste Comte collaborated. The first number caused a sensation, though one that brought few converts. In 1821 appeared Du syst?me industriel, and in 1823?1824 Cat?chisme des industriels. The last and most important expression of his views is the Nouveau Christianisme (1825), which he left unfinished. For many years before his death, Saint-Simon had been reduced to the direst straits. He was obliged to accept a laborious post, working nine hours a day for ?40 a year, to live on the generosity of a former valet, and finally to solicit a small pension from his family. In 1823 he attempted suicide in despair, losing his sight in one eye. Only very late in his career did he link up with a few ardent disciples. [edit] Views see also article Saint-Simonianism [edit] Politics As a thinker Saint-Simon was not particularly systematic, but his great influence on modern thought is undeniable, both as the historic founder of French socialism, which influenced the thought of Karl Marx, and as suggesting much of Auguste Comte's theory of industrial progress, which in turn influenced ?mile Durkheim. Apart from the details of his socialist teaching, which are vague and unsystematic, the ideas of Saint-Simon as to the reconstruction of society are very simple. One of these ideas is "the Hand of Greed," the image Saint-Simon uses to describe the basic avarice of human beings. In the simplest forms of society, human beings try to survive. All people therefore have the motivation to try to gain a higher place in society, no matter how insignificant the higher statuses at which their aim may be. To create his form of utopian socialism, society must eradicate this way of thinking and behaving over time through education. His opinions were conditioned by the French Revolution and by the feudal and military system still prevalent in France. In opposition to the destructive liberalism of the Revolution he insisted on the necessity of a new and positive reorganization of society. So far was he from advocating fresh social revolt that he appealed to Louis XVIII to begin building the new order.[3] In opposition to the feudal and military system, the former aspect of which had been strengthened by the restoration, he advocated an arrangement whereby the industrial chiefs should control society. In place of the medieval church, the spiritual direction of society should fall to the men of science. The men who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to rule it. The conflict between labour and capital so much emphasized by later socialism is not present in Saint-Simon's work, but it is assumed that the industrial chiefs, to whom the control of production is to fall, shall rule in the interest of society. Later on the cause of the poor receives greater attention, until in his greatest work, The New Christianity, it takes on the form of a religion. This development of his ideas occasioned his final quarrel with Comte. [edit] Religion Prior to the publication of the Nouveau Christianisme, Saint-Simon had not concerned himself with theology. In this work, he starts from a belief in God, and his object in the treatise is to reduce Christianity to its simple and essential elements. He does this by clearing it of the dogmas and other excrescences and defects that he says gathered round the Catholic and Protestant forms of it. He propounds as the comprehensive formula of the new Christianity this precept ? "The whole of society ought to strive towards the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the poorest class; society ought to organize itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end." This principle became the watchword of the entire Saint-Simon school of thought. [edit] Influence During his lifetime the views of Saint-Simon had very little influence; he left only a few devoted disciples, who continued to advocate the doctrines of their master, whom they revered as a prophet. Of these the most important were Olinde Rodrigues, the favoured disciple of Saint-Simon, and Barth?lemy Prosper Enfantin, who together had received Saint-Simon's last instructions. Their first step was to establish a journal, Le Producteur, but it was discontinued in 1826. The sect, however, had begun to grow, and before the end of 1828, had meetings not only in Paris but in many provincial towns. An important departure was made in 1828 by Amand Bazard, who gave a "complete exposition of the Saint-Simonian faith" in a long course of lectures in Paris, which was well attended. His Exposition de la doctrine de St Simon (2 vols., 1828?1830), which is by far the best account of it, won more adherents. The second volume was chiefly by Enfantin, who along with Bazard stood at the head of the society, but who was superior in philosophical acumen and prone to push his deductions to extremities. The revolution of July (1830) brought a new freedom to the socialist reformers. A proclamation was issued demanding the community of goods, the abolition of the right of inheritance, and the enfranchisement of women. Early next year the school obtained possession of the Globe through Pierre Leroux, who had joined the school, which now numbered some of the ablest and most promising young men in France, many of the pupils of the ?cole Polytechnique having caught its enthusiasm. The members formed themselves into an association arranged in three grades, and constituting a society or family, which lived out of a common purse in the Rue Monsigny. Before long, however, dissensions began to arise in the sect. Bazard, a man of stolid temperament, could no longer work in harmony with Enfantin, who desired to establish an arrogant and fantastic sacerdotalism with lax notions as to marriage and the relations between the sexes. [edit] End of the sect After a time Bazard seceded and many of the strongest supporters of the school followed his example. A series of extravagant entertainments given by the society during the winter of 1832 reduced its financial resources and greatly discredited it in character. They finally removed to M?nilmontant, to a property of Enfantin, where they lived in a communistic society, distinguished by a peculiar dress. Shortly after the chiefs were tried and condemned for proceedings prejudicial to the social order, and the sect was entirely broken up in 1832. Many of its members became famous as engineers, economists, and men of business. [edit] Theory In the school of Saint-Simon we find a great advance on the vague and confused views of the master. In the philosophy of history they recognize epochs of two kinds, the critical or negative and the organic or constructive. The former, in which philosophy is the dominating force, is characterized by war, egotism, and anarchy; the latter, which is controlled by religion, is marked by the spirit of obedience, devotion, and association. The two spirits of antagonism and association are the two great social principles, and on the degree of prevalence of the two depends the character of an epoch. The spirit of association, however, tends more and more to prevail over its opponent, extending from the family to the city, from the city to the nation, and from the nation to the federation. This principle of association is to be the keynote of the social development of the future. Under the present system the industrial chief exploits the proletariat, the members of which, though nominally free, must accept his terms under pain of starvation. The only remedy for this is the abolition of the law of inheritance, and the union of all the instruments of labour in a social fund, which shall be exploited by association. Society thus becomes sole proprietor, entrusting to social groups and social functionaries the management of the various properties. The right of succession is transferred from the family to the state. The school of Saint-Simon insists strongly on the claims of merit; they advocate a social hierarchy in which each man shall be placed according to his capacity and rewarded according to his works. This is, indeed, a most special and pronounced feature of the Saint-Simon socialism, whose theory of government is a kind of spiritual or scientific autocracy. With regard to the family and the relation of the sexes the school of Saint-Simon advocated the complete emancipation of woman and her entire equality with man. The "social individual" is man and woman, who are associated in the exercise of the triple function of religion, the state and the family. In its official declarations the school maintained the sanctity of the Christian law of marriage. Connected with these doctrines was their famous theory of the "rehabilitation of the flesh," deduced from the philosophic theory of the school, which was a species of Pantheism, though they repudiated the name. In this theory they rejected the dualism so much emphasized by Catholic Christianity in its penances and mortifications, and held that the body should be restored to its due place of honour. It was a vague principle open to varying interpretations by Saint-Simon's followers. Enfantin's interpretation would have been considered highly immoral at the time: it was a kind of sensual mysticism, a system of free love with a religious sanction. [edit] Works An excellent edition of the works of Saint-Simon and Enfantin was published by the survivors of the sect (47 vols., Paris, 1865?1878). See, in addition to the works cited above, L. Reybaud, ?tudes sur les r?formateurs contemporains (7th edition, Paris, 1864); Paul Janet, Saint-Simon et le Saint-Simonisme (Paris, 1878); AJ Booth, Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism (London, 1871); Georges Weill, Un Pr?curseur du socialisme, Saint-Simon et son ?uvre (Paris, 1894), and a history of the ?cole Saint-Simonienne, by the same author (1896); G Dumas, Psychologie de deux messages positivistes St Simon et Comte (1905); E. Levasseur's Etudes sociales soles la Restauration, contains a good section on Saint-Simon. [edit] Death On his passing, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, was interred in Le P?re Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 26 12:14:01 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:14:01 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Support for Waistline's line Message-ID: <4954E6A9.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> A "productivity" claim -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: SWT list , Pen-l Pen-L Subject: [Pen-l] A "productivity" claim From: Eugene Coyle Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:30:48 -0800 Cc: Domainkey-signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=dk20050327; d=igc.org; b=O1o8oPptWyVjvqWsQQqXrUa2DK+pZKgz/f1szUwMf9GBuTU+k51YhS4KdgNgahKn; h=Received:Message-Id:From:To:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Subject:Mime-Version:Date:X-Mailer:X-ELNK-Trace:X-Originating-IP; -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In a book review in today's (12/24/08) Wall St. Journal we find this remark: "Examining data on changes in the US work force, the authors show that job losses due to higher productivity -- often the result of improving technology -- greatly outnumber those lost to globalization. The authors cite Commerce Department figures estimating that 65% of job losses in manufacturing between 2000 and 2006 were due to productivity increases; just 35% of job losses owed to overseas outsourcing." I read this skeptically since the thrust of the authors is evident in the title of the book: GLOBALIZATION: THE IRRATIONAL FEAR THAT SOMEONE IN CHINA WILL TAKE YOUR JOB. An interesting claim, nevertheless. Gene This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 26 12:25:19 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:25:19 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Top ten Message-ID: <4954E94E.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Top ten to twenty reasons that US is not a free market system. Best answers to be on Dave Numberman show: Reason # 1) Wall Street Bankers are not free to sleep under bridges at night. 2)... This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 26 12:34:53 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:34:53 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The owl of Minerva, Message-ID: <4954EB8D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Best Answer - Chosen by Asker The owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering. ? Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Preface There are lots of different translation, such as, "The owl of Minerva only takes flight as the dusk begins to fall." Hegel argues that it is only possible to understand an epoch, or even your own life, as it comes to an end (with hindsight). It's not possible to understand fully what is going on around you, clarity only comes with time. Also, it's not possible to rejuvenate that epoch, only to understand it. In other words, philosophy cannot be used to preach to, or guide society in the present, because it is not equipped to do so. "Neither you nor the theoreticians of your society have a full conceptual grasp of what you lived through until the world you grew up in has changed so dramatically that the underlying assumptions of the time come into relief. As a product of an earlier time, you may not be fully in tune with what is going on now and cannot articulate its inner experience. This is what the generation coming up now will have to do when it gets an intellectual grasp on what it was like its inhabitants to live through this period." (Ralph Dumain) http://feu.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070629223023AAgJj20 ^^^^ CB: And so now the time is right for the Detroit philosophers , proletarian philosophers, to understand and draw the conclusions from the historical experiences of the last 100 hundred years of the Great Proletarian Center , DETROIT ! Now the Leninist Owl of Minerva takes flight as the shades of economic night descend on Motown. Our Benjamin Franklin is Coleman Young. Change comes from the bottom up, and Old Black Bottom Detroit will make a change in America. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Dec 26 14:38:17 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:38:17 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Young Hegelians Message-ID: <49550879.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Hegelians Main Members ^^^^ CB: Marx and Engels critiques of the Young (left)Hegelians are in _The German Ideology_, and _The Holy Family_, _Ludwig Feuerbach_ and the Theses on Feuerbach. The Young Hegelians are atheist idealists philosophers, sort of . They remind of Post Modernists. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Dec 26 23:56:34 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 01:56:34 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Finance Capital, Lenin, Obama, the state and auto and "industrial capital" Message-ID: In a message dated 12/26/2008 3:33:41 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, __charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us_ (mailto:_charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us) _ (_mailto:charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us_ (mailto:charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us) ) writes: U.S. Woes Open Door for China ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- From: Todd Boyle <__tboyle at xxxxxxxxxxxx_ (mailto:_tboyle at xxxxxxxxxxxx) _ (_mailto:tboyle at xxxxxxxxxxxx_ (mailto:tboyle at xxxxxxxxxxxx) ) > Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:50:12 -0800 ^^^^^ CB: And that the US economic model is tarnished is a very good thing for humanity ! "Letting" capitalism be capitalism has done more for promoting socialism than the Russian Revolution , lately. A giant crack in the US ruling class opens up between finance and industrial capital. Let us all revisit General Crisis theory. Could capitalism be acting contrary to Mao's dictum that the wall won't fall on its own ? The objective conditions and tendencies of imperialism are flashing "automatic" revolution. Workers of the World , prepare to rule ! *********************** Comment At the risk of being a pinprick, I see no modern evidence of the existence of "anything" that can be called "industrial capital" in America. Cerberus owns 81% of Chrysler and 51% of General Motors. Money - investment in industry, is not the meaning of industrial capital. Cerberus owns Chrysler and the banks and non-banking financial institutions increasingly own the rest of us. The Big Three automakers in Detroit are not representative of industrial capital. Rather they express industrial production. Although we have long ago left the world of Lenin, here is what Lenin says about finance capital. ?A steadily increasing proportion of capital in industry,? writes Hilferding, ?ceases to belong to the industrialists who employ it. They obtain the use of it only through the medium of the banks which, in relation to them, represent the owners of the capital. On the other hand, the bank is forced to sink an increasing share of its funds in industry. Thus, to an ever greater degree the banker is being transformed into an industrial capitalist. This bank capital, i.e., capital in money form, which is thus actually transformed into industrial capital, I call ?finance capital?.? ?Finance capital is capital controlled by banks and employed by industrialists.?[1] Now some seem to believe that what makes modern financial capitalist-imperialism, capitalist imperialism, is monopoly, but this is not my reading of Lenin. What makes financial imperialism what it is, is finance, or domination of finance capital over industrial capital and the reality of the financial oligarchy. Sure this domination rests upon monopoly, but it is the monopoly and domination of finance. The strife within the American ruling class we are witnessing today, in the form of the competing political factions pleading government for bailouts, is not based on or driven by a "giant crack" between finance and industrial capital. In American history financial-industrial capital emerged on the basis of financing the Civil War. In recognition of this change, the outstanding intellectual Dr. WEB Dubois, writing about the post Civil War era, sadly noted that "the South controls the nation and Wall Street controls the South." That is to say WEB acknowledges the fusion and domination of banking (finance) capital over industrial capital and its emergence as financial-industrial capital decades ago. The point is that Wall Street at one point in time meant finance capital and after the Civil War meant financial-industrial capital that Lenin's Hobson analysis would outline more than 50 years later. Perhaps what is meant is the favorable treatment the new - more than less, non-banking "financial sector," gets over the industrial sector of the economy. The reason for this is bound up with the new dominating form of finance capital. The rife within our ruling class, apparent during the Presidential elections is bound up with varying visions of how to further transform the state. On the ideological plane the very real rift within our ruling class was expressed in the Presidential election and the horrific beating the Republican are taking. The rift is not being generated by a giant crack between finance and industrial capital. The rift that appears in the political and ideological realm between Republican and Democrat is bound up with both of their historical political basis within the population - (which is old, stagnant and riveted to old ideological projections, that in turn expressed a previous economic and political alignment). That is to say the Republican Party's ideological banner of small government and no regulations is politically obsolete and can no longer serve the needs of capital as it is dominated and driven by the financial speculators. We are facing another phase - political phase, in the evolution of globalism and the rift within the ruling class is an expression of this new phase. This new phase is well underway and has been unfolding for a solid twenty years. Global capital means finance capital. Global capital is chafing under the historically derived encumbrances imposed by the nation-state. (That is the responsibility of the national state to its "population," to the nation as a whole). These encumbrances must be and are being removed, and in the process the institutional structure of "the bourgeois democratic republic," as we have known it, is being destroyed. In its place is being erected the initial pieces of a new state form compatible with the present day needs of capital. Financial speculation as distinct from financial-industrial capital, spoken of by Lenin, dominates present day capital world wide. The process is well underway, the actual merging of state and capital, to the point where their roles and functions are indistinguishable from one another. Yet, the Republican Party - and its base, has been weaned on a 30 year ideological diet of less government, no handouts to corporations, "let financial and industrial corporations fail and go bankrupt;" "keep government and the state out of the affairs of the free market," at the very moment the new form of capital need a rationale for more government in the form of a merger of corporations and the state; as a new form of capital/state rule in the era of the speculator. Although I voted for Obama, I do not make a fetish of it and clearly understood why his appeal for more government and state intervention into the economy was welcomed by the dominant sector of capital. From my perspective, as I live out my real life from day to day, the task of crossing the historical color barrier was paramount as a practical matter and opens the door for the possibility of a new level of unity of the fighting sections of the working class. We have crossed a historical barrier and WEB Dubois can rest in peace because he was correct: in America the question for the 20 th century was in fact the color line. This is no longer valid in the 21st century because the line - boundary, has been crossed. Here is why I rejected the idea that Obama's election meant putting a black face on imperialism. Imagine a Marxist putting forth such a silly analysis, as they watched two - three million people, white people, attend open air rally's to hear his message. I seriously disagree that what inspired these folks was their desire to but a black face on government and the state. No, the masses were rejected business as usual. The U.S. state is shifting from promoting and protecting the relation between labor and capital as its primary task here in the U.S. to protecting the new dominant - controlling, form of private property at home and globally. There are steps in this direction, but the process is not complete, and the state is still teetering on the old crumbling industrial foundation and its correspond political and ideology rationales and institutions. Hence, what appears as an attack on the industrial sector, not industrial capital, which no longer exists. Now, it is true that productive capital is still the only basis for creation of expanding value, but we all know that it is not necessary for the individual, or group or sector of the population or a sector of capital to realize surplus value to become wealthy and treated as capitalists. The specific parasitic forms of capital activity and wealth accumulation on the rise today does not create an expanding value, but it most certainly creates wealth and power. Our parasitic form of capital redistribute wealth to the owners of property. The parasite is killing its host and it relies on the state to do so, with wealth accumulation depending ever more heavily on the state. Once again in history, the distinctions between private property and the state are eroding, with their roles overlapping and merging. This all makes for a very unstable situation: The state rests on and protects the basic relationship that makes up capitalism at every quantitative boundary capital passes through. New methods of production are destroying not only the old relationship, but the capital relationship, because capital rest exclusively on the competition between the workers and their labor. Labor is simply not needed in the same way; the state no longer has to guarantee its (labor) reproduction in the same way. Because labor power in the U.S. has been some of the most expensive in the world, it is the first to go, and the state is realigning here in a certain way. We are in for a complex political struggle and it makes no sense to hastily label anyone who would not vote or support Obama. Further, one must be extremely sensitive to comrades who opposed the bailout for auto. However, if one is working in auto and/or the UAW you are going to be isolated and unable to speak to anyone, or win them over to the cause of communism, (on the basis of the current struggle), by screaming "no help to the auto workers" or making general condemnation of auto production. One may as well run into a bomb or weapons facility and demand the workers stop making bombs and weapons. The exact form of changes in the state are neither automatic nor pre-determined. Such changes are made by human beings who take small steps in response to big problems - all in the context of a certain culture, history and engaging the workers where they are at. Just because something addresses the direction of change, it does not mean it is the inevitable or the final answer. But the cause and direction of the process are clear. We are not dealing with a society or form of capital of which Lenin's "Imperialism" does not and could not speak. At the origins of capital, the state was structured to accelerate the formation of a working class against a feudal backdrop; to protect the emerging national market and the national capitalists. Imperialism and the ?welfare state? represented another stage of the process of growth of capitalism. As new methods of production begin to destroy the foundation for/of capitalism, the state is undergoing a profound shift: from a nation (multinational) state, in the sense of protecting the market and the social relations within one country, to that of expanding "the market" - (in the sense of the modern non-banking financial institutions), and protecting the sanctity of private property globally, while abandoning responsibility for society nationally. To protect private property under these new conditions, the state stands ever more directly opposed to those without property or job, all to the detriment of the interests of society as a whole. Two million in prison and three million under state supervision long ago surpassed the old gulag. Without serious fighting and educating our class to new ideas, how many will be in jail in 10 years? Twenty years? Even as we fight to protect employment - jobs, and fight for "jobs" - (at this stage I am not prepared to fight for jobs but rather, socially necessary means of life), we should be sensitive to those who have never had a "good job," are underemployed; temporary workers and have teetered in and out of employment for 20 years. Sorry if this did not come out right and was abrasive. I happen to know you do find work amongst the most impoverished of the workers in Detroit. Peace Waistline **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Dec 27 00:18:54 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 02:18:54 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Owl of Minerva Message-ID: : Best Answer - Chosen by Asker The owl of Minerva, takes its flight only when the shades of night are gathering. ? Hegel's Philosophy of Right, Preface There are lots of different translation, such as, "The owl of Minerva only takes flight as the dusk begins to fall." Hegel argues that it is only possible to understand an epoch, or even your own life, as it comes to an end (with hindsight). It's not possible to understand fully what is going on around you, clarity only comes with time. Also, it's not possible to rejuvenate that epoch, only to understand it. In other words, philosophy cannot be used to preach to, or guide society in the present, because it is not equipped to do so. Comment Sorry, but I have been restless and need to read and write. I would have generally agreed with the above interpretation of Hegel, perhaps 20 years ago, but today understand the meaning above differently. The reason is the growing evidence that our society is nearing its death or the epoch of industrial society, as it has been constituted, and the bourgeoisie is coming to an end. :-) At the risk of being charged with dabbling in philosophy - (I am militantly anti-philosophy and consider philosophy in all its variations a form of insanity, and this includes Marxism as philosophy but not Marxist theory), Hegel's statement does contain the "rational kernel" of which Marx spoke. It is only possible to understand an epoch, as it comes to an end, because it is only at the end, or the beginning of its end that all its essential features and underlying internal laws stand out in stark relief. The underlying laws stand out in stark contrast as one epoch displaces another and one is able to compare the "the old laws" - not against themselves, but rather, against the emergent new law system. Without getting lost in the definition of an epoch, the underlying law systems in operation through (as mediated by) the complex economic, social and political phenomena of feudalism, and all its institutions, stand out in stark relief as compared with the rise and emergence of bourgeois relations - society, or what is the same thing, the advance of the industrial revolution and industrial society. Specifically, every society - epoch, has as its life cycle the emergence of distinct quantitative boundaries that clarify and define the epoch. Marx and Engel's spent an inordinate amount of time in writing clarifications, tracking the various quantitative boundaries of the advance up to the first (is it really the first?) quantitative boundary of the industrial society. Clarification comes with time, but with the passing of time that, which is being observed is changing on the basis of its own law system as it intermingles with the new laws of the emergent epoch. . One has no way to trace and track beforehand what will be all the concrete, typical and non-typical features and boundaries of an epoch until it begins to expired and passed into a new epoch - quality, if you will. Fully aware of this problem, Marx outlined an aspect of one of the general law of society as: "No social order ever perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself." Who but God (wink to Ralph) knows what constitutes "all the productive forces for which there is room" in the old social order? We come to understand that "all the productive forces for which there is room" has been reached as the productive forces goes through revolution. Another difficulty arises because "room" is not to be conceived as "space." Rather, what brings the quantitative expansion of the old system to an end is the injection - quantitatively, of a new quality of productive forces into the old system. Ever increasing injections of new ingredients - new qualitative ingredients, into the old productive forces, blocks the expansion of the productive forces on the old basis. Stated another way, qualitative change is not the result of quantitative change. This is the old way of understanding Marx. An increase in the quantity of old productive forces can not create a new quality of productive forces. What takes place is that a new quality - invention, is quantitatively added to the old quality and its change begins. First slowly, because the new qualitative ingredients cannot be injected every where all at one time, and then faster and faster as the boundary of the old system is strained and ever more new inventions come into being and are brought on line. Some believe that the semi-conductor does not represent a new quality of tool, qualitatively altering the productive forces. By 2030 no one will argue or debate that we have long been in the initials passes of a post industrial work and trace its beginnings to the semi-conductor. Part of the problem of "knowing," is bound up with the question of emergence. One is only able to grasp an outline of the essential laws systems defining an epoch, as it increasingly fades into the backdrop, and it is on the basis of the new epoch that is being experienced. Marx wrote during "the first stage" of industrial society - (I think but can never be sure). The problem of emergence means that the first stage of the new society one is experiencing has to be the second phase of the "new quality" because "higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured" in the old society. We cannot see or experience emergence, only that which has emerged. I think? :-( Waistline "Neither you nor the theoreticians of your society have a full conceptual grasp of what you lived through until the world you grew up in has changed so dramatically that the underlying assumptions of the time come into relief. As a product of an earlier time, you may not be fully in tune with what is going on now and cannot articulate its inner experience. This is what the generation coming up now will have to do when it gets an intellectual grasp on what it was like its inhabitants to live through this period." (Ralph Dumain) _http://feu.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070629223023AAgJj20_ (http://feu.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070629223023AAgJj20) ^^^^ CB: And so now the time is right for the Detroit philosophers , proletarian philosophers, to understand and draw the conclusions from the historical experiences of the last 100 hundred years of the Great Proletarian Center , DETROIT ! Now the Leninist Owl of Minerva takes flight as the shades of economic night descend on Motown. Our Benjamin Franklin is Coleman Young. Change comes from the bottom up, and Old Black Bottom Detroit will make a change in America. **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From ballistanc at yahoo.com Sat Dec 27 17:10:50 2008 From: ballistanc at yahoo.com (juan De La Cruz) Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 16:10:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Call to Action In-Reply-To: <4937D453.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <130125.86990.qm@web35502.mail.mud.yahoo.com> You're repeating the same social democratic mistakes of the past!? Since the foundation of you "party" you've been an agent of social democratic domination...That has been of the factor determining the reproduction of bourgeois political power....I'll recommend the creation of worker's nucleis as a previous step for an all insurrection against capital.? If that insurrection is successful, then we need to call for an international strike against the world capitalist class. --- On Thu, 12/4/08, Charles Brown wrote: From: Charles Brown Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Call to Action To: a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu, marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Date: Thursday, December 4, 2008, 1:00 PM A Call to Action Statement of the National Committee of the Communist Party USA at its November 15-16th 2008 meeting in New York -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The National Committee of the Communist Party USA calls on all of those concerned about the economic crisis that has gripped our country and the world to unite and fight for the election mandate. We hail the tens of millions who came to the polls and registered an historic defeat of the ultra right. These voters saw through the direct and indirect appeals to racism and voted for Obama. We salute those who rejected the Republican anti-communist, anti-immigrant attacks and numerous other slanders and voted their hopes and not their fears. Their votes represent the highest expression of patriotism. Our party has a proud history in the fight against racism, for unity and equality. We fully appreciate what this election represents in terms of the ongoing freedom struggle. The election of Barack Obama was indeed historic. While many of the pundits and other candidates rejected the idea, it was clear that the majority of voters were ready to elect our nation?s first African American President. The over 66 million votes cast for Obama represent a major blow against racism. Obama?s grassroots election tactics created a new model of election campaigns, which will change; forever the way elections are run. The extraordinarily innovative use of the Internet helped build a powerful movement of millions and created a very effective ground operation. While the Republicans ridiculed Obama?s background as a community organizer, it was those skills that made it possible to build a movement with thousands of dedicated volunteers, raise record amounts of money, draw record crowds and ultimately win the election. In order to win the Obama campaign had to battle racism and promote racial unity, and they did. The great strength of his campaign was its ability to unite people of all races and nationalities. Organized labor made an historic contribution to this effort. A quarter million workers trekked door to door, in state after state, convincing their fellow workers to ?do the right thing,? including put aside racial prejudice, and elect a pro-labor president. This was very effective and will have long-term effects on the entire workingclass movement. The Communist Party has always been confident that racial divisions, though entrenched, can be overcome when real class interests are understood -- and that?s what happened in this historic election. We also want to emphasis the role of the African American vote, which made a massive move to the Obama camp after his primary victory in predominantly white Iowa. African Americans voted against the Republicans in the high ninety percent ? in some areas, the vote was almost unanimous for Obama and the Democrats. This was historic, as was the massive majority support of youth. The huge Latino vote took on new political significance, and women came forward in large numbers. This broad electoral coalition included many independents and anti-Bush Republicans. This election shows that our country may have never been a center-right country and is in fact moving towards politics that are far more progressive. It was a landslide victory that is realigning our nation politically. President-elect Obama faces enormous challenges both domestically and internationally. There is much speculation as to what he will do. We believe that the key to success lies in Obama?s ongoing relationship with the magnificent coalition that won the day on November 4th and with continuing to expand that coalition. That movement is still intact and will be present in massive numbers at the inauguration. Throughout the campaign at his record-breaking rallies, Sen. Obama constantly emphasized that his all-people?s movement was built from the bottom up. We are very mindful of what the President-elect said in his acceptance speech, ?This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change.? As one union supporter said just days after the election, ?Now is the time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. There is legislation to be drafted, there is organizing to be done. Obama can?t do it by himself.? It?s time for post-election action to guarantee that the American people?s ?great expectations? become reality. Again, the movement approach is needed, aimed at winning the grass roots and moving the labor and peoples movement to the next level. There is still a tough fight ahead. The ultra right is down -- but not out. With the sharpening economic crisis wreaking havoc, emergency measures are needed to help Main Street. With millions losing their homes and jobs, it is time for action. A Chance to Make Change Millions of people have responded to the Obama campaign?s request for input on what the priorities of the new administration should be. Labor, the women?s movement, and other people?s organizations are already making proposals that include the following: -- A stimulus package of a half trillion dollars or more, to create millions of jobs, including a public works program. -- Emergency help for the jobless and the victims of the sub prime mortgage crisis. -- Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, so more workers can have unions. -- A concrete timetable for pulling out our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as rapidly as possible. -- Step up the campaign for universal healthcare through such means as passing HR676; preserve and improve Medicare and Medicaid; extend children?s health care plans and unemployment compensation. -- Emergency aid to cities and states. In addition, there are calls to review and where necessary repeal Bush?s executive orders, as well as the Patriot Act. United action is called for, against California?s Proposition 8 (gay marriage ban), against racist violence and to end the ICE raids and deportations of immigrant workers, and for comprehensive, democratic immigration reform including a path towards citizenship. While we participate in all of these struggles, we must take part in the important conversations on the future of our country, including the socialist alternative. Building the Communist Party is something positive and necessary; history shows that a large Communist contingent in the people?s movement, and a wide circulation of our press, contribute substantially to advancing the cause of democracy and social progress. It is a new day. Great changes are possible. Yes, it?s time for action. On January 20th, big history will be made in our country. The mobilization by the labor and people?s movement for a People?s Inauguration will put the fight for the mandate on the mark and ready to go. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Dec 27 21:04:48 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2008 23:04:48 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Call for Action Message-ID: In a message dated 12/27/2008 7:11:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, _ballistanc at yahoo.com_ (mailto:ballistanc at yahoo.com) writes: >> You're repeating the same social democratic mistakes of the past! Since the foundation of you "party" you've been an agent of social democratic domination...That has been of the factor determining the reproduction of bourgeois political power....I'll recommend the creation of worker's nucleis as a previous step for an all insurrection against capital. If that insurrection is successful, then we need to call for an international strike against the world capitalist class.<< ************************* Comment The "Call for Action" presented should be assessed based on its own merits. In my estimate the call for "creation of worker's nucleis as a previous step for an all insurrection against capital" makes no sense. Perhaps you could explain your meaning . . .yes? The CPUSA call for action makes sense even if one does not agree with their specific body politics or ideology. A call for action is a call to do something now or to join with other to do something now. The rationale for why one must do something now, should never overshadow the need to do something based on an analysis that "something" within the working class is changing or has changed. The first rule of all politics for all political groups and individuals hoping to impact the masses and make a difference is that we only can lead the workers where they are already going. It is never a "deviation" or mistake to advocate working with various segments in the working class to ensue their victory in the current struggle. Perhaps, a look at what action is being called for relevant. ********************* --- On Thu, 12/4/08, Charles Brown <_charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us_ (mailto:charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us) > wrote: Millions of people have responded to the Obama campaign?s request for input on what the priorities of the new administration should be. Labor, the women?s movement, and other people?s organizations are already making proposals that include the following: -- A stimulus package of a half trillion dollars or more, to create millions of jobs, including a public works program. -- Emergency help for the jobless and the victims of the sub prime mortgage crisis. -- Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, so more workers can have unions. -- A concrete timetable for pulling out our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as rapidly as possible. -- Step up the campaign for universal healthcare through such means as passing HR676; preserve and improve Medicare and Medicaid; extend children?s health care plans and unemployment compensation. -- Emergency aid to cities and states. ************************** At this point in time - Sat. December 27, 2008, the above points of struggle makes sense. Building worker's nucleis makes sense if one means working to group individual together, on the basis of whatever they are fighting for, in order to advance the fight. See, the people are not fighting for ideas - the things in someone head. Rather they are fighting to see their lives go forward and for very real things that improve their lives. The fact of the matter is that millions of people did in fact respond to the Obama campaign in a new way. How this response is described should never be confused with the fact that a response happened and opened the door for communists/Marxist to work in a new way amongst the masses. . In terms of this thread, perhaps reading Left Wing Communism and its underlying theory of insurrection - not the doctrine advanced in LWC, is helpful. If one is truly interest in Marxism and Insurrection, one could read Lenin article by the same name. Waistline **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Dec 27 22:39:43 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:39:43 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Call ffor Action: States Cut Medicaid Coverage Further Message-ID: States Cut Medicaid Coverage Further Region Is Among Areas Where Poor Are Affected By Amy Goldstein Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 26, 2008; Page A01 States from Rhode Island to California are being forced to curtail Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, as they struggle to cope with the deteriorating economy. With revenue falling at the same time that more people are losing their jobs and private health coverage, states already have pared their programs and many are looking at deeper cuts for the coming year. Already, 19 states -- including Maryland and Virginia -- and the District of Columbia have lowered payments to hospitals and nursing homes, eliminated coverage for some treatments, and forced some recipients out of the insurance program completely. Many are halting payments for health-care services not required by the federal government, such as physical therapy, eyeglasses, hearing aids and hospice care. A few states are requiring poor patients to chip in more toward their care. "It's not a pretty list at all," said Michael Hales, Medicaid director in Utah. ad_icon Medicaid, a central piece of the Great Society safety net created in the 1960s, is the nation's largest source of government health insurance. It covered 50 million Americans last year. The program is a shared responsibility of the federal government and the states, with federal money paying an average of 57 percent of the bills and states providing the rest. Federal health officials set minimum rules about who can enroll and what care must be covered, but states are free to add to the basics. Those optional patients and services are what many states are rethinking now. With the program the largest or second-largest expense in every state's budget, governors and state legislators have been pleading with Congress and the incoming Obama administration for help. The Democrats, who hold majorities in the House and the Senate, are sounding sympathetic for now. They are considering close to $100 billion to increase the share of Medicaid's costs that the federal government would pay during the next two years. President-elect Barack Obama also is open to extra help for Medicaid as part of a broad strategy to spur the economy. "We are considering a number of proposals . . . including helping states meet Medicaid needs; reducing health-care costs; rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges and schools; and ensuring that more families can stay in their homes," said Nick Shapiro, an Obama transition spokesman. Among the states with the gravest financial problems -- and pressures on Medicaid -- is California. In July, Medi-Cal, as the program there is known, slashed by 10 percent the rates it pays hospitals, nursing homes, speech pathologists and other providers of health care. It tried to lower payments to doctors and dentists, too, but they have sued to block the decreases. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has asked the state legislature to approve other cuts, including an end to dental care for adults, about 1 million of whom use it now, and a sharp reduction in care for recent immigrants. At two hospitals run by NorthBay Healthcare, midway between San Francisco and Sacramento, about one patient in five is on Medi-Cal. The rate cuts translate into a $4 million loss this year. In September, the health system closed a rehabilitation program for children that provided physical therapy, speech therapy and other help to about 300 young patients at a time -- with 100 more usually on the waiting list. "It was heart-wrenching to have to go out and announce," said Steve Huddleston, NorthBay's vice president of public affairs. The strain has spread through the Washington area. The District's Medicaid rolls have risen by 5,000 in the past year to nearly 150,000. To cope, the District made $20 million worth of changes to the program and a separate fund for people who are uninsured, including postponing an increase in payments to primary-care doctors. In Maryland, Medicaid enrollment has jumped by 8 percent in the past year, and the state has pared $82 million from the program for this year, reducing planned increases in payments to nursing homes, managed-care organizations, private nurses and home health aides. With a larger state deficit forecast for next year, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) is expected to propose deeper cuts in his budget next month, probably including a lengthy delay of the state's biggest Medicaid expansion in years: a planned extension of coverage to 100,000 parents and other adults. In October, Virginia eliminated a small fund for indigent patients. For the coming year, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) has just proposed $245 million in cuts from the nearly $3.3 billion that the commonwealth devotes to Medicaid, including reduced payments to hospitals and new limits on home health care. Rhode Island's approach has been the most far-reaching to date. This week, it announced an agreement with U.S. health officials that would, if the state legislature consents, change the entire financial basis of the program. The state would forfeit its Medicaid entitlement and accept a total of $12 billion in federal money over the next five years. In exchange, Rhode Island would win uncommon freedom from federal rules, allowing it to enroll all its Medicaid patients in managed care, cover less treatment and expand care for elderly patients at home, instead of in more-expensive nursing homes. In South Carolina, Medicaid officials last week announced the third round of cuts since August. They are "real unpleasant stuff," said Jeff Stensland, spokesman for the state's Department of Health and Human Services. The program will stop paying for most dental care for adults, eliminate nutritional supplements, cut home-delivered meals from 14 a week to seven, curtail mental health counseling, stop building wheelchair ramps and pay for fewer breast and cervical cancer screenings. Edna McClain, founder of Hospice Care of Tri-County in Columbia, S.C., helped coax state health officials to expand Medicaid to cover nursing care and other support for dying patients in the mid-1990s. She was stunned this month when an e-mail arrived from South Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services informing her that as of Jan. 1, Medicaid no longer would pay for new hospice patients. And after March 31, it would stop covering most people on Medicaid already in hospice care. With a $500,000 hole in her budget, she worries about how to care for low-income hospice patients, including a 47-year-old man whose weakened body is dangerously retaining fluid as he awaits a liver transplant. The day after she received notice from the state, McClain composed a letter and fired it off to 107 state legislators. "They can at least hear from me," she said. But she knows, she said, her protest is too late to make a difference. According to a Washington source who is in close contact with lawmakers, some in Congress also are beginning to entertain the idea of allowing unemployed people who have lost health benefits to sign up for Medicaid, with federal money paying the entire bill. In the meantime, uncertainty over how much help may come, and when it might arrive, is prompting many states to make the biggest reductions to their Medicaid programs in years -- and in some cases, ever. Diane Rowland, executive director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, said the pressure on Medicaid programs is particularly acute because the economy has deteriorated so soon after a milder recession early in the decade. States already "have taken the cuts that were making the program more efficient. . . . Now they are making . . . cuts into the core," she said. Nineteen states and the District have cut Medicaid for the current fiscal year, according to a survey this month by Families USA, a liberal consumer health lobby. All but one, plus six other states, are drafting deeper reductions for the coming fiscal year that they hope to avoid. Florida's Medicaid officials have just handed the governor and legislature a blueprint for a 10 percent reduction; it would eliminate coverage for 7,800 18- and 19-year-olds and 6,800 pregnant women. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from _http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From jannuzi at gmail.com Sat Dec 27 23:30:40 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:30:40 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Support for Message-ID: > 1. Support for Waistline's line (Charles Brown) >>"Examining data on changes in the US work force, the authors show that job losses due to higher productivity -- often the result of improving technology -- greatly outnumber those lost to globalization. The authors cite Commerce Department figures estimating that 65% of job losses in manufacturing between 2000 and 2006 were due to productivity increases; just 35% of job losses owed to overseas outsourcing."<< Except that the so-called gains in productivity have been largely debunked as enormous farts in the stats, flatulence from .com and the multiplex speculation bubble of US finance capitalism 1990-2008 (RIP). CJ From ballistanc at yahoo.com Sun Dec 28 03:19:00 2008 From: ballistanc at yahoo.com (juan De La Cruz) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 02:19:00 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Call ffor Action: States Cut Medicaid Coverage Further In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <958074.96633.qm@web35506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> ...the economic conditions created by productions relations allows the proletariat to move forward united as one force...but the discussion and mobilization have to go above and beyond those conditions and target all the structures of the capitalist mode of production affected by the actual spiral of capital centralization and destruction in an attempt to generate its war.? As I said before, the revolutionary proletariat most continued its practice with the original intention to avoid capital?from moving its "local" wars to the international arena.? We have to admit that it have gone far enough and today's acceleration of the crisis is another attempt to present an excuse to unleash an international confrontation since the bourgeoisie knows that the proletariat movement on the global scale still to weak therefore its response?to capital's attack are not as effective as those of 1917-1923.? So our group considers that it is urgent a discussion of communist theoretical and practical issues in order to consolidate and advance our class response to capital's attack, as we put forward, in 1986, A call to all those who struggle for the proletarian world?revolution, and since then we've been working toward that direction; but the "radical" agent of social democratic domination won't move toward that direction as you could observed during the presidential elections in the USA where they reproduced the same mistake of supporting the democratic party.? As all ways, they argued that their practice were based on tactical considerations...Are we going to continue discussing the same "mistakes" or are we going to push the class struggle forward?? --- On Sun, 12/28/08, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote: From: Waistline2 at aol.com Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Call ffor Action: States Cut Medicaid Coverage Further To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Date: Sunday, December 28, 2008, 12:39 AM States Cut Medicaid Coverage Further Region Is Among Areas Where Poor Are Affected By Amy Goldstein Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 26, 2008; Page A01 States from Rhode Island to California are being forced to curtail Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, as they struggle to cope with the deteriorating economy. With revenue falling at the same time that more people are losing their jobs and private health coverage, states already have pared their programs and many are looking at deeper cuts for the coming year. Already, 19 states -- including Maryland and Virginia -- and the District of Columbia have lowered payments to hospitals and nursing homes, eliminated coverage for some treatments, and forced some recipients out of the insurance program completely. Many are halting payments for health-care services not required by the federal government, such as physical therapy, eyeglasses, hearing aids and hospice care. A few states are requiring poor patients to chip in more toward their care. "It's not a pretty list at all," said Michael Hales, Medicaid director in Utah. ad_icon Medicaid, a central piece of the Great Society safety net created in the 1960s, is the nation's largest source of government health insurance. It covered 50 million Americans last year. The program is a shared responsibility of the federal government and the states, with federal money paying an average of 57 percent of the bills and states providing the rest. Federal health officials set minimum rules about who can enroll and what care must be covered, but states are free to add to the basics. Those optional patients and services are what many states are rethinking now. With the program the largest or second-largest expense in every state's budget, governors and state legislators have been pleading with Congress and the incoming Obama administration for help. The Democrats, who hold majorities in the House and the Senate, are sounding sympathetic for now. They are considering close to $100 billion to increase the share of Medicaid's costs that the federal government would pay during the next two years. President-elect Barack Obama also is open to extra help for Medicaid as part of a broad strategy to spur the economy. "We are considering a number of proposals . . . including helping states meet Medicaid needs; reducing health-care costs; rebuilding our crumbling roads, bridges and schools; and ensuring that more families can stay in their homes," said Nick Shapiro, an Obama transition spokesman. Among the states with the gravest financial problems -- and pressures on Medicaid -- is California. In July, Medi-Cal, as the program there is known, slashed by 10 percent the rates it pays hospitals, nursing homes, speech pathologists and other providers of health care. It tried to lower payments to doctors and dentists, too, but they have sued to block the decreases. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has asked the state legislature to approve other cuts, including an end to dental care for adults, about 1 million of whom use it now, and a sharp reduction in care for recent immigrants. At two hospitals run by NorthBay Healthcare, midway between San Francisco and Sacramento, about one patient in five is on Medi-Cal. The rate cuts translate into a $4 million loss this year. In September, the health system closed a rehabilitation program for children that provided physical therapy, speech therapy and other help to about 300 young patients at a time -- with 100 more usually on the waiting list. "It was heart-wrenching to have to go out and announce," said Steve Huddleston, NorthBay's vice president of public affairs. The strain has spread through the Washington area. The District's Medicaid rolls have risen by 5,000 in the past year to nearly 150,000. To cope, the District made $20 million worth of changes to the program and a separate fund for people who are uninsured, including postponing an increase in payments to primary-care doctors. In Maryland, Medicaid enrollment has jumped by 8 percent in the past year, and the state has pared $82 million from the program for this year, reducing planned increases in payments to nursing homes, managed-care organizations, private nurses and home health aides. With a larger state deficit forecast for next year, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) is expected to propose deeper cuts in his budget next month, probably including a lengthy delay of the state's biggest Medicaid expansion in years: a planned extension of coverage to 100,000 parents and other adults. In October, Virginia eliminated a small fund for indigent patients. For the coming year, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) has just proposed $245 million in cuts from the nearly $3.3 billion that the commonwealth devotes to Medicaid, including reduced payments to hospitals and new limits on home health care. Rhode Island's approach has been the most far-reaching to date. This week, it announced an agreement with U.S. health officials that would, if the state legislature consents, change the entire financial basis of the program. The state would forfeit its Medicaid entitlement and accept a total of $12 billion in federal money over the next five years. In exchange, Rhode Island would win uncommon freedom from federal rules, allowing it to enroll all its Medicaid patients in managed care, cover less treatment and expand care for elderly patients at home, instead of in more-expensive nursing homes. In South Carolina, Medicaid officials last week announced the third round of cuts since August. They are "real unpleasant stuff," said Jeff Stensland, spokesman for the state's Department of Health and Human Services. The program will stop paying for most dental care for adults, eliminate nutritional supplements, cut home-delivered meals from 14 a week to seven, curtail mental health counseling, stop building wheelchair ramps and pay for fewer breast and cervical cancer screenings. Edna McClain, founder of Hospice Care of Tri-County in Columbia, S.C., helped coax state health officials to expand Medicaid to cover nursing care and other support for dying patients in the mid-1990s. She was stunned this month when an e-mail arrived from South Carolina's Department of Health and Human Services informing her that as of Jan. 1, Medicaid no longer would pay for new hospice patients. And after March 31, it would stop covering most people on Medicaid already in hospice care. With a $500,000 hole in her budget, she worries about how to care for low-income hospice patients, including a 47-year-old man whose weakened body is dangerously retaining fluid as he awaits a liver transplant. The day after she received notice from the state, McClain composed a letter and fired it off to 107 state legislators. "They can at least hear from me," she said. But she knows, she said, her protest is too late to make a difference. According to a Washington source who is in close contact with lawmakers, some in Congress also are beginning to entertain the idea of allowing unemployed people who have lost health benefits to sign up for Medicaid, with federal money paying the entire bill. In the meantime, uncertainty over how much help may come, and when it might arrive, is prompting many states to make the biggest reductions to their Medicaid programs in years -- and in some cases, ever. Diane Rowland, executive director of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, said the pressure on Medicaid programs is particularly acute because the economy has deteriorated so soon after a milder recession early in the decade. States already "have taken the cuts that were making the program more efficient. . . . Now they are making . . . cuts into the core," she said. Nineteen states and the District have cut Medicaid for the current fiscal year, according to a survey this month by Families USA, a liberal consumer health lobby. All but one, plus six other states, are drafting deeper reductions for the coming fiscal year that they hope to avoid. Florida's Medicaid officials have just handed the governor and legislature a blueprint for a 10 percent reduction; it would eliminate coverage for 7,800 18- and 19-year-olds and 6,800 pregnant women. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from _http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun Dec 28 15:05:33 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:05:33 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Support for Message-ID: In a message dated 12/28/2008 1:30:47 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, jannuzi at gmail.com writes: > 1. Support for Waistline's line (Charles Brown) >>"Examining data on changes in the US work force, the authors show that job losses due to higher productivity -- often the result of improving technology -- greatly outnumber those lost to globalization. The authors cite Commerce Department figures estimating that 65% of job losses in manufacturing between 2000 and 2006 were due to productivity increases; just 35% of job losses owed to overseas outsourcing."<< ************ Except that the so-called gains in productivity have been largely debunked as enormous farts in the stats, flatulence from .com and the multiplex speculation bubble of US finance capitalism 1990-2008 (RIP). CJ Comment Thanks for taking my name out of this thread. There has been enormous gains in productivity. The time frame I was speaking of was from roughly 1971 - 2008, in auto. The officially recognized yearly gain in productivity in auto was expressed in contract negotiations as an annually 3% rise in wages to correspond with a minimum 3% rise in productivity. It is true that during the early 1970's the rise in productivity was by increasing the intensity of labor and extending the work day. In the 1980s the American auto producers made a conscious effort to increase productivity by implementing advanced technology - advanced robotics. Advanced robotics were advanced in comparison to the existing technology of the time. Once upon a time the life span of an industrial facility, buildings and equipment was roughly 20 - 25 years. Given the maddening pace of the real revolution in the productive forces, and the implementation of this technology, if I had to guess, I would say that the life cycle - for capital, of building and equipment is roughly 10 years. Interestingly, the Union and its member all understand that their instruments of production was undergoing continuous improvement and then revolution. Waistline **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun Dec 28 17:37:53 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2008 19:37:53 EST Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Call for Action Message-ID: In a message dated 12/28/2008 5:19:29 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, _ballistanc at yahoo.com_ (mailto:ballistanc at yahoo.com) writes: ...the economic conditions created by productions relations allows the proletariat to move forward united as one force...but the discussion and mobilization have to go above and beyond those conditions and target all the structures of the capitalist mode of production affected by the actual spiral of capital centralization and destruction in an attempt to generate its war. As I said before, the revolutionary proletariat most continued its practice with the original intention to avoid capital from moving its "local" wars to the international arena. We have to admit that it have gone far enough and today's acceleration of the crisis is another attempt to present an excuse to unleash an international confrontation since the bourgeoisie knows that the proletariat movement on the global scale still to weak therefore its response to capital's attack are not as effective as those of 1917-1923. So our group considers that it is urgent a discussion of communist theoretical and practical issues in order to consolidate and advance our class response to capital's attack, as we put forward, in 1986, A call to all those who struggle for the proletarian world revolution, and since then we've been working toward that direction; but the "radical" agent of social democratic domination won't move toward that direction as you could observed during the presidential elections in the USA where they reproduced the same mistake of supporting the democratic party. As all ways, they argued that their practice were based on tactical considerations...Are we going to continue discussing the same "mistakes" or are we going to push the class struggle forward? Comment I believe we are comparing apples to oranges and speaking of two very distinct matters. For instance when it is stated: "So our group considers that it is urgent a discussion of communist theoretical and practical issues in order to consolidate and advance our class response to capital's attack, as we put forward, in 1986, A call to all those who struggle for the proletarian world revolution, and since then we've been working toward that direction;" it seems this call if for the formation of an organization of revolutionaries. After all, at this stage or phase of the spontaneous working class movement in America, it is only a very narrow grouping of people interested in the proletarian movement. "A call to all those who struggle for the proletarian world revolution," is by definition something familiar to the individual about the proletarian revolution in the first place. Further, today a call for an organization of revolutionaries does not necessarily means an organization of Marxists, but rather, at best an organization with communists/Marxists at its core. We can fight and push and distribute our communist literature on the basis of the material struggle that various sections of the working class is experiencing. For instance if one is working with others about the mortgage crisis, then one must have literature or joining an organization that publishes literature about housing. The same applies to health care and other issues. It is not possible to fight directly for the "proletarian revolution." We tend to forget that the slogan of the Lenin group was "Land, Bread and Peace,' or things the masses yeaned for under the horrible conditions of war devastation. Fighting for the victory of the workers in their current struggle is not a tactical consideration but the essence of Marxists concreteness as written by Marx himself. The issue of the formation of an insurrectionary force - the Communists Party, is a different subject altogether, and in America no one to my knowledge has outlined the path of the American Proletarian Revolution, although its essential features are slowly coming into view. No section or segment of our proletariat is revolutionary, except in a broad historical meaning. Our proletariat is just beginning to stir and reminds me of a man that has just been hit in the head, rendered unconscious and had his wallet taken. Upon awakening the first impulse is to try and figure out what happened and how must injury he has sustained. For reasons of our own history the first instinct of the wakening of our workers is a marked tendency to go to the right - or right wing, of the political spectrum. This is because the working class is an aspect - organic part, of capital and remains such to the degree is it not more than less torn out of the capital relations. At any rate. I do not believe that advocacy for creation of an insurrectionary force - the Leninist Party, is in contradiction with a call for action based on the current struggle and shifts taking place in real time. I do however view such calls premature, without more details concerning what one actual mean. I believe that American history proves beyond doubt the impossibility of sustaining an insurrectionary force, a party of Leninism, for any significant period of time, under non-revolutionary conditions. Such groups inevitably sink into the most rank sectarianism or right wing communism, because the workers themselves are not in a revolutionary move. Waistline **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 29 10:00:46 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:00:46 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Lenin's "Left Wing Communism" Message-ID: <4958BBED.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From: Waistline2 at xxxxxxx Comment I respect your understanding. I voted for Obama, agitated for him and urged others to vote for him. I would say that most of my comrades and former comrades did not vote for Obama or urge others to vote for him. The anti-Obama left and their urging other not to vote for Obama does not in itself constitute a "deviation," within Marxism. ^^^^ CB: I'll have to read some more of _Left Wing Communism_ to see if Lenin analyzes those tendencies as "deviations". The US left is hardly Marxist at all, so it would not be cogent to analyze our concrete circumstance in terms of within Marxism. I would say that there is a ghost of Marxism in the thinking of the US left, a vague sense of the importance and centrality of class. Anyway, on your point of "deviation", the US left has free thought itself a few standard deviations such that it is a sort of outlier of Marxism , if you like "statistics" puns. ^^^^^^^ In my opinion to suggest that the doctrine of Lenin is applicable to America is an error, neither left or write but historically incorrect. ^^^ CB: I disagree with that ( smile). In particular, I'm noticing that his theory of imperialism is very enlightening concerning the current finance capitalist crisis. His whole framework is much more fresh than most credit today. The auto companies are a cartel, I think. And _monopoly_ which he features as the central concept of the book. has just been defined in capitalist reality so elegantly a child can understand it. I say workers of the world, just watch the news for a demonstration of the monopoly power of the monopoly finance institutions like never scene before. Clearly, the finance system is _not_ a free market system. That means by definition it is a _monopoly_ system. Proving Lenin's central these is still absolutely in operation. Imperialism _is_ the last stage of capitalism. We haven't gone beyond it to something else. It's still as Lenin analyzed it in 1916 , just more so ! But maybe you are talking more about Lenin's theory of political activities in relation to the state, The Leftwing Communism issues. ^^^^^ I do feel that those advocating not voting for Obama missed the opportunity to take part in our working class, - a section of them, crossing a historical barrier. I choose to throw the weight of my vote and vote in support of crossing the barrier that allowed a black person to become President. This was practical affirmation of the impact of us being at least 40 years into the post Jim Crow period of our history. ^^^ CB: To me , Michelle Obama hit the key issue early on: She has never been so proud of her country. I say more specifically, I have never been so proud of White people since the "60's". A barrier crossed or critical mass voters was reached making a significant anti-racist majority in the vote for President. This a lot of indicia of the beginning of the end of the Southern Strategy/Reaganite racist majority that has ruled for thirty years. The anti-racist leadership and statements by people like Trumka and Murtha were emblematic. A big segment of the anti-racist majority is the most militant current section of our class, Mexican and Hispanic voters and workers. ^^^^^ Specifically, the left Communism of which Lenin writes have a context; a historically specific social, political and class alignment. Lenin points out two distinct period of the errors of the Left communist in Russia; 1908 and 1918 - after the formation of Bolshevism and the seizure of power by the Lenin group. In 1908 the "Left Communism" advocated boycotting the election under conditions of political feudalism. Lenin's doctrine is aimed at overthrowing political feudalism - Czarism, and Leninism took shape in this context. ^^^ CB: True. Although Lenin analyzes ultra-lefts in other countries too. Also, notice the first chapter is on the international significance of the Bolshevik revolution. There is also _historical_ significance of the Bolshevik rev. including things we can still learn 90 years later. That takes a certain amount of thinking and creative thinking to do, but that's what this thread is. ^^^^^ In that historically specific context - of the political battle to overthrow Czarism, a section of the Lenin group advocating boycott in 1908 became a momentary political trend called Left wing communists. ^^^ CB: Well, it's not quite that narrow in significance. Otherwise, why write a whole book/pamphlet about it ? And Lenin was probably overly modest in drawing larger conclusions. Then there's the "owl of Minerva" phenomenon: hindsight is twenty/twenty. We can understand things about that bygone era better than people living in it. ^^^^ There is another peculiarity however. The Czar had a rule that the workers were entitled to their own distinct representatives in the Duma. The class alignment, expressed in the political arena was the representatives of the Czar, the bourgeoisie, the working class and the peasants, under condition of political feudalism. There of course is no corresponding class alignment of feudal relations in America that has anything in common with 1908 Russia. In fact America has always been devoid of any concrete feudal economic, social or political relations. ^^^^ CB; Yes, compare and contrast. That's how it should be treated. But it is not all contrast. ^^^^^ Simply because a group of individuals advocate something we might disagree with does not make them "Left wing communists" or right wing communist (right opportunists) in Lenin's meaning. ^^^ CB: That's correct. Just disagreeing is not the definition of Leftwing Communism or ultra-leftism. Petit bourgeois revolutionism, often some anarchism, sectarianism, and I'm thinking "never compromising". These are main general elements that Lenin focuses on. The US , because of its history of independent small producers, small farmers and therefore a strong petit bourgeois or "middle" class tradition , has a strong "indigenous" anarchism/libertarianism, too. So, this section and the whole paragraph it comes from has some application to the US. "Marxist theory has established?and the experience of all European revolutions and revolutionary movements has fully confirmed?that the petty proprietor, the small master (a social type existing on a very extensive and even mass scale in many European countries), who, under capitalism, always suffers oppression and very frequently a most acute and rapid deterioration in his conditions of life, and even ruin, easily goes to revolutionary extremes, but is incapable of perseverance, organisation, discipline and steadfastness. A petty bourgeois driven to frenzy by the horrors of capitalism is a social phenomenon which, like anarchism, is characteristic of all capitalist countries " ^^^ I do not believe it is a left wing communist error to advocate boycotting elections in America due to our historically specific capitalist history and owing to the fact that the majority of the working class does not vote at all. ^^^ CB: I'd say it is an ultra left error to advocate boycotting elections. If the working class election boycotters were organizing "illegal" struggle ( see Lenin's comments on legal and illegal struggle), that would be different. But, not voting is not a politically conscious "boycott" in the US in 2008. It is apolitical negligence by the vast majority of non-voters, who are alienated from the system , but not in anyway thinking about changing the system. When not voting , they are not off somewhere planning to overthrow the system. US Marxists and Leftists best try tp_propagandize_, politically educate and leading this apolitical sector, not follow their lead. Of course, that's easier said than done. I know from first hand experience (smile). ^^^^^ ^^^^^ If the majority of the workers reject participation in the national political elections, there is a well reasoned argument that such Lefts who advocate boycott are on solid political ground. ^^^ CB: See above. ^^^^^ Further, Lenin speaks of the boycott of an election and not a disagreement over supporting a particular bourgeois candidate. Lenin's doctrine - not his Marxism, is not applicable to America today and perhaps was never ready applicable to America. His general theory of class's and class struggle holds true. ^^^ CB: I'd say more of Lenin's theory of parties is applicable to our concrete circumstance than many think. His approach to classes , the details, suggests a model for today in the US , even as the classes and class relations are different than Russia 1918, there is still an amazing amount of overlap. ^^^^ "Lenin's "Left Wing Communism" is a good read but cannot be applied to the social and political landscape of today," needs to be altered to read more accurately. Lenin's "Left Wing Communism" is a good read but AS A DOTRINE OF COMBAT - not its theory premise, cannot be applied to the social and political landscape of today." In as much as both of us supported Obama's candidacy and vote for him (if I am not mistaken) our different perspective on Leninism as a doctrine - not Lenin's theoretical underpinning which is Marxism, is relatively minor. I did have tears of joy about Obama's victory, as the crossing of an important historical boundary in American history. There are those communist/Marxists who would call voting for Obama "right wing communism" or right opportunism. Their logic - based on "Lenin and Left Wing Communism," is that Lenin speaks of a boycott of an election in the context of the Bolsheviks having their own party fielding their own candidates, rather than supporting a bourgeois candidate for the highest office in the land. Waistline ^^^^ CB: Yes, as we know, because of McCarthyism and the long history of anti-Communism in the US, the US bourgeois state has effectively rendered Communists illegitimate, even as they pretend today that Communist have political "freedom" to run for office , etc. The enforcement against Communists can be by the private sector ,even as the state power sneakily holds Communists to be technically "legal". The illegitimizing is sufficient to prevent Communists from actually competing in elections. Yet, McCarthyism paradoxically teaches US Communists that they _must_ participate in the electoral process as the only legal and legitimate political arena in the US , less Communists be accused of plotting to overthrow the government by force and violence. In other words, "if you Commies aren't participating in elections, what are you doing ? Plotting illegally ?" So, at this point the US bourgeois have very effectively rendered Communists unable to participate in the US system, without out and out outlawing Communists, so that they get to pretend that they have a "free" political system without discrimination. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 29 11:47:36 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:47:36 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] U.S. Woes Open Door for China: Workers/Capital, Obama, State References: <4958C8A9.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <4958D4F8.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From: Waistline2 Comment At the risk of being a pinprick, I see no modern evidence of the existence of "anything" that can be called "industrial capital" in America. ^^^^ CB: What you say is consistent with Lenin's analysis of "industrial capital" in the imperialist stage as "merged" with finance capital. "If it were necessary to give the briefest possible definition of imperialism we should have to say that imperialism is the monopoly stage of capitalism. Such a definition would include what is most important, for, on the one hand, finance capital is the bank capital of a few very big monopolist banks, merged with the capital of the monopolist associations of industrialists;" we must give a definition of imperialism that will include the following five of its basic features: "... (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation, on the basis of this ?finance capital?, of a financial oligarchy;.." http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch07.htm ^^^ Cerberus owns 81% of Chrysler and 51% of General Motors. Money - investment in industry, is not the meaning of industrial capital. Cerberus owns Chrysler and the banks and non-financial institutions own the rest of us. ^^^ CB: This is exactly the merger of industrial and finance capital, with finance capital dominant ( a "financial oligarchy"), just like Lenin pictured it, but even more open and openly dominant from the finance side. But way back in the 1930's it was GM's head guy who was famous for saying that GM doesn't make cars, it makes money. So, this finance look to GM is not new nor is it anything but exactly what Lenin said about industrial corporations in the imperialist stage of capitalism. ^^^^^ The Big Three in Detroit are not representative of industrial capital. Rather they express industrial production. Although we have long ago left the world of Lenin, here is what Lenin says about finance capital. ^^ CB: Actually, no, we are more and more in the world of Lenin's principles as expressed in _Imperialism_ . See above. That's why I have been sending the list _Imperialism_ serially. ^^^^^^^ ?A steadily increasing proportion of capital in industry,? writes Hilferding, ?ceases to belong to the industrialists who employ it. They obtain the use of it only through the medium of the banks which, in relation to them, represent the owners of the capital. On the other hand, the bank is forced to sink an increasing share of its funds in industry. ^^^ CB: And this process, as described by Lenin in 1916 , is continuing today, for example see what you say about Cebereus above ! It's quite remarkable how cogent and pertinent Lenin's analysis of imperialism, state-monopoly capitalism is today in 2008 ! And on the very issues you raise. ^^^ Thus, to an ever greater degree the banker is being transformed into an industrial capitalist. ^^^ CB: Like Cebereus today ! ^^^^ This bank capital, i.e., capital in money form, which is thus actually transformed into industrial capital, I call ?finance capital?.? ?Finance capital is capital controlled by banks and employed by industrialists.?[1] Now some seem to believe that what makes modern financial capitalist-imperialism, capitalist imperialism is monopoly, but this is not my reading of Lenin. ^^^^^ CB: I don't know. He is very explicit on this point. "Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly." "As we have seen, the deepest economic foundation of imperialism is monopoly." "We have seen that in its economic essence imperialism is monopoly capitalism. This in itself determines its place in history, for monopoly that grows out of the soil of free competition, and precisely out of free competition, is the transition from the capitalist system to a higher socio-economic order. We must take special note of the four principal types of monopoly, or principal manifestations of monopoly capitalism, which are characteristic of the epoch we are examining. " ^^^ What makes financial imperialism what it is, is finance, or domination of finance capital over industrial capital and the reality of the financial oligarchy. Sure this domination rests upon monopoly, but it is the monopoly and domination of finance. ^^^ CB: Read Lenin on this relationship between finance, monopoly, financial oligarchy , etc. ^^^ The strife within the American ruling class we are witnessing today, in the form of the competing political factions pleading government for bailouts, is not based on or driven by a "giant crack" between finance and industrial capital. ^^^^ CB: What's your supporting evidence for this claim ? ^^^^^^^ In American history financial-industrial capital emerged on the basis of financing the Civil War. In recognition of this change, the outstanding intellectual Dr. WEB Dubois, writing about the post Civil War era, sadly noted that "the South controls the nation and Wall Street controls the South." That is to say WEB acknowledges the fusion and domination of banking (finance) capital over industrial capital and its fusion and emergence as financial-industrial capital decades ago. The point is that Wall Street initially meant finance capital and after the Civil War meant financial-industrial capital that Lenin's Hobson analysis would outline more than 50 years later. Perhaps what is meant is the favorable treatment the new - more than less, non-banking "financial sector," gets over the industrial sector of the economy. The reason for this is bound up with the new dominating form of finance capital. ^^^ CB: It's been dominating since early 1900. Remember J.P. Morgan ? ^^^^ The rife within our ruling class, apparent during the Presidential elections is bound up with varying visions of how to further transform the state. ^^^ CB: There may be a more material basis as well. ^^^ On the ideological plane the very real rift within our ruling class was expressed in the Presidential election and the horrific beating the Republican are taking. The rift is not being generated by a giant crack - (unless one is referring to someone smoking crack cocaine:-) between finance and industrial capital. ^^^ CB: What's your evidence for this claim ? ^^^ The rift that appears in the political and ideological realm between Republican and Democrat is bound up with both of their historical political basis within the population - (which is old, stagnant and riveted to old ideological projections, that in turn expressed a previous economic and political alignment). That is to say the Republican Party's ideological banner of small government and no regulations is politically obsolete and can no longer serve the needs of capital as it is dominated and driven by the financial speculators. ^^^ CB: The Republicans gave that up a _long_ time ago. Reagan doubled the national debt. His anti-big government talk was extreme demogogy. Nixon didn't make the government smaller. ^^^ We are facing another phase - political phase, in the evolution of globalism and the rift within the ruling class is an expression of this new phase. This new phase is well underway and has been unfolding for a solid twenty years. Global capital means finance capital. Global capital is chafing under the historically derived encumbrances imposed by the nation-state. (That is the responsibility of the national state to its "population," to the nation as a whole). These encumbrances must be and are being removed, and in the process the institutional structure of "the bourgeois democratic republic," as we have known it, is being destroyed. ^^^ CB: The US bourgeois democratic republic just had about the most democratic election it ever had. It's hardly being destroyed. ^^^^^ In its place is being erected the initial pieces of a new state form compatible with the present day needs of capital. Financial speculation as distinct from financial-industrial capital, spoken of by Lenin, dominates present day capital world wide. ^^^ CB: That's correct. ^^^^^ The process is well underway, the actual merging of state and capital, to the point where their roles and functions are indistinguishable from one another. ^^^ CB: Well there's advanced "state-monopoly", as Lenin discusses. They aren't merged. It is just that the state has developed more and more ways to serve finance capital. Lenin also uses the terms "rentier state" and "userer state". ^^^^ Yet, the Republican Party - and its base, has been weaned on a 30 year ideological diet of less government, no handouts to corporations, "let financial and industrial corporations fail and go bankrupt;" ^^^ CB: Hardly. The Republicans have not in action been allowing corps to fail, especially financial corporations and hedge funds. Chrysler was bailed out in 1979. ^^^ "keep government and the state out of the affairs of the free market," at the very moment the new form of capital need a rationale for more government in the form of a merger of corporations and the state; as a new form of capital/state rule in the era of the speculator. Although I voted for Obama, I do not make a fetish of it and clearly understood why his appeal for more government and state intervention into the economy was welcomed by the dominant sector of capital. From my perspective, as I live out my real life from day to day, the task of crossing the historical color barrier was paramount as a practical matter and opens the door for the possibility of a new level of unity of the fighting sections of the working class. We have crossed a historical barrier and WEB Dubois can rest in peace because he was correct: in America the question for the 20 th century was in fact the color line. ^^^ CB: yes ^^^ This is no longer valid in the 21st century because the line - boundary, has been crossed. Here is why I rejected the idea that Obama's election meant putting a black face on imperialism. Imagine a Marxist putting forth such a silly analysis, as they watched two - three million people rally to his message. ^^^ CB: yes, a lot more than 2 to 3 million though. ^^^^ The U.S. state is shifting from promoting and protecting the relation between labor and capital as its primary task here in the U.S. to protecting the new dominant - controlling, form of private property at home and globally. There are steps in this direction, but the process is not complete, and the state is still teetering on the old crumbling industrial foundation and its correspond political and ideology rationales and institutions. Hence, what appears as an attack on the industrial sector, not industrial capital, which no longer exists. Now, it is true that productive capital is still the only basis for creation of expanding value, but we all know that it is not necessary for the individual, or group or sector of the population or a sector of capital to realize surplus value to become wealthy and treated as capitalists. The specific parasitic forms of capital activity and wealth accumulation on the rise today does not create an expanding value, but it most certainly creates wealth and power. Our parasitic form of capital redistribute wealth to the owners of property. The parasite is killing its host and it relies on the state to do so, with wealth accumulation depending ever more heavily on the state. ^^^ CB: In _Imperialism_ , Lenin has a whole chapter on parasitism ^^^ Once again in history, the distinctions between private property and the state are eroding, with their roles overlapping and merging. This all makes for a very unstable situation: The state rests on and protects the basic relationship that makes up capitalism at every quantitative boundary capital passes through. New methods of production are destroying not only the old relationship, but the capital relationship, because capital rest exclusively on the competition between the workers and their labor. Labor is simply not needed in the same way; the state no longer has to guarantee its (labor) reproduction in the same way. Because labor power in the U.S. has been some of the most expensive in the world, it is the first to go, and the state is realigning here in a certain way. ^^^ CB: However, that trend has led to a severe crisis for US capital. ^^^^ We are in for a complex political struggle and it makes no sense to hastily label anyone who would not vote or support Obama. ^^^ CB: No, not hastily, deliberately, we must. ^^^^ Further, one must be extremely sensitive to comrades who opposed the bailout for auto. However, if one is working in auto and/or the UAW you are going to be isolated and unable to speak to anyone, or win them over to the cause of communism, (on the basis of the current struggle), by screaming "no help to the auto workers" or making general condemnation of auto production. One may as well run into a bomb or weapons facility and demand the workers stop making bombs and weapons. The exact form of changes in the state are neither automatic nor pre-determined. Such changes are made by human beings who take small steps in response to big problems - all in the context of a certain culture, history and engaging the workers where they are at. Just because something addresses the direction of change, it does not mean it is the inevitable or the final answer. But the cause and direction of the process are clear. We are not dealing with a society or form of capital of which Lenin's "Imperialism" does not and could not speak. ^^^ CB: Disagree. Lenin's analysis and understanding of imperialism is amazingly fresh in 2008. It is probably because he analyzed it so fundamentally and precisely in 1916, and the fundamentals persist. There is no stage of capitalism after imperialism. It is the _last_ stage of capitalism. Capitalism has , overall, been more of the same _fundamentally_ since 1916. That's what today's events are demonstrating with remarkably clarity. ^^^^ At the origins of capital, the state was structured to accelerate the formation of a working class, against a feudal backdrop; to protect the emerging national market and the national capitalists. Imperialism and the ?welfare state? represented another stage of the process of growth of capitalism. As new methods of production begin to destroy the foundation for/of capitalism, the state is undergoing a profound shift: from a nation (multinational) state, in the sense of protecting the market and the social relations within one country, to that of expanding "the market" - (in the sense of the modern non-banking financial institutions), and protecting the sanctity of private property globally, while abandoning responsibility for society nationally. ^^^ CB: This is somewhat true, but it is a continuation of some of the trends that Lenin noted in _Imperialism_, such as export of capital and colonialism. We have had Socialist bloc, neo-colonialism, and post socialist countries/post -neo-colonialism. By the way, the IMF and World Bank are very much foreshadowed by Lenin's analysis, in my opinion. ^^^^^ To protect private property under these new conditions, the state stands ever more directly opposed to those without property or job, all to the detriment of the interests of society as a whole. Even as we fight to protect employment - jobs, and fight for "jobs" - (at this stage I am not prepared to fight for jobs but rather, socially necessary means of life), we should be sensitive to those who have never had a "good job," are underemployed; temporary workers and have teetered in and out of employment for 20 years. Sorry if this did not come out right and was abrasive. I happen to know you do find work amongst the most impoverished of the workers in Detroit. Peace This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 29 12:32:10 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:32:10 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Interview with Gao Ziquing Message-ID: <4958DF69.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> *** DECEMBER 2008 In his first interview since the world financial crisis, Gao Xiqing, the man who oversees $200 billion of China?s $2 trillion in dollar holdings, explains why he?s betting against the dollar, praises American pragmatism, and wonders about enormous Wall Street paychecks. And he has a friendly piece of advice: by James Fallows ?Be Nice to the Countries That Lend You Money? IMAGE CREDIT: NELSON CHING/BLOOMBERG NEWS/LANDOV AMERICANS KNOW THAT China has financed much of their nation?s public and private debt. During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and John McCain generally agreed on the peril of borrowing so heavily from this one foreign source. For instance, in their final debate, McCain warned about the ?$10 trillion debt we?re giving to our kids, a half a trillion dollars we owe China,? and Obama said, ?Nothing is more important than us no longer borrowing $700billion or more from China and sending it to Saudi Arabia.? Their numbers on the debt differed, and both were way low. One year ago, when I wrote about China?s U.S. dollar holdings, the article was called ?The $1.4 trillion Question.? When Barack Obama takes office, the figure will be well over $2 trillion. During the late stages of this year?s campaign, I had several chances to talk with the man who oversees many of China?s American holdings. He is Gao Xiqing, president of the China Investment Corporation, which manages ?only? about $200billion of the country?s foreign assets but makes most of the high-visibility investments, like buying stakes in Blackstone and Morgan Stanley, as opposed to just holding Treasury notes. Gao, whom I mentioned in my article, would fit no American?s preexisting idea of a Communist Chinese official. He speaks accented but fully colloquial and very high-speed English. He has a law degree from Duke, which he earned in the 1980s after working as a lawyer and professor in China, and he was an associate in Richard Nixon?s former Wall Street law firm. His office, in one of the more tasteful new glass-walled high-rises in Beijing, itself seems less Chinese than internationally ?fusion?-minded in its aesthetic and furnishings. Bonsai trees in large pots, elegant Japanese-looking arrangements of individual smooth stones on display shelves, Chinese and Western financial textbooks behind the desk, with a photo of Martin Luther King Jr. perched among the books. Two very large, very thin desktop monitors read out financial data from around the world. As we spoke, Western classical music played softly from a good sound system. Gao dressed and acted like a Silicon Valley moneyman rather than one from Wall Street-open-necked tattersall shirt, muted plaid jacket, dark slacks, scuffed walking shoes. Rimless glasses. His father was a Red Army officer who was on the Long March with Mao. As a teenager during the Cultural Revolution, Gao worked on a railroad-building gang and in an ammunition factory. He is 55, fit-looking, with crew-cut hair and a jokey demeanor rather than an air of sternness. His comments below are from our one on-the-record discussion, two weeks before the U.S. elections. As I transcribed his words, I realized that many will look more astringent on the page than they sounded when coming from him. In person, he seemed to be relying on shared experience in the United States-that is, his and mine-to entitle him to criticize the country the way its own people might. The conversation was entirely in English. Because Gao?s answers tended to be long, I am not presenting them in straight Q&A form but instead grouping his comments about his main recurring themes. Does America wonder who its new Chinese banking overlords might be? This is what one of the very most influential of them had to say about the world financial crisis, what is wrong with Wall Street, whether one still-poor country with tremendous internal needs could continue subsidizing a still-rich one, and how he thought America could adjust to its ?realistic? place in the world. My point for the moment is to convey what it is like to hear from such a man, rather than to expand upon, challenge, or agree with his stated views. ..... About the financial crisis of 2008, which eliminated hundreds of billions of dollars? worth of savings that the Chinese government had extracted from its people, through deliberately suppressed consumption levels: We are not quite at the bottom yet. Because we don?t really know what?s going to happen next. Everyone is saying, ?Oh, look, the dollar is getting stronger!? [As it was when we spoke.] I say, that?s really temporary. It?s simply because a lot of people need to cash in, they need U.S. dollars in order to pay back their creditors. But after a short while, the dollar may be going down again. I?d like to bet on that! The overall financial situation in the U.S. is changing, and that?s what we don?t know about. It?s going to be changed fundamentally in many ways. Think about the way we?ve been living the past 30 years. Thirty years ago, the leverage of the investment banks was like 4-to-1, 5-to-1. Today, it?s 30-to-1. This is not just a change of numbers. This is a change of fundamental thinking. People, especially Americans, started believing that they can live on other people?s money. And more and more so. First other people?s money in your own country. And then the savings rate comes down, and you start living on other people?s money from outside. At first it was the Japanese. Now the Chinese and the Middle Easterners. We-the Chinese, the Middle Easterners, the Japanese-we can see this too. Okay, we?d love to support you guys-if it?s sustainable. But if it?s not, why should we be doing this? After we are gone, you cannot just go to the moon to get more money. So, forget it. Let?s change the way of living. [By which he meant: less debt, lower rewards for financial wizardry, more attention to the ?real economy,? etc.] ..... About stock market derivatives and their role as source of evil: If you look at every one of these [derivative] products, they make sense. But in aggregate, they are bullshit. They are crap. They serve to cheat people. I was predicting this many years ago. In 1999 or 2000, I gave a talk to the State Council [China?s main ruling body], with Premier Zhu Rongji. They wanted me to explain about capital markets and how they worked. These were all ministers and mostly not from a financial background. So I wondered, How do I explain derivatives?, and I used the model of mirrors. First of all, you have this book to sell. [He picks up a leather-bound book.] This is worth something, because of all the labor and so on you put in it. But then someone says, ?I don?t have to sell the book itself! I have a mirror, and I can sell the mirror image of the book!? Okay. That?s a stock certificate. And then someone else says, ?I have another mirror-I can sell a mirror image of that mirror.? Derivatives. That?s fine too, for a while. Then you have 10,000 mirrors, and the image is almost perfect. People start to believe that these mirrors are almost the real thing. But at some point, the image is interrupted. And all the rest will go. When I told the State Council about the mirrors, they all started laughing. ?How can you sell a mirror image! Won?t there be distortion?? But this is what happened with the American economy, and it will be a long and painful process to come down. I think we should do an overhaul and say, ?Let?s get rid of 90 percent of the derivatives.? Of course, that?s going to be very unpopular, because many people will lose jobs. ..... About Wall Street jobs, wealth, and the cultural distortion of America: I have to say it: you have to do something about pay in the financial system. People in this field have way too much money. And this is not right. When I graduated from Duke [in 1986], as a first-year lawyer, I got $60,000. I thought it was astronomical! I was making somewhere a bit more than $80,000 when I came back to China in 1988. And that first month?s salary I got in China, on a little slip of paper, was 59 yuan. A few dollars! With a few yuan deducted for my rent and my water bill. I laughed when I saw it: 59 yuan! The thing is, we are working as hard as, if not harder than, those people. And we?re not stupid. Today those people fresh out of law school would get $130,000, or $150,000. It doesn?t sound right. Individually, everyone needs to be compensated. But collectively, this directs the resources of the country. It distorts the talents of the country. The best and brightest minds go to lawyering, go to M.B.A.s. And that affects our country, too! Many of the brightest youngsters come to me and say, ?Okay, I want to go to the U.S. and get into business school, or law school.? I say, ?Why? Why not science and engineering?? They say, ?Look at some of my primary-school classmates. Their IQ is half of mine, but they?re in finance and now they?re making all this money.? So you have all these clever people going into financial engineering, where they come up with all these complicated products to sell to people. ..... About the $700 billion U.S. financial-rescue plan enacted in October: Finally, after months and months of struggling with your own ideology, with your own pride, your self-right-eousness ? finally [the U.S. applied] one of the great gifts of Americans, which is that you?re pragmatic. Now our people are joking that we look at the U.S. and see ?socialism with American characteristics.? [The Chinese term for its mainly capitalist market-opening of the last 30 years is ?socialism with Chinese characteristics.?] It is joking, and many people are saying: ?No, Americans still believe in free capitalism and they think this is just a hiccup.? This is like our great leader Deng Xiaoping, who said that it doesn?t matter if the cat is white or black, as long as it catches the mouse. It doesn?t matter what we call this. It?s pragmatic. ..... With so much of China?s money at stake, did U.S. officials consult the Chinese about the rescue plan? Not directly. We were talking to people there, and they were hoping that we would be supportive by not pulling out our money. We know that by pulling out money, we?re not serving anyone?s good. Including ourselves. [This is the famous modern ?balance of financial terror.? If Chinese officials started pulling assets out of the U.S. and touched off a run on the dollar, their vast remaining dollar holdings would plummet in value.] So we?re trying to help, at least by not aggravating the problem. But I think at the end of the day, the American government needs to talk with people and say: ?Why don?t we get together and think about this? If China has $2 trillion, Japan has almost $2 trillion, and Russia has some, and all the others, then-let?s throw away the ideological differences and think about what?s good for everyone.? We can get all the relevant people together and think up what people are calling a second Bretton Woods system, like the first Bretton Woods convention did. ..... On what might make the Chinese government start taking its dollars out of America (I began the question by saying that China would hurt itself by pulling out dollar assets-at which he interjected, ?in the short term?-and then asked about the long-term view): Today when we look at all the markets, the U.S. still is probably the most viable, the most predictable. I was trained as a lawyer, and predictability is always very important for me. We have a PR department, which collects all the comments about us, from Chinese newspapers and the Web. Every night, I try to pick a time when I?m in a relatively good mood to read it, because most of the comments are very critical of us. Recently we increased our holdings in Blackstone a little bit. Now we?re increasing a little bit our holdings in Morgan Stanley, so as not to be diluted by the Japanese. People here hate it. They come out and say, ?Why the hell are you trying to save those people? You are the representative of the poor people eating porridge, and you?re saving people eating shark fins!? It?s always that sort of thing. ..... And how should Americans feel about the growing Chinese presence in their economy? Isn?t it natural for them to worry that China will keep increasing its stake in American debt and assets-or that China won?t, essentially cutting America off? I can understand why Americans might feel that way. But, talking with my lawyer head once again, it?s not relevant to discuss how Americans ?should? think. We should discuss how Americans might think. This concern is not really about China itself. It could be any country. It could be Japan, or Germany. This generation of Americans is so used to your supremacy. Your being treated nicely by everyone. It hurts to think, Okay, now we have to be on equal footing to other people. ?On equal footing? would necessarily mean that sometimes you have to stoop to appear to be humble to other people. And you can?t think as a soldier. You put yourself at the enemy end of everyone. I grew up during the Cultural Revolution, when people really treated other people like enemies. I grew up in an environment where our friends, our relatives, people I called Uncle or Auntie, could turn around and put a nasty face to me as a small child. One time, Vladimir Lenin told Gorky, after reading Gorky?s autobiography, ?Oh my god! You could have become a very nasty person!? Those are exactly the words one of my dear professors told me after hearing what I went through. But over the years, I believe I learned to be humble. To treat other people nicely. I learned that, from a social point of view, no matter how lowly statured a person you are talking to, as a person, they are the same human being as you are. You have to respect them. You have to apologize if you inadvertently hurt them. And often you have to go out of your way to be nice to them, because they will not like you simply because of the difference in social structure. Americans are not sensitive in that regard. I mean, as a whole. The simple truth today is that your economy is built on the global economy. And it?s built on the support, the gratuitous support, of a lot of countries. So why don?t you come over and ? I won?t say kowtow [with a laugh], but at least, be nice to the countries that lend you money. Talk to the Chinese! Talk to the Middle Easterners! And pull your troops back! Take the troops back, demobilize many of the troops, so that you can save some money rather than spending $2 billion every day on them. And then tell your people that you need to save, and come out with a long-term, sustainable financial policy. ..... Although Gao has frequently mentioned Chairman Mao?s maxim-?Go with the Republicans. They?re predictable!?-he obviously was hoping for a ?change? agenda under the Democrats: The current conditions can?t go on. It is time for the new government, under Obama or even McCain, to really tell people: ?Look, this is wartime, this is about the survival of our nation. It?s not about our supremacy in the world. Let?s not even talk about that any more. Let?s get down to the very basics of our livelihood.? I have great admiration of American people. Creative, hard-working, trusting, and freedom-loving. But you have to have someone to tell you the truth. And then, start realizing it. And if you do it, just like what you did in the Second World War, then you?ll be great again! If that happens, then of course-American power would still be there for at least as long as I am living. But many people are betting on the other side. The URL for this page is http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200812/fallows-chinese-banker This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 29 13:12:39 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:12:39 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nobody makes no mistakes Message-ID: <4958E8E6.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> [*] What applies to individuals also applies?with necessary modifications?to politics and parties. It is not he who makes no mistakes that is intelligent. There are no such men, nor can there be. It is he whose errors are not very grave and who is able to rectify them easily and quickly that is intelligent. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 29 13:17:43 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:17:43 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Parts of Lenin's analysis cogent today Message-ID: <4958EA16.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2008-December/023379.html ...Today, when I hear our tactics in signing the Brest-Litovsk Treaty being attacked by the Socialist-Revolutionaries, for instance, or when I hear Comrade Lansbury say, in a conversation with me, "Our British trade union leaders say that if it was permissible for the Bolsheviks to compromise, it is permissible for them to compromise too", I usually reply by first of all giving a simple and "popular" example: Imagine that your car is held up by armed bandits. You hand them over your money, passport, revolver and car. In return you are rid of the pleasant company of the bandits. That is unquestionably a compromise. "Do ut des" (I "give" you money, fire-arms and a car "so that you give" me the opportunity to get away from you with a whole skin). It would, however, be difficult to find a sane man who would declare such a compromise to be "inadmissible on principle", or who would call the compromiser an accomplice of the bandits (even though the bandits might use the car and the firearms for further robberies). Our compromise with the bandits of German imperialism was just that kind of compromise. But when, in 1914-18 and then in 1918-20, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in Russia, the Scheidemannites (and to a large extent the Kautskyites) in Germany, Otto Bauer and Friedrich Adler (to say nothing of the Renners and Co.) in Austria, the Renaudels and Longuets and Co. in France, the Fabians, the Independents and the Labourites in Britain entered into compromises with the bandits of their own bourgeoisie, and sometimes of the "Allied" bourgeoisie, and against the revolutionary proletariat of their own countries, all these gentlemen were actually acting as accomplices in banditry. The conclusion is clear: to reject compromises "on principle", to reject the permissibility of compromises in general, no matter of what kind, is childishness, which it is difficult even to consider seriously. A political leader who desires to be useful to the revolutionary proletariat must be able to distinguish concrete cases of compromises that are inexcusable and are an expression of opportunism and treachery; he must direct all the force of criticism, the full intensity of merciless exposure and relentless war, against these concrete compromises, and not allow the past masters of "practical" socialism and the parliamentary Jesuits to dodge and wriggle out of responsibility by means of disquisitions on "compromises in general". It is in this way that the "leaders,, of the British trade unions, as well as of the Fabian society and the "Independent" Labour Party, dodge responsibility for the treachery they have perpetrated? for having made a compromise that is really tantamount to the worst kind of opportunism, treachery and betrayal. There are different kinds of compromises. One must be able to analyse the situation and the concrete conditions of each compromise, or of each variety of compromise. One must learn to distinguish between a man who has given up his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to lessen the evil they can do and to facilitate their capture and execution, and a man who gives his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to share in the loot. In politics this is by no means always as elementary as it is in this childishly simple example. However, anyone who is out to think up for the workers some kind of recipe that will provide them with cut-and-dried solutions for all contingencies, or promises that the policy of the revolutionary proletariat will never come up against difficult or complex situations, is simply a charlatan. To leave no room for misinterpretation, I shall attempt to outline, if only very briefly, several fundamental rules for the analysis of concrete compromises. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 29 13:21:15 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:21:15 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] "Left-Wing" Communism in Germany The Leaders, the Party, the Class, the Masses Message-ID: <4958EAEA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> "Left-Wing" Communism in Germany The Leaders, the Party, the Class, the Masses ---http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch05.htm----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The German Communists we must now speak of call themselves, not "Left-wingers" but, if I am not mistaken, an "opposition on principle". [17] From what follows below it will, however, be seen that they reveal all the symptoms of the "infantile disorder of Leftism". Published by the "local group in Frankfurt am Main", a pamphlet reflecting the point of view of this opposition, and entitled The Split in the Communist Party of Germany (The Spartacus League) sets forth the substance of this Opposition?s views most saliently, and with the utmost clarity and concision. A few quotations will suffice to acquaint the reader with that substance: "The Communist Party is the party of the most determined class struggle...." "... Politically, the transitional period [between capitalism and socialism] is one of the proletarian dictatorship...." "... The question arises: who is to exercise this dictatorship: the Communist Party or the proletarian class? ... Fundamentally, should we strive for a dictatorship? of the Communist Party, or for a dictatorship of the proletarian class?..." (All italics as in the orginal) The author of the pamphlet goes on to accuse the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany of seeking ways of achieving a coalition with the Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany, and of raising "the question of recognising, in principle, all political means" of struggle, including parliamentarianism, with the sole purpose of concealing its actual and main efforts to form a coalition with the Independents. The pamphlet goes on to say: "The opposition have chosen another road. They are of the opinion that the question of the rule of the Communist Party and of the dictatorship of the Party is merely one of tactics. In any case, rule by the Communist Party is the ultimate form of any party rule. Fundamentally, we must work for the dictatorship of the proletarian class. And all the measures of the Party, its organisations, methods of struggle, strategy and tactics should be directed? to that end. Accordingly, all compromise with other parties, all reversion to parliamentary forms of struggle which have become historically and politically obsolete, and any policy of manoeuvring and compromise must be emphatically rejected." "Specifically proletarian methods of revolutionary struggle must be strongly emphasised. New forms of organisation must be created on the widest basis and with the widest scope in order to enlist the most extensive proletarian circles and strata to take part in the revolutionary struggle under the leadership of the Communist Party. A Workers? Union, based on factory organisations, should be the rallying point for all revolutionary elements. This should unite all workers who follow the slogan: ?Get out of the trade unions!? It is here that the militant proletariat musters its ranks for battle. Recognition of the class struggle, of the Soviet system and of the dictatorship should be sufficient for enrolment. All subsequent political education of the fighting masses and their political orientation in the struggle are the task of the Communist Party, which stands outside the Workers? Union.... "... Consequently, two Communist parties are now arrayed against each other: "One is a party of leaders, which is out to organise the revolutionary struggle and to direct it from above, accepting compromises and parliamentarianism so as to create a situation enabling it to join a coalition government exercising a dictatorship. "The other is a mass party, which expects an upsurge of the revolutionary struggle from below, which knows and applies a single method in this struggle?a method which clearly leads to the goal -- and rejects all parliamentary and opportunist methods. That single method is the unconditional overthrow of the bourgeoisie, so as then to set up the proletarian class dictatorship for the accomplishment of socialism... "... There?the dictatorship of leaders; here?the dictatorship of the masses! That is our slogan." Such are the main features characterising the views of the opposition in the German Communist Party. Any Bolshevik who has consciously participated in the development of Bolshevism since 1903 or has closely observed that development will at once say, after reading these arguments, "What old and familiar rubbish! What ?Left-wing? childishness!" But let us examine these arguments a little more closely. The mere presentation of the question?"dictatorship of the party or dictatorship of the class; dictatorship (party) of the leaders, or dictatorship (party) of the masses?"?testifies to most incredibly and hopelessly muddled thinking. These people want to invent something quite out of the ordinary, and, in their effort to be clever, make themselves ridiculous. It is common knowledge that the masses are divided into classes, that the masses can be contrasted with classes only by contrasting the vast majority in general, regardless of division according to status in the social system of production, with categories holding a definite status in the social system of production; that as a rule and in most cases?at least in present-day civilised countries?classes are led by political parties; that political parties, as a general rule, are run by more or less stable groups composed of the most authoritative, influential and experienced members, who are elected to the most responsible positions, and are called leaders. All this is elementary. All this is clear and simple. Why replace this with some kind of rigmarole, some new Volap?k? On the one hand, these people seem to have got muddled when they found themselves in a predicament, when the party?s abrupt transition from legality to illegality upset the customary, normal and simple relations between leaders, parties and classes. In Germany, as in other European countries, people had become too accustomed to legality, to the free and proper election of "leaders" at regular party congresses, to the convenient method of testing the class composition of parties through parliamentary elections, mass meetings the press, the sentiments of the trade unions and other associations, etc. When, instead of this customary procedure, it became necessary, because of the stormy development of the revolution and the development of the civil war, to go over rapidly from legality to illegality, to combine the two, and to adopt the "inconvenient" and "undemocratic" methods of selecting, or forming, or preserving "groups of leaders"?people lost their bearings and began to think up some unmitigated nonsense. Certain members of the Communist Party of Holland, who were unlucky enough to be born in a small country with traditions and conditions of highly privileged and highly stable legality, and who had never seen a transition from legality to illegality, probably fell into confusion, lost their heads, and helped create these absurd inventions. On the other hand, one can see simply a thoughtless and incoherent use of the now "fashionable" terms: "masses" and "leaders". These people have heard and memorised a great many attacks on "leaders", in which the latter have been contrasted with the "masses"; however, they have proved unable to think matters out and gain a clear understanding of what it was all about. The divergence between "leaders" and "masses" was brought out with particular clarity and sharpness in all countries at the end of the imperialist war and following it. The principal reason for this was explained many times by Marx and Engels between the years 1852 and 1892, from the example of Britain. That country?s exclusive position led to the emergence, from the "masses", of a semi-petty-bourgeois, opportunist "labour aristocracy". The leaders of this labour aristocracy were constantly going over to the bourgeoisie, and were directly or indirectly on its pay roll. Marx earned the honour of incurring the hatred of these disreputable persons by openly branding them as traitors. Present-day (twentieth-century) imperialism has given a few advanced countries an exceptionally privileged position, which, everywhere in the Second International, has produced a certain type of traitor, opportunist, and social-chauvinist leaders, who champion the interests of their own craft, their own section of the labour aristocracy. The opportunist parties have become separated from the "masses", i.e., from the broadest strata of the working people, their majority, the lowest-paid workers. The revolutionary proletariat cannot be victorious unless this evil is combated, unless the opportunist, social-traitor leaders are exposed, discredited and expelled. That is the policy the Third International has embarked on. To go so far, in this connection, as to contrast, in general, the dictatorship of the masses with a dictatorship of the leaders is ridiculously absurd, and stupid. What is particularly amusing is that, in fact, instead of the old leaders, who hold generally accepted views on simple matters, new leaders are brought forth (under cover of the slogan "Down with the leaders!"), who talk rank stuff and nonsense. Such are Laufenberg, Wolffheim, Horner [18], Karl Schroder, Friedrich Wendel and Karl Erler, *2 in Germany. Erler?s attempts to give the question more "profundity" and to proclaim that in general political parties are unnecessary and "bourgeois" are so supremely absurd that one can only shrug one?s shoulders. It all goes to drive home the truth that a minor error can always assume monstrous proportions if it is persisted in, if profound justifications are sought for it, and if it is carried to its logical conclusion. Repudiation of the Party principle and of Party discipline -- that is what the opposition has arrived at. And this is tantamount to completely disarming the proletariat in the interests of the bourgeoisie. It all adds up to that petty-bourgeois diffuseness and instability, that incapacity for sustained effort, unity and organised action, which, if encouraged, must inevitably destroy any proletarian revolutionary movement. From the standpoint of communism, repudiation of the Party principle means attempting to leap from the eve of capitalism?s collapse (in Germany), not to the lower or the intermediate phase of communism, but to the higher. We in Russia (in the third year since the overthrow of the bourgeoisie) are making the first steps in the transition from capitalism to socialism or the lower stage of communism. Classes still remain, and will remain everywhere for years after the proletariat?s conquest of power. Perhaps in Britain, where there is no peasantry (but where petty proprietors exist), this period may be shorter. The abolition of classes means, not merely ousting the landowners and the capitalists?that is something we accomplished with comparative ease; it also means abolishing the small commodity producers, and they cannot be ousted, or crushed; we must learn to live with them. They can (and must) be transformed and re-educated only by means of very prolonged, slow, and cautious organisational work. They surround the proletariat on every side with a petty-bourgeois atmosphere, which permeates and corrupts the proletariat, and constantly causes among the proletariat relapses into petty-bourgeois spinelessness, disunity, individualism, and alternating moods of exaltation and dejection. The strictest centralisation and discipline are required within the political party of the proletariat in order to counteract this, in order that the organisational role of the proletariat (and that is its principal role) may be exercised correctly, successfully and victoriously. The dictatorship of the proletariat means a persistent struggle?bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative -- against the forces and traditions of the old society. The force of habit in millions and tens of millions is a most formidable force. Without a party of iron that has been tempered in the struggle, a party enjoying the confidence of all honest people in the class in question, a party capable of watching and influencing the mood of the masses, such a struggle cannot be waged successfully. It is a thousand times easier to vanquish the centralised big bourgeoisie than to "vanquish" the millions upon millions of petty proprietors; however, through their ordinary, everyday, imperceptible, elusive and demoralising activities, they produce the very results which the bourgeoisie need and which tend to restore the bourgeoisie. Whoever brings about even the slightest weakening of the iron discipline of the party of the proletariat (especially during its dictatorship), is actually aiding the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. Parallel with the question of the leaders?the party?the class?the masses, we must pose the question of the "reactionary" trade unions. But first I shall take the liberty of making a few concluding remarks based on the experience of our Party. There have always been attacks on the "dictatorship of leaders" in our Party. The first time I heard such attacks, I recall, was in 1895, when, officially, no party yet existed, but a central group was taking shape in St. Petersburg, which was to assume the leadership of the district groups. [20] At the Ninth Congress of our Party (April 1920) [21], there was a small opposition, which also spoke against the "dictatorship of leaders", against the "oligarchy", and so on. There is therefore nothing surprising, new, or terrible in the "infantile disorder" of "Left-wing communism" among the Germans. The ailment involves no danger, and after it the organism even becomes more robust. In our case, on the other hand, the rapid alternation of legal and illegal work, which made it necessary to keep the general staff?the leaders?under cover and cloak them in the greatest secrecy, sometimes gave rise to extremely dangerous consequences. The worst of these was that in 1912 the agent provocateur Malinovsky got into the Bolshevik Central Committee. He betrayed scores and scores of the best and most loyal comrades, caused them to be sentenced to penal servitude, and hastened the death of many of them. That he did not cause still greater harm was due to the correct balance between legal and illegal work. As member of the Party?s Central Committee and Duma deputy, Malinovsky was forced, in order to gain our confidence, to help us establish legal daily papers, which even under tsarism were able to wage a struggle against the Menshevik opportunism and to spread the fundamentals of Bolshevism in a suitably disguised form. While, with one hand, Malinovsky sent scores and scores of the finest Bolsheviks to penal servitude and death, he was obliged, with the other, to assist in the education of scores and scores of thousands of new Bolsheviks through the medium of the legal press. Those German (and also British, American, French and Italian) comrades who are faced with the task of learning how to conduct revolutionary work within the reactionary trade unions would do well to give serious thought to this fact. *3 In many countries, including the most advanced, the bourgeoisie are undoubtedly sending agents provocateurs into the Communist parties and will continue to do so. A skilful combining of illegal and legal work is one of the ways to combat this danger. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Footnotes [17] The "opposition on principle" -- a group of German Left-wing Communists advocating anarcho-syndicalist views. When the Second Congress of the Communist Party of Germany, which was held in Heidelberg in October 1919, expelled the opposition, the latter formed the so-called Communist Workers? Party of Germany, in April 1920. To facilitate the unification of all German communist forces and win over the finest proletarian. elements in the C.W.P.G., the opposition was temporarily admitted into the Communist International in November 1920 with the rights of a sympathising member. However, the Executive Committee of the Communist International still considered the United Communist Party of Germany to be the only authoritative section of the Comintern. C.W.P.G.?s representatives were admitted into the Comintern on the condition that they merged with the United Communist Party of Germany and supported all its activities. The C.W.P.G. leaders, however, failed to observe these conditions. The Third Congress of the Communist International, which was held in June-July 1921, and wanted solidarity with workers who still followed the C.W.P.G. Leaders, resolved to give the C.W.P.G. two months to call a congress and settle the question of affiliation. The C.W.P.G. Leaders did not obey the Third Congress?s resolution and thus placed themselves outside the Communist International. Later the C.W.P.G. degenerated into a small sectarian group without any support in the working class. [18] Homer, Karl?Anton Pannekoek. [19] Kommunistische Arbeiterzeitung (The Communist Workers? Newspaper)?organ of the anarcho-syndicalist group of the German Leftwing Communists (see Note 17). The newspaper was published in Hamburg from 1919 till 1927. Karl Erler, who is mentioned by V. I. Lenin, was Heinrich Laufenberg?s pen-name. [20] The reference is to the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class organised by V. I. Lenin in the autumn of 1895. The League of Struggle united about twenty Marxist circles in St. Petersburg. It was headed by the Central Group including V. I. Lenin, A. A. Vaneyev, P. K. Zaporozhets, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, N. K. Krupskaya, L. Martov, M. A. Silvin, V. V. Starkov, and others; five members headed by V. I. Lenin directed the League?s activities. The organisation was divided into district groups. Progressive workers such as I. V. Babushkin, V. A. Shelgunov and others linked these groups with the factories. The St. Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class was, in V. I. Lenin?s words, the embryo of a revolutionary party based on the working-class movement and giving leadership to the class struggle of the proletariat. [21] The Congress was held in Moscow from March 29 to April 5, 1920. The Ninth Congress was more numerous than any previous Party congresses. It was attended by 715 delegates?553 of them with full votes, and 162 with deliberative votes?representing a membership of 611,978. Represented were the Party organisations of Central Russia, the Ukraine, the Urals, Siberia and other regions recently liberated by the Red Army. Many of the delegates came to the Congress straight from the front. The agenda of the Congress was as follows: 1. The report of the Central Committee. 2. The immediate tasks of economic construction. 3. The trade union movement. 4. Organisational questions. 5. The tasks of the Communist International. 6. The attitude towards the co-operatives. 7. The change-over to the militia system. 8. Elections to the Central Committee. 9. Miscellaneous. The Congress was held under the guidance of V. I. Lenin, who was the main speaker on the political work of the Central Committee and replied to the debate on the report. He also spoke on economic construction and co-operation, made the speech at the closing of the Congress, and submitted a proposal on the list of candidates to the Party?s Central Committee. In the resolution "The Immediate Tasks of Economic Development" the Congress noted that "the basic condition of economic rehabilitation of the country is a steady implementation of the single economic plan for the coming historical epoch" (KPSS v rezolutsiyakh i resheniyakh syezdov, konferentsii i plenumow TsK [The C.P.S.U. in the Resolutions and Decisions of Its Congresses, Conferences and Plenums of the Central Committee], Part I, 1954, p. 478). The kingpin of the single economic plan was electrification, which V. I. Lenin considered a great programme for a period of 10 to 20 years. The directives of the Ninth Congress were the basis of the plan conclusively drawn up by the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia (the GOELRO plan) and approved by the All-Russia Congress of Soviets in December 1920. The Congress paid particular attention to the organisation of industrial management. The resolution on this question called for the establishment of competent, firm and energetic one-man management. Taking its guidance from Lenin, the Congress especially stressed the necessity to extensively enlist old and experienced experts. The anti-Party group of Democratic Centralists, consisting of Sapronov, Osinsky, V. Smirnov and others, came out against the Party line. Behind a cover of phrases about Democratic Centralism but in fact distorting that principle, they denied the need for one-man management at factories, came out against strict Party and state discipline, and alleged that the Central Committee did not give effect to the principle of collective leadership. The group of Democratic Centralists was supported at the Congress by Rykov, Tomsky, Milyutin and Lomov. The Congress rebuffed the Democratic Centralists and rejected their proposals. The Congress gave special attention to labour emulation and communist Subbotniks. To stimulate such emulation, the extensive application of the bonus system of wages was recommended. The Congress resolved that May 1, the international proletarian holiday, which in 1920 fell on Saturday, should be a mass Subbotnik organised throughout Russia. An important place in the work of the Congress was held by the question of trade unions, which was considered from the viewpoint of adapting the entire work of the trade unions to the accomplishment of the economic tasks. In a resolution on this question, the Congress distinctly defined the trade unions? role their relations with the state and the Party, forms and methods of guidance of trade unions by the Communist Party, as well as forms of their participation in communist construction. The Congress decisively rebuffed the anarcho-syndicalist elements (Shlyapnikov, Lozovsky, Tomsky and Lutovinov), who advocated the "independence" of the trade unions and contraposed them to the Communist Party and the Soviet government. At a closed meeting held on April 4, the Congress elected a new Central Committee of 19 members and 12 candidate members. The former included V.I. Lenin, A. A. Andreyev, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, M. I. Kalinin, Y. E. Rudzutak, F. A. Sergeyev (Artyom), and J. V. Stalin. On April 5 the Congress concluded its work. [*2] Karl Erler, "The Dissolution of the Party", Kommunistische Arbeiterzeitung, [19] Hamburg, February 7, 1920, No. 32: "The working class cannot destroy the bourgeois state without destroying bourgeois democracy, and it cannot destroy bourgeois democracy without destroying parties." The more muddle-headed of the syndicalists and anarchists in the Latin countries may derive "satisfaction" from the fact that solid Germans, who evidently consider themselves Marxists (by their articles in the above-mentioned paper K. Erler and K. Homer have shown most plainly that they consider themselves sound Marxists, but talk incredible nonsense in a most ridiculous manner and reveal their failure to understand the ABC of Marxism), go to the length of making utterly inept statements. Mere acceptance of Marxism does not save one from errors. We Russians know this especially well, because Marxism has been very often the "fashion" in our country. [*3] Malinovsky was a prisoner of war in Germany. On his return to Russia when the Bolsheviks were in power he was instantly put on trial and shot by our workers. The Mensheviks attacked us most bitterly for our mistake?the fact that an agent provocateur had become a member of the Central Committee of our Party. But when, under Kerensky, we demanded the arrest and trial of Rodzyanko, the Chairman of the Duma, because he had known, even before the war, that Malinovsky was an agent provocateur and had not informed the Trudoviks and the workers in the Duma, neither the Mensheviks nor the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the Kerensky government supported our demand, and Rodzyanko remained at large and made off unhindered to join Denikin. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 29 13:35:47 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:35:47 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Coming Capitalist Consensus Message-ID: <4958EE52.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5765 The Coming Capitalist Consensus December, 26 2008 By Walden Bello Not surprisingly, the swift unraveling of the global economy combined with the ascent to the U.S. presidency of an African-American liberal has left millions anticipating that the world is on the threshold of a new era. Some of President-elect Barack Obama's new appointees - in particular ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to lead the National Economic Council, New York Federal Reserve Board chief Tim Geithner to head Treasury, and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to serve as trade representative - have certainly elicited some skepticism. But the sense that the old neoliberal formulas are thoroughly discredited have convinced many that the new Democratic leadership in the world's biggest economy will break with the market fundamentalist policies that have reigned since the early 1980s. One important question, of course, is how decisive and definitive the break with neoliberalism will be. Other questions, however, go to the heart of capitalism itself. Will government ownership, intervention, and control be exercised simply to stabilize capitalism, after which control will be given back to the corporate elites? Are we going to see a second round of Keynesian capitalism, where the state and corporate elites along with labor work out a partnership based on industrial policy, growth, and high wages - though with a green dimension this time around? Or will we witness the beginnings of fundamental shifts in the ownership and control of the economy in a more popular direction? There are limits to reform in the system of global capitalism, but at no other time in the last half century have those limits seemed more fluid. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has already staked out one position. Declaring that "laissez-faire capitalism is dead," he has created a strategic investment fund of 20 billion euros to promote technological innovation, keep advanced industries in French hands, and save jobs. "The day we don't build trains, airplanes, automobiles, and ships, what will be left of the French economy?" he recently asked rhetorically. "Memories. I will not make France a simple tourist reserve." This kind of aggressive industrial policy aimed partly at winning over the country's traditional white working class can go hand-in-hand with the exclusionary anti-immigrant policies with which the French president has been associated. Global Social Democracy A new national Keynesianism along Sarkozyan lines, however, is not the only alternative available to global elites. Given the need for global legitimacy to promote their interests in a world where the balance of power is shifting towards the South, western elites might find more attractive an offshoot of European Social Democracy and New Deal liberalism that one might call "Global Social Democracy" or GSD. Even before the full unfolding of the financial crisis, partisans of GSD had already been positioning it as alternative to neoliberal globalization in response to the stresses and strains being provoked by the latter. One personality associated with it is British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who led the European response to the financial meltdown via the partial nationalization of the banks. Widely regarded as the godfather of the "Make Poverty History" campaign in the United Kingdom, Brown, while he was still the British chancellor, proposed what he called an "alliance capitalism" between market and state institutions that would reproduce at the global stage what he said Franklin Roosevelt did for the national economy: "securing the benefits of the market while taming its excesses." This must be a system, continued Brown, that "captures the full benefits of global markets and capital flows, minimizes the risk of disruption, maximizes opportunity for all, and lifts up the most vulnerable - in short, the restoration in the international economy of public purpose and high ideals." Joining Brown in articulating the Global Social Democratic discourse has been a diverse group consisting of, among others, the economist Jeffrey Sachs, George Soros, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the sociologist David Held, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, and even Bill Gates. There are, of course, differences of nuance in the positions of these people, but the thrust of their perspectives is the same: to bring about a reformed social order and a reinvigorated ideological consensus for global capitalism. Among the key propositions advanced by partisans of GSD are the following: * Globalization is essentially beneficial for the world; the neoliberals have simply botched the job of managing it and selling it to the public; * It is urgent to save globalization from the neoliberals because globalization is reversible and may, in fact, already be in the process of being reversed; * Growth and equity may come into conflict, in which case one must prioritize equity; * Free trade may not, in fact, be beneficial in the long run and may leave the majority poor, so it is important for trade arrangements to be subject to social and environmental conditions; * Unilateralism must be avoided while fundamental reform of the multilateral institutions and agreements must be undertaken - a process that might involve dumping or neutralizing some of them, like the WTO's Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPs); * Global social integration, or reducing inequalities both within and across countries, must accompany global market integration; * The global debt of developing countries must be cancelled or radically reduced, so the resulting savings can be used to stimulate the local economy, thus contributing to global reflation; * Poverty and environmental degradation are so severe that a massive aid program or "Marshall Plan" from the North to the South must be mounted within the framework of the "Millennium Development Goals"; * A "Second Green Revolution" must be put into motion, especially in Africa, through the widespread adoption of genetically engineered seeds. * Huge investments must be devoted to push the global economy along more environmentally sustainable paths, with government taking a leading role ("Green Keynesianism" or "Green Capitalism"); * Military action to solve problems must be deemphasized in favor of diplomacy and "soft power," although humanitarian military intervention in situations involving genocide must be undertaken. The Limits of Global Social Democracy Global Social Democracy has not received much critical attention, perhaps because many progressives are still fighting the last war, that is, against neoliberalism. A critique is urgent, and not only because GSD is neoliberalism's most likely successor. More important, although GSD has some positive elements, it has, like the old Social Democratic Keynesian paradigm, a number of problematic features. A critique might begin by highlighting problems with four central elements in the GSD perspective. First, GSD shares neoliberalism's bias for globalization, differentiating itself mainly by promising to promote globalization better than the neoliberals. This amounts to saying, however, that simply by adding the dimension of "global social integration," an inherently socially and ecologically destructive and disruptive process can be made palatable and acceptable. GSD assumes that people really want to be part of a functionally integrated global economy where the barriers between the national and the international have disappeared. But would they not in fact prefer to be part of economies that are subject to local control and are buffered from the vagaries of the international economy? Indeed, today's swift downward trajectory of interconnected economies underscores the validity of one of anti-globalization movement's key criticisms of the globalization process.. Second, GSD shares neoliberalism's preference for the market as the principal mechanism for production, distribution, and consumption, differentiating itself mainly by advocating state action to address market failures. The kind of globalization the world needs, according to Jeffrey Sachs in The End of Poverty, would entail "harnessing...the remarkable power of trade and investment while acknowledging and addressing limitations through compensatory collective action." This is very different from saying that the citizenry and civil society must make the key economic decisions and the market, like the state bureaucracy, is only one mechanism of implementation of democratic decision-making. Third, GSD is a technocratic project, with experts hatching and pushing reforms on society from above, instead of being a participatory project where initiatives percolate from the ground up. Fourth, GSD, while critical of neoliberalism, accepts the framework of monopoly capitalism, which rests fundamentally on deriving profit from the exploitative extraction of surplus value from labor, is driven from crisis to crisis by inherent tendencies toward overproduction, and tends to push the environment to its limits in its search for profitability. Like traditional Keynesianism in the national arena, GSD seeks in the global arena a new class compromise that is accompanied by new methods to contain or minimize capitalism's tendency toward crisis. Just as the old Social Democracy and the New Deal stabilized national capitalism, the historical function of Global Social Democracy is to iron out the contradictions of contemporary global capitalism and to relegitimize it after the crisis and chaos left by neoliberalism. GSD is, at root, about social management. Obama has a talent for rhetorically bridging different political discourses. He is also a "blank slate" when it comes to economics. Like FDR, he is not bound to the formulas of the ancien regime. He is a pragmatist whose key criterion is success at social management. As such, he is uniquely positioned to lead this ambitious reformist enterprise. Reveille for Progressives While progressives were engaged in full-scale war against neoliberalism, reformist thinking was percolating in critical establishment circles. This thinking is now about to become policy, and progressives must work double time to engage it. It is not just a matter of moving from criticism to prescription. The challenge is to overcome the limits to the progressive political imagination imposed by the aggressiveness of the neoliberal challenge in the 1980s combined with the collapse of the bureaucratic socialist regimes in the early 1990s. Progressives should boldly aspire once again to paradigms of social organization that unabashedly aim for equality and participatory democratic control of both the national economy and the global economy as prerequisites for collective and individual liberation. Like the old post-war Keynesian regime, Global Social Democracy is about social management. In contrast, the progressive perspective is about social liberation. Walden Bello is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus, a senior analyst at the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition, and a professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 29 13:48:58 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:48:58 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Monopoly is the historical tendency of capitalism Message-ID: <4958F169.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Lenin's reasoning in _Imperialism_ follows from Marx's thinking below. _Imperialism_ is _Marxist_-Leninist theory: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm ...As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently decomposed the old society from top to bottom, as soon as the laborers are turned into proletarians, their means of labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its own feet, then the further socialization of labor and further transformation of the land and other means of production into socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as well as the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new form. That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers. This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on an ever-extending scale, the co-operative form of the labor-process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labor into instruments of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all means of production by their use as means of production of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with this, the international character of the capitalistic regime. Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production, which has sprung up and flourished along with, and under it. Centralization of the means of production and socialization of labor at last reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. Thus integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Dec 29 14:03:23 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008 16:03:23 -0500 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Germany's Vice Chancellor wants help for auto sector Message-ID: <4958F4CB.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Germany's Vice Chancellor wants help for auto sector Automotive News Europe | December 29, 2008 09:00 CET BERLIN (Reuters) -- The German government should create incentives for consumers to buy cars, Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday. Germany's carmakers are suffering from collapsing global demand. In November, BMW reported a 25.4-percent drop in group vehicle s