From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 1 06:22:52 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 08:22:52 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Capital offenses Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910010522g31f5106bjd061ee7c9b22ff21@mail.gmail.com> Cover Story Capital offenses Michael Moore talks up his new film, Reagan's destruction, Jimmy Carter and getting booted out of GM http://metrotimes.com/screens/story.asp?id=14402 By Corey Hall Once again Michael Moore is on the outside looking in. Flint's prodigal son, and the world's most famous and controversial documentarian, is preparing to host an afternoon of private screenings and Q&A sessions for his latest film Capitalism: A Love Story, at the Riverfront 4 Theaters in the Renaisssance Center, owned by General Motors, the very company that he made his career criticizing. Predictably, the suits are not eager to give one of their fiercest critics a golden photo op, and while the screenings continue, they refuse to allow interviews inside the building. So Moore and the press are unceremoniously hustled across the street to another hotel, tucked away in a nondescript ballroom complete with tepid, piped-in dance muzak. Of course these corporate shenanigans only partially explain why the filmmaker is running more than an hour late, since the iconoclastic Moore runs on his own schedule and sets his own agenda. Yet General Motors isn't the only target this time, and Moore argues that America's economic gap is a chasm, and that the foundations of a corrupt political and corporate system are about to crumble. With a wink and nudge, Michael Moore wants you to help him push it over the edge, and then pick up the pieces. Corey Hall: With health care in shambles and the auto industry in ruins do you ever feel like Chicken Little? That no one listens to you? Michael Moore: Well the difference between me and Chicken Little is that he said the sky was falling, but for us the sky really has fallen. The economy collapsed right on our heads. For 20 years, I've been saying that GM was going to fall, that this wasn't going to work. I don't know, what's that ... what is that called? When you are actually right? MT: So you're a prophet? Moore: [laughs] Oh, no, that's a little scary. MT: Do you feel like you're yelling into a tornado? Moore: Basically, right. Which is frustrating, and after a while you wonder, "Well, why am I doing this?" MT: At the end on the film you actually call for backup. Moore: Yeah. I'm not going to do this alone anymore. The next time you Google George W. Bush or John McCain or whatever, and the word "nemesis," I don't want my picture coming up, I want your picture coming up, I want 5,000 pictures coming up. MT: Times have changed a bit from when you first started. Years ago you told me that you felt The Daily Show was ripping you off. Moore: I said that? MT: This was early on, when TV Nation was still fresh. Moore: Oh, I remember now, back in the Craig Kilborn days, somebody slipped me their proposal and the first line said: "This show will be like TV Nation but without the politics." They copied the style but it didn't have any real substance, it didn't have any punch. MT: Now it certainly does have punch. Do you feel that being ripped off was maybe a good thing? Moore: Yes, yes. Whenever this happens to me now ... I take imitation, as they say, as a form of flattery. Plus I'm all for people taking any ideas or anything, such as the film itself, and getting it out to as many people as possible. MT: You're planting seeds. Moore: I hope so. I think the people I've worked with have gone on to work on various shows. They've gone on to do things that I'm very proud of. Two of my longtime producers ? who I gave their first network TV jobs to back in 1994 ? made a documentary of their own [Trouble the Water] that was nominated for an Oscar this year. MT: You were pretty much alone in 1988, documentaries were still very dry, PBS-y sort of affairs. Moore: Being 20 years ahead of the curve or two years ahead of the curve doesn't really do any good. I think this film is hitting right on time. MT: The curve is catching up? Moore: I'm feeling the curve. We are there just a couple of feet ahead, and that's good. We feel the wind at our back. MT: You heavily attack Ronald Reagan in Capitalism: A Love Story. Aren't you just going to enrage the right-wing media, going after their golden calf? Moore: I think it will be surprising to a lot of people. History has been revised. They want to put him on Mount Rushmore, they want to take Franklin Roosevelt off the dime and put him on it. Before we get too far down the road, I want the truth told about what Reagan did to destroy this country. MT: Conversely, you defend Jimmy Carter as a sort of visionary, though conservatives have really dragged his name through the mud. Moore: I love that Jimmy Carter is so honest. He is a national treasure. The true boiling point for the right wing was at the 2004 Democratic Convention when Carter asked me to sit with him in his presidential box. I sat there with him and the image of that to Republicans was just too much, you know, the frothing at the mouth there was incredible. MT: When you literally put yourself in a box with Jimmy Carter, it only made the right-left divide larger because it's so polarized now. What leverage are you trying to gain? Who is the audience that you are still trying to reach? Moore: I'm trying to reach the 56 percent who were in favor of Barack Obama and the 60 percent who wanted more Democrats in the Senate. MT: So this is a movie to rally the base? Moore: No. I thought you were asking about Carter. Actually, I think that when you've got 1 in 8 mortgages in delinquency or foreclosure, or one foreclosure filing every 7-1/2 seconds, that's cutting across all kinds of party lines, class lines, race lines ? and I'm hoping, with this film, that people will see that. I'm reaching my hand out to anyone, regardless of what their politics are, to say, "Hey, we're all in the same boat here; we're going to sink or swim together." MT: Do you find it increasingly difficult with a media that loves to pick fights and then calls everyone negative? How do you cut through the noise? Moore: I don't find it that difficult. First of all, I don't participate in the noise. I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm rarely on any of those shouting-head shows. I'm not a regular guest. MT: You were on Jay Leno; that was kind of a shock. Moore: Well, yeah, I was asked to be the guest on the second night of his new show. MT: Does he want to go in a more political direction? Moore: No. I think that Jay Leno was really moved when he watched this movie. He came here to Detroit; he has a real affinity for what people are going through in this recession. And to him it's not a Democrat or Republican issue ? it's a human issue. MT: Jay keeps his politics close to the vest. Moore: That's not where he's coming from having me on. He called me up, it was Jay on the phone, and he said, "This is your best movie," and he wanted me to come on for his second night. I said, "I don't know if that's a good idea, is it? I mean first night Seinfeld, second night Tom Hanks, third night Robin Williams, isn't that the order here? You can have me on in 14 or 15 weeks, maybe." MT: Is that American middle ground the audience you're after? Moore: That's why I'm on that show, that's why I'm on The View next week, that's why I'm going to be on Oprah. I'm speaking to Middle America as I always have, as my films always have. I'm one of the few people on the left who has been able to have a wide, mass mainstream audience. Very few on the left get to enjoy that. I've been very privileged to have that mass audience, so I'm trying to speak to them. MT: So, ultimately, do you feel government is more accountable than corporations? You can't walk across the street and talk to Fritz Henderson, but you can talk to your congressman. ... Moore: First of all, I think it's pretty crazy on GM's part to move us over here. I should be over there [at the RenCen] talking to people going in and out of my movie, but here we are, shuffled into some mini-ballroom across the street because I'm not allowed on the premises for my own premiere to talk to press. I can go over there and watch the film if I want, but I can't talk to you. What country are we living in here? Don't you and I own General Motors? MT: You were very vocal about [former GM chairman] Rick Wagoner getting fired. Moore: Oh yeah! One of the happiest days of my life was seeing Obama fire the chairman of General Motors. MT: The first complaint of one of my conservative colleagues at the screening was, "He has money. He has a huge house. He's a hypocrite!" Moore: This from people who like money. MT: It's like Traverse City [where Moore now lives] is the south of France. Moore: [laughs] I could see, too, around 1776: "Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams are wealthy landowners, they've done well under the king! They went to the king's college! The king has done well. What do they have to complain about?" MT: Your entire career should have been nonprofit. Moore: Actually, I have a whole nonprofit model created at the State Theatre up in Traverse City, for small towns in Michigan. But that's another story. ... MT: But that's a fairly consistent attack on you; that you can't condemn the rich and be rich yourself. Moore: It's because it really drives them crazy. They know somebody like me who gets some money, that's dangerous. Because I don't want to buy a big boat, what am I going to do with that money? I'm going to cause a ruckus with it. I'm going to be able to make my next film and the film after that and the film after that and no one can buy me. So you know what you're getting from my film. Nothing has been taken out to please a corporate boss at the studio, because if I don't do that [mock terror], "They won't let me make my next film. Oh, you won't let me make my next film? Oh, well, fine, I'll do it myself." They understand that and that's why conservatives don't like it, because they know that it's fuck-you money, they know that it gives me the freedom to do and say what I want. Corey Hall writes about film for Metro Times. Send comments to letters at metrotimes.com. From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 1 13:06:20 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 15:06:20 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Hundreds rally to stop Chrysler plant closing Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910011206s6f9a8ab1od230b13fc043c8a0@mail.gmail.com> Found at: http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/17115/ Hundreds rally to stop Chrysler plant closing -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author: John Rummel STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. ? ?Build them where they sell them? was the battle cry from hundreds of autoworkers and their supporters at a rally in front of Chrysler?s Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP) Sept. 25. The plant, eight miles north of Detroit, is scheduled to close in December 2010 but the union here is aggressively working to reverse that decision. Chrysler assembly worker Victoria Reyna makes her point at the rally. (PW/John Rummel) The plant, which makes the Chrysler Sebring and Avenger mid-sized sedans and the Sebring convertible, is one of eight Chrysler plants that are slated to close. Since June, Chrysler has been run by Fiat under a U.S. government-aided bankruptcy reorganization. Upsetting many here is that while Chrysler/Fiat received $10 billion in U.S. taxpayer money (and 2.5 billion Canadian tax dollars) all of the plants that are scheduled to close are here in the U.S. At the rally here, motorists and truckers traveling down Van Dyke Avenue honked, gave thumbs up and shouted encouragement to the assembled crowd. Participants expressed concern not only about their own personal future but also about the well-being of the communities they live in if this and other plants close. Yolanda Mallett put it bluntly: ?We need to keep SHAP open because SHAP feeds this community. I?m a production worker. I?m a worker and we want to work. Give us a product and we can make it.? She continued, ?If these jobs are lost, we don?t have any income. There is a ripple jobs effect. Our money supports community businesses. If we lose our jobs, we can?t support those businesses and they can?t support the community by providing jobs.? Bill Parker, president of United Auto Workers Local 1700 at SHAP, said, ?We want to make sure the plant stays open and jobs remain in Sterling Heights and this area. It?s not just Sterling Heights; it?s all the great industrial areas around like Detroit, Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland and St Louis that are being impacted. We need to keep these jobs here.? That fear of what life will be like without manufacturing jobs was brought up by John Ursul, a production worker since 1994. He wondered ?What?s an economic recovery going to look like as a service economy? That?s a thought Victoria Reyna found hard to bear. Reyna works in final assembly, doing such things as putting in moldings and checking to see seatbelts are in working order. ?We all need these jobs,? she said. ?It?s what we depend on; what we need to survive.? Jobs with Justice coordinator Bill Bryce pointed out that Local 1700 has been a bastion of activist leadership and support for other unions and locals. ?They have given generously and freely of time and money,? he said. The demise of the local ?would be a big blow.? General Baker, a retired UAW veteran who has been a part of many fights to keep plants open and jobs in the Detroit area, said that, at a minimum, ?until we get a strong social safety net, these plants must remain open so people can survive.? He also hoped the large turnout at the rally would be a spark to ignite a larger, united movement to save manufacturing jobs. Indeed, the rally heard many declarations of support from other Chrysler and UAW locals. Some came from out of state, such as the greetings brought from Chrysler locals in Kenosha, Wis., and Kokomo, Ind., whose plants are also scheduled to close. Also pledging assistance were a number of elected officials, and it was announced that on the previous day the Michigan House of Representatives had unanimously passed a resolution calling for keeping the plant open. During the program, Parker told the crowd that men and women should not lose their jobs because workers elsewhere are paid much less to do the same work. More plant closings will worsen the state budget crisis, he noted. Businesses up and down Van Dyke Avenue and beyond depend on our spending, he said. Chrysler and Fiat must reverse their decision to close SHAP, the union leader declared. jrummel @ pww.org From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 1 14:15:27 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 16:15:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Oldest human skeleton offers new clues to evolution Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910011315m6fb7061cw832a090cd3072a3f@mail.gmail.com> Oldest human skeleton offers new clues to evolution Story Highlights Researchers have unveiled a 4.4 million-year-old skeleton of a hominid female The fossil, nicknamed Ardi, may be the oldest hominid skeleton ever found It replaces Lucy, a much-publicized skeleton that dates back about 3 million years Scientists: Ardi suggests humans and chimps evolved from a common ancestor By Azadeh Ansari CNN (CNN) -- The oldest-known hominid skeleton was a 4-foot-tall female who walked upright more than 4 million years ago and offers new clues to how humans may have evolved, scientists say. Scientists believe that the fossilized remains, which were discovered in 1994 in Ethiopia and studied for years by an international team of researchers, support beliefs that humans and chimpanzees evolved separately from a common ancestor. "This is not an ordinary fossil. It's not a chimp. It's not a human. It shows us what we used to be," said project co-director Tim White, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed "Ardi," is a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in what is now Aramis, Ethiopia. That makes Ardi more than a million years older than the celebrated Lucy, the partial ape-human skeleton found in Africa in 1974. Ardi's 125-piece skeleton includes the skull, teeth, pelvis, hands and feet bones. Scientists say the data collected from Ardi's bone fragments over the past 17 years push back the story of human evolution further than previously believed. "In fact, what Ardipithecus tells us is that we as humans have been evolving to what we are today for at least 6 million years," C. Owen Lovejoy, an evolutionary biologist at Kent State University and project anatomist, said Thursday. Analysis of Ardi's skeleton reveals that she weighed about 110 pounds, had very long arms and fingers, and possessed an opposable big toe that would have helped her grasp branches while moving through trees. Ardi's brain was believed to be the size of a chimp's, but she also had many human-like features, such as the ability to walk upright on two legs. Her "all-purpose type" teeth indicate that she probably ate a combination of plants, fruits and small mammals, scientists say. "The anatomy behind this behavioral combination is very unexpected and is certain to cause considerable rethinking of not only our evolutionary past, but also that of our living relatives: the great apes," said Alan Walker, professor of biological anthropology at Pennsylvania State University. Many scientists hypothesize that humans took a different evolutionary trajectory from those of chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas. Ardi's findings help challenge earlier beliefs that humans evolved from chimpanzees, their closest genetic relatives, scientists say. Researchers are still trying to pinpoint when the two lineages -- chimps and humans -- split from their common ancestor. Digging up the past has not been easy. Scientists stumbled upon the Ardipithecus fossil in 1994 when a graduate student found a single upper molar tooth. The rest of Ardi's fossilized bones, sandwiched between layers of volcanic rock, took three years to be recovered and many more to be analyzed. "In many ways, the discovery of Ardipithecus has been like a marathon," White said. "Ardipithecus ramidus and its prevailing anatomy revolutionize the way most of us understood the earlier part of our evolutionary history," said team member Yohannes Haile-Selassie, paleontologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The Ardi findings are the work of 47 paleontologists and geologists representing 10 countries. The results will be published Friday in 11 articles in a special edition of the journal Science. Until now, Australopithecus, nicknamed "Lucy," was the oldest fossil studied by scientists seeking to explain human evolution. Lucy is believed to have lived about 3.2 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. Many scientists credit Ethiopia with taking the lead in helping the world better understand the origins of humans. "This finding points to a deeper sense of our [humans'] interconnectedness," Samuel Assefa, Ethiopian ambassador to the United States, said Thursday. "We are all Ethiopians at heart." Ardi's skeleton resides in the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 1 14:18:14 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 16:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Racism & Reaction Must be Confronted/Capitalism: a love story Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910011318v6e848ad8r590aa4c3a824154d@mail.gmail.com> Why "Economic Freedom" Is Just Another Way of Saying "Headed for a Cliff" By John Miller, Dollars and Sense Posted on September 29, 2009, Printed on October 1, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/142958/ In "Capitalism in Crisis," his May op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, U.S. Court of Appeals judge and archconservative legal scholar Richard Posner argued that "a capitalist economy, while immensely dynamic and productive, is not inherently stable." Posner, the long-time cheerleader for deregulation, added, quite sensibly, "we may need more regulation of banking to reduce its inherent riskiness." That may seem like a no-brainer to you and me, right there in the middle of the road with yellow lines and dead armadillos, as Jim Hightower is fond of saying. But Journal readers were having none of it. They wrote in to set Judge Posner straight. "It is not free markets that fail, but government-controlled ones," protested one reader. And why wouldn?t they protest? The Journal has repeatedly told readers that "economic freedom" is "the real key to development." And each January the Journal tries to elevate that claim to a scientific truth by publishing a summary of the "Index of Economic Freedom," an annual report put out by the Heritage Foundation, Washington?s foremost right-wing think tank. But Heritage?s index turns out to be a barometer of corporate and entrepreneurial freedom from accountability rather than a guide to which countries are giving people more control over their economic lives and over the institutions that govern them. This January was no different. "The 2009 Index provides strong evidence that the countries that maintain the freest economies do the best job promoting prosperity for all citizens," proclaimed this year?s editorial, "Freedom is Still the Winning Formula." But with economies across the globe in recession, the virtues of free markets are a harder sell this year. That is not lost on Journal editor Paul Gigot, who wrote the foreword to this year?s report. Gigot allows that "ostensibly free-market policymakers in the U.S. lost their monetary policy discipline, and we are now paying a terrible price." Still, Gigot maintains that "the Index of Economic Freedom exists to chronicle how steep that price will be and to point the way back to policy wisdom." What the Heritage report fails to mention is this: while the global economy is in recession, many of the star performers in the Economic Freedom Index are tanking. Fully one-half of the ten hardest-hit economies in the world are among the 30 "free" and "mostly free" economies at the top of the Index?s ranking of 179 countries. Here?s the damage, according to the IMF. Singapore, the Southeast Asian trading center and perennial #2 in the Index, will suffer a 10.0% drop in output this year. Number 4 Ireland, the so-called Celtic tiger, has seen its rapid export-led growth give way to an 8.0% drop in output. The foreign-direct- investment-favored Baltic states of Estonia (#13) and Lithuania (#30) will each endure a 10.0% loss of output this year. Finally, the economy of Iceland (#14), the loosely regulated European banking center, will contract 10.6% in 2009. As a group, the Index?s 30 most "free" economies will contract 4.1% in 2009. All of the other groups in the Index ("moderately free," "mostly unfree," and "repressed" economies) will muddle through 2009 with a much smaller loss of output or with moderate growth. The 67 "mostly unfree" countries in the Index will post the fastest growth rate for the year, 2.3%. So it seems that if the Index of Economic Freedom can be trusted, then Judge Posner was not so far off the mark when he described capitalism as dynamic but "not inherently stable." That wouldn?t be so bad, one Journal reader pointed out in a letter: "Economic recessions are the cost we pay for our economic freedom and economic prosperity is the benefit. We?ve had many more years of the latter than the former." Not to Be Trusted But the Index of Economic Freedom cannot and should not be trusted. How free or unfree an economy is according to the Index seems to have little do with how quickly it grows. For instance, economist Jeffery Sachs found "no correlation" between a country?s ranking in the Index and its per capita growth rates from 1995 to 2003. Also, this year?s report cites North America as the "freest" world region, but it logged the slowest average growth over the last five years, 2.7% per year. The Asia-Pacific region, rated "less free" than every other region except Sub-Saharan Africa, posted the fastest average growth over the last five years, 7.8% a year. That region includes India, China, and Vietnam, among the world?s fastest growing economies, which ranked 123, 132, and 145 respectively and were all classified as "mostly unfree." And there are plenty of relatively slow growers among the countries high up in the Index, including Switzerland (#9). The Heritage Foundation folks who edited the Index objected to Sachs? criticisms; their claim, they say, is that growth is tied to changes in economic freedom, not the level of economic freedom. But even that claim doesn?t hold up. Economic journalist Doug Henwood found that a rising index ranking from 1997 to 2003 could explain no more than 10% of GDP growth. But even more fundamental flaws with the Index render any claim about the relationship between prosperity and Heritage?s version of "economic freedom" questionable. Consider just two of the ten components used to rank countries: fiscal freedom and government size. Fiscal freedom (what we might call the "hell-if-I?m-going-to-pay-for-government" index) relies on the top personal and corporate income tax brackets as two of its three measures of the tax burden. These are decidedly flawed measures. Besides ignoring the burden of other taxes, singling out these tax rates doesn?t get at effective income tax rates, that is, how much of a taxpayer?s total income goes to paying these taxes. For example, on paper U.S. corporate tax rates are higher than those in Europe. But nearly one-half of U.S. corporate profits go untaxed. The effective rate of taxation on U.S. corporate profits currently stands at 15%, far below the top official rate of 35%. And relative to GDP, U.S. corporate income taxes are no more than half those of other OECD countries. Their third measure of fiscal freedom, government tax revenues relative to GDP, bears little relationship to economic growth. After an exhaustive review, economist Joel Selmrod, former member of the Reagan Treasury Department, concludes that the literature reveals "no consensus" about the relationship between the level of taxation and economic growth. The Index?s treatment of government size, which relies exclusively on the level of government spending relative to GDP, is just as flawed. First, "richer countries do not tax and spend less" than poorer countries, reports economist Peter Lindhert. Beyond that, this measure does not take into account how the government uses its money. Social spending programs?public education, child care and parental support, and public health programs?can make people more productive and promote economic growth. That lesson is not lost on Hong Kong (#1) or Singapore (#2). Both provide universal access to health care, despite the small size of their governments. The size-of-government index also misses the mark because it fails to account for industrial policy. This is a serious mistake, because it overestimates the degree to which some of the fastest growing economies of the last few decades, such as Taiwan and South Korea, relied on the market and underestimates the positive role that government played in directing economic development in those countries by guiding investment and protecting infant industries. Still More Beyond all that, the Index says nothing about political freedom. Consider once again the two city-states, Hong Kong and Singapore, which top their list of free countries. Both are only "partially free" according to Freedom House, which the editors have called "the Michelin Guide to democracy?s development." Hong Kong is still without direct elections for its legislators or its chief executive, and proposed internal security laws threaten press and academic freedom as well as political dissent. In Singapore, freedom of the press and rights to demonstrate are limited, films, TV and the like are censored, and preventive detention is legal. So it seems that the Index of Economic Freedom in practice tells us little about the cost of abandoning free market policies and offers little proof that government intervention into the economy would either retard economic growth or contract political freedom. In actuality, this rather objective-looking index is a slip-shod measure that would seem to have no other purpose than to sell the neoliberal policies that brought on the current crisis, and to stand in the way of policies that might correct the crisis. ? 2009 Dollars and Sense All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/142958/ From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 1 14:38:18 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 1 Oct 2009 16:38:18 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Free Screenings Tonight of "Capitalism" Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910011338j1f387ab2k892a1953cde13868@mail.gmail.com> Free Screenings Tonight of "Capitalism" for the Jobless and Homeless in America's Hardest Hit Cities (plus local benefit premieres all across the country) Thursday, October 1st, 2009 Friends, We're just one day away from the widest opening I've ever had for any of my movies. Tomorrow, Friday, October 2nd, "Capitalism: A Love Story" opens on over a thousand screens across the United States, a record for an independent documentary. This follows last weekend's limited opening in New York and L.A. where "Capitalism" set the box office record for the highest per screen average of ANY movie released so far this year. Not just any documentary -- any MOVIE! It was, as the studio said, a good indicator of just how well the movie may do when it goes wide this weekend. I sincerely hope they're right because I believe deeply in this film. To kick off the national release of "Capitalism: A Love Story," I've asked the studio to offer a number of screenings in the nation's hardest hit cities -- the ones with the highest unemployment rates and highest foreclosure rates -- where those who've lost their jobs or who are in foreclosure (or have already been evicted) may attend my film free of charge. They've agreed, and so tonight (Thursday), the night before our opening day, ten cities will grant you free admission if you have fallen on hard times. The list of theaters and cities is below. You don't need to bring any "proof" of your situation -- just show up -- it's the honor system, no questions asked. Of course, a free movie ain't much when what you really need is a job or a place to live. And that's not going to change until the party that controls both the Congress and the White House wakes up and realizes the American people put them in charge to fix the mess created by the previous administration. For that to happen requires the active involvement of each of us. And, as I show in this movie, it's going to also require us to challenge some fundamental assumptions about an economic system that currently allows the wealthiest ONE PERCENT in this country to have more financial wealth than the bottom 95% combined. That concentration of money and power in the hands of so few people is, I believe, at the core of so many of our problems. So, if you're going through tough times and you live in one of the areas below, please be my guest tonight, on the eve of my new film's opening. Seating will be on a first come, first served basis. Also, in another five cities tonight, I have made the film available to local groups to hold benefit screenings to raise money for their local organizations -- organizations which are working toward a day when a filmmaker doesn't have to offer free screenings to people who've been put through the wringer. If you live in any of these areas (see below for the list of benefit premieres tonight), please come out and support the good work of these grassroots groups. So, until tomorrow, thanks for your support, and I'll see ya at the movies! Yours, Michael Moore MMFlint at aol.com MichaelMoore.com Twitter.com/MMFlint Facebook.com/MMFlint MySpace.com/MMFlint "CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY" FREE SCREENINGS: Las Vegas, Nevada Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:00 p.m. Cinemark Orleans 4600 W Tropicana Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89103 Phoenix, Arizona Thursday, Oct.1st, 7:00 p.m. Harkins Christown 1620 W Monte Bello Phoenix, AZ 85015 Fresno, California Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:30 p.m. Edwards Stadium 250 Paseo Del Centro Fresno, CA 93720 Saginaw, Michigan Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:00 p.m. Goodrich Saginaw 8 Theater 3250 Kabobel Dr. Saginaw, MI 48604 Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:30 p.m. Regal North Hills Stadium 14 4150 Main at North Hills St. Raleigh, NC 27609 Tampa / St. Petersburg, Florida Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:30 p.m. Muvico Starlight 1800 Highwood Preserve Parkway Tampa, FL 33647 Elkhart, Indiana Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:00 p.m. Carmike Encore Park 14 2701 Cassopolis Street Elkhart, IN 46514 Baltimore, Maryland Thursday, October 1st, 7:30 p.m. The Charles Theatre 1711 North Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21201 Cleveland, Ohio Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:30 p.m. AMC Westwood Town Center 21653 Center Ridge Road Rocky River, OH 44116 Peoria, Illinois Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:00PM Willow Knolls 14 Theatre 4100 W Willow Knolls Drive Peoria, IL 61615 "CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY" BENEFIT SCREENINGS: Miami, Florida Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:30 p.m. Sunrise Intracoastal 3701 NE 163rd Street North Miami Beach, FL 33160 Benefiting: Take Back the Land Madison, Wisconsin Thursday, October 1st, 7:00 p.m. Sundance Cinemas 608 430 N. Midvale Blvd. Madison, WI 53705 Benefiting: Madison Association of Worker Cooperatives / Union Cab / Isthmus Engineering San Francisco, California Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:30 p.m. Embarcadero Center Cinema One Embarcadero Center, Promenade San Francisco, CA 94111 Benefiting: US Federation of Worker Cooperatives Chicago, Illinois Thursday, Oct. 1st, 8:00 p.m. Kerasotes City North 2600 N. Western Ave. Chicago, IL 60647 Benefiting: United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America Grass Valley, California Thursday, Oct. 1st, 7:30 p.m. Del Oro Theatre 165 Mill Street Grass Valley, CA 95945 Benefiting: KVMR-FM Boulder, Colo. (past screening) Tuesday, Sept. 29th, 8:00 p.m. Boulder Theater 2032 14th Street. Boulder, CO 80302 Benefiting: Present Tense Films Join Mike's Mailing List | Join Mike's Facebook Group | Follow Mike on Twitter | Become Mike's MySpace Friend From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 2 09:35:13 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 11:35:13 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What is an orgasm , anyway ? Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910020835m42ef81d7n249864c30b1b4f60@mail.gmail.com> http://www.alternet.org/story/143013/what_is_an_orgasm%2C_anyway From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 2 09:39:58 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2009 11:39:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Tea Party Movement Returns Christian Right to Its Racist Past Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910020839o58bfea9era2aa46a436a3f1cd@mail.gmail.com> Tea Party Movement Returns Christian Right to Its Racist Past By Michelle Goldberg, The American Prospect Posted on October 2, 2009, Printed on October 2, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/142988/ Now that popular conservatism has given itself over so avidly to racial resentment, it's curious to remember how hard the right once tried to scrub itself of the lingering taint of prejudice. Indeed, for a decade and a half the Christian right -- until recently the most powerful and visible grassroots conservative movement -- struggled mightily to escape its own bigoted history. In his 1996 book Active Faith, Ralph Reed acknowledged that Christian conservatives had been on the wrong side of the civil rights movement. "The white evangelical church carries a shameful legacy of racism and the historical baggage of indifference to the most central struggle for social justice in this century, a legacy that is only now being wiped clean by the sanctifying work of repentance and racial reconciliation," wrote Reed. "Racial reconciliation" became a kind of buzz phrase. The idea animated Promise Keepers meetings. "Racism is an insidious monster," Bill McCartney, the group's founder, said at a 39,000-man Atlanta rally. "You can't say you love God and not love your brother." The Traditional Values Coalition distributed a video called "Gay Rights, Special Rights" to black churches; it criticized the gay rights movement for co-opting the noble legacy of the civil rights struggle. Throughout the Bush years, homophobia and professions of anti-racism were twinned in a weird way, as if the latter proved that the right wasn't simply still skulking around history's dark side. At a deeply surreal 2006 event at the Greater Exodus Baptist Church, an African American church in downtown Philadelphia, leaders of the religious right invoked Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks on behalf of gay marriage bans and Bush's judicial nominees. At the end of the evening, several dozen clergymen, black and white, joined hands in prayer at the front of the room. "Black Americans, white Americans," said a beaming Tony Perkins, leader of the Family Research Council. "Christians, standing together." The whole premise of compassionate conservatism -- which shoveled taxpayer money towards administration-friendly churches like Greater Exodus Baptist -- was that the right cared as deeply as the left about issues like inner city poverty. What a difference an election makes. Even if you believed that compassionate conservatism was always a bit of a con, it's amazing to see how quickly it has vanished, and how fast an older style of reaction, one more explicitly rooted in racial grievance, has reasserted itself. Today's grassroots right is by all appearances as socially conservative as ever, but its tone and its rhetoric are profoundly different than they were even a year ago. For the last 15 years, the right-wing populism has been substantially electrified by sexual anxiety. Now it's charged with racial anxiety. By all accounts, there were more confederate flags than crosses at last weekend's anti-Obama rally in Washington, DC. Glenn Beck has become a far more influential figure on the right than, say, James Dobson, and he's much more interested in race than in sexual deviancy. For the first time in at least a decade, middle class whites have been galvanized by the fear that their taxes are benefiting lazy, shiftless others. The messianic, imperialistic, hubristic side of the right has gone into retreat, and a cramped, mean and paranoid style has come to the fore. To some extent, a newfound suspicion of government was probably inevitable as soon as Democrats took power. At the same time, with the implosion of the Christian right's leadership and the last year's cornucopia of GOP sex scandals, the party needed to take a break from incessant moralizing, and required a new ideology to take the place of family values cant. The belief system analysts sometimes call "producerism" served nicely. Producerism sees society as divided between productive workers -- laborers, small businessmen and the like -- and the parasites who live off them. Those parasites exist at both the top and the bottom of the social hierarchy -- they are both financiers and welfare bums -- and their larceny is enabled by the government they control. Producerism has often been a trope of right-wing movements, especially during times of economic distress, when many people sense they're getting screwed. Its racist (and often anti-Semitic) potential is obvious, so it gels well with the climate of Dixiecrat racial angst occasioned by the election of our first black president. The result is the return of the repressed. It's not, after all, as if the Christian right was something completely removed from the old racist right -- rather, as Reed acknowledged all those years ago, they were initially deeply intertwined. The Columbia historian Randall Balmer has shown that Christian conservatives were not, contrary to their own mythology, initially mobilized by their outrage at Roe vs. Wade. Rather, what spurred them into action was the IRS's attempt to revoke the tax-exempt status of whites only Christian schools, schools that had been created specifically to evade desegregation. The Christian right was always rooted in an older style of reactionary politics. Before he became a political organizer himself, Falwell -- who ran one of those Christian segregation academies -- attacked Martin Luther King Jr. for his political activism. ("Preachers are not called to be politicians, but to be soul winners," he said.) Before Tony Perkins was basking in homophobic interracial amity, he paid Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list. In 2004, David Barton, then the vice president of the Texas GOP, spoke at an event featuring white preachers and ministry workers dropping to their knees before their black brethren to plead for forgiveness. Thirteen years earlier, Barton had twice been a featured speaker at meetings of the Christian Identity movement, which preaches that blacks are sub-human "mud people." One could go on and on. As racism grew politically unacceptable, the Christian right was able to channel resentment over the decline of white male privilege into a Kulterkampf directed at more acceptable enemies, like gays and lesbians. The movement borrowed heavily from Catholic theology and convinced itself that it was in a righteous struggle against a culture of death, not a culture of diversity. Now the mask is off. One wonders if fifteen years from now, they'll bother apologizing all over again. Michelle Goldberg is a senior correspondent at The American Prospect. She is also the author of Kingdom Coming and The Means of Reproduction. ? 2009 The American Prospect All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/142988/ From farmelantj at juno.com Sat Oct 3 16:34:06 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2009 18:34:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Edgar Zilsel Message-ID: <20091003.183413.6924.2.farmelantj@juno.com> Of the members of the Vienna Circle with Marxist leanings, Otto Neurath was the best known figure. Another member of the Circle with Marxist leanings was the historian and philosopher of science, Edgar Zilsel, who is probably best remembered today for what is known as the Zilsel Thesis, which attributes the rise of modern science in the 17th century to the rise of capitalism which created an environment in which two social groups that previously had little interaction - academically trained scholars, who were mainly from the upper classes, and skilled craftsmen, who were mainly from the lower orders. The former group were trained in rational analysis but had few practical skills while the latter generally had little formal education, but did possess practical skills and had a tradition of experimentation. The developing interactions between these two groups in the 17th century, in Zilsel's view led to the rise of modern experimental science, See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Zilsel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zilsel_Thesis www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research//projects/DeptIII_Wulz_Zilsel http://tinyurl.com/ydnrp7g ____________________________________________________________ Free Vinyl Siding Bids Find top-rated vinyl siding pros. Free estimates & no obligation! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=EhXX7HZTqRLMmJWKhs1EUAAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAQAAAAFAAAAACcxSD4AAANSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABIXZQAAAAA= From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 9 05:56:51 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 07:56:51 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] 2009 Red October Campaign Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910090456w4d0c051ayca2b828eb6a52343@mail.gmail.com> 2009 Red October Campaign Roll back the corrupting intersection between private accumulation and public service! Blade Nzimande, General Secretary SACP Umsebenzi Online October, 2009 http://www.sacp.org.za/main.php?include=pubs/umsebenzi/2009/vol8-17.html#redpen On Sunday 4 October 2009, the SACP held a lively and vibrant rally to launch its national 2009 Red October Campaign in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. It was one of the best attended rallies in that part of our country, and once more underlined the mobilisational capacity of the SACP through campaigns that capture the hearts and minds of the workers and the poor of our country. There are three inter-related aspects to our 2009 Red October Campaign: building an affordable and quality health system for all; intensifying the struggle against corruption in all of society; and disrupting the intersection between business and public service interests. In this publication we have before said a lot about the centrality of the establishment of a national health insurance scheme (NHI) for the provision of accessible, affordable and quality health care for all South Africans. The fundamental principle of an NHI is that of ensuring that every South African, rich or poor, black or white, employed or unemployed, is covered by this scheme. The aim of the scheme is to ensure that no South African must be expected to make an upfront payment for health services, whether in the public or private health care sector. In addition, those who have resources must subsidise those who do not have, and that we build an equitable health care system, where we move away from the current unequal and unjust, regime, where more than 60% of resources poured into health services benefit only about 14% of the population, which happens to be on private medical aid schemes. The reason for the mobilization of our people around the NHI is two-fold. Firstly, to explain the principles and objectives of an NHI; and how such a system is going to benefit the overwhelming majority of our people. Secondly, to counter the reactionary efforts by the capitalist classes in the private health sector to defeat or undermine government`s efforts towards the establishment of the NHI. It is our conviction, as has been consistently shown in the past that only mobilized popular power can defeat the greed of capitalism and ensure that the workers and the poor themselves drive programmes for their own benefit. To this end, we shall use our 2009 Red October Campaign to convene thousands of red forums, in communities and workplaces, to discuss the NHI and ensure that it is properly understood by all our people. Where necessary we shall also be calling marches and demonstrations to expose the greed of capitalist health institutions and mobilize our people to roll back the market in the provision of health care. The second and major focus of our 2009 Red October Campaign is that of disrupting the relationship between private business interests and public service. Most promising revolutions, especially in capitalist environments, have faltered and even rolled back because of the triumph of money and moneyed interests over the interests of the workers and the poor. Some of our detractors, both inside and outside our movement, argue against this focus of our campaign is inappropriate on the grounds that ours is a multi-class movement that embraces all social classes. Yes, this is true, BUT: * Much as our movement is a multi-class movement, and that is precisely where its strength lies, at the same time it is a movement biased towards the workers and the poor. Such a bias is informed by the fact that our struggle is about fighting poverty and to drastically reduce social inequalities in society. In order to achieve these objectives the interests of the overwhelming majority of our people (the workers and the poor) must be at the centre of our ongoing national democratic revolution. The very concept of a national democratic revolution is premised on the leading role of the working class in the transformation of South African society. * Being a multi-class movement does not equal to class neutrality. In fact class neutrality is a myth, and is often used as a cover to privilege the interests of elites over those of the masses. * We are also faced with the very real danger of two, but deeply interrelated, threats. The first one is that of the use of access to state power or holding of public office as a platform for private capitalist accumulation. Existing in our society today is the practice of use of public office to give out tenders by those who hold such office for their own benefit and to dispense patronage. This is what our 2009 Special Congress discussion document refers to as `the throwing of the javelin` or `tenderpreneurship`. In fact such practices are completely unfair to those entrepreneurs, especially SMEs, who are working hard to build their businesses, whilst those occupying state office and simultaneously issue tenders for their own benefit have a hugely unfair advantage. The second threat is that using business influence to try and capture the state so that it serves such private business interests. It is for this reason, amongst others, that both the ANC and SACP have taken resolutions for their leadership collectives at various levels to declare their business interests and associations. We shall use our Red October Campaign to openly discuss these dangers and spread awareness and ideological consciousness about the dangers of this relationship to our people. This by no means imply, as some of our detractors also say, that people in leadership positions are prevented from pursuing business interests. But these cannot be pursued in a parasitic manner and at the direct expense of servicing the interests of our people as a whole. Disrupting the intersection between holding of public office and using such to pursue private business interests, as well as the opposite phenomenon, is an absolute condition for building a developmental state. The third component of our Red October Campaign is that of intensifying the struggle against corruption. Whilst this is distinct from the above, but there is a relationship between the two. It is usually on the interface between public office and private business interests that corruption festers. However, corruption is not only found in the public sector, but it is also widespread practice in the private sector as well, and must therefore be rooted out in the whole of society. It is for this reason that the SACP welcomed the initiative by the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union to expose corruption and mismanagement at the South African Airways. Through the convening of red forums the SACP seeks to mobilize our people and build their confidence in exposing corruption. Often people are aware of corrupt practices, but are afraid to act because sometimes it is powerful individuals who are involved. Or even where they point out such maladies no action is taken. We believe that through the organized mass power and awareness of our people we can deepen the struggle against corruption and that appropriate action is taken whenever this happens. As we say in our Special Congress discussion document, the struggle against corruption is not only a moral struggle, but it is a principled political struggle at the heart of defending and advancing the national democratic revolution. It is an essential condition for the realization of the five priorities of the ANC-led alliance election manifesto. Once more our Red October Campaign is a call to all communists to be at the forefront of the mobilization of our people. for the sake of our revolution! Let every SACP branch and district convene as many of the red forums as possible during this month and beyond. Asikhulume!! From rasherrs at eircom.net Fri Oct 9 06:09:26 2009 From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 13:09:26 +0100 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Attack the state not its workers! Message-ID: The state extracts exchange value from the economy in the form of revenue through taxation. As revenue it is not capital but simply exchange value. It constitutes an unproductive deduction of value from the economy if it does not directly contribute to the creation of value. Now some of the tax revenue deducted from the economy is advanced by the state as capital. The state turns some of its revenue into capital by investing it in industry. In this way it makes a direct contribution to the production of surplus value. The part advanced as capital forms part of capitalism's valorisation process. This means that state capital is essentially no different from private capital. On the whole private capital has as its function the maximisation of surplus value.The special role that the state plays does not preclude the existence of state-run commodity producing companies. State run companies are driven by the profit motive too. They seek to produce surplus value at the expense of the working class. They use the exchange value obtained from taxation as capital to produce and sell commodities. This involves the state in the purchase of labour power for use in the production process. Surplus value is generated through the exploitation of labour power. In this way there is no essential difference between workers employed by the state who function as productive workers and the workers employed by private capital. Much of the labour power hired by the Irish state has been used in the valorisation process: CIE workers, ESB workers etc. Much of the 'state's revenue is used to fund the standing army, the police the bureaucracy, social expenditure etc. While not directly participating in value creation, revenue used in this way supports the capitalist system and thereby the valorisation process. Revenue largely collected in the form of taxation by the state is required to pay for services that ultimately serve the interests of the capitalist class. The maintenance of transport in one way or another, the management of water and sewage, the education of the working class etc. Many of these services are necessary to provide the infrastructure necessary if capital is to function --if it is to sustain and develop itself. Workers need to be available and goods need to be transported and distributed. Otherwise the market for commodities, instead of expanding, contracts and even collapses. Apart from its oppressive role capitalist society would collapse if the state did not provide services, including social services, on the scale apppropriate to its needs. One of the contradictions of capital, as a private social form, is its inability to spontaneously provide public community outside the economic process itself. Hence the need for the political state. State revenue that fails to contribute to the sustenance of capitalism such as excessive remuneration to the tops of the bureaucracy and other excess constitutes mere waste. It serves no useful purpose neither economically, ideologically nor culturally. Revenue that funds waste constitutes a useless deduction from the value created by a capitalist economy. It tends to put valorisation under greater pressure in the effort to counteract the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. It is in capitalism's ultimate interest to prevent the growth of waste. However it is not always easy to identify waste. Because of its contradictory nature capitalist social relations tend to produce waste --even inordinate amounts of it. The public sector is very diverse in terms of pension, pay and conditions of work. To lump the public sector workers together on the basis that they all share these conditions is invalid. Public employees range from porters to electronic engineers, architects, departmental secretaries, judges and generals. As to be expected under capitalism the pay and conditions of work between these different categories of state employees is very different. Neither can the private sector be reduced to one entity for the purpose of comparing pensions, pay and working conditions between the state and non state employees. The non-state sector is even more diverse. Private employees can be employed by different kinds of employers under diverse conditions. Some capitalist may be extremely large, other less large and then others very small. To make a distinction between public sector employees and private sector employees in terms of job security, pay and conditions of work is not acceptable. It is not valid to conclude that state employees have better job security, pay and conditions of work than the latter. There are employees in the private sector with much better job security, pay and conditions of work than in the public sector --senior managers and professionals such as engineers and marketing people. Furthermore they are two qualitatively distinct spheres and cannot be validly compared with each other. It is constantly been claimed across the bourgeois mass media that state employees have better pensions, pay and conditions of work. But this is an unsupported simplification. Within individual companies these conditions are diverse. Senior management are not employed on the same basis as other employees. Along with this some companies based in Ireland have been affected more adversely by the depression than others. Some, if not many, of these companies pay relatively higher wages and provide better conditions of work. This is because they are relatively very capital intensive. Many of their employees would have spent most if not all of their adult life working for such companies. These employees have better conditions than many public employees. Many of these differences are due to the power of the market. The law of value can determine how workers are treated by employers. Given the market conditions it can suit oligopolies to provide their workers with relatively better pay and conditions of work than are found elsewhere. The private sector is a diverse sector. It consists of diverse branches of production. Indeed as with public sector employees many private sector employees are non-productive workers too. It consists of strong and weak enterprises and big and small. Conditions concerning pensions, pay and conditions are correspondingly diverse. Many private employees have better pensions, pay and working conditions than many public employees. Just because many private employees have lost their jobs and suffered pay reductions does not mean that all private employees are suffering the same fate. Many parts of the private sector are still cushioned from the more acute effects of the economic crisis. Yet there is no campaign calling for further pay reductions against employees in these sectors. The populist campaign leveled against public sector employees is a campaign grounded in irrationalist reactionary ideology. The working class is constantly being bombarded with bourgeois propaganda. It is told that the state is living way beyond its means in its day-to-day spending. Therefore, it is concluded, that the state has to cutback on expenditure to keep the Irish economy solvent. The conclusion drawn is that by cutting back on pay as opposed to services the services can be maintained. Public workers are to be forced to pay for the economic crisis. Many state and non state employees live within the same family or household. In many of these cases the non-state employees suffering income falls may indirectly adversely affect the state employees belonging to the same family or household. The reverse situation is also true. It is said that there is no choice but to make public workers pay for for the state deficit. But apologists for capitalism are not calling on the super-paid highly affluent public/private employees annually earning hundreds of thousands of Euros to pay for it. This tactic represents the thin end of the wedge. It constitutes part of a sustained attack on the working class as a whole. The target is the defeat of the entire working class. It is hoped that this approach will deal such a blow to the more organized section of the working class that it will lead to the implosion of the working class thereby rendering a general assault on the entire working class much easier to achieve. The call from the agents of the bourgeoisie for further cuts in the pay of public employees as a means of solving the economic crisis on the grounds that they receive better pensions, pay and working conditions than the private sector is not valid. As I have indicated the private cannot be compared with the public because like is not being compared with like.The private sector consists of diverse enterprises: large and small capitalists; small retail outlets; non-capitalist farmers; sub-contractors; landlords; celebs; publicans; trade unions charities; political parties and artists. Many of the aforementioned are non-capitalist enterprises. Furthermore the heterogeneity of conditions of employment within the state sector makes such generalizations concerning pay determination invalid. The world capitalist crisis that has hit Ireland is a result of the inherent limited nature of the capitalist mode of production. Capitalism of necessity produces crises. The only way to put an end to such crises is by eliminating capitalism and replacing it with a communist society. There are only two options facing the Irish working class. One is a solution to the crisis at the expense of the working class. The other is a social revolution at the expense of the capitalist class. Compromise is an impossibility. The workers have no choice but to choose one or the other. This choice will determine the character of the Irish economy for years into the future. Paddy Hackett My blog address: http://paddy-hackett.blogspot.com From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 9 11:47:48 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 13:47:48 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Michael Moore Was Right: Progressives Don't Watch Enough TV Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910091047r4e353b8foc1307cd48d95f0bf@mail.gmail.com> Michael Moore Was Right: Progressives Don't Watch Enough TV By Vanessa Richmond, AlterNet Posted on October 9, 2009, Printed on October 9, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/143178/ The following is the first article in a three-part AlterNet series appearing on Fridays on television and culture by Vanessa Richmond. Do you know what's wrong with the Left?? asked Michael Moore about a decade ago at The Media and Democracy Congress. ?They don?t watch TV.? If anything, the number of those in the anti-TV army has grown. Some people who have things like jobs and kids and marriages and friends (and even the luxury of hobbies or regular workouts) think they aren?t watching TV because they don?t have time. It?s gone on the list of things they might do if they were suddenly, say, retired. Along with getting a long-haired dog. Or taking up snowboarding. But that?s not really why busy, progressive people don?t watch TV. It?s that somehow TV?s image has become associated with the Right and the average. I?ve asked anti-TV friends and they say TV is nothing but 24-hour infotainment, like Fox News, comin' atcha with flashing lights and jingles. And to those people, it doesn?t seem as rewarding -- on a personal or even civic level -- as reading a newspaper or book, or watching a good ?film.? Or, even, eating ice cream, drinking wine, or catching up on sleep. They?d rather, in fact, pour lemon juice on their cuts, they tell me, than tune in. But listen, as I tell those (sneering) friends, TV is back. Some critics are even calling it the golden age of TV. And not just because of HBO, which is even now sometimes called "HBOver" due to the new, good competition like AMC. Whether you?re watching an hour of Mad Men on your laptop in bed, getting into a couch-coma on a Sunday with a rented series on DVD, or tuning into Letterman or Colbert at night while checking your email, TV can be a rejuvenating, stimulating, and rewarding experience. And don?t underestimate the zone out aspect -- it can be the antidote to this over-productive, perfectionistic culture. Yes, of course, most shows are crap, featuring clich?d writing and god-awful, predictable production style. But though I?d rather tempt you with what?s breath-takingly good, it?s worth pointing out that even crap is worthwhile when it?s watched by millions. Hey, more people voted as part of Super Female Voice in China (the equivalent of American Idol) than voted in the national election, and things aren?t that far off here. When any show gets that much attention, it?s worth it, from a cultural understanding standpoint anyway, to see why. But either way, whether you?re watching award-winning dramas or cheap reality shows, as Michael Moore suggested over a decade ago, if you?re missing out on TV, you?re missing out period. Culture includes all sorts of things, but TV is the baseline, (yes, sometimes it?s base, but that?s part of the point) which means not watching it makes you as uninformed as someone who doesn?t read the news. And I know you all do that. Watching TV means you get to learn about and have more informed conversations about politics, values, culture ... and relationships, sex, and drugs. (And a side note, though I know I?ll get death threats over this, let me just speak to those of you who say, often loudly, that you don?t watch TV, when we know that?s a lie. Yes we do. It?s still called TV whether you?re watching it on your laptop, renting it from NetFlix, or downloading it from the moon. I know almost no one with cable anymore, so know that if you?re viewing something that has ever been on TV, it?s called TV. It?s time to come out of the closet, and stop pretending to be a hater to get social points. Second, if you really have shunned all forms of TV thinking it elevates you, just try to think back to second year university and remember that so-called ?high? culture can be either great or boring, and it?s the same with ?low? culture. Anything else is classist, and I know you?re not that.) I?m not a TV critic. I?m a cultural critic. So I easily spend a couple dozen hours a week on books, movies, newspapers, blogs, and TV. You don?t have time for that. That?s why you read stuff by people like me. But I?m suggesting you make time for just a little bit of it. Also, if you?re new (or returning) to TV, bear in mind that a good TV show is like a good book: it can take a while to get into. So come out of the closet, or at least tune in. Watch something good. Read more about it to savor fully. Then talk about it with friends and strangers. The following list is of shows that are on the air now that have gained critical acclaim. Sit coms are sitting up The genre got a bit tired and dumb, but a few current newbies are reinventing it. The New York Times calls Modern Family this season?s ?standout new show.? It profiles several, fictional families including a cringe-inducing wannabe cool dad, two gay dads who?ve just adopted a daughter, and a couple several decades apart in age. The Chicago Sun-Times says this ?fast-paced mockumentary perfectly captures the experience of parenthood: chaotic and embarrassing. For all involved.? And Salon says that while ?Families are funny. Sitcoms about families are not?Instead of the usual family sitcom curse of clich?s and bad Full House jokes, Modern Family captures the absurdities, quirks and freakish flaws of today's extended family in ways that feel lively, unique and just dark and mean-spirited enough to be ... well, accurate.? Laugh till it hurts -- Curb Your Enthusiasm Actually, sometimes it hurts so much I don?t laugh, but that strange, slightly sado-masochistic experience is what I like about it. Curb Your Enthusiasm stopped being ?appointment TV? for many people a few seasons ago, but most agree it?s back. The New York Times? Alessandra Stanley writes that ?Both Bored to Death and Curb Your Enthusiasm have heroes who are hell-bent on doing the impossible and are doomed to fail. And it?s impossible not to prefer them just as they are.? The Washington Post?s Tom Shales writes, ?You know you will laugh, but you know you will cringe. You know you will guffaw, but you'll also likely wince. It's hard to imagine comedy that's any edgier, without being topical, than this.? ?Larry David, the creator and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, posits a universe in which people respond to friends and strangers without manners or inhibition. It isn?t just that Mr. David gives offense; offense is always taken, instantly and loudly, by blind dates, receptionists, store clerks, doctors, old friends and new acquaintances. In real life, people usually respond to a verbal affront by ignoring it or smoothing it over with nervous laughter. In Larry Davidland, even ladies snarl and snap at his faux pas like unchained Rottweilers. And The Chicago Tribune writes that ?the David of Curb is so scathingly direct that he?s also quite funny; half the time he?s just saying things that the rest of us are too polite or repressed to say. And what redeems Curb is that David?s despair over the stupidity of the world is balanced by a healthy amount of self-loathing ? he may think everyone else is a moron, but quite often thinks he?s an idiot too .... Right out of the box, David is absolutely pushing the limits of TV comedy on issues of race, gender, coarse language, mental illness and physical disease.? Talk isn?t cheap -- Late night talk shows It?s not every night that something culturally or politically significant happens on Letterman, The Daily Show, or the Colbert Report, but it?s most nights. And how about this week, no? Just pick one, any one, and try it out once in a while. Only boring people are bored -- Bored to Death The premise is this: novelist Jonathan Ames loses his girlfriend, and unable to complete his second book, decides to list himself as a private detective. His needy and self-indulgent editor is Ted Danson. It?s a ridiculous premise that put me off until I read, for example, that it was about a self-hating, almost nihilistic writer, and that the show ?peels back the layers of vanity and self-delusion that clog up overly precious creative circles to reveal a bunch of hapless children, trying (and often failing) to keep themselves productively occupied,? for example. Or that,?there is a fey, slacker lovability to Schwartzman?s character, Jonathan Ames.? Or even that it features yet ?another man old enough to know better who nevertheless does whatever he wants. In this arch, mannered comedy, Ted Danson plays George Christopher, a magazine editor who never met a trend, a party or a drug he didn't want to try.? In fact, it could even be called a stoner comedy, there is so much pot about. And while it seems ridiculous, it works because it ?never abandons the world the rest of us can recognize.? Keep it ?real? -- Project Runway, Top Chef, America?s Next Top Model Look, millions of people can?t be wrong. Well, they can. But it?s interesting to see what the appeal is of reality shows. Neither realistic, nor useful in helping you learn to win anything other than a reality contest, these shows are nonetheless compelling, mostly because they reveal the tattered and debased yet hopeful state of the American Dream. No need to watch all of them, or watch every week. This is just a sampling suggestion. Stay below the law -- Sons of Anarchy The New York Daily News writes that ?Like the Sopranos before them, the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club has little use for the basic covenants that keep society civil .... To say we actually like any of these characters would be stretching it. But we're drawn into their lives, and as it starts its second season, Sons of Anarchy can't be left out of any conversation about the golden age of cable drama.? ?Sons of Anarchy roars into its second season with screenwriting so good it makes you care about characters you don't even want to look at.? Sons of Anarchy is not gentle. It ?caters to mature audiences with plenty of violence, sex and language issues at hand. But there's a can't-look-away element to Sutter's portrayal of this subculture (and there's a lot of humor in the show as well),? according to the San Francisco Chronicle?s Tim Goodman. Cheer up -- Glee It?s not for everyone, but if you like musicals, awkward high school misfits, and happy stories, you might want to catch one episode to see if it hooks you. The kids sing, the football coach smokes pot sold to him by the former music teacher, the dominiatrix-style cheerleading coach is a media darling who bullies the other teachers. Most musicals haven?t done well on TV, but this one has so far. A few TV-watching friends of mine rave about this, as do many critics, so I?m including it. To me, the quirkiness seems almost formulaic. But I?m happy to be told I?m missing something. And I can?t argue with Tim Goodman?s assessment that ?Americans need a little emotional lift, yes? The whole pursuit-of-happiness thing? Glee, one of the season's best and most anticipated new series, delivers on both counts -- and more. It's a quirky, sweet, humorous, nonpartisan funfest.? He writes that the ?series is an irreverent, upbeat, non-cynical take on the cliche-ridden trope of high school life, as seen through the eyes of cheerleaders, jocks, quirky and underpaid teachers and - now that the geeks have inherited the hip tech world - the lowest of the low: the Glee Club.? The Philadelphia Inquirer?s Jonathan Storm calls it ?this season?s best new TV show.? Seems a little clich?. But I?d rather have clich?d misfits than prom queens. And of course -- Mad Men It?s the best show on TV now, and maybe so far in the history of TV. Its main rivals are The Sopranos and The Wire and I think it surpasses both in terms of subtlety, consistency, and range of socio-politico-cultural issues. But trying to express what?s good about Mad Men succinctly is as difficult as making a good TV show itself. The New York Daily News? David Hinckley writes, ?It's not comfortable. Just compelling?For all the first-rate drama on television these days, no one tells a story with more poetry and passion than the writers and cast of Mad Men.? ?There are no heroes or villains here, only people working out or being carried toward their individual destinies. And in who we root for and in what we root for them to choose, we also define ourselves,? writes Los Angeles Times? Robert Lloyd. "Mad Men's tendency to lean in to the almost surreal inhumanity of modern times, its thirst for savagery in mundane settings, are exactly what make it worth watching,? writes Salon. If you?re going to watch just one show, to test the water so to speak, I think you know what to do. Got a show that?s on now that you think is good? That you think was missed here? Why not discuss in the comments section. Don't miss next Friday's installment of Vanessa Richmond's TV series: Great shows that aren?t on TV anymore ? DVD series to rent. Tyee Contributing Editor Vanessa Richmond writes the Schlock and Awe column about popular culture and the media. She is also the former managing editor of the Tyee. ? 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/143178/ From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Fri Oct 9 11:55:44 2009 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:55:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Michael Moore Was Right: Progressives Don't Watch Enough TV In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230910091047r4e353b8foc1307cd48d95f0bf@mail.gmail.co m> References: <5c2e4d230910091047r4e353b8foc1307cd48d95f0bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "Mad Men" is a great series, though hardly the best ever. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is hilarious. "The Daily Show" and "Colbert" are part of the culture of upscale liberalism, which is to say, part of the Establishment, and like all liberals now, not even that liberal. The author, though, is full of it. The main reason to watch TV is not for quality, but to keep up with the filth that has colonized everyone's minds. At 01:47 PM 10/9/2009, c b wrote: >Michael Moore Was Right: Progressives Don't Watch Enough TV >By Vanessa Richmond, AlterNet >Posted on October 9, 2009, Printed on October 9, 2009 >http://www.alternet.org/story/143178/ > >The following is the first article in a three-part AlterNet series >appearing on Fridays on television and culture by Vanessa Richmond. From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 9 12:45:48 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 14:45:48 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Michael Moore Was Right: Progressives Don't Watch Enough TV In-Reply-To: References: <5c2e4d230910091047r4e353b8foc1307cd48d95f0bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910091145o49b8d0bauff4570e6d64f9d5a@mail.gmail.com> Sounds like you are an exception to Michael Moore's criticism. On 10/9/09, Ralph Dumain wrote: > "Mad Men" is a great series, though hardly the best ever. "Curb Your > Enthusiasm" is hilarious. "The Daily Show" and "Colbert" are part of > the culture of upscale liberalism, which is to say, part of the > Establishment, and like all liberals now, not even that liberal. The > author, though, is full of it. The main reason to watch TV is not for > quality, but to keep up with the filth that has colonized everyone's minds. > > At 01:47 PM 10/9/2009, c b wrote: > >Michael Moore Was Right: Progressives Don't Watch Enough TV > >By Vanessa Richmond, AlterNet > >Posted on October 9, 2009, Printed on October 9, 2009 > >http://www.alternet.org/story/143178/ > > > >The following is the first article in a three-part AlterNet series > >appearing on Fridays on television and culture by Vanessa Richmond. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 9 12:52:35 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 14:52:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Michael Moore Was Right: Progressives Don't Watch Enough TV In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230910091145o49b8d0bauff4570e6d64f9d5a@mail.gmail.com> References: <5c2e4d230910091047r4e353b8foc1307cd48d95f0bf@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910091145o49b8d0bauff4570e6d64f9d5a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910091152j709bd06cld61a0d0432aab794@mail.gmail.com> > > On 10/9/09, Ralph Dumain The > > author, though, is full of it. The main reason to watch TV is not for > > quality, but to keep up with the filth that has colonized everyone's minds. ^^^^^^^ CB: Well, she did say: Yes, of course, most shows are crap, featuring clich?d writing and god-awful, predictable production style. But though I?d rather tempt you with what?s breath-takingly good, it?s worth pointing out that even crap is worthwhile when it?s watched by millions. Hey, more people voted as part of Super Female Voice in China (the equivalent of American Idol) than voted in the national election, and things aren?t that far off here. When any show gets that much attention, it?s worth it, from a cultural understanding standpoint anyway, to see why. > >> From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 9 12:44:32 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 14:44:32 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marx Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910091144x476d0679u14e505a031a7e710@mail.gmail.com> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/ch04.htm Frederick Engels Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part 4: Marx -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Strauss, Bauer, Stirner, Feuerbach ? these were the offshoots of Hegelian philosophy, in so far as they did not abandon the field of philosophy. Strauss, after his Life of Jesus and Dogmatics, produced only literary studies in philosophy and ecclesiastical history after the fashion of Renan. Bauer only achieved something in the field of the history of the origin of Christianity, though what he did here was important. Stirner remained a curiosity, even after Bakunin blended him with Proudhon and labelled the blend ?anarchism?. Feuerbach alone was of significance as a philosopher. But not only did philosophy ? claimed to soar above all special sciences and to be the science of sciences connecting them ? remain to him an impassable barrier, an inviolable holy thing, but as a philosopher, too, he stopped half-incapable of disposing of Hegel through criticism; he simply threw him aside as useless, while he himself, compared with the encyclopaedic wealth of the Hegelian system, achieved nothing positive beyond a turgid religion of love and a meagre, impotent morality. Out of the dissolution of the Hegelian school, however, there developed still another tendency, the only one which has borne real fruit. And this tendency is essentially connected with the name of Marx (1). The separation from Hegelian philosophy was here also the result of a return to the materialist standpoint. That means it was resolved to comprehend the real world ? nature and history ? just as it presents itself to everyone who approaches it free from preconceived idealist crotchets. It was decided mercilessly to sacrifice every idealist fancy which could not be brought into harmony with the facts conceived in their own and not in a fantastic interconnection. And materialism means nothing more than this. But here the materialistic world outlook was taken really seriously for the first time and was carried through consistently ? at least in its basic features ? in all domains of knowledge concerned. Hegel was not simply put aside. On the contrary, a start was made from his revolutionary side, described above, from the dialectical method. But in its Hegelian form, this method was unusable. According to Hegel, dialectics is the self-development of the concept. The absolute concept does not only exist ? unknown where ? from eternity, it is also the actual living soul of the whole existing world. It develops into itself through all the preliminary stages which are treated at length in the Logic and which are all included in it. Then it ?alienates? itself by changing into nature, where, unconscious of itself, disguised as a natural necessity, it goes through a new development and finally returns as man?s consciousness of himself. This self-consciousness then elaborates itself again in history in the crude form until finally the absolute concept again comes to itself completely in the Hegelian philosophy. According to Hegel, therefore, the dialectical development apparent in nature and history ? that is, the causal interconnection of the progressive movement from the lower to the higher, which asserts itself through all zigzag movements and temporary retrogression ? is only a copy [Abklatsch] of the self-movement of the concept going on from eternity, no one knows where, but at all events independently of any thinking human brain. This ideological perversion had to be done away with. We again took a materialistic view of the thoughts in our heads, regarding them as images [Abbilder] of real things instead of regarding real things as images of this or that stage of the absolute concept. Thus dialectics reduced itself to the science of the general laws of motion, both of the external world and of human thought ? two sets of laws which are identical in substance, but differ in their expression in so far as the human mind can apply them consciously, while in nature and also up to now for the most part in human history, these laws assert themselves unconsciously, in the form of external necessity, in the midst of an endless series of seeming accidents. Thereby the dialectic of concepts itself became merely the conscious reflex of the dialectical motion of the real world and thus the dialectic of Hegel was turned over; or rather, turned off its head, on which it was standing, and placed upon its feet. And this materialist dialectic, which for years has been our best working tool and our sharpest weapon, was, remarkably enough, discovered not only by us but also, independently of us and even of Hegel, by a German worker, Joseph Dietzgen. (2) In this way, however, the revolutionary side of Hegelian philosophy was again taken up and at the same time freed from the idealist trimmings which with Hegel had prevented its consistent execution. The great basic thought that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of readymade things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things apparently stable no less than their mind images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away, in which, in spite of all seeming accidentally and of all temporary retrogression, a progressive development asserts itself in the end ? this great fundamental thought has, especially since the time of Hegel, so thoroughly permeated ordinary consciousness that in this generality it is now scarcely ever contradicted. But to acknowledge this fundamental thought in words and to apply it in reality in detail to each domain of investigation are two different things. If, however, investigation always proceeds from this standpoint, the demand for final solutions and eternal truths ceases once for all; one is always conscious of the necessary limitation of all acquired knowledge, of the fact that it is conditioned by the circumstances in which it was acquired. On the other hand, one no longer permits oneself to be imposed upon by the antithesis, insuperable for the still common old metaphysics, between true and false, good and bad, identical and different, necessary and accidental. One knows that these antitheses have only a relative validity; that that which is recognized now as true has also its latent false side which will later manifest itself, just as that which is now regarded as false has also its true side by virtue of which it could previously be regarded as true. One knows that what is maintained to be necessary is composed of sheer accidents and that the so-called accidental is the form behind which necessity hides itself ? and so on. The old method of investigation and thought which Hegel calls ?metaphysical?, which preferred to investigate things as given, as fixed and stable, a method the relics of which still strongly haunt people?s minds, had a great deal of historical justification in its day. It was necessary first to examine things before it was possible to examine processes. One had first to know what a particular thing was before one could observe the changes it was undergoing. And such was the case with natural science. The old metaphysics, which accepted things as finished objects, arose from a natural science which investigated dead and living things as finished objects. But when this investigation had progressed so far that it became possible to take the decisive step forward, that is, to pass on the systematic investigation of the changes which these things undergo in nature itself, then the last hour of the old metaphysic struck in the realm of philosophy also. And in fact, while natural science up to the end of the last century was predominantly a collecting science, a science of finished things, in our century it is essentially a systematizing science, a science of the processes, of the origin and development of these things and of the interconnection which binds all these natural processes into one great whole. Physiology, which investigates the processes occurring in plant and animal organisms; embryology, which deals with the development of individual organisms from germs to maturity; geology, which investigates the gradual formation of the Earth?s surface ? all these are the offspring of our century. But, above all, there are three great discoveries which have enabled our knowledge of the interconnection of natural processes to advance by leaps and bounds: First, the discovery of the cell as the unit from whose multiplication and differentiation the whole plant and animal body develops. Not only is the development and growth of all higher organisms recognized to proceed according to a single general law, but the capacity of the cell to change indicates the way by which organisms can change their species and thus go through a more than individual development. Second, the transformation of energy, which has demonstrated to us that all the so-called forces operative in the first instance in inorganic nature ? mechanical force and its complement, so-called potential energy, heat, radiation (light, or radiant heat), electricity, magnetism, and chemical energy ? are different forms of manifestation of universal motion, which pass into one another in definite proportions so that in place of a certain quantity of the one which disappears, a certain quantity of another makes its appearance and thus the whole motion of nature is reduced to this incessant process of transformation from one form into another. Finally, the proof which Darwin first developed in connected form that the stock of organic products of nature environing us today, including man, is the result of a long process of evolution from a few originally unicellular germs, and that these again have arisen from protoplasm or albumen, which came into existence by chemical means. Thanks to these three great discoveries, and the other immense advances in natural science, we have now arrived at the point where we can demonstrate the interconnection between the processes in nature not only in particular spheres but also the interconnection of these particular spheres on the whole, and so can present in an approximately systematic form a comprehensive view of the interconnection in nature by means of the facts provided by an empirical science itself. To furnish this comprehensive view was formerly the task of so-called natural philosophy. It could do this only by putting in place of the real but as yet unknown interconnections ideal, fancied ones, filling in the missing facts by figments of the mind and bridging the actual gaps merely in imagination. In the course of this procedure it conceived many brilliant ideas and foreshadowed many later discoveries, but it also produced a considerable amount of nonsense, which indeed could not have been otherwise. Today, when one needs to comprehend the results of natural scientific investigation only dialetically, that is, in the sense of their own interconnection, in order to arrive at a ?system of nature? sufficient for our time; when the dialectical character of this interconnection is forcing itself against their will even into the metaphysically-trained minds of the natural scientists, today natural philosophy is finally disposed of. Every attempt at resurrecting it would be not only superfluous but a step backwards. But what is true of nature, which is hereby recognized also as a historical process of development, is likewise true of the history of society in all its branches and of the totality of all sciences which occupy themselves with things human (and divine). Here, too, the philosophy of history, of right, of religion, etc., has consisted in the substitution of an interconnection fabricated in the mind of the philosopher for the real interconnection to be demonstrated in the events; has consisted in the comprehension of history as a whole as well as in its separate parts, as the gradual realization of ideas ? and naturally always only the pet ideas of the philosopher himself. According to this, history worked unconsciously but of necessity towards a certain ideal goal set in advance ? as, for example, in Hegel, towards the realization of his absolute idea ? and the unalterable trend towards this absolute idea formed the inner interconnection in the events of history. A new mysterious providence ? unconscious or gradually coming into consciousness ? was thus put in the place of the real, still unknown interconnection. Here, therefore, just as in the realm of nature, it was necessary to do away with these fabricated, artificial interconnections by the discovery of the real ones ? a task which ultimately amounts to the discovery of the general laws of motion which assert themselves as the ruling ones in the history of human society. In one point, however, the history of the development of society proves to be essentially different from that of nature. In nature ? in so far as we ignore man?s reaction upon nature ? there are only blind, unconscious agencies acting upon one another, out of whose interplay the general law comes into operation. Nothing of all that happens ? whether in the innumerable apparent accidents observable upon the surface, or in the ultimate results which confirm the regularity inherent in these accidents ? happens as a consciously desired aim. In the history of society, on the contrary, the actors are all endowed with consciousness, are men acting with deliberation or passion, working towards definite goals; nothing happens without a conscious purpose, without an intended aim. But this distinction, important as it is for historical investigation, particularly of single epochs and events, cannot alter the fact that the course of history is governed by inner general laws. For here, also, on the whole, in spite of the consciously desired aims of all individuals, accident apparently reigns on the surface. That which is willed happens but rarely; in the majority of instances the numerous desired ends cross and conflict with one another, or these ends themselves are from the outset incapable of realization, or the means of attaining them are insufficient. thus the conflicts of innumerable individual wills and individual actions in the domain of history produce a state of affairs entirely analogous to that prevailing in the realm of unconscious nature. The ends of the actions are intended, but the results which actually follow from these actions are not intended; or when they do seem to correspond to the end intended, they ultimately have consequences quite other than those intended. Historical events thus appear on the whole to be likewise governed by chance. But where on the surface accident holds sway, there actually it is always governed by inner, hidden laws, and it is only a matter of discovering these laws. Men make their own history, whatever its outcome may be, in that each person follows his own consciously desired end, and it is precisely the resultant of these many wills operating in different directions, and of their manifold effects upon the outer world, that constitutes history. Thus it is also a question of what the many individuals desire. The will is determined by passion or deliberation. But the levers which immediately determine passion or deliberation are of very different kinds. Partly they may be external objects, partly ideal motives, ambition, ?enthusiasm for truth and justice?, personal hatred, or even purely individual whims of all kinds. But, on the one hand, we have seen that the many individual wills active in history for the most part produce results quite other than those intended ? often quite the opposite; that their motives, therefore, in relation to the total result are likewise of only secondary importance. On the other hand, the further question arises: What driving forces in turn stand behind these motives? What are the historical forces which transform themselves into these motives in the brains of the actors? The old materialism never put this question to itself. Its conception of history, in so far as it has one at all, is therefore essentially pragmatic; it divides men who act in history into noble and ignoble and then finds that as a rule the noble are defrauded and the ignoble are victorious. hence, it follows for the old materialism that nothing very edifying is to be got from the study of history, and for us that in the realm of history the old materialism becomes untrue to itself because it takes the ideal driving forces which operate there as ultimate causes, instead of investigating what is behind them, what are the driving forces of these driving forces. This inconsistency does not lie in the fact that ideal driving forces are recognized, but in the investigation not being carried further back behind these into their motive causes. On the other hand, the philosophy of history, particularly as represented by Hegel, recognizes that the ostensible and also the really operating motives of men who act in history are by no means the ultimate causes of historical events; that behind these motives are other motive powers, which have to be discovered. But it does not seek these powers in history itself, it imports them rather from outside, from philosophical ideology, into history. Hegel, for example, instead of explaining the history of ancient Greece out of its own inner interconnections, simply maintains that it is nothing more than the working out of ?forms of beautiful individuality?, the realization of a ?work of art? as such. He says much in this connection about the old Greeks that is fine and profound, but that does not prevent us today from refusing to be put off with such an explanation, which is a mere manner of speech. When, therefore, it is a question of investigating the driving powers which ? consciously or unconsciously, and indeed very often unconsciously ? lie behind the motives of men who act in history and which constitute the real ultimate driving forces of history, then it is not a question so much of the motives of single individuals, however eminent, as of those motives which set in motion great masses, whole people, and again whole classes of the people in each people; and this, too, not merely for an instant, like the transient flaring up of a straw-fire which quickly dies down, but as a lasting action resulting in a great historical transformation. To ascertain the driving causes which here in the minds of acting masses and their leaders ? to so-called great men ? are reflected as conscious motives, clearly or unclearly, directly or in an ideological, even glorified, form ? is the only path which can put us on the track of the laws holding sway both in history as a whole, and at particular periods and in particular lands. Everything which sets men in motion must go through their minds; but what form it will take in the mind will depend very much upon the circumstances. The workers have by no means become reconciled to capitalist machine industry, even though they no longer simply break the machines to pieces, as they still did in 1848 on the Rhine. But while in all earlier periods the investigation of these driving causes of history was almost impossible ? on account of the complicated and concealed interconnections between them and their effects ? our present period has so far simplified these interconnections that the riddle could be solved. Since the establishment of large-scale industry ? that is, at least since the European peace of 1815 ? it has been no longer a secret to any man in England that the whole political struggle there pivoted on the claims to supremacy of two classes: the landed aristocracy and the bourgeoisie (middle class). In France, with the return of the Bourbons, the same fact was perceived, the historians of the Restoration period, from Thierry to Guisot, Mignet, and Thiers, speak of it everywhere as the key to the understanding of all French history since the Middle Ages. And since 1830, the working class, the proletariat, has been recognized in both countries as a third competitor for power. Conditions had become so simplified that one would have had to close one?s eyes deliberately not to see in the light of these three great classes and in the conflict of their interests the driving force of modern history ? at least in the two most advanced countries. But how did these classes come into existence? If it was possible at first glance still to ascribe the origin of the great, formerly feudal landed property ? at least in the first instance ? to political causes, to taking possession by force, this could not be done in regard to the bourgeoise and the proletariat. Here, the origin and development of two great classes was seen to lie clearly and palpably in purely economic causes. And it was just as clear that in the struggle between landed property and the bourgeoisie, no less than in the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, it was a question, first and foremost, of economic interests, to the furtherance of which political power was intended to serve merely as a means. Bourgeoisie and proletariat both arose in consequences of a transformation of the economic conditions, more precisely, of the mode of production. The transition, first from guild handicrafts to manufacture, and then from manufacture to large-scale industry, with steam and mechanical power, had caused the development of these two classes. At a certain stage, the new productive forces set in motion by the bourgeoisie ? in the first place the division of labor and the combination of many detail laborers [Teilarbeiter] in one general manufactory ? and the conditions and requirements of exchange, developed through these productive forces, became incompatible with the existing order of production handed down by history and sanctified by law ? that is to say, incompatible with the privileges of the guild and the numerous other personal and local privileges (which were only so many fetters to the unprivileged estates) of the feudal order to society. The productive forces represented by the bourgeoisie rebelled against the order of production represented by the feudal landlords and the guild-masters. The result is known, the feudal fetters were smashed, gradually in England, at one blow in France. In Germany, the process is not yet finished. But just as, at a definite stage of its development, manufacture came into conflict with the feudal order of production, so now large-scale industry has already come into conflict with the bourgeois order or production established in its place.Tied down by this order, by the narrow limits of the capitalist mode of production, this industry produces, on the one hand, an ever-increasingly proletarianziation of the great mass of the people, and on the other hand, an ever greater mass of unsalable products. Overproduction and mass misery, each the cause of the other ? that is the absurd contradiction which is its outcome, and which of necessity calls for the liberation of the productive forces by means of a change in the mode of production. In modern history at least it is, therefore, proved that all political struggles are class struggles, and all class struggles for emancipation, despite their necessarily political form ? for every class struggle is a political struggle ? turn ultimately on the question of economic emancipation. Therefore, here at least, the state ? the political order ? is the subordination, and civil society ? the realm of economic relations ? the decisive element. The traditional conception, to which Hegel, too, pays homage, saw in the state the determining element, and in civil society the element determined by it. Appearances correspond to this. As all the driving forces of the actions of any individual person must pass through his brain, and transform themselves into motives of his will in order to set him into action, so also all the needs of civil society ? no matter which class happens to be the ruling one ? must pass through the will of the state in order to secure general validity in the form of laws. That is the formal aspect of the matter ? the one which is self-evident. The question arises, however, what is the content of this merely formal will ? of the individual as well as of the state ? and whence is this content derived? Why is just this willed and not something else? If we enquire into this, we discover that in modern history the will of the state is, on the whole, determined by the changing needs of civil society, but the supremacy of this or that class, in the last resort, by the development of the productive forces and relations of exchange. But if even in our modern era, with its gigantic means of production and communication, the state is not an independent domain with an independent development, but one whose existence as well as development is to be explained in the last resort by the economic conditions of life of society, then this must be still more true of all earlier times when the production of the material life of man was not yet carried on with these abundant auxiliary means, and when, therefore, the necessity of such production must have exercised a still greater mastery over men. If the state even today, in the era of big industry and of railways, is on the whole only a reflection, in concentrated form, of the economic needs of the class controlling production, then this must have been much more so in an epoch when each generation of men was forced to spend a far greater part of its aggregate lifetime in satisfying material needs, and was therefore much more dependent on them than we are today. An examination of the history of earlier periods, as soon as it is seriously undertaken from this angle, most abundantly confirms this. But, of course, this cannot be gone into here. If the state and public law are determined by economic relations, so, too, of course, is private law, which indeed in essence only sanctions the existing economic relations between individuals which are normal in the given circumstances. The form in which this happens can, however, vary considerably. It is possible, as happened in England, in harmony with the whole national development, to retain in the main the forms of the old feudal laws while giving them a bourgeois content; in fact, directly reading a bourgeois meaning into the feudal name. But, also, as happened in Western continental Europe, roman law, the first world law of a commodity-producing society, with its unsurpassably fine elaboration of all the essential legal relations of simple commodity owners (of buyers and sellers, debtors and creditors, contracts, obligations, etc.) can be taken as the foundation. In which case, for the benefit of a still petty-bourgeois and semi-feudal society, it can either be reduced to the level of such a society simply through judicial practice (common law) or, with the help of allegedly enlightened, moralizing jurists it can be worked into a special code of law to correspond with such social level ? a code which in these circumstances will be a bad one also from the legal standpoint (for instance, Prussian Landrecht). But after a great bourgeois revolution it is, however, also possible for such a classic law code of bourgeois society as the French Code Civile to be worked out upon the basis of this same Roman Law. If, therefore, bourgeois legal rules merely express the economic life conditions of society in legal form, then they can do so well or ill according to circumstances. The state presents itself to us as the first ideological power over man. Society creates for itself an organ for the safeguarding of its common interests against internal and external attacks. This organ is the state power. Hardly come into being, this organ makes itself independent vis-a-vis society; and, indeed, the more so, the more it becomes the organ of a particular class, the more it directly enforces the supremacy of that class. The fight of the oppressed class against the ruling class becomes necessarily a political fight, a fight first of all against the political dominance of this class. The consciousness of the interconnection between this political struggle and its economic basis becomes dulled and can be lost altogether. While this is not wholly the case with the participants, it almost always happens with the historians. Of the ancient sources on the struggles within the Roman Republic, only Appian tells us clearly and distinctly what was at issue in the last resort ? namely, landed property. But once the state has become an independent power vis-a-vis society, it produces forthwith a further ideology. It is indeed among professional politicians, theorists of public law, and jurists of private law, that the connection with economic facts gets lost for fair. Since in each particular case, the economic facts must assume the form of juristic motives in order to receive legal sanction; and since, in so doing, consideration of course has to be given to the whole legal system already in operation, the juristic form is, in consequence, made everything and the economic content nothing. Public law and private law are treated as independent spheres, each being capable of and needing a systematic presentation by the consistent elimination of all inner contradictions. Still higher ideologies, that is, such as are still further removed from the material, economic basis, take the form of philosophy and religion. Here the interconnection between conceptions and their material conditions of existence becomes more and more complicated, more and more obscured by intermediate links. But the interconnection exists. Just as the whole Renaissance period, from the middle of the 15th century, was an essential product of the towns and, therefore, of the burghers, so also was the subsequently newly-awakened philosophy. Its content was in essence only the philosophical expression of the thoughts corresponding to the development of the small and middle burghers into a big bourgeoisie. Among last century?s Englishmen and Frenchmen who in many cases were just as much political economists as philosophers, this is clearly evident; and we have proved it above in regard to the Hegelian school. We will now in addition deal only briefly with religion, since the latter stands further away from material life and seems to be most alien to it. Religion arose in very primitive times from erroneous, primitive conceptions of men about their own nature and external nature surrounding them. Every ideology, however, once it has arisen, develops in connection with the given concept-material, and develops this material further; otherwise, it would not be an ideology, that is, occupation with thoughts as with independent entities, developing independently and subject only to their own laws. In the last analysis, the material life conditions of the persons inside whose heads this thought process goes on determine the course of the process, which of necessity remains unknown to these persons, for otherwise there would be an end to all ideology. These original religious notions, therefore, which in the main are common to each group of kindred peoples, develop, after the group separates, in a manner peculiar to each people, according to the conditions of life falling to their lot. For a number of groups of peoples, and particularly for the Aryans (so-called Indo-Europeans) this process has been shown in detail by comparative mythology. The gods thus fashioned within each people were national gods, whose domain extended no farther than the national territory which they were to protect; on the other side of its boundaries, other gods held undisputed sway. They could continue to exist, in imagination, only as long as the nation existed; they fell with its fall. The Roman world empire, the economic conditions of whose origin we do not need to examine here, brought about this downfall of the old nationalities. The old national gods decayed, even those of the Romans, which also were patterned to suit only the narrow confines of the city of Rome. The need to complement the world empire by means of a world religion was clearly revealed in the attempts made to recognize all foreign gods that were the least bit respectable and provide altars for them in Rome alongside the native gods. But a new world religion is not to be made in this fashion, by imperial decree. The new world religion, Christianity, had already quietly come into being, out of a mixture of generalized Oriental, particularly Jewish, theology, and vulgarized Greek, particularly Stoic, philosophy. What it originally looked like has to be first laboriously discovered, since its official form, as it has been handed down to us, is merely that in which it became the state religion to which purpose it was adapted by the Council of Nicaea. The fact that already after 250 years it became the state religion suffices to show that it was the religion in correspondence with the conditions of the time. In the Middle Ages, in the same measure as feudalism developed, Christianity grew into the religious counterpart to it, with a corresponding feudal hierarchy. And when the burghers began to thrive, there developed, in opposition to feudal Catholicism, the Protestant heresy, which first appeared in Southern France among the Albigenses[A], at the time the cities there reached the highest point of their florescence. The Middle Ages had attached to theology all the other forms of ideology ? philosophy, politics, jurisprudence ? and made them subdivision of theology. It thereby constrained every social and political movement to take on a theological form. The sentiments of the masses were fed with religion to the exclusion of all else; it was therefore necessary to put forward their own interests in a religious guise in order to produce a great tempest. And just as the burghers from the beginning brought into being an appendage of propertyless urban plebeians, day laborers and servants of all kinds, belonging to no recognized social estate, precursors of the later proletariat, so likewise heresy soon became divided into a burgher-moderate heresy and a plebeian-revolutionary one, the latter an abomination to the burgher heretics themselves. The ineradicability of the Protestant heresy corresponded to the invincibility of the rising burghers. When these burghers had become sufficiently strengthened, their struggle against the feudal nobility, which till then had been predominantly local, began to assume national dimensions. The first great action occurred in Germany ? the so-called reformation. The burghers were neither powerful enough nor sufficiently developed to be able to unite under their banner the remaining rebellious estates ? the plebeians of the towns, the lower nobility, and the peasants on the land. At first, the nobles were defeated; the peasants rose in a revolt which formed the peak of the whole revolutionary struggle; the cities left them in the lurch, and thus the revolution succumbed to the armies of the secular princes who reaped the whole profit. Thenceforward, Germany disappears for three centuries from the ranks of countries playing an independent active part in history. But, beside the German Luther appeared the Frenchman Calvin. With true French acuity, he put the bourgeois character of the Reformation in the forefront, republicanized and democratized the Church. While the Lutheran Reformation in Germany degenerated and reduced the country to rack and ruin, the Calvinist Reformation served as a banner for the republicans in Geneva, in Holland, and in Scotland, freed Holland from Spain and from the German Empire, and provided the ideological costume for the second act of the bourgeois revolution, which was taking place in England. Here, Calvinism justified itself as the true religious disguise of the interests of the bourgeoisie of that time, and on this account did not attain full recognition when the revolution ended in 1689 in a compromise between one part of the nobility and the bourgeoisie. The English state Church was re-established; but not in its earlier form of a Catholicism which had the king for its pope, being, instead, strongly Calvinized. The old state Church had celebrated the merry Catholic Sunday and had fought against the dull Calvinist one. The new, bourgeoisified Church introduced the latter, which adorns England to this day. In France, the Calvinist minority was suppressed in 1685 and either Catholized or driven out of the country. But what was the good? Already at that time the freethinker Pierre Bayle was at the height of his activity, and in 1694 Voltaire was born. The forcible measures of Louis XIV only made it easier for the French bourgeoisie to carry through its revolution in the irreligious, exclusively political form which alone was suited to a developed bourgeoisie. Instead of Protestants, freethinkers took their seats in the national assemblies. Thereby Christianity entered into its final stage. It was incapable of doing any future service to any progressive class as the ideological garb of its aspirations. It became more and more the exclusive possession of the ruling classes; they apply it as a mere means of government, to keep the lower classes within bounds. Moreover, each of the different classes uses its own appropriate religion: the landed nobility ? Catholic Jesuitism, or Protestant orthodoxy; the liberal and radical bourgeoisie ? rationalism; and it makes little difference whether these gentlemen themselves believe in their respective religions or not. We see, therefore: religion, once formed, always contains traditional material, just as in all ideological domains tradition forms a great conservative force. But the transformations which this material undergoes spring from class relations ? that is to say, out of the economic relations of the people who execute these transformations. And here that is sufficient. In the above, it could only be a question of giving a general sketch of the Marxist conception of history, at most with a few illustrations, as well. The proof must be derived from history itself; and, in this regard, it may be permitted to say that is has been sufficiently furnished in other writings. This conception, however, puts an end to philosophy in the realm of history, just as the dialectical conception of nature makes all natural philosophy both unnecessary and impossible. It is no longer a question anywhere of inventing interconnections from out of our brains, but of discovering them in the facts. For philosophy, which has been expelled from nature and history, there remains only the realm of pure thought, so far as it is left: the theory of the laws of the thought process itself, logic and dialectics. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With the Revolution of 1848, ?educated? Germany said farewell to theory and went over to the field of practice. Small production and manufacture, based upon manual labor, were superseded by real large-scale industry. Germany again appeared on the world market. The new little German Empire [B] abolished at least the most crying of the abuses with which this development had been obstructed by the system of petty states, the relics of feudalism, and bureaucratic management. But to the same degree that speculation abandoned the philosopher?s study in order to set up its temple in the Stock Exchange, educated Germany lost the great aptitude for theory which had been the glory of Germany in the days of its deepest political humiliation ? the aptitude for purely scientific investigation, irrespective of whether the result obtained was practically applicable or not, whether likely to offend the police authorities or not. Official German natural science, it is true, maintained its position in the front rank, particularly in the field of specialized research. But even the American journal Science rightly remarks that the decisive advances in the sphere of the comprehensive correlation of particular facts and their generalization into laws are now being made much more in England, instead of, as formerly, in Germany. And in the sphere of the historical sciences, philosophy included, the old fearless zeal for theory has now disappeared completely, along with classical philosophy. Inane eclecticism and an anxious concern for career and income, descending to the most vulgar job-hunting, occupy its place. The official representatives of these sciences have become the undisguised ideologists of the bourgeoisie and the existing state ? but at a time when both stand in open antagonism to the working class. Only among the working class does the German aptitude for theory remain unimpaired. Here, it cannot be exterminated. Here, there is no concern for careers,for profit-making, or for gracious patronage from above. On the contrary, the more ruthlessly and disinterestedly science proceeds the more it finds itself in harmony with the interest and aspirations of the workers. The new tendency, which recognized that the key to the understanding of the whole history of society lies in the history of the development of labor, from the outset addressed itself by preference to the working class and here found the response which it neither sought nor expected from officially recognized science. The German working-class movement is the inheritor of German classical philosophy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Here I may be permitted to make a personal explanation. Lately repeated reference has been made to my share in this theory, and so I can hardly avoid saying a few words here to settle this point. I cannot deny that both before and during my 40 years? collaboration with Marx I had a certain independent share in laying the foundation of the theory, and more particularly in its elaboration. But the greater part of its leading basic principles, especially in the realm of economics and history, and, above all, their final trenchant formulation, belong to Marx. What I contributed ? at any rate with the exception of my work in a few special fields ? Marx could very well have done without me. What Marx accomplished I would not have achieved. Marx stood higher, saw further, and took a wider and quicker view than all the rest of us. Marx was a genius; we others were at best talented. Without him the theory would not be by far what it is today. If therefore rightly bears his name. (2) See Das Wesen der menschlichen Kopfarbeit, dargestellt von einem Handarbeiter [The Nature of Human Brainwork, Described by a Manual Worker]. Hamburg, Meissner. [A] Albingenses: A religious sect which, during the 12th and 13th centuries, directed a movement against the Roman Catholic Church. The name is derived from the town of Albi, in the south of France. [B] ?The new little German Empire?: This term is applied to the German Empire without Austria, which arose in 1871, under Prussian hegemony. Table of Contents: Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy From cb31450 at gmail.com Sat Oct 10 18:12:30 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:12:30 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Turkey, Armenia sign historic accord Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910101712v4fe1cd4ue2e7d85412c2c673@mail.gmail.com> Turkey, Armenia sign historic accord By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer Matthew Lee, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 32 mins ago ZURICH ? Turkey and Armenia signed a landmark agreement Saturday to establish diplomatic relations and open their sealed border after a century of enmity, as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton helped the two sides clear a last-minute snag. The contentious issue of whether the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians during the final days of the Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide is only hinted at in the agreement. "There were several times when I said to all of the parties involved that this is too important," Clinton said. "This has to be seen through. We have come too far. All of the work that has gone into the protocols should not be walked away from." The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers signed the accord in the Swiss city of Zurich after a dispute over the final statements they would make. In the end, the signing took place about three hours later than scheduled and there were no spoken statements. Clinton and mediators from Switzerland intervened to help broker a solution, U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity, in keeping with State Department regulations. Better ties between Turkey, a regional heavyweight, and poor, landlocked Armenia have been a priority for President Barack Obama, and Clinton had flown to Switzerland to witness the signing, not help close the deal. Clinton told reporters traveling later on the plane with her to London that both sides had problems with the other's prepared statement and that the Armenian foreign minister had to call his president several times. She said it became important just to approve the accord and not have the sides make speeches that could be interpreted as putting legal conditions on the document. She told each country that could be done later, "but let the protocols be the statement because that was what we were there to sign." The accord is expected to win ratification from both nations' parliaments and could lead to a reopening of their border within two months. It has been closed for 16 years. But nationalists on both sides are still seeking to derail implementation of the deal. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the signing a "historic decision" that "constitutes a milestone toward the establishment of good neighborly relations," spokeswoman Michele Montas said in New York. American officials said Clinton; the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, Philip Gordon; and Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey were engaged in furious high-stakes shuttle diplomacy with the Turkish and Armenian delegations to resolve the differences. Diplomats said the Armenians were concerned about wording in the Turkish statement that was to be made after the signing ceremony at University of Zurich and had expressed those concerns "at the last minute" before the scheduled signing ceremony. Clinton had arrived at the ceremony venue after meeting separately with the Turks and Armenians at a hotel, but abruptly departed without leaving her car when the problem arose. She returned to the hotel where she spoke by phone from the sedan in the parking lot, three times with the Armenians and four times with the Turks. At one point in the intervention, a Swiss police car, lights and siren blazing, brought a Turkish diplomat to the hotel from the university with a new draft of his country's statement. After nearly two hours, Clinton and Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian met in person at the hotel and drove back to the university where negotiations continued. It was not clear if there would be a resolution. In the end, the Turks and Armenians signed an accord establishing diplomatic ties that could reduce tensions in the troubled Caucasus region and facilitate its growing role as a corridor for energy supplies bound for the West. The agreement faces nationalist opposition, and protests have been particularly vociferous among the Armenian diaspora. "The success of Turkey in pressuring Armenia into accepting these humiliating, one-sided protocols proves, sadly, that genocide pays," said Ken Hachikian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America. Major countries, however, expressed their support for the accord, with the foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, France and the European Union in the room to watch the much-delayed signing. "No problem, they signed," quipped French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. In Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was showing "goodwill" to restore ties with Armenia. But he said Turkey was keen on seeing Armenian troops withdrawn from Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-occupied enclave in Azerbaijan that has been a center of regional tensions. "We are trying to boost our relations with Armenia in a way that will cause no hard feelings for Azerbaijan," Erdogan told reporters. Armenian President Serge Sarkisian said his country was taking "responsible decisions" in normalizing relations with Turkey, despite what he called the unhealable wounds of genocide. The agreement calls for a panel to discuss "the historical dimension" of the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians during World War I. The discussion is to include "an impartial scientific examination of the historical records and archives to define existing problems and formulate recommendations." That clause is viewed as a concession to Turkey, which denies genocide, contending the toll is inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war. "There is no alternative to the establishment of the relations with Turkey without any precondition," said Sarkisian. "It is the dictate of the time." Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, thanked Turkey, which is a candidate for European Union membership. "This is an important cooperation, no doubt, of Turkey to solve one issue that pertains to a region which is in our neighborhood," Solana told AP Television News. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also was present for the ceremony in Switzerland, whose diplomats mediated six weeks of talks between Turkey and Armenia to reach the accord. The signing took place in Zurich University's Churchill room, where Winston Churchill gave a speech in 1946. Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel declined to comment on the contentious issue of speeches but said the important thing was that the accord was signed. He said Switzerland stood ready for further mediation, if both Armenia and Turkey request it as both sides seek to implement the accord and build on them. A Turkish official, who was not authorized to speak and demanded anonymity, said all sides were happy to dispense with the statements and that the important thing was the signatures means the process can continue. But Turkey's Ahmet Davutoglu appeared the far happier top envoy as he smiled broadly while posing for photographs and greeting the other foreign ministers in attendance. Armenia's Nalbandian, by contrast, only grudgingly smirked as he shook Davutoglu's hand. Yilmaz Ates of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party said the country should avoid any concessions. "If Armenia wants to repair relations ... then it should end occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh. That's it," Ates said Saturday. About 10,000 protesters rallied Friday in Armenia's capital to oppose the signing, and a tour of Armenian communities by Sarkisian sparked protests in Lebanon and France, with demonstrators in Paris shouting "Traitor!" On the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, Turks have close cultural and linguistic ties with Azerbaijan, which is pressing Turkey for help in recovering its land. Turkey shut its border with Armenia to protest the Armenian invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh in 1993. Turkey wants Armenia to withdraw some troops from the enclave area to show goodwill and speed the opening of their joint border, but Armenia has yet to agree, said Omer Taspinar, Turkey project director at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "We may end up in a kind of awkward situation where there are diplomatic relations, but the border is still closed," Taspinar said. ___ Associated Press Writers Alexander G. Higgins and Bradley S. Klapper in Zurich, Avet Demourian in Yerevan, Armenia, and Christopher Torchia in Istanbul contributed to this report. Copyright ? 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.Questions or CommentsPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceCopyright/IP Policy From cb31450 at gmail.com Sat Oct 10 19:25:00 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:25:00 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rep. Barbara Lee on Afghanistan Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910101825j4ad1128n6e45ac0305822059@mail.gmail.com> Democracy Now October 7, 2009 As Afghan War Enters 9th Year, Rep. Barbara Lee-Lone Lawmaker to Vote Against 2001 Authorization-Seeks to Block New Troop Surge http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/7/as_afghan_war_enters_9th_year On the eighth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, we speak to Democratic Congressmember Barbara Lee, the only lawmaker in either chamber of Congress to vote against the 2001 resolution authorizing the initial use of force. Lee recently introduced legislation to prohibit funding to send more troops to Afghanistan. Rep. Barbara Lee, the only lawmaker in either chamber of Congress to vote against the 2001 resolution authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan. She has introduced legislation to prohibit funding for another surge in Afghanistan. JUAN GONZALEZ: Today marks the eighth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. On October 7th, 2001, US submarines launched cruise missiles from the Arabian Sea and B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers began air strikes. The war was on. It came less than a month after 9/11. The Pentagon called it Operation Enduring Freedom. Since then, nearly 900 US troops have been killed, 230 of them in this year alone, putting 2009 on track to be the deadliest year for US forces. There is no reliable count on the number of Afghan civilians killed, but some estimates put the figures in the tens of thousands. Today, the war enters its ninth year with no clear end in sight. On Tuesday, President Barack Obama told congressional leaders he has ruled out a US troop withdrawal and will not consider cutting troop levels. The President was meeting with thirty key Republican and Democratic lawmakers at the White House as part of an extensive review of the war. Obama escalated the war upon entering office earlier this year, sending an additional 21,000 troops, which brings the US total to 68,000. He is expected to decide soon on whether to send tens of thousands more, as requested by US commander General Stanley McChrystal. But some on Capitol Hill are trying to prevent another surge. Democratic Congress member Barbara Lee has introduced legislation to prohibit funding to send more troops to Afghanistan. The bill has twenty-one co- sponsors. In 2001, Congress member Lee was the only lawmaker in either chamber of Congress to vote against the 2001 resolution authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan. Congress member Lee will join us live from Capitol Hill in a moment, but first we want to turn back to her impassioned speech opposing the war. This is what she said on the floor of the House on September 14th, 2001, three days after the 9/11 attacks. REP. BARBARA LEE: Mr. Speaker, members, I rise today really with a very heavy heart, one that is filled with sorrow for the families and the loved ones who were killed and injured this week. Only the most foolish and the most callous would not understand the grief that has really gripped our people and millions across the world. This unspeakable act on the United States has really forced me, however, to rely on my moral compass, my conscience and my God for direction. September 11th changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States. This is a very complex and complicated matter. Now this resolution will pass, although we all know that the President can wage a war even without it. However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint. Our country is in a state of mourning. Some of us must say, let's step back for a moment. Let's just pause, just for a minute, and think through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of control. Now I have agonized over this vote. But I came to grips with it today, and I came to grips with opposing this resolution during the very painful, yet very beautiful, memorial service. As a member of the clergy so eloquently said, "As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore." Thank you, and I yield the balance of my time. JUAN GONZALEZ: Congress member Barbara Lee, speaking on the House floor on September 14th, 2001. Congress member Lee joins us now from Capitol Hill. Welcome to Democracy Now! REP. BARBARA LEE: Glad to be with you this morning. JUAN GONZALEZ: Your thoughts, all these years later, of that speech and what you urged your fellow members of Congress? REP. BARBARA LEE: Eight years later, I feel the same way, of course, still very sad about the loss of life, still praying for the families of those who lost their loved ones. It was a very difficult time, and it still is a very difficult time for our country. During that time, you know, we had to, I understand, figure out a strategy to respond. However, as I said on the floor, military action is not going to combat or be the appropriate counterterrorism strategy, because it's very complicated. Secondly-and we need a more comprehensive approach to dealing with global terrorism. Secondly, as I think about eight years ago, it's hard to believe that we gave the authority to the President to use force in perpetuity. Only Congress can declare war. And in fact, this blank check that was given to then President Bush, now any future president, was really, I believe, unconstitutional. Congress should never cede our authority in our declaration of war making ability, and that is just based on what the Constitution requires. And we did not do that. And so, it was a blank check. It allowed for the military operation, the war in Afghanistan. It served as the basis for the war against Iraq. It could be used over and over again, unless we put an end to this. You can't have endless war forever. And so, we have to figure out new ways to combat terrorism. And in fact, I am proud and pleased that the President is really trying to think this through and trying to come up with a way to approach the world, really, in terms of our global peace and security strategies that are a new direction from the past. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, eight years ago, you were the lone member of Congress opposing this war. Now you've got about two dozen co-sponsors on your bill that would prohibit a further surge in Afghanistan. Could you talk about your legislation and its prospects? REP. BARBARA LEE: Sure. And the American people really, I believe, do not want to see an increase in troop level in Afghanistan. I serve as a member of the Appropriations Committee. And, of course, any bill like this is a very difficult one to pass. All it says is that no funds will be appropriated for an increase in troop levels in Afghanistan. We do have twenty-one co- sponsors, but we're building support for that. Several months ago, we also tried to pass Congressman McGovern's resolution, which I co-sponsored, requiring an exit strategy to be put in place by December, to just present a plan with regard to redeployment or exiting out of Afghanistan. Of course, that did not pass either. I believe we were able to garner 138 votes. But let me just say how important it is to offer a broader point of view in this debate, a different point of view. Up until now, we have had very little debate on Afghanistan and an appropriate US role there and what we should do. Now we are close to perhaps sending additional troops, but we don't hear a different alternative that could present a clearer path to regional stability. And, of course, the mission is ensuring US national interest and national security interests. And so, what my resolution does, at least it has now created a space here in the House for a real debate on should we increase troop levels. If not, what should we do? What should our strategy be? And what is the mission in Afghanistan? And again, I think the President is absolutely right in taking his time to try to sort this through, and we have to provide him with all of the points of views that he will have to listen to and deal with when in fact he decides-he makes his decision. JUAN GONZALEZ: But the President obviously has already increased the troop levels by 20,000 earlier in the year, and he held a meeting at the White House yesterday with congressional leaders. Your sense of whether he will get the uniform support that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid initially suggested might be coming his way, no matter what his decision is? REP. BARBARA LEE: I don't have a sense of that. I do have a sense of the President and his deliberative process that he is undertaking, which I think is absolutely correct. And he's listening to a variety of points of views. And as a member of Congress, not as a member of the executive branch, but as a member of Congress, whose constitutional responsibility is to protect our troops, to make sure that if there are going to be military operations that there is a declaration of war, I cannot support an increase in troop level, because there-first of all, there's no declaration of war. We have given the authority, I think unconstitutionally, to the administration to wage war, endless war, until in fact the administration decides that it's no longer needed. JUAN GONZALEZ: Would you take the step of trying to block appropriations for the war effort if the escalation in troop levels goes through? REP. BARBARA LEE: I have not supported any increase in appropriations for either the war in Iraq, the occupation of Iraq, nor the war and occupation of Afghanistan. My resolution would deny funding for any increase in troop levels. Now, let me just say, it's a very hard position to take, and that is a very hard policy to move through the House of Representatives, but I cannot support an increase in funding for this. You know, we need to look at Pakistan. Pakistan, unfortunately, has nuclear arsenals that we have to focus on. That's where al-Qaeda is. When you look at Afghanistan, the poppy seeds have-the poppy fields, you know, are grown now. We're witnessing another influx in heroin in the United States. We have to look at a more comprehensive strategy, as it relates to Afghanistan, that requires more public diplomacy. Also it requires more economic strategies to make sure that the farmers have alternative crops. And in fact, we have to really look at how we address issues with regard to women. We have to look at ensuring that our tax dollars aren't being ripped off by corruption. And so, there are many, many issues with regard to Afghanistan, in terms of the Taliban and in terms of contrasting that with what we need to do in Pakistan, that we really need to focus on objectively and make some hard decisions there. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, General Stanley McChrystal is believed to be seeking 40,000 more troops to be deployed to Afghanistan. He said the situation there is deteriorating. I want to play some of his comments and get your response. GEN. STANLEY McCHRYSTAL: The situation is serious, and I choose that word very, very carefully. I also say that neither success or failure for our endeavor there in support of the Afghan people and the government can be taken for granted. My assessment, my best military judgment, as I term it, is that the situation is in some ways deteriorating. We need to reverse the current trends, and time does matter. Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. JUAN GONZALEZ: Congress member Lee, your response to General McChrystal and also to the critics who say that the politicians in Washington shouldn't be second- guessing the assessments of the military commanders? REP. BARBARA LEE: Let me say, the situation is deteriorating in Afghanistan. We've been there eight years, and it has not worked. And it's deteriorating, so he's absolutely correct. The more military-first strategies that are employed with regard to Afghanistan, the worse it's going to be. The counter, you know, impact is what's happening now. More troops become occupiers, as perceived by the Afghani people. The hostility, the violence continues to increase. And in fact, I'm not willing to warrant our young men and women placed in harm's way. It has not worked over the last eight years. We're digging ourselves deeper in a hole. There is no military solution in Afghanistan. I believe if you look at history, you'll see that the British tried, the Soviets tried. This has a historical context, which we have to understand and remember. And so, if it hasn't worked in eight years, with more troops and more troops, more militarization, more occupation of that country, I think we need to look at new strategies and a more comprehensive approach to address the security issues in Afghanistan, as well as the economic stability of that country. JUAN GONZALEZ: And finally, I'd like to ask you whether you think the allegations of massive fraud in the Afghan-the recent Afghan elections have had any impact on how your colleagues in Congress regard their willingness to support the continued US presence in the country. REP. BARBARA LEE: Well, we shall see. You know, it's really very interesting when I listen to many of my colleagues around the healthcare debate and the debate around the deficit and not wanting to fund universal healthcare with a robust public option. You don't hear that same kind of contrast and policy debate with regard to military spending. So I think we need to really be honest about what is taking place there. We need to be honest about our hard-earned tax dollars and where we're sending these tax dollars. And certainly, there has been corruption in Afghanistan. There's been corruption in Iraq. We've spent 200-and-some billion dollars in Afghanistan, over a trillion dollars in Iraq. We're trying to pass healthcare for Americans, for every man, woman and child here. And so, hopefully my colleagues will begin to be objective about our spending. And, of course, I support and believe that our national security is a first priority for all of us, and we have to ensure that. But I believe that there are better ways to ensure our national interest in our national security interest. And finally, let me just say, with regard to the critics who talk about elected officials caving in and not engaging in any debate, I think that is really very dangerous. Again, Congress has the constitutional responsibility to declare war. Many forget what the basic tenets of our democracy are, and that is dissent, debate and offering different points of views. And that is what we are doing. And so, for those who don't believe that our democracy should survive even during national security debates and discussions, to me, don't really understand what the true essence of American democracy is, nor do they understand the Constitution. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Representative Barbara Lee, I want to thank you for being with us. The only lawmaker in either chamber of Congress to vote against the 2001 resolution authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan, she's also introduced legislation to prohibit funding for another surge of troops in that war. We're going to take a break, and when we come back, we're going to look at the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, eight years after the war began. From cb31450 at gmail.com Sat Oct 10 19:32:02 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:32:02 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Would you be a Wall St punter in 1998? Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910101832h2c7783beu16749b2481c0c3c5@mail.gmail.com> M-TH: Would you be a Wall St punter in 1998? Previous message: M-TH: Re: Utopian day-dreaming is lousy leadership Next message: M-TH: Re: Utopian day-dreaming is lousy leadership Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yea Rob, I thought this was a nice sketch too. I forwarded it to a couple of comrades. Charles >>> Hugh Rodwell 05/28 2:36 PM >>> Nice one, Rob! You realize of course that you're a reality-challenged utopian hallucinatiing petrified throwback to 1917? Cheers, Hugh PS If only some of our would-be Marxists could see as clearly as Wall Street when the workers are on the move! ___________________________ >Corporate profits in the US down - more than half the top 500 companies >there are reporting declining profits, and Wall St must be looking beyond >America's shores for solace. > >So what does it see? > >In Russia, interest rates are now at 150%, as Yeltzin tries desperately to >protect the rouble to avoid the SE Asian nightmare, and he's also slashing >public expenditure - more millions without their salaries and unable to >borrow. Local businesses coming to a grinding halt, and an almost >totalitarian leadership, without logical successor, is on the brink. >Foreign capital is fleeing at an ever increasing rate. > >In China, Beijing is rethinking its self-integration into world markets. >The transition costs are gonna be huge, tens of millions of life-long >socialists are about to be fired, and SE Asia's desperate economies are >exporting anything anybody'll buy at very competitive prices due to >unprecedented low currencies. > >South Korea is on strike >Japan's yen is beginning to creak, > unfortunately Japan >needs to export its way back to health. This can't be good for the US's >persistent current account deficit neither. > >India is contemplating a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan's nuclear >plant and gawd only knows what China is contemplating vis India's nuclear >plant. > >Indonesia has a government incapable of answering the questions so pithily >asked of Soeharto >Denmark is threatening to start a Europe-wide rethinking of the new Europe. >French socialists have passed the 35-hour week - planting seeds of new >ambition in the heads of workers throughout the continent. Germany looks >destined for social democracy, and only creative accounting has qualified >several countries for the already unpopular Euro. > >The MAI has hit the wall. > >Oh, and poor little Oz's dollar is floating like a brick. > >I predict some cheap Porsches may be had at local second-hand dealers well >before Chrissie. > >Why am I wrong? > >Yours in tentative schadenfreude, >Rob. > > From cb31450 at gmail.com Sat Oct 10 21:52:14 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:52:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> post-Fordism and geographical scattering of Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Apr 28 19:52:54 MDT 1998 Previous message: M-TH: Bouncing around socalled globalization Next message: M-TH: Re: Australian working class and superimperialist Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Dave From: Charles Here's some more on globalization as a qualitative shift from what Lenin defined as imperialism, monopoly capitalism; the uniting of financial and industrial capital; export of capital as a shift from export of goods; the "advanced" European colonialist countries dividing and redividing the world; socalled world wars, meaning all European wars.=20 monopoly concentration; labour aristocracy bought off with superprofits of booty from colonialism; etc. etc.; electricity, trains, assembly line as technological innovations in the means of production. =20 Gramsciians would say the culture of this was Fordism, as discussed below. =20 >>> "Charles Brown" 03/29 4:16 PM = >>> From ground zero of Fordism here in Detroit, we experienced the last 45 = years of change from the classic big industrial plant (such as Ford = Dearborn with 100,000 workers)concentration to scattering of the points of = production as plantclosings, runaway shops, and white flight to the = suburbs. So the transition to socalled post-Fordism got our attention real = good and we've been trying to figure it in Marxist political economic = terms. It occurred to me that the "new global economy", transnationalization= of monopoly capital represents a dialectical qualitative change in the = following sense. =20 Marx in Capital defines two factors in the qualitiative emergence of industrial capitalism over manufacture = capitalism. They are the use of machinery=20 and the concentration of workers in one big factory. Thus, the graphic locus of the classic Leninist agitation and = propaganda the giant industrial plant. The qualitative change of today is the the revolution in science and = technology which has begotten a revolution=20 in transportation and communication, creating such things as just in time = delivery, containerization . Thus a revolution in machinery, one of the = original two breakthroughs in Marx's analysis of industrialization, has = made it possible for the capitalists to decentralize and scatter the = points of production. The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The = capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the = efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the = city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the = class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their great numbers etc. I suggest the above infrastructural sketch as=20 corresponding to the cultural change now named post-Fordism. But don't count the proletariat out. The slogan=20 workers of the world unite , is more true today than when Marx and Engels coined it. And the proletariat is fresher than post-Fordist theory might know. In other words, the proletariat knows how to go with the new. Detroiters probably could show post-ologists a thing or two about what is new. from Proletarian Central, Detroit Charles =20 From cb31450 at gmail.com Sat Oct 10 20:35:10 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:35:10 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] List of revolutions and rebellions Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910101935w688c8eb4u4a725a6f2a437e7e@mail.gmail.com> The History of all hitherto existing society ( after the breaking up of the ancient comunes) is a history of class struggles - Charlie and Fred http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions List of revolutions and rebellions The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789, during the French Revolutionary WarThis is a list of revolutions and rebellions. (For a list of coups d'?tat and coup attempts, see List of coups d'?tat and coup attempts). This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completion. You can help by expanding it with sourced additions. Contents [hide] 1 BC 2 1?999 AD 3 1000?1499 4 1500?1699 5 1700?1799 6 1800?1849 7 1850?1899 8 1900?1909 9 1910?1919 10 1920?1929 11 1930?1939 12 1940?1949 13 1950?1959 14 1960?1969 15 1970?1979 16 1980?1989 17 1990?1999 18 2000?present 19 Cultural, intellectual, philosophical and technological revolutions 20 References 21 See also [edit] BC c. 2380 BC (short chronology): A popular revolt in the Sumerian city of Lagash deposes King Lugalanda and puts the reformer Urukagina on the throne. 615 BC: The Babylonians revolt against rule from the Assyrian empire. 570 BC: A revolt broke out among native Egyptian soldiers, giving Amasis II opportunity to seize the throne. 499?493 BC: The Ionian Revolt. Most of the Greek cities occupied by the Persians in Asia Minor and Cyprus rose up against their Persian rulers. 464 BC: The Helot serfs revolt against their Spartan masters. 460 BC: The Inarus revolted against the Persians in Egypt with the help of his Athenian allies. 206 BC: Ziying, last ruler of the Qin Dynasty of China surrenders himself to Liu Bang, leader of a popular revolt and founder of the Han Dynasty. 181?174 BC: The Celtiberian revolt in Spain; Romans eventually subdue the Celtiberians. 154 BC: The failed Rebellion of the Seven States by members of the royal family of the Han Dynasty. 153?133 BC: The Celtiberians again revolted, and were not finally overcome until the capture of Numantia. 147?139 BC: The Lusitanian Rebellion against the Roman forces in modern day Portugal, led by Lusitanian leader named Viriathus. 73?71 BC: The failed Roman slave rebellion, led by the gladiator Spartacus. 52?51 BC: The revolt of the Celtic Gauls, led by Vercingetorix, was crushed by Julius Caesar. [edit] 1?999 AD 6?9: The Pannonians, with the Dalmatians and other Illyrian tribes, revolted against the Roman Empire, and were overcome by Tiberius and Germanicus, after a hard-fought campaign which lasted for three years. 9: The Arminius revolt against the Roman Empire; alliance of Germanic tribes led by Arminius ambushed and annihilated three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. 18: The Red Eyebrow Rebellion in China. 20: The Green Forest Rebellion in China. 60?61: Boudica, queen of the Celtic Iceni people of Norfolk in Roman-occupied Britain, led a major uprising of the Briton tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.[1] 66?70: The Great Jewish Revolt, the first of three Jewish-Roman wars that took place in Iudaea Province against the Roman Empire.[2] 69?70: The Batavian rebellion in the Roman province of Germania Inferior. 115?117: The Kitos War, the second of the Jewish-Roman wars. 132?135: Bar Kokhba's revolt, the third and last of the Jewish-Roman wars. 184: Zhang Jiao led an unsuccessful peasant revolt called theYellow Turban Rebellion during the later Han dynasty, which later collapsed due to destabilization and lack of co-ordination with other Yellow Turban forces across China. 496: Mazdak led a Persian socialistic movement and overthrew Shahanshah Kavadh I of the Persian empire. 532: The Nika revolt in Constantinople. 613: A rebellion by Yang Xuangan in China was crushed by the Sui Dynasty. 623: An uprising of Slavs led by Samo against Avars. 685?699: The Azraqi Khariji revolt in Iraq and Iran against the Umayyad Caliphate. 740: The Zaidi revolt against the Umayyad dynasty. 740?743: The Great Berber Revolt in Maghreb against the Umayyads marked the first successful secession from the Arab caliphate (ruled from Damascus). 747?750: The Abbasid Revolt overthrew the Umayyad dynasty. When Abbasids declared amnesty for members of the Umayyad family, eighty gathered to receive pardons, and all were massacred. 755: Abd ar-Rahman I landed at Almu??car in al-Andalus. Abd ar-Rahman I was the founder of a Muslim dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries. 755?763: The Rebellion by powerful Jiedushi An Lushan in Tang Dynasty, which caused heavy damage in China in terms of population and economy. 782?785: The Saxon revolt against Charlemagne. Rebellion was part of Saxon Wars. 814: Al-Hakam I crushed a rebellion of Iberian Muslims led by clerics in a suburb called al-Ribad on the south bank of the Guadalquivir river. 817?837: The revolution of the Iranian Khurramites led by Babak Khorramdin. 824?836: The revolt of Arab troops in Tunisia against Aghlabids was only put down with the help of the Berbers. 828: The failed rebellion by Kim Heon-chang against Silla. 845: The rebellion by the famous naval commander Jang Bogo against Silla, ended when Jang was assassinated. 861?1003: Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar established Saffarid dynasty. He seized control of the Seistan region, conquering modern-day eastern Iran, much of Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan. Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar started his campaign as a bandit and formed his own army. 869?883: The Zanj Rebellion of black African slaves in Iraq. The Zanj Rebellion was crushed in 883 by the Abbasids.[3] 875?884: A rebellion by salt smuggler Huang Chao against Tang Dynasty China, which later collapsed due to the destabilization caused by the rebellion. 884: Umar ibn Hafsun led anti-Ummayad dynasty forces in southern Spain. 899?906: The Qarmatians, an extremist Ism?'?l? Muslim sect centered in eastern Arabia, revolted against Abbasids. 943?947: The great revolt of Abu Yazid, a Khariji Berber leader who assembled a large tribal coalition against Fatimid rule. 982: The great revolt of the pagan Polabian Slavs of the lower Elbe against the Holy Roman Empire. [edit] 1000?1499 See also: Popular revolt in late medieval Europe 1090: Hassan-i Sabbah Hassan took over Alamut for Hashshashin. 1095: Rebellion of northern nobles against William Rufus. 1125: The Almohads began a rebellion in the Atlas Mountains. 1156: The H?gen Rebellion succeeded in establishing the dominance of the samurai clans and eventually the first samurai-led government in the history of Japan. 1185: The Vlach-Bulgarian Rebellion against Byzantine Empire. 1233?1234: The Stedinger revolt in Frisia caused Pope Gregory IX to call on a crusade. 1242?1249: The The First Prussian Uprising against the Teutonic Knights, which took place during the Northern Crusades. 1250: The Mamluks killed the last sultan of the Ayyubid dynasty, and established the Bahri dynasty. 1296?1328: The First of the Wars of Scottish Independence between Scotland and England, leading to renewed Scottish independence in 1328. 1332?1357: The second instalment of the Wars of Scottish Independence, leading again to renewed Scottish independence from England and the Treaty of Berwick. 1302: The Battle of the Golden Spurs in Flanders, after which the French were ousted. 1323?1328: Beginning as a series of scattered rural riots in late 1323, the Peasant revolt in Flanders escalated into a full-scale rebellion and ended with the Battle of Cassel. 1343?1345: the St. George's Night Uprising in Estonia. 1354: The revolt of Cola di Rienzi. 1356?1358: Jacquerie: a peasant revolt in northern France, during the Hundred Years' War. The end of the unsuccessful Peasants' Revolt in England 1381. Rebel leader Wat Tyler is killed while Richard II watches. A second image within the painting shows Richard addressing the crowd.1368: Zhu Yuanzhang led peasant Han Chinese in a rebellion against the Mongol Yuan dynasty, establishing the Ming dynasty. 1378: The Revolt of the Ciompi. 1381: The Peasants' Revolt, or the Great Rising of 1381, in England. 1390s: The revolts that broke out all over Persia while Timur Lenk was away were repressed with ruthless vigour; whole cities were destroyed, their populations massacred, and towers built of their skulls.[4] 1400?1415 The Welsh revolt led by Owain Glynd?r. 1418?1427: Vietnamese led by Le Loi revolted against Chinese occupation. 1420: The Bohemian Hussites begin a rebellion against both Catholicism and the Holy Roman Empire. The wars that ensue are known as the Hussite Wars. 1434: A Swedish peasant rebellion breaks out against the Danes. 1437: The Bob?lna (B?bolna) revolt in Transylvania, using military tactics inspired by the Hussites wars. 1444?1468: Skenderbeg's rebellion in Ottoman-ruled Albania. 1450: The Kent rebellion led by Jack Cade. 1462?1485: The Rebellion of the Remences in Catalonia. 1497: The Cornish Rebellion of 1497 in England. [edit] 1500?1699 Bolotnikov's Battle with the Tsar's Army at Nizhniye Kotly Near Moscow by a Russian painter Ernest Lissner. Episode of the Fronde at the Faubourg Saint-Antoine by the Walls of the Bastille1514: A peasants' war led by Gy?rgy D?zsa in the Kingdom of Hungary. 1515: The Slovenian peasant revolt. 1515?1523: The Frisian rebellion of the Arumer Black Heap, led by Pier Gerlofs Donia and Wijard Jelckama. 1519?1523: The first Revolta de les Germanies in Valencia, an anti-monarchist, anti-feudal autonomist movement inspired by the Italian republics. 1519?1610: The Jelali revolts in Anatolia against the authority of the Ottoman Empire. 1520?1522: The Revolt of the Comuneros against the rule of Spanish king and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. 1523: The nobility in Jutland rebelled against Christian II of Denmark, forcing him to abdicate and flee the country 1 May. 1524?1525: The Peasants' War of in the Holy Roman Empire. 1542: The Dacke Feud in Sweden. 1549: The Prayer Book Rebellion in Cornwall and Devon, United Kingdom. 1549: Kett's Rebellion. 1566?1648: Eighty Years' War; revolt of the Low Countries against Spain. 1567?1799 and beyond: Philippine revolts against Spain. 1568?1571: The Morisco Revolt by the remnants of the Morisco community (Spanish Christian converts from Islam ["crypto-Muslims"] in Granada, Spain. 1573: The Croatian and Slovenian peasant revolt. 1594?1603: The Nine Years War or Tyrone's Rebellion in Ulster, Ireland against English rule in Ireland. 1596: The Club War uprising in Finland. 1606?1607: The Bolotnikov rebellion for the abolition of serfdom, which was part of the Time of Troubles in Russia. 1618?1625: The Bohemian Revolt against the Habsburgs. Rebellion was part of Thirty Years' War. 1637?1638: The Shimabara Rebellion of Japanese Christians.[5] 1640: The Portuguese Revolt against Spanish Empire. 1640?1652: The Catalan Revolt. 1640?1644: The Vlach uprising against Habsburg rule in Moravia. 1641: The Irish Rebellion of 1641. 1642?1653: The English Revolution, commencing as a civil war between Parliament and the King, and culminating in the execution of Charles I and the establishment of a republican Commonwealth, which was succeeded several years later by the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. 1644: The Li Zicheng rebellion against the Ming Dynasty. 1647: The Naples Revolt. 1648: The Khmelnytsky Uprising of Cossacks in Ukraine against Polish nobility in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1648?1653: The Fronde, in France. 1664-1670: The Zrinski, Wessel?nyi and Frankopan uprising against the Habsburgs. 1668: The Sikhs in the Anandpur revolted against the Mughal Empire. 1668?1676: The Solovetsky Monastery Uprising. 1669: The Jat uprising under Gokula. The Hindu Jats in the Agra district revolted against the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. 1672: The Pasthun rebellion against the Mughals. 1672?1674: The Lipka Rebellion, an uprising of Polish Tatars against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1672?1678: The Messina Revolt. The Sicilian revolt against Spanish rule took place during the Franco-Dutch War of Louis XIV; the rebels were supported by France. 1675?1676: King Philip's War between Indians and English settlers, sometimes called Metacom's Rebellion. 1676: The Bashkir Rebellion against Russian rule. 1680: The Pueblo Revolt against Spanish settlers in New Mexico. 1682: The Moscow Uprising of the Moscow Streltsy regiments. 1688: The Siamese revolution (1688) the overthrow of pro-foreign Siamese king Narai by Mandarin Petracha. 1688: The Glorious Revolution in England overthrew King James II and established a Whig-dominated Protestant constitutional monarchy. 1688?1746: The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in the British Isles occurring between 1688 and 1746. 1689: Karposh's Rebellion against Ottoman Empire. 1693: The second Revolta de les Germanies in Valencia, prompted by feudal taxation. 1698: The Streltsy Uprising in Russia. [edit] 1700?1799 Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, during the American Revolutionary War. Hanging of suspected United Irishmen by Government troops during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.1702?1715: The Camisard Rebellion in France. 1703?1711: The R?k?czi Uprising against the Habsburgs. 1707?1709: The Bulavin Rebellion in Imperial Russia. 1709: Mir Wais Hotak, an Afghani tribal leader, led a successful rebellion against Gurgin Khan, the Persian governor of Kandahar. 1722: Afghan rebels defeated Shah Sultan Hossein and ended the Safavid dynasty. 1743: The Fourth Dalecarlian Rebellion in Sweden. 1745?1746: The Jacobite Rising in Scotland. 1763?1766: Pontiac's Rebellion by numerous North American Indian tribes who joined the uprising in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the Great Lakes region. 1768: The Rebellion of 1768 by Creole and German settlers objecting to the turnover of the Louisiana Territory from New France to New Spain. 1770: The Orlov Revolt in Peloponnese. 1773?1775:Pugachev's Rebellion was the largest peasant revolt in Russia's history. Between the end of the Pugachev rebellion and the beginning of the 19th century, there were hundreds of outbreaks across Russia.[6] 1775?1783: The American Revolution establishes independence of the thirteen North American colonies from Great Britain, creating the republic of the United States of America. A war of independence in that it created one nation from another. 1773?1802?: The Tay Son Revolt, annihilation of the ruling Trinh and Nguyen clans as well as the Le Dynasty in Dai Viet. 1780?1782: Jos? Gabriel Condorcanqui, known as T?pac Amaru II, raises an indigenous peasant army in revolt against Spanish control of Peru. Juli?n Apasa, known as Tupac Katari allied with Tupac Amaru and lead an indigenous revolt in Alto Peru (preset day Bolivia) nearly destroying the city of La Paz in a siege. 1789: Regarded as one of the most influential of all socio-political revolutions, the French Revolution is associated with the rise of the bourgeoisie and the downfall of the aristocracy. 1791?1804: The Haitian Revolution: A successful slave rebellion, led by Toussaint Louverture, establishes Haiti as the first free, black republic. 1793?1796: The Revolt in the Vend?e was popular uprising against the Republican government during the French Revolution. 1794: The Polish revolt. 1795?1796: Rebels in Grenada led by Julien F?don executed the governor and wrested control of most of the island from Britain, which maintained a stronghold in St. George's, the capital. The goal was to incorporate Grenada into revolutionary France, but F?don soon disappeared and was never heard from again. 1796?1804: The White Lotus Rebellion against the Manchu Dynasty in China. 1797: The Spithead and Nore mutinies were two major mutinies by sailors of the British Royal Navy. 1798: The Irish Rebellion of 1798 failed to overthrow British rule in Ireland. [edit] 1800?1849 Battle at "Snake Gully" 1802, during the Haitian Revolution against French rule. Siege of Saragossa (1809): The French assault on the San Engracia monastery. Liberty Leading the People by Eug?ne Delacroix commemorates the French revolution of 1830. A scene from the failed French-Canadian rebellion against British rule in 1837.pre-1800?1872: Philippine revolts against Spain (See also 1896 and 1898 in this list). 1803: The rebellion of Robert Emmet in Dublin, Ireland against British rule. 1804?1817: The Serbian revolution against Ottoman rule erupts. 1808: The Dos de Mayo Uprising against the occupation of Madrid by French troops. 1808?1814: The Peninsula war. 1809?1810: The rebellion of Velu Thampi Dalawa of Travancore. 1810: The West Florida rebellion against Spain, eventually becomes a short-lived republic. 1810?1821: The Mexican War of Independence, a revolution against Spanish colonialism. 1810: The Viceroy of the R?o de la Plata is deposed by local officers in Argentina. 1812: The peasant rebellion of Hong Gyeong-nae against Joseon Dynasty of Korea. 1817: The Pernambucan Revolution, a republican separatist movement which resulted in the creation of the short-lived Republic of Pernambuco (7 March 1817?20 May 1817). 1817: The Pentrich Revolution, Derbyshire; an ill-fated attempt to overthrow the Government, unknowingly it was instigated by William Oliver, aka Oliver the Spy. Three men were executed in November 1817, and fourteen men were transported to NSW. The event is known as 'England's Last Revolution' (9?10 June 1817). 1820: Radical War or "Scottish Insurrection". 1820: Revolutions in Spain and Portugal. 1820?1824: The revolutionary war of independence in Peru led by Jos? de San Mart?n. 1821?1829: The Greek War of Independence. 1822?1823: The republican revolution in Mexico overthrows Emperor Agust?n de Iturbide. 1825: The Decembrist revolt in Russian Empire. 1825?1830: The Java War or Dipanegara Revolution, when the prince of Mataram Islam against the tax and land rent dommination from Dutch. 1826: The Janissary revolt in Ottoman Empire. 1827?1828: The failed conservative rebellion in Mexico led by Nicol?s Bravo. 1830: The July Revolution, or the French Revolution of 1830, was a revolt by the middle class against Bourbon King Charles X which forced him out of office and replaced him with the Orleanist King Louis-Philippe (the "July Monarchy"). 1830: The Belgian Revolution was a conflict in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands that began with a riot in Brussels in August 1830 and eventually led to the establishment of an independent, Catholic and neutral Belgium. 1830?1831: The November Uprising in Poland. 1831: The Merthyr Rising in South Wales. 1832?1843: Abdelkader's rebellion in French-occupied Algeria. 1834?1859: Imam Shamil's rebellion in Russian-occupied Caucasus. 1835?1836: Texas secedes from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. 1835?1845: The War of Tatters, Separatists gauchos revolutionaries declared the independence of the Rio Grande do Sul from Brazil. 1837?1838: The Rebellions of 1837 failed republican revolutions against British rule in Canada. 1841?1842: The Afghan uprising. Hostile Afghan tribes massacred Elphinstone's British army including some 12,000 civilian dependents and camp followers.[7] 1847: The Maya Rebellion in Yucat?n. 1847: The Taos Revolt in New Mexico against the United States. 1848: The Revolutions of 1848 were a wave of failed liberal and republican revolutions that swept Europe. 1848: The French Revolution of 1848 led to the creation of the French Second Republic. 1848: The Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states. 1848: The Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. 1848: The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 grew into a war for independence from Austrian Empire. 1848: The Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 took place during the Great Irish Famine. 1848: A rebellion in British-ruled Ceylon. [edit] 1850?1899 1851?1864: The Taiping Rebellion against the Qing Dynasty and Manchu domination in China. In total between 20 and 30 million lives had been lost, making it the second deadliest war in human history. 1854: A revolution in Spain against the Moderate Party Government. 1854?1873: The Miao Rebellion in China. 1854?1855: The Revolution of Ayutla in Mexico. 1855?1873: The Panthay rebellion by Chinese Muslims against the Qing Dynasty. 1857: The failed Indian rebellion against British East India Company, marking the end of Mughal rule in India. Also known as the 1857 War of Independence and, particularly in the West, the Sepoy Mutiny. 1858: The Mahtra War in Estonia. 1858?1861: The War of the Reform in Mexico. 1859: The Second Italian War of Independence. 1861?1865: The American Civil War in the United States, between the United States and the Confederate States of America, which was formed out of eleven southern states. 1861?1866: Quantrill's Raiders in Missouri. 1862: The Sioux Uprising in Minnesota.[8] 1862?1877: The Muslim Rebellion by Chinese Muslims against the Qing Dynasty. 1863: The New York Draft Riots.[9] Prague barricades during the European Revolutions of 1848. Boxers fighting Eight-Nation Alliance1863?1865: The January Uprising was the Polish uprising against the Russian Empire. 1865: The Morant Bay rebellion. 1866: The Uprising of Polish political exiles in Siberia. 1866?1868: The Meiji Restoration and modernization revolution in Japan. Samurai uprising leads to overthrow of shogunate and establishment of "modern" parliamentary, Western-style system. 1867: The Fenian Rising: an attempt at a nationwide rebellion by the Irish Republican Brotherhood against British rule. 1868: The Glorious Revolution in Spain deposes Queen Isabella II. 1868: In the Grito de Lares, rebels proclaim the independence of Puerto Rico from Spain. 1869?1870: The Red River Rebellion, the events surrounding the actions of a provisional government established by M?tis leader Louis Riel at the Red River Settlement, Manitoba, Canada. 1871: The Paris Commune. 1871?1872: Porfirio D?az rebels against President Benito Ju?rez of Mexico. 1871: The liberal revolution in Guatemala. 1875: The Deccan Riots. 1875: The Herzegovinian rebellion, the most famous of the rebellions against the Ottoman Empire in Herzegovina; unrest soon spread to other areas of Ottoman Bosnia. 1876: The second rebellion by Porfirio D?az against President Sebasti?n Lerdo de Tejada of Mexico. 1876: The April uprising, a revolt by the Bulgarian population against Ottoman rule. 1877: The Satsuma Rebellion of Satsuma ex-samurai against the Meiji government. 1882: The Urabi Revolt: an uprising in Egypt on June 11, 1882 against the Khedive and European influence in the country. It was led by and named after Colonel Ahmed Urabi. 1885: A peasant revolt in the Ancash region of Peru led by Pedro Pablo Atuspar?a succeeds in occupying the Callej?n de Huaylas for several months. 1885: The North-West Rebellion of M?tis in Saskatchewan. 1888: The Rebellion of Peasant in Banten, Indonesia. 1893: A liberal revolt brings Jos? Santos Zelaya to power in Nicaragua. 1894?1895: The Donghak Peasant Revolution: Korean peasants led by Jeon Bong-jun revolted against Joseon Dynasty; the revolt was crushed by Japanese and Chinese intervention, leading to First Sino-Japanese War. 1895: The revolution against President Andr?s Avelino C?ceres in Peru ushers in a period of stable constitutional rule. 1896?1898: The Philippine Revolution, a war of independence against Spanish rule directed by the Katipunan society. 1898: The Dukchi Ishan (Andican Uprising): Kirgiz, Uzbek, and Kipcak peoples rebelled against Tsarist Russia in Turkestan (Fargana Valley). 1898: A mob of white supremacists forced out the city government of Wilmington, North Carolina.[10] 1899?1901: The Boxer Rebellion against foreign influence in areas such as trade, politics, religion and technology that occurred in China during the final years of the Manchu Dynasty. [edit] 1900?1909 Public demonstration in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, during the Young Turk Revolution of 1908.1903: The Ilinden Uprising of the Macedonians in the Ottoman Empire breaks out. 1904: A liberal revolution in Paraguay. 1905: The failed bourgeois-liberal revolution against Tsar Nicholas II in Russia. 1905?1906: The Persian/Iranian constitutional revolution. 1905?1906: The Maji Maji Rebellion in German east Africa. 1907: The Romanian Peasants' Revolt. 1908: The Young Turk Revolution: Young Turks force the autocratic ruler Abdul Hamid II to restore parliament and constitution in the Ottoman Empire. [edit] 1910?1919 Leaders of the 1910 revolt pose for a photo after the First Battle of Ju?rez. Seen are Jos? Mar?a Pino Su?rez, Venustiano Carranza, Francisco I. Madero (and his father), Pascual Orozco, Pancho Villa, Gustavo Madero, Raul Madero, Abraham Gonzalez, and Giuseppe Garibaldi Jr.1910?1920: The Mexican Revolution overthrows the dictator Porfirio D?az; seizure of power by Institutional Revolutionary Party. 1910: The republican revolution in Portugal. 1910?1911: The Sokehs Rebellion erupts in German-ruled Micronesia. Its primary leader, Somatau, is executed soon after being captured. 1911: The Xinhai Revolution overthrows the ruling Qing Dynasty and establishment of the Republic of China. 1914: The Ten Days War was a shooting war involving irregular forces of coal miners using dynamite and rifles on one side, opposed to the Colorado National Guard, Baldwin Felts detectives, and mine guards deploying machine guns, cannon and aircraft on the other, occurring in the aftermath of the Ludlow Massacre. The Ten Days War ended when federal troops intervened. 1917 - Execution at Verdun sometime in 19161914: The Boer Revolt against the British in South Africa. 1915: The Armenian Revolt in city of Van against the Ottomans in Turkey. 1916: The Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland during which the Irish Republic was proclaimed. 1916: An anti-French uprising in Algeria. 1916: The Central Asian Revolt started when the Russian Empire government ended its exemption of Muslims from military service. 1916?1917: The Tuareg rebellion against French colonial rule of the area around the A?r Mountains of northern Niger. 1916?1918: The Arab Revolt with the aim of securing independence from the Ottoman Empire. 1916?1923: The Irish War of Independence, the period of nationalist rebellion, guerrilla warfare, political change and civil war which brought about the establishment of the independent nation, the Irish Free State. 1916?1947: Gandhi's struggle against the British for Indian Independence. 1917: The French Army Mutinies. 1917: The February Revolution overthrows Tsar Nicholas II in Russia. 1917: The Green Corn Rebellion takes place in rural Oklahoma. 1917: The October Revolution in Russia: Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia and the establishment of the Soviet Union. 1918: The Finnish Civil War. 1918: The Christmas Uprising in Montenegro: Montenegrins (Zelena?i) rebelled against unification of Kingdom of Montenegro with Kingdom of Serbia. 1918: The Wilhelmshaven mutiny. 1918: The German Revolution overthrows the Kaiser; establishment of the Weimar Republic. 1918?1919: A wave of strikes and student unrest shakes Peru. These events influence two of the dominant figures of Peruvian politics in the 20th century: V?ctor Ra?l Haya de la Torre and Jos? Carlos Mari?tegui. 1918?1919: The Greater Poland Uprising (1918-1919) Polish uprising against German authorities. 1918?1920: The Georgian-Ossetian conflict (1918-1920), the southern Ossetians revolted against Georgian rule.[11] 1918?1921: The Ukrainian Revolution. 1918?1922: The Third Russian Revolution, a failed anarchist revolution against both Bolshevism and the White movement. 1918?1931: The Basmachi Revolt against Soviet Russia rule in Central Asia. 1919?1920: The Euphrates Revolt, Iraqi insurgents revolt against British and British-Indian troops, attempting to create a Muslim regime or the restoration of Turkish rule. 1919?1921: The Tambov Rebellion, one of the largest peasant rebellions against the Bolshevik regime during the Russian Civil War. 1919?1921: The Silesian Uprisings of the ethnic Poles against Weimar rule. 1919?1922: The Turkish War of Independence commanded by Mustafa Kemal Atat?rk. 1919: The German Revolution. 1919: A revolution in Hungary, resulting in the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. [edit] 1920?1929 1920: The Pitchfork Uprising was a peasant uprising against the Soviet policy of the war communism in what is today Tatarstan. 1920?1947: Mohammad Ali Jinnah's struggle for a separate state for the Muslims of India. 1920?1922: Gandhi led Non-cooperation movement. 1921: The Battle of Blair Mountain ten to fifteen thousand coal miners rebel in West Virginia, assaulting mountain-top lines of trenches established by the coal companies and local sheriff's forces in the largest armed, organized uprising in American labor history. 1921: The Kronstadt rebellion of Soviet sailors against the government of the early Russian SFSR. 1921?1923: The Yakut Revolt. 1921?1924: A revolution in (Outer) Mongolia re-establishes the country's independence and sets out to construct a Soviet-style socialist state. 1922?1923: The Irish Civil War, between supporters of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the government of the Irish Free State and more radical members of the original Irish Republican Army who opposed the treaty and the new government. 1923: The founding of the Republic of Turkey by overthrow of the Ottoman Empire and introduction of Atat?rk's Reforms. 1923: The Klaip?da Revolt in the Memel territory that had been detached from Germany after World War I. 1924?1927: The Sheikh Said Rebellion. 1925: The July Revolution in Ecuador. 1925?1927: The Syrian Revolution, a revolt initiated by the Druze and led by Sultan al-Atrash against French Mandate. 1926: The National Revolution in Portugal initiated a period known as the National Dictatorship. 1926?1929: The Cristero War in Mexico, an uprising against anti-clerical government policy. 1926?1927: The first PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) rebellion against colonialism and imperialism of Dutch Hindie. 1927?1931: The Kurdish Rebellion against Turkey. 1927?1933: A rebellion led by Augusto C?sar Sandino against the United States presence in Nicaragua. [edit] 1930?1939 Soldiers assembled in front of the Throne Hall, Siam, 24 June 19321930: The Brazilian Revolution of 1930 led by Get?lio Vargas. 1930: The Salt Satyagraha, a campaign of non-violent protest against the British salt tax in colonial India. 1932: The Constitutionalist Revolution against the provisional president Get?lio Vargas led Brazil to a short civil war. 1932: The Aprista revolt in Trujillo, Peru. 1932: The Siamese coup d'?tat of 1932, sometimes called the "Promoters Revolution", ends absolute monarchy in Thailand. 1933: The popular revolution against Cuban dictator Gerardo Machado. 1934: In October, workers including radical socialists and anarchists stage coups in the Spanish regions of Asturias and Catalonia. The immediate cause was the entrance of a right-wing Catholic party into the government of the unstable Second Spanish Republic. The Asturian uprising was put down by General Francisco Franco. 1936: The Febrerista Revolution, led by Rafael Franco, ended oligarchic Liberal Party rule in Paraguay. 1936: General Francisco Franco led a coup and started the Spanish Civil War, leading to the Spanish Revolution. 1936?1939: A period of so-called "military socialism" in Bolivia follows a revolution in which celebrated war hero David Toro takes power. A constitution establishing a corporative state is promulgated in 1938, following the nationalization of Standard Oil and the passage of progressive labor laws. 1937?1938: The Dersim Rebellion was the most important Kurdish rebellion in modern Turkey. 1937: The "Jornadas de Mayo", a workers' revolution in Catalonia. 1938?1948: The Zionist Revolution, or the period of Jewish nationalist rebellion and guerrilla warfare against the British Empire in Palestine which brought about the establishment of the State of Israel. [edit] 1940?1949 Patrol of Lieut. Stanis?aw Jankowski ("Agaton") from Batalion Pi???, 1 August 1944: "W-hour" (17:00) The PLA enters Beijing in the Pingjin Campaign and control the later capital of PRC1940?1944: The Insurgency in Chechnya. 1941: The June Uprising against the Soviet Union in Lithuania. 1941?1945: Yugoslav People's Liberation War against the Axis Powers in World War II. 1941-1944: Greek Resistance 1942: Sri Lankan soldiers ignite the Cocos Islands Mutiny in an unsuccessful attempt to transfer the islands to Japanese control. 1942: The destruction of the German garrison in Lenin. 1943: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 1943: The uprising at Treblinka extermination camp. 1943: The uprising at Sobib?r extermination camp. 1944: The Guatemalan Revolution overthrows the dictator Federico Ponce Vaides by liberal military officers. 1944: The Warsaw Uprising was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on 1 August 1944. 1944: The Paris Uprising staged by the French Resistance against the German Paris garrison. 1944: The Slovak National Uprising against Nazi Germany. 1944: The uprising at Auschwitz extermination camp. 1944?1947: A Communist-friendly government was installed in Bulgaria following a coup d'?tat and the Soviet invasion. 1944: Following the liberation of Albania, the Communist Party of Albania under Enver Hoxha consolidated its control and declared the People's Republic of Albania in January 1946. 1944?1949: The Greek Civil War. 1944?1965: The Forest Brothers Rebellion in Baltic states against Soviet Union. 1945?1949: The Indonesian National Revolution against Dutch after their independence from Japan. Led by Soekarno, Hatta, Tan Malaka, etc. with the Dutch led by Van Mook. 1945: The Prague uprising against German occupation during World War II. 1945: The August Revolution led by Ho Chi Minh declared the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from French rule. 1945: A democratic revolution in Venezuela, led by R?mulo Betancourt. 1946: The Royal Indian Navy Mutiny takes place in Bombay, and spreads to different parts of British India, demanding Indian independence. 1947: Three months after an abortive coup, civil war broke out in Paraguay. The rebellion was crushed by the government of dictator Higinio Mor?nigo. 1946?1951: The Telengana Rebellion: a Communist-led peasant revolt in Hyderabad State, India. 1947?1952: In the Albanian Subversion, the intelligence services of the United States and Britain deployed exiled fascists, Nazis, and monarchists in a failed attempt to foment a counterrevolution in Communist-ruled Albania. 1947: The 228 Massacre occurred following discontent and resentment of the native Taiwanese under the early rule of the KMT of the island. 1948: The Costa Rican Civil War precipitated by the vote of the Costa Rican Legislature, dominated by pro-government representatives, to annul the results of the presidential election of 1948. 1948: Following the liberation of Korea, Marxist former guerrillas under Kim Il Sung work to rapidly industrialize the country and rid it of the last vestiges of "feudalism.". 1948?1960: The Malayan Emergency. 1949: The Communist-led Chinese Revolution under chairman Mao overthrows the ruling Nationalist Party and establishes the People's Republic of China. [edit] 1950?1959 Barricades in Algiers. "Long live Massu" (Vive Massu) is written on the banner. (January 1960) Cuban guerilla fighters led by Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra mountains during the Cuban Revolution of 1956?59.1950: The Jayuya revolt in Puerto Rico, explosion in the Blair House, and shooting at Congress, all looking for Puerto Rican independence. 1954?1962: The Algerian War of Independence: a revolutionary war of independence against French colonialism. 1950s: The Mau Mau Uprising. 1952: A popular revolution in Bolivia led by V?ctor Paz Estenssoro and the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) initiates a period of multiparty democracy lasting until a 1964 military coup. 1952: The Rosewater Revolution in Lebanon. 1953: The Vorkuta uprising was a major uprising of the Gulag inmates in Vorkuta in the summer of 1953. Like other camp uprisings it was bloodily quelled by the Red Army and the NKVD.[12] 1954: The Kengir uprising in the Soviet prison labor camp Kengir. 1954: The Uyghur uprising against Chinese rule in Hotan. 1955?1960: The Guerrilla war against British colonial rule of Cyprus led by the EOKA (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters). 1955?1972: The First Sudanese Civil War was a conflict between the northern part of Sudan and a south that demanded more regional autonomy. 1955?1970: The Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) engages in a guerrilla struggle against French colonialism in the French Cameroons. In 1955 the UPC was for all practical purposes banned, and in 1960 Cameroon achieved independence under the conservative government of President Ahmadou Ahidjo. After the gradual assassinations of many of its top leaders and the proclamation of a one-party state in 1966, the last significant remnants of the insurgency were extinguished in 1970. The UPC, unlike many other guerrilla organizations throughout Africa, never achieved state power. 1956?1959: The Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro removes the government of General Fulgencio Batista. By 1962 Cuba had been transformed into a declared socialist republic. 1956?1962: The Border Campaign led by the Irish Republican Army against the British, along the border of the independent Republic of Ireland and British Northern Ireland. 1956: The Hungarian Revolution, a failed workers' and peasants' revolution against the Soviet-supported communist state in Hungary. 1956: The Tibetan rebellions against Chinese rule broke out in Amdo and Kham. 1958: A popular revolt in Venezuela against military dictator Marcos P?rez Jim?nez culminates in a civic-military coup d'?tat. 1958: The Iraqi Revolution led by nationalist soldiers abolishes the British-backed monarchy, executes many of its top officials, and begins to assert the country's independence from both Cold War power blocs. 1959: The failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule led to the flight of the Dalai Lama. 1959: The Tutsi king of Rwanda is forced into exile by Hutu extremists; racial pogroms follow an assassination attempt on Hutu leader Gr?goire Kayibanda. [edit] 1960?1969 1961?1991: The Eritrean War of Independence led by Isaias Afewerki against Ethiopia. 1961?1975: Angolan Marxists and other radicals grouped in the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) begin guerrilla attacks on Portuguese infrastructure. With extensive military assistance from Cuba, the MPLA is able to outmaneuver two rival organizations and establish control of Luanda in time for independence on November 11, 1975. Civil war between the MPLA government and the anti-communist UNITA continued on-and-off until 2002, when UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi was killed. 1962?1974: The leftist African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) wages a revolutionary war of independence in Portuguese Guinea. In 1973, the independent Republic of Guinea-Bissau is proclaimed, and the next year the republic's independence is recognized by the reformist military junta in Lisbon. 1962: The military coup of 1962 in Burma, led by General Ne Win, who became the country's strongman. 1962: A revolution in northern Yemen overthrew the imam and established the Yemen Arab Republic. 1963?1967: The Aden Emergency: nationalists in British-ruled Aden, with an eye on recent events in North Yemen and in Palestine, declared war on the British under the umbrella of the National Liberation Front (NLF). The UK handed over control to an independent South Yemen in November 1967. In 1969, the moderate president Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi was edged out in favor of more radical socialists, who convoked a constituent assembly and began to develop the state along Marxist-Leninist lines. The result was the only Communist state in the Arab world, and the first in a Muslim country. 1964: Following an American school's provocative decision to raise only the flag of the United States, Panamanian students marched into the Panama Canal Zone with the flag of Panama. After the latter flag was torn, thousands more become involved, starting huge riots that lasted three days. About 20 people were killed and hundreds more injured. 1964: The Zanzibar Revolution overthrew the 157-year-old Arab monarchy, declared the People's Republic of Zanzibar, and began the process of unification with Julius Nyerere's Tanganyika. 1964?1979: The Rhodesian Bush War, also known as the Second Chimurenga or the Liberation Struggle, was a guerrilla war which lasted from July 1964 to 1979 and led to universal suffrage, the end of white-rule in Zimbabwe Rhodesia, and the creation of the Republic of Zimbabwe. 1964: The October Revolution in Sudan, driven by a general strike and rioting, forced President Ibrahim Abboud to transfer executive power to a transitional civilian government, and eventually to resign. 1964?1975: The Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO), formed in 1962, commenced a guerrilla war against Portuguese colonialism. Independence was granted on June 25, 1975; however, the Mozambican Civil War complicated the political situation and frustrated FRELIMO's attempts at radical change. The war continued into the early 1990s after the government dropped Marxism as the state ideology. 1964?present: The Colombian Armed Conflict. 1965: The March Intifada in Bahrain: a Leftist uprising demanding an end to the British presence in Bahrain. 1966: Kwame Nkrumah is removed from power in Ghana by coup d'?tat. 1966?1993: A guerrilla warfare was conducted against the repressive government of Fran?ois Tombalbaye from the Sudan-based group FROLINAT. After the killing of field commander Ibrahim Abatcha in 1968, the movement jettisoned its socialist rhetoric and split into irreconcilable factions that often fought among themselves. Tombalbaye was brought down and executed in a 1975 military coup, and in 1979 the FROLINAT factions established the Transitional Government of National Unity (GUNT). This experiment lasted until 1982, when a FROLINAT splinter, led by Hiss?ne Habr?, took control of N'Djamena. Supporters of marginalized GUNT president Goukouni Oueddei held out for a few years at Barda?, but the group eventually dissolved; but a new formation, the MPS, continued the civil war and brought to power in 1990 Idriss D?by. 1966?1998: The Ulster Volunteer Force was recreated by militant Protestant British loyalists in Northern Ireland to wage war against the Irish Republican Army and the Roman Catholic community at large. 1967?1968 Iraqi communists launched an insurgency in southern Iraq.[13] 1967?1970: Biafra: The former eastern Nigeria unsuccessfully fought for a breakaway republic of Biafra, after the mainly Ibo people of the region suffered pogroms in northern Nigeria the previous year. 1967: The Naxalite Movement begins in India, led by the AICCCR. 1967: Anguillans resentful of Kittitian domination of the island expelled the Kittitian police and declared independence from the British colony of Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla. British forces retook the island in 1969 and made Anguilla a separate dependency in 1980. There was no bloodshed in the entire episode. 1968: The revolution in the Republic of Congo. 1968: Student protests and riots in Egypt in the wake of the Six-Day War lead to the ratification of the March 30 Program to deepen democratic processes. 1968: The May 1968 revolt: students' and workers' revolt against the government of Charles de Gaulle in France. 1968: A coup by Juan Velasco Alvarado in Peru, followed by radical social and economic reforms. 1968: A failed attempt by leader Alexander Dub?ek to liberalise Czechoslovakia in defiance of the Soviet-supported communist state culminates in the Prague Spring. 1969?1998: The Troubles: the Provisional Irish Republican Army and other Republican Paramilitaries waged an armed campaign against British Security forces and Loyalist Paramilitaries in an attempt to bring about a United Ireland. 1969: A mass movement of workers, students, and peasants in Pakistan forced the resignation of President Mohammad Ayub Khan. 1969: The overthrow of the pro-Western monarchy by Arab nationalist military officers in Libya. 1969: Somalia's multiparty system supplanted by a military socialist government under Siad Barre. [edit] 1970?1979 Historic Speech of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on 7 March 1971, Bangladesh1970: A rebellion in Guinea by what its government identified as Portuguese agents. 1971: The Bangladesh Liberation War led by the Mukti Bahini establishes the independent People's Republic of Bangladesh. 1972: A revolution in Benin. 1972: A military-led revolution against the civilian government of President Philibert Tsiranana in the Malagasy Republic; a Marxist faction takes power in 1975 under Didier Ratsiraka, modeled on the North Korean juche theory developed by Kim Il Sung. 1973: Mohammad Daud overthrows the monarchy and establishes a republic in Afghanistan. 1973: Worker-student demonstrations in Thailand force dictator Thanom Kittikachorn and two close associates to flee the country, beginning a short period of democratic constitutional rule. 1974: A revolution in Ethiopia. 1974: The Carnation Revolution overthrows of right-wing dictatorship in Portugal. 1975: A revolution in Cambodia. 1975: A revolution in Laos overthrows the monarchy by guerrilla forces of the Pathet Lao. 1975: 15 August, coup led by young military officers and the Assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh. 1975: A revolution in Cape Verde. 1975: Coup led by Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf and Colonel Shafaat Jamil in Bangladesh to depose President Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad. Three days later a counter-coup by Colonel Abu Taher puts Ziaur Rahman in power. 1976: Student demonstrations and election-related violence in Thailand lead police to open fire on a sit-in at Thammasat University, killing hundreds. The military seizes power the next day, ending constitutional rule. 1977: The Market Women's Revolt in Guinea leads to a lessening of the state's role in the economy. 1978: The Saur Revolution led by the Khalq faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan deposes and kills President Mohammad Daud. 1979: The dictatorship of Eric Gairy overthrown by the New Jewel Movement in Grenada. 1979: The popular overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship by progressive/Marxist Nicaraguan Revolution. 1979: The Iranian Revolution overthrows the U.S.-backed Shah, resulting in the formation of Islamic republic of Iran. 1979: Cambodia is liberated from the Khmer Rouge regime by the Vietnam-backed Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party. [edit] 1980?1989 1980: The Santo Rebellion in the Anglo-French condominium of New Hebrides. The primary nationalist leader, Father Walter Lini, favored Cold War nonalignment and opposed nuclear weapons in the Pacific. The French resident, Jean-Jacques Robert, who feared that an independent Vanuatu would provide inspiration to similar movements in New Caledonia and French Polynesia, collaborated with an uprising led by Jimmy Stevens' Nagriamel movement in Espiritu Santo. With logistical help and training from supporters of the Phoenix Foundation of the United States, Stevens declared independence as the State of Vemerana. The Nagriamel society had decisively lost elections to the territorial assembly in 1975 and 1979, which revealed its lack of a mass base of support. The revolt was put down by the Vanuatu Mobile Force and Papua New Guinean troops soon after independence was granted on July 30, 1980.[14] 1980?2000: The Communist Party of Peru launched the internal conflict in Peru. 1981: Assassination of Ziaur Rahman in Bangladesh sparks protests and riots. 1982: General Hussain Muhammad Ershad seizes power through a bloodless coup, deposing president Abdus Sattar in Bangladesh. 1983: Overthrow of the ruling Conseil de Salut du peuple (CSP) by Marxist forces led by Thomas Sankara in Upper Volta, renamed Burkina Faso in the following year. 1983?2005: The Second Sudanese Civil War was largely a continuation of the First Sudanese Civil War, and one of the longest lasting and deadliest wars of the later 20th century. 1984?1985: Pro-independence FLNKS forces in New Caledonia revolt following an election boycott and occupy the town of Thio from November 1984 to January 1985. Thio is retaken by the French after the assassination of ?loi Machoro, the security minister in the FLNKS provisional government and the primary leader of the occupation.[15] 1985: Soviet and Afghanistan P.O.W. rose against their captors at Badaber base. 1986: The People Power Revolution peacefully overthrows Ferdinand Marcos after his two decade rule in the Philippines. 1987?1991: The First Intifada, or the Palestinian uprising, a series of violent incidents between Palestinians and Israelis. 1988?1991: The Pan-Armenian National Movement frees Armenia from Soviet rule. 1988: The 8888 Uprising In Burma or Myanmar. 1989: The Singing Revolution, bloodless overthrow of communist rule in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 1989: The violent Caracazo riots in Venezuela. In the next few years, there are two attempted coups and President Carlos Andr?s P?rez is impeached. 1989: The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 were a series of demonstrations led by students, intellectuals and labour activists in the People's Republic of China between 15 April and 4 June 1989. 1989: The bloodless Velvet Revolution overthrows the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. 1989: The Romanian Revolution violently overthrows the communist state in Romania. [edit] 1990?1999 Russian Mil Mi-8 helicopter downed by Chechens near Grozny, December 19941990?1995: The Log Revolution in Croatia starts, triggering the Croatian War of Independence. 1990?1995: The First Tuareg Rebellion in Niger and Mali. 1991: The Kurdish uprising against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Iraqi Kurdistan. 1991: The Shiite Uprising in Karbala, Iraq. 1992?1995: Bosnian War of Independence. 1992: An Afghan uprising against the Taliban by United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, or the Northern Alliance. 1994: The 1990s Uprising in Bahrain, Shiite-led rebellion for the restoration of democracy in Bahrain. 1994: The Zapatista Rebellion: an uprising in the Mexican state of Chiapas demanding equal rights for indigenous peoples and in opposition to growing neoliberalism in North America. 1994?1996: The First Chechen Rebellion against Russia. 1996: An Islamic movement in Afghanistan led by the Taliban established Taliban rule. 1997?1999: The Kosovo Rebellion against Yugoslavia. 1998: The election in Venezuela of socialist leader Hugo Ch?vez is called the Bolivarian Revolution. 1998: The Indonesian Revolution of 1998 resulted the resignation of President Suharto after three decades of the New Order period. 1999?present: The Second Chechen Rebellion against Russia. [edit] 2000?present Taliban insurgents2000?present: The Second Intifada a continuation of the First Intifada. The wave of violence that began in September 2000 between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis. 2000: The bloodless Bulldozer Revolution, first of the four colour revolutions, overthrows Slobodan Milo?evi?'s r?gime in Yugoslavia. 2001: The 2001 Macedonia conflict. 2001?present: The Taliban insurgency following the 2001 war in Afghanistan which overthrow Taliban rule. 2001: The 2001 EDSA Revolution peacefully ousts Philippine President Joseph Estrada after the collapse of his impeachment trial. 2001: Supporters of Philippines former president Joseph Estrada violently and unsuccessfully stage a rally, so-called the EDSA Tres, in an attempt of returning him to power. 2003: The Rose Revolution, second of the colour revolutions, displaces the president of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, and calls new elections. 2003?present: The Iraqi insurgency refers to the armed resistance by diverse groups within Iraq to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and to the establishment of a liberal democracy therein. 2003?present: The Darfur rebellion led by the two major rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement, recruited primarily from the land-tilling Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups. 2004?present: The Shi'ite Uprising against the US-led occupation of Iraq. 2004: After Viktor Yanukovych was declared the winner of a presidential election in Ukraine, the Orange Revolution arose and installed him as president, believing the election to have been fraudulent. This was the third colour revolution. 2004: A failed attempt at popular colour-style revolution in Azerbaijan, led by the groups Yox! and Azadlig. 2004?present: The Naxalite insurgency in India, led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist). 2005: The Cedar Revolution, triggered by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, asks for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. 2005: The Tulip Revolution (a.k.a. Pink/Yellow Revolution) overthrows the President of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, and set new elections. This is the fourth colour revolution. 2006?present: 2006 democracy movement in Nepal. 2006: The 2006 Oaxaca protests demanding the removal of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, the governor of Oaxaca state in Mexico. 2007: The popular uprising against the terrorist organization al-Qa'eda by residents of Anbar Province, Iraq.[16] 2007?present: The Civil war in Ingushetia within Russia. 2007?present: The Second Tuareg Rebellion in Niger. 2007: The Burmese anti-government protests, including the Saffron Revolution of Burmese Buddhist monks. 2008: A Shiite uprising in Basra. [edit] Cultural, intellectual, philosophical and technological revolutions A Watt steam engine in Madrid. The development of the steam engine propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world. The steam engine was created to pump water from coal mines, enabling them to be deepened beyond groundwater levels.The term revolution is also used to denote trends which have resulted in great social changes outside the political sphere, such as changes in mores, culture, philosophy or technology. Many have been global, while others have been limited to single countries. Such revolutions include, in alphabetical order: The Agricultural Revolutions, which include: The Neolithic Revolution (perhaps 13000 years ago), which formed the basis for human civilization to develop. It is commonly referred to as the 'First Agricultural Revolution'. The Green Revolution (1945?): The use of industrial fertilizers and new crops greatly increased the world's agricultural output. It is commonly referred to as the 'Second Agricultural Revolution'. The British Agricultural Revolution (18th century), which spurred urbanisation and consequently helped launch the Industrial Revolution. The Scottish Agricultural Revolution (18th century), which led to the Lowland Clearances. The Commercial Revolution: A period of European economic expansion, colonialism, and mercantilism which lasted from approximately the sixteenth century until the early eighteenth century. The Counterculture of the 1960s (approximately 1960?1973) was a social revolution that originated in the United States and United Kingdom, and eventually spread to other western nations. The themes of this movement included the anti-war movement, rebellion against conservative norms, drug use, and the sexual revolution (see below). The Sexual revolution: A change in sexual morality and sexual behavior throughout the Western world, mainly during the 1960s and 1970s. The Cultural Revolution: A struggle for power within the Communist Party of China, which grew to include large sections of Chinese society and eventually brought the People's Republic of China to the brink of civil war, and which lasted from 1966 to 1976. The Digital Revolution: The sweeping changes brought about by computing and communication technology, starting from circa 1950 with the creation of the first general-purpose electronic computers. The Industrial Revolution: The major shift of technological, socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries that began in Britain and spread throughout the world. The Second Industrial Revolution (1871?1914). The Price revolution: A series of economic events from the second half of the 15th century to the first half of the 17th, the price revolution refers most specifically to the high rate of inflation that characterized the period across Western Europe. The Quiet Revolution: A period of rapid change in Quebec, Canada, in the 1960s. This leads to the separatist movement for Quebec sovereignty and two referendums. The Scientific revolution: A fundamental transformation in scientific ideas around the 16th century. The Upper Paleolithic Revolution: The emergence of "high culture", new technologies and regionally distinct cultures. [edit] References ^ Jason Burke, "Dig uncovers Boudicca's brutal streak", The Observer , 3 December 2000 ^ History and chronology of Rebellion in Roman Empire ^ Zanj rebellion ^ Timur, Encyclop?dia Britannica ^ Shimabara Rebellion (Japanese history) ^ The Slave Revolts ^ Summary: the First Anglo-Afghan War, 1838?42 ^ Kunnen-Jones, Marianne (2002-08-21). "Anniversary Volume Gives New Voice To Pioneer Accounts of Sioux Uprising". University of Cincinnati. http://www.uc.edu/news/sioux.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-06. ^ Renowned author to speak about 1863 New York draft riots at Fairfield University's DiMenna-Nyselius Library press release Fairfield University ^ How The Only Coup D'Etat In U.S. History Unfolded. NPR/Weekend Edition Sunday, August 17, 2008. ^ Analysis: roots of the conflict between Georgia, South Ossetia and Russia ^ I. Baltic Prisoners of the Gulag Revolts of 1953 - L. Latkovskis ^ Tripp, Charles (2005). A History of Iraq. Cambridge University Press. pp. 188?189,196. ISBN 9780521702478. ^ Robie, David. Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific. London: Zed Books, Ltd., 1989. pp. 66-80. ^ Ibid., pp. 116-126. ^ Iraq insurgency: People rise against al-Qa'eda [edit] See also List of fictional rebellions List of wars of independence (national liberation) List of civil wars List of coups d'?tat and coup attempts List of riots List of strikes List of usurpers Mutiny Revolution Revolutionary wave Peasant revolt General strike Guerrilla warfare List of guerrillas List of military commanders Ghetto uprising Slave rebellion Janissary revolts Insurgency Nonviolent resistance Polish uprisings Chinese rebellions Resistance during World War II Popular revolt in late medieval Europe Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions" Categories: Political activism | Political movements | History of social movements | Social history | Political history | Society-related lists | Lists of military conflicts Hidden categories: Dynamic lists ViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History Personal toolsTry Beta Log in / create account Navigation Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Search Interaction About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact Wikipedia Donate to Wikipedia Help Toolbox What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Printable version Permanent link Cite this page Languages Fran?ais Italiano Latina ?Norsk (nynorsk)? Portugu?s Svenska ?? This page was last modified on 1 October 2009 at 08:59. Text is available under From birkhold at gmail.com Sun Oct 11 06:54:57 2009 From: birkhold at gmail.com (Matthew Birkhold) Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009 08:54:57 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> References: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Charles said, "The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their great numbers etc." I agree with this analysis of this shift completely. Does it mean that the end of Leninism has been reached in the US? Hope all is well. Peace, Matt On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM, c b wrote: > post-Fordism and geographical scattering of > Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us > Tue Apr 28 19:52:54 MDT 1998 > > Previous message: M-TH: Bouncing around socalled globalization > Next message: M-TH: Re: Australian working class and superimperialist > Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To: Dave > From: Charles > > Here's some more on globalization as > a qualitative shift from what Lenin defined > as imperialism, monopoly capitalism; the > uniting of financial and industrial capital; > export of capital as a shift from export of > goods; the "advanced" European colonialist > countries dividing and redividing the world; > socalled world wars, meaning all European > wars.=20 > monopoly concentration; labour aristocracy > bought off with superprofits of booty from > colonialism; etc. etc.; electricity, trains, > assembly line as technological innovations > in the means of production. > =20 > Gramsciians would say the culture of this > was Fordism, as discussed below. > =20 > >>> "Charles Brown" 03/29 4:16 PM > = > >>> > > From ground zero of Fordism here in Detroit, we experienced the last 45 = > years of change from the classic big industrial plant (such as Ford = > Dearborn with 100,000 workers)concentration to scattering of the points of > = > production as plantclosings, runaway shops, and white flight to the = > suburbs. So the transition to socalled post-Fordism got our attention real > = > good and we've been trying to figure it in Marxist political economic = > terms. > > It occurred to me that the "new global economy", transnationalization= > of monopoly capital represents a dialectical qualitative change in the = > following sense. =20 > Marx in Capital defines two factors in the > qualitiative emergence of industrial capitalism over manufacture = > capitalism. They are the use of machinery=20 > and the concentration of workers in one big factory. > Thus, the graphic locus of the classic Leninist agitation and = > propaganda the giant industrial plant. > The qualitative change of today is the the revolution in science and = > technology which has begotten a revolution=20 > in transportation and communication, creating such things as just in time = > delivery, containerization . Thus a revolution in machinery, one of the = > original two breakthroughs in Marx's analysis of industrialization, has = > made it possible for the capitalists to decentralize and scatter the = > points of production. The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The = > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the = > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the = > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the = > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > great numbers etc. > I suggest the above infrastructural sketch as=20 > corresponding to the cultural change now > named post-Fordism. > But don't count the proletariat out. The slogan=20 > workers of the world unite , is more true today > than when Marx and Engels coined it. And the > proletariat is fresher than post-Fordist theory might > know. In other words, the proletariat knows how to > go with the new. Detroiters probably could show > post-ologists a thing or two about what is new. > > from Proletarian Central, Detroit > Charles > =20 > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > -- If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a moral obligation. "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- James Boggs, 1990 From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 12 07:42:27 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production In-Reply-To: References: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910120642y4af2e333je8df6e095bad0696@mail.gmail.com> On 10/11/09, Matthew Birkhold wrote: > Charles said, > "The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > great numbers etc." > I agree with this analysis of this shift completely. Does it mean that the > end of Leninism has been reached in the US? > > Hope all is well. > Peace, Matt > > On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM, c b wrote: > > > post-Fordism and geographical scattering of > > Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us > > Tue Apr 28 19:52:54 MDT 1998 > > > > Previous message: M-TH: Bouncing around socalled globalization > > Next message: M-TH: Re: Australian working class and superimperialist > > Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > To: Dave > > From: Charles > > > > Here's some more on globalization as > > a qualitative shift from what Lenin defined > > as imperialism, monopoly capitalism; the > > uniting of financial and industrial capital; > > export of capital as a shift from export of > > goods; the "advanced" European colonialist > > countries dividing and redividing the world; > > socalled world wars, meaning all European > > wars.=20 > > monopoly concentration; labour aristocracy > > bought off with superprofits of booty from > > colonialism; etc. etc.; electricity, trains, > > assembly line as technological innovations > > in the means of production. > > =20 > > Gramsciians would say the culture of this > > was Fordism, as discussed below. > > =20 > > >>> "Charles Brown" 03/29 4:16 PM > > = > > >>> > > > > From ground zero of Fordism here in Detroit, we experienced the last 45 = > > years of change from the classic big industrial plant (such as Ford = > > Dearborn with 100,000 workers)concentration to scattering of the points of > > = > > production as plantclosings, runaway shops, and white flight to the = > > suburbs. So the transition to socalled post-Fordism got our attention real > > = > > good and we've been trying to figure it in Marxist political economic = > > terms. > > > > It occurred to me that the "new global economy", transnationalization= > > of monopoly capital represents a dialectical qualitative change in the = > > following sense. =20 > > Marx in Capital defines two factors in the > > qualitiative emergence of industrial capitalism over manufacture = > > capitalism. They are the use of machinery=20 > > and the concentration of workers in one big factory. > > Thus, the graphic locus of the classic Leninist agitation and = > > propaganda the giant industrial plant. > > The qualitative change of today is the the revolution in science and = > > technology which has begotten a revolution=20 > > in transportation and communication, creating such things as just in time = > > delivery, containerization . Thus a revolution in machinery, one of the = > > original two breakthroughs in Marx's analysis of industrialization, has = > > made it possible for the capitalists to decentralize and scatter the = > > points of production. The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The = > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the = > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the = > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the = > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > great numbers etc. > > I suggest the above infrastructural sketch as=20 > > corresponding to the cultural change now > > named post-Fordism. > > But don't count the proletariat out. The slogan=20 > > workers of the world unite , is more true today > > than when Marx and Engels coined it. And the > > proletariat is fresher than post-Fordist theory might > > know. In other words, the proletariat knows how to > > go with the new. Detroiters probably could show > > post-ologists a thing or two about what is new. > > > > from Proletarian Central, Detroit > > Charles > > =20 > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 > > > > > > -- > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a moral > obligation. > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- James > Boggs, 1990 > _______________________________________________ > 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 cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 12 08:37:48 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:37:48 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production In-Reply-To: References: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910120737h443942afr842bcd2c4321d01b@mail.gmail.com> Thanks for your note, Matt, It means the negation of some aspects of Leninism. Not to be cute, but I'd say approach it dialectically as a supercession or sublation, overcoming and preservation of the Leninist phase of Marxism. What is preserved ? first, I'd say the Leninist concept of finance capitalism from the imperialist thesis is "truer" today than even in Lenin's day. Look at how Wallstreet was able to just demand $11 trillion plus from the US state to basically not go bankrupt. _All_ of the finance sector was broke by its own admission that the several individual bankruptcies posed a _systemic_ threat. "Too big to fail" means the whole finance sector was broke. My point here is that as they were able to avoid that by just getting an $11 trillion gift proves that they are the ruling sector. Even GM had to go through bankruptcy. The Detroit papers had headlines contrasting the treatment of the Wallstreet firms and GM. So, the Leninist concept of finance capital dominating industrial capital has reached an extreme that wasn't even true in his day. The current situation is best understood as a dialectical transformation of the imperialism outlined in Lenin's thesis, based on the changes , in the first place, by the existence of the Soviet Union for 75 years, and its struggle with imperialism. Inter-imperialist rivalry was negated because imperialism had to unite against the SU and socialist countries. Imperialist countries still export capital, including to other imperialist countries. As I said finance capital is still the dominant sector. It is no accident the central organs of transnational capital are hedge funds, the US treasury, IMF and World Bank etc. , in other words finance capital institutions. Colonialism has been through an overthrow of the old system , especially bulwarked by the existence of the SU, institution of a neo-colonialist system, and now a "neo-liberal" colonialist system after the fall of the SU. Also, that industry is scattered and not concentrated geographically/in space , does not mean that industry is not still an important part of capitalism technologically, and that industrial workers are not an important part of the working class. So, Marxists should not fail to pay attention to industrial workers. Leninist's thesis on opportunism based on imperialist booty corrupting the US and other imperialist countries' working classes and trade union leaders is pretty much the story " of our lives" , no ? So, that aspect of Leninism is unfortunately quite valid today. The Leninist party model from _What is to be done ?_ was largely specific to Russia with its lack of experience with democracy relative to countries like the US even in 1905 -1917. Add to that the US party going through McCarthyism, requiring strict participation in the US traditions of electoral politics all along and certainly for 60 years, not to mention the whole Cold War intense brainwashing of the American population in anti-Communism, anti-Sovietism, and that's substantially or completely negated. Having said all that, the US Democratic and Republican parties, and unions operate on the principle of democratic centralism, but just don't call it that. So, in a certain sense, democratic centralism is as American as apple pie. It 's basically the represtentative or republican principle. Also, the two-party system is something of a fraud and a one-party system operating as a phony two-party system. Effectively, on this issue the main thing is not to be quoting Lenin, but a lot of his ideas are still pertinent. The principles in _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_, the critique of Kantian dualism and subjective idealism is very fresh in critiquing post-modernism. The heart of post-modernism is neo-Kantianism , I'd say. There may be some other aspects that are preserved. I appreciate your pushing me to articulate this I see you quote James Boggs. Are you in the Detroit area ? What say you ? Charles On 10/11/09, Matthew Birkhold wrote: > Charles said, > "The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > great numbers etc." > I agree with this analysis of this shift completely. Does it mean that the > end of Leninism has been reached in the US? > > Hope all is well. > Peace, Matt > > On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM, c b wrote: > > > post-Fordism and geographical scattering of > > Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us > > Tue Apr 28 19:52:54 MDT 1998 > > > > Previous message: M-TH: Bouncing around socalled globalization > > Next message: M-TH: Re: Australian working class and superimperialist > > Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > To: Dave > > From: Charles > > > > Here's some more on globalization as > > a qualitative shift from what Lenin defined > > as imperialism, monopoly capitalism; the > > uniting of financial and industrial capital; > > export of capital as a shift from export of > > goods; the "advanced" European colonialist > > countries dividing and redividing the world; > > socalled world wars, meaning all European > > wars.=20 > > monopoly concentration; labour aristocracy > > bought off with superprofits of booty from > > colonialism; etc. etc.; electricity, trains, > > assembly line as technological innovations > > in the means of production. > > =20 > > Gramsciians would say the culture of this > > was Fordism, as discussed below. > > =20 > > >>> "Charles Brown" 03/29 4:16 PM > > = > > >>> > > > > From ground zero of Fordism here in Detroit, we experienced the last 45 = > > years of change from the classic big industrial plant (such as Ford = > > Dearborn with 100,000 workers)concentration to scattering of the points of > > = > > production as plantclosings, runaway shops, and white flight to the = > > suburbs. So the transition to socalled post-Fordism got our attention real > > = > > good and we've been trying to figure it in Marxist political economic = > > terms. > > > > It occurred to me that the "new global economy", transnationalization= > > of monopoly capital represents a dialectical qualitative change in the = > > following sense. =20 > > Marx in Capital defines two factors in the > > qualitiative emergence of industrial capitalism over manufacture = > > capitalism. They are the use of machinery=20 > > and the concentration of workers in one big factory. > > Thus, the graphic locus of the classic Leninist agitation and = > > propaganda the giant industrial plant. > > The qualitative change of today is the the revolution in science and = > > technology which has begotten a revolution=20 > > in transportation and communication, creating such things as just in time = > > delivery, containerization . Thus a revolution in machinery, one of the = > > original two breakthroughs in Marx's analysis of industrialization, has = > > made it possible for the capitalists to decentralize and scatter the = > > points of production. The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The = > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the = > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the = > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the = > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > great numbers etc. > > I suggest the above infrastructural sketch as=20 > > corresponding to the cultural change now > > named post-Fordism. > > But don't count the proletariat out. The slogan=20 > > workers of the world unite , is more true today > > than when Marx and Engels coined it. And the > > proletariat is fresher than post-Fordist theory might > > know. In other words, the proletariat knows how to > > go with the new. Detroiters probably could show > > post-ologists a thing or two about what is new. > > > > from Proletarian Central, Detroit > > Charles > > =20 > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 > > > > > > -- > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a moral > obligation. > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- James > Boggs, 1990 > _______________________________________________ > 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 cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 12 12:08:46 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:08:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910121108i37005e6fs8b20fdb06f5b7968@mail.gmail.com> Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore Friends, Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize. "No, I don't think so," I replied. I thought it was important to remind him he's now conducting the two wars he's inherited. "Yeah," she said, "but to tell him, 'Now earn it!'? Give the guy a break -- this is a great day for him and for all of us." I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they could to crap all over Barack's big day. Did I -- and others on the left -- do the same? We are weary, weary of war. The trillions that will have gone to these two wars have helped to bankrupt us as a nation -- financially and morally. To think of all the good we could have done with all that money! Two months of the War in Iraq would pay for all the wells that need to be dug in the Third World for drinking water! Obama is moving too slow for most of us -- but he needs to know we are with him and we stand beside him as he attempts to turn eight years of sheer madness around. Who could do that in nine months? Superman? Thor? Mitch McConnell? Instead of waiting to see what the president is going to do, we all need to be pro-active and push the agenda that we want to see enacted. What keeps us from forming the same local groups we put together to get out the vote last November? C'mon! We're the majority now -- the majority by a significant margin! We call the shots -- and we need to tell this wimpy Congress to get busy and do what we say -- or else. All I ask of those who voted for Obama is to not pile on him too quickly. Yes, make your voice heard (his phone number is 202-456-1414). But don't abandon the best hope we've had in our lifetime for change. And for God's sake, don't head to bummerville if he says or does something we don't like. Do you ever see Republicans behave that way? I mean, the Right had 20 years of Republican presidents and they still couldn't get prayer in the public schools, or outlaw abortion, or initiate a flat tax or put our Social Security into the stock market. They did a lot of damage, no doubt about that, but on the key issues that the Christian Right fought for, they came up nearly empty handed. No wonder they've been driven crazy lately. They'll never have it as good again as they've had it since Reagan took office. But -- do you ever see them looking all gloomy and defeated? No! They keep on fighting! Every day. Our side? At the first sign of wavering, we just pack up our toys and go home. So, at least for this weekend, let us celebrate what people elsewhere are celebrating -- that America now has a sane and smart man in the White House, a man who truly wants a world at peace for his two daughters. Many, for the past couple days (yes, myself included), have grumbled, "What has he done to earn this prize?" How 'bout this: The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man -- a man who opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning -- offered to end the insanity. The world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they watched the descendants of Washington , Lincoln and Jefferson light the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn't attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had gone mad. And if all that wasn't enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression. So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for him won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the Grant Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago , billions of people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of relief. It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise of peace to the world -- and most were ready to go wherever he wanted to go to achieve that end. Never before had the election of one man made every other nation feel like they had won, too. When you've got billions of people ready, willing and able to join a cause like this, well, a prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve. One other thought. The Peace Prize historically has been given to those who have worked to throw off the yoke of racial discrimination and segregation (Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu). I think the Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio). The fact that this one man could cause this seismic historical event to occur -- and to do so with such grace and humility, never succumbing to the bait, but still not backing down (yes, he asked to be sworn in as "Barack Hussein Obama"!) -- is more than reason enough he should be in Oslo to meet the King on December 10. Maybe he could take us along with him. 'Cause I also suspect the Nobel committee was tipping its hat to all of us -- we, the American people, had conquered some of our racism and did the truly unexpected. After seeing searing images of our black fellow citizens left to drown in New Orleans -- and poor whites seeing their own treated no better than the black man they had been raised to hate -- we had all seen enough. It was time for change. Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving us the opportunity to redeem ourselves. Now for the tasks ahead. We need you to do all that you promised to do. We need it. The world needs it. My prediction for the future? You become the first *two-time* winner of the Nobel Peace Prize! Yeah! Fred (that's Norwegian for "Peace"), Michael Moore MMFlint at aol.com MichaelMoore.com From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Mon Oct 12 12:20:17 2009 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:20:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore Message-ID: <13670413.1255371618221.JavaMail.root@whwamui-deputy.pas.sa.earthlink.net> Sounds to me that Moore has jumped the shark. Now what role does Catholicism play in his film? -----Original Message----- >From: c b >Sent: Oct 12, 2009 11:08 AM >To: Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and the thinkers he inspired , pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu >Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore > >Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore >Friends, > >Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on >Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize. >"No, I don't think so," I replied. I thought it was important to >remind him he's now conducting the two wars he's inherited. "Yeah," >she said, "but to tell him, 'Now earn it!'? Give the guy a break -- >this is a great day for him and for all of us." > >I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too >long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they could >to crap all over Barack's big day. Did I -- and others on the left -- >do the same? > >We are weary, weary of war. The trillions that will have gone to these >two wars have helped to bankrupt us as a nation -- financially and >morally. To think of all the good we could have done with all that >money! Two months of the War in Iraq would pay for all the wells that >need to be dug in the Third World for drinking water! Obama is moving >too slow for most of us -- but he needs to know we are with him and we >stand beside him as he attempts to turn eight years of sheer madness >around. Who could do that in nine months? Superman? Thor? Mitch >McConnell? > >Instead of waiting to see what the president is going to do, we all >need to be pro-active and push the agenda that we want to see enacted. >What keeps us from forming the same local groups we put together to >get out the vote last November? C'mon! We're the majority now -- the >majority by a significant margin! We call the shots -- and we need to >tell this wimpy Congress to get busy and do what we say -- or else. > >All I ask of those who voted for Obama is to not pile on him too >quickly. Yes, make your voice heard (his phone number is >202-456-1414). But don't abandon the best hope we've had in our >lifetime for change. And for God's sake, don't head to bummerville if >he says or does something we don't like. Do you ever see Republicans >behave that way? I mean, the Right had 20 years of Republican >presidents and they still couldn't get prayer in the public schools, >or outlaw abortion, or initiate a flat tax or put our Social Security >into the stock market. They did a lot of damage, no doubt about that, >but on the key issues that the Christian Right fought for, they came >up nearly empty handed. No wonder they've been driven crazy lately. >They'll never have it as good again as they've had it since Reagan >took office. > >But -- do you ever see them looking all gloomy and defeated? No! They >keep on fighting! Every day. Our side? At the first sign of wavering, >we just pack up our toys and go home. > >So, at least for this weekend, let us celebrate what people elsewhere >are celebrating -- that America now has a sane and smart man in the >White House, a man who truly wants a world at peace for his two >daughters. > >Many, for the past couple days (yes, myself included), have grumbled, >"What has he done to earn this prize?" How 'bout this: > >The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be >the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. > >Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years >were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man -- a man who opposed the >War in Iraq from the beginning -- offered to end the insanity. The >world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they >watched the descendants of Washington , Lincoln and Jefferson light >the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on >this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more >years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn't >attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited >our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had >gone mad. > >And if all that wasn't enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the >worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression. > >So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama >won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for him >won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the Grant >Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago , billions of >people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of relief. >It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise of peace >to the world -- and most were ready to go wherever he wanted to go to >achieve that end. Never before had the election of one man made every >other nation feel like they had won, too. When you've got billions of >people ready, willing and able to join a cause like this, well, a >prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve. > >One other thought. The Peace Prize historically has been given to >those who have worked to throw off the yoke of racial discrimination >and segregation (Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu). I think the >Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the >fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded >on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a >hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be >found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio). The fact >that this one man could cause this seismic historical event to occur >-- and to do so with such grace and humility, never succumbing to the >bait, but still not backing down (yes, he asked to be sworn in as >"Barack Hussein Obama"!) -- is more than reason enough he should be in >Oslo to meet the King on December 10. Maybe he could take us along >with him. 'Cause I also suspect the Nobel committee was tipping its >hat to all of us -- we, the American people, had conquered some of our >racism and did the truly unexpected. After seeing searing images of >our black fellow citizens left to drown in New Orleans -- and poor >whites seeing their own treated no better than the black man they had >been raised to hate -- we had all seen enough. It was time for change. > >Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving us the opportunity to redeem >ourselves. Now for the tasks ahead. We need you to do all that you >promised to do. We need it. The world needs it. > >My prediction for the future? You become the first *two-time* winner >of the Nobel Peace Prize! Yeah! > >Fred (that's Norwegian for "Peace"), >Michael Moore >MMFlint at aol.com >MichaelMoore.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 cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 12 12:49:27 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize -- Now Please Earn it! Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910121149p81b5de7haeb35b36924eeffe@mail.gmail.com> Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize -- Now Please Earn it! Dear President Obama, How outstanding that you've been recognized today as a man of peace. Your swift, early pronouncements -- you will close Guantanamo, you will bring the troops home from Iraq, you want a nuclear weapon-free world, you admitted to the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1953, you made that great speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, you've eliminated that useless term "The War on Terror," you've put an end to torture -- these have all made us and the rest of the world feel a bit more safe considering the disaster of the past eight years. In eight months you have done an about face and taken this country in a much more sane direction. But... The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of what is quickly becoming your War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush's Wars over, and bring all the troops home. Now. That's what a true man of peace would do. There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do -- capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11. BUT YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH TANKS AND TROOPS. You are pursuing a criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a mouse. The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of Afghanistan to resolve -- just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789, the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people who wish to be free -- they ultimately have to bring about that freedom themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else's Humvee. You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don't, you'll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo. Yours, Michael Moore MMFlint at aol.com MichaelMoore.com P.S. Your opposition has spent the morning attacking you for bringing such good will to this country. Why do they hate America so much? I get the feeling that if you found the cure for cancer this afternoon they'd be denouncing you for destroying free enterprise because cancer centers would have to close. There are those who say you've done nothing yet to deserve this award. As far as I'm concerned, the very fact that you've offered to walk into the minefield of hate and try to undo the irreparable damage the last president did is not only appreciated by me and millions of others, it is also an act of true bravery. That's why you got the prize. The whole world is depending on the U.S. -- and you -- to literally save this planet. Let's not let them down. From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 12 12:52:44 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:52:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore In-Reply-To: <13670413.1255371618221.JavaMail.root@whwamui-deputy.pas.sa.earthlink.net> References: <13670413.1255371618221.JavaMail.root@whwamui-deputy.pas.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910121152te60411flc2211386a7b46edd@mail.gmail.com> Jumping the shark Henry Winkler, as Fonzie, preparing to jump over a shark while on water skis, in a scene in the Happy Days installment "Hollywood, Part Three of Three." Jumping the shark is a colloquialism coined by Jon Hein and used by TV critics and fans to denote the point in a television program's history where the plot veers off into absurd story lines or out-of-the-ordinary characterizations. This usually corresponds to the point where a show with falling ratings apparently becomes more desperate to draw in viewers. In the process of undergoing these changes, the TV or movie series loses its original appeal. Shows that have "jumped the shark" are typically deemed to have passed their peak. On 10/12/09, Ralph Dumain wrote: > Sounds to me that Moore has jumped the shark. > > Now what role does Catholicism play in his film? > > > -----Original Message----- > >From: c b > >Sent: Oct 12, 2009 11:08 AM > >To: Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and the thinkers he inspired , pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu > >Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore > > > >Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore > >Friends, > > > >Last night my wife asked me if I thought I was a little too hard on > >Obama in my letter yesterday congratulating him on his Nobel Prize. > >"No, I don't think so," I replied. I thought it was important to > >remind him he's now conducting the two wars he's inherited. "Yeah," > >she said, "but to tell him, 'Now earn it!'? Give the guy a break -- > >this is a great day for him and for all of us." > > > >I went back and re-read what I had written. And I listened for far too > >long yesterday to the right wing hate machine who did what they could > >to crap all over Barack's big day. Did I -- and others on the left -- > >do the same? > > > >We are weary, weary of war. The trillions that will have gone to these > >two wars have helped to bankrupt us as a nation -- financially and > >morally. To think of all the good we could have done with all that > >money! Two months of the War in Iraq would pay for all the wells that > >need to be dug in the Third World for drinking water! Obama is moving > >too slow for most of us -- but he needs to know we are with him and we > >stand beside him as he attempts to turn eight years of sheer madness > >around. Who could do that in nine months? Superman? Thor? Mitch > >McConnell? > > > >Instead of waiting to see what the president is going to do, we all > >need to be pro-active and push the agenda that we want to see enacted. > >What keeps us from forming the same local groups we put together to > >get out the vote last November? C'mon! We're the majority now -- the > >majority by a significant margin! We call the shots -- and we need to > >tell this wimpy Congress to get busy and do what we say -- or else. > > > >All I ask of those who voted for Obama is to not pile on him too > >quickly. Yes, make your voice heard (his phone number is > >202-456-1414). But don't abandon the best hope we've had in our > >lifetime for change. And for God's sake, don't head to bummerville if > >he says or does something we don't like. Do you ever see Republicans > >behave that way? I mean, the Right had 20 years of Republican > >presidents and they still couldn't get prayer in the public schools, > >or outlaw abortion, or initiate a flat tax or put our Social Security > >into the stock market. They did a lot of damage, no doubt about that, > >but on the key issues that the Christian Right fought for, they came > >up nearly empty handed. No wonder they've been driven crazy lately. > >They'll never have it as good again as they've had it since Reagan > >took office. > > > >But -- do you ever see them looking all gloomy and defeated? No! They > >keep on fighting! Every day. Our side? At the first sign of wavering, > >we just pack up our toys and go home. > > > >So, at least for this weekend, let us celebrate what people elsewhere > >are celebrating -- that America now has a sane and smart man in the > >White House, a man who truly wants a world at peace for his two > >daughters. > > > >Many, for the past couple days (yes, myself included), have grumbled, > >"What has he done to earn this prize?" How 'bout this: > > > >The simple fact that he was elected was reason enough for him to be > >the recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. > > > >Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years > >were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man -- a man who opposed the > >War in Iraq from the beginning -- offered to end the insanity. The > >world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they > >watched the descendants of Washington , Lincoln and Jefferson light > >the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on > >this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more > >years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn't > >attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited > >our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had > >gone mad. > > > >And if all that wasn't enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the > >worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression. > > > >So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama > >won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for him > >won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the Grant > >Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago , billions of > >people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of relief. > >It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise of peace > >to the world -- and most were ready to go wherever he wanted to go to > >achieve that end. Never before had the election of one man made every > >other nation feel like they had won, too. When you've got billions of > >people ready, willing and able to join a cause like this, well, a > >prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve. > > > >One other thought. The Peace Prize historically has been given to > >those who have worked to throw off the yoke of racial discrimination > >and segregation (Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu). I think the > >Nobel committee, in awarding Obama the prize, was also rewarding the > >fact that something profound had happened in a nation that was founded > >on racial genocide, built on racist slavery, and held back for a > >hundred-plus years by vestiges of hateful bigotry (which can still be > >found on display at teabagger rallies and daily talk radio). The fact > >that this one man could cause this seismic historical event to occur > >-- and to do so with such grace and humility, never succumbing to the > >bait, but still not backing down (yes, he asked to be sworn in as > >"Barack Hussein Obama"!) -- is more than reason enough he should be in > >Oslo to meet the King on December 10. Maybe he could take us along > >with him. 'Cause I also suspect the Nobel committee was tipping its > >hat to all of us -- we, the American people, had conquered some of our > >racism and did the truly unexpected. After seeing searing images of > >our black fellow citizens left to drown in New Orleans -- and poor > >whites seeing their own treated no better than the black man they had > >been raised to hate -- we had all seen enough. It was time for change. > > > >Thank you, Barack Obama, for giving us the opportunity to redeem > >ourselves. Now for the tasks ahead. We need you to do all that you > >promised to do. We need it. The world needs it. > > > >My prediction for the future? You become the first *two-time* winner > >of the Nobel Peace Prize! Yeah! > > > >Fred (that's Norwegian for "Peace"), > >Michael Moore > >MMFlint at aol.com > >MichaelMoore.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 > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 12 12:54:04 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:54:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Get Off Obama's Back ...second thoughts from Michael Moore In-Reply-To: <13670413.1255371618221.JavaMail.root@whwamui-deputy.pas.sa.earthlink.net> References: <13670413.1255371618221.JavaMail.root@whwamui-deputy.pas.sa.earthlink.net> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910121154n60b8d650s98530c1a3c784722@mail.gmail.com> Ralph Dumain > > Now what role does Catholicism play in his film? > ^^^^^ CB: I give up . What role does Catholicism play in his film now ? From cb31450 at gmail.com Tue Oct 13 06:20:23 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:20:23 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910130520h697cd5cbm8ca4ed0f2115dac3@mail.gmail.com> CB: The leaps in communication and transportation through computerization, satellites, robotics, containerization allow the scattering of the points of production geographically, globally. In _Capital_ Marx's analyzes the fundamentals of modern industry , machinery and cooperation here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch12.htm Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value Ch. 12: The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value Ch. 13: Co-operation Ch. 14: Division of Labour and Manufacture Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry The modern factory system that Marx analyzed there concentrated workers in one location , co-operation the classic Leninist giant factory site, and employed machinery both to increase the rate of surplus-value, relative surplus value. The developments in communication and transportation of the last 35 years allow the negation of co-operation ( big factories, and industrial cities and regions, like the US Midwest) _without loss in production of surplus value_ . This is a dialectical negation in that one aspect of the contradiction , machinery, developed through comuperiztion, robotics, satellites, containers, just in time production, et al, such that it allowed the negation of the other fundamental aspect of the contradiction, co-operation ( concentration of workers in one plant and industrial cities , like Detroit where Henry Ford of "Fordism" was, and regions, like the US midwest.) The points of production can be scattered around the globe without loss of production of surplus value, and with the added benefit of separating workers from each other. Recall that Marx emphasized that the concentrations of workers in factories and certain cities was important in their sensing their potential power and helped with communist organization. The capitalists are glad to scatter them and separate them from each other. I'm thinking computers in truck driver cabs is an advance in the unity of mental (symbolic) and physical labor in one worker, and thus an overcoming or negation of ye olde antagonism between predominantly mental and predominantly physical labor ( workers of the head and workers of the hand). Overcoming this antagonism, this original specialization, is considered an achievement of the coming communist society. So, were cb radios, but this is even a bit ( in the computer language puny sense) more than cb radios. It increases the socialization, division of labor ( in Marx and Durkheim sense; organic solidarity) and cooperation of labor. Labor is already highly socialized in capitalism in the 1800s, early 1900's, mid 1900's. This increased the interconnectedness of workers , in their technological location, so increases the socialization of the labor process. Walmart's increased efficiency is increased socialization and cooperation , too. Just like the Fordist assembly line and truck and train connected factories with telegraph communication , then telephones were. These electronic communication systems increase cooperation of labor that is not face to face or within one building , plant, or city. It allows the points of production to be more scattered geographically/in space relative to prior levels of development of the means of production which are communication systems. Computers allow the likes of just-in-time delivery. World cars, for example, are produced from computer coordinated globally scattered points of production. Workers of the whole globe, unite ! Hardt/Negri's Commonwealth as reviewed in WSJ c b cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 9 11:04:19 HST 2009 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Voyou voyou1 Yes, and nothing in H&N's argument goes against this. The idea of a shift from Fordism to post-Fordism doesn't mean that the economy is shifting from widgets to symbols. It means that changes in symbolic forms of production have an affect on widget-based production. The way in which the number of people involved in industrial production has expanded is an example of this, as the ability of western companies to use manufacturing labor in non-western countries was enhanced by various developments in symbolic labor (the logistical ability to manage longer supply chains, for example). The paradigmatic post-Fordist company isn't Microsoft, it's Walmart, which directs the production and distribution of material goods from all around the world. ^^^^^^^ CB: The leaps in communication and transportation through computerization, satellites, robotics, containerization allow the scattering of the points of production geographically, globally. In _Capital_ Marx's analyzes the fundamentals of modern industry , machinery and cooperation here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch12.htm Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value Ch. 12: The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value Ch. 13: Co-operation Ch. 14: Division of Labour and Manufacture Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry The modern factory system that Marx analyzed there concentrated workers in one location , co-operation the classic Leninist giant factory site, and employed machinery both to increase the rate of surplus-value, relative surplus value. The developments in communication and transportation of the last 35 years allow the negation of co-operation ( big factories, and industrial cities and regions, like the US Midwest) _without loss in production of surplus value_ . This is a dialectical negation in that one aspect of the contradiction , machinery, developed through comuperiztion, robotics, satellites, containers, just in time production, et al, such that it allowed the negation of the other fundamental aspect of the contradiction, co-operation ( concentration of workers in one plant and industrial cities , like Detroit where Henry Ford of "Fordism" was, and regions, like the US midwest.) The points of production can be scattered around the globe without loss of production of surplus value, and with the added benefit of separating workers from each other. Recall that Marx emphasized that the concentrations of workers in factories and certain cities was important in their sensing their potential power and helped with communist organization. The capitalists are glad to scatter them and separate them from each other. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hardt/Negri's Commonwealth as reviewed in WSJ c b cb31450 at gmail.com Sat Oct 10 16:01:35 HST 2009 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- shag carpet bomb At 02:20 PM 10/9/2009, Eric Beck wrote: >On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Voyou wrote: > > Yes, and nothing in H&N's argument goes against this. The idea of a > > shift from Fordism to post-Fordism doesn't mean that the economy is > > shifting from widgets to symbols. It means that changes in symbolic > > forms of production have an affect on widget-based production. > >Precisely. I amazed that people still make arguments like the one >Matthias makes here. Either they aren't reading well or they are >reading in bad faith, though it could also be that H&N are not as >precise in these arguments as is, say, Virno, who emphasizes that >dashboards are still being produced in the world, but that industrial >work is being restructured to be like communicative, symbolic work. >Has anyone else noticed that truck drivers have computers in their >cabs? I haven't read any of their work, but could you or someone explain why computers in their cabs matter -- other than to make the walmart supply chain superefficient? if that's too much of a 101 question, ignore. I'll wait until I after I move to read the book. :) shag ^^^^^ Hey Shag ! chaz I'm thinking computers in truck driver cabs is an advance in the unity of mental (symbolic) and physical labor in one worker, and thus an overcoming or negation of ye olde antagonism between predominantly mental and predominantly physical labor ( workers of the head and workers of the hand). Overcoming this antagonism, this original specialization, is considered an achievement of the coming communist society. So, were cb radios, but this is even a bit ( in the computer language puny sense) more than cb radios. It increases the socialization, division of labor ( in Marx and Durkheim sense; organic solidarity) and cooperation of labor. Labor is already highly socialized in capitalism in the 1800s, early 1900's, mid 1900's. This increased the interconnectedness of workers , in their technological location, so increases the socialization of the labor process. Walmart's increased efficiency is increased socialization and cooperation , too. Just like the Fordist assembly line and truck and train connected factories with telegraph communication , then telephones were. These electronic communication systems increase cooperation of labor that is not face to face or within one building , plant, or city. It allows the points of production to be more scattered geographically/in space relative to prior levels of development of the means of production which are communication systems. Computers allow the likes of just-in-time delivery. World cars, for example, are produced from computer coordinated globally scattered points of production. Workers of the whole globe, unite ! From birkhold at gmail.com Tue Oct 13 07:58:40 2009 From: birkhold at gmail.com (Matthew Birkhold) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:58:40 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230910120737h443942afr842bcd2c4321d01b@mail.gmail.com> References: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910120737h443942afr842bcd2c4321d01b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Hey Charles,No I'm not in Detroit but I spend a lot of time there. I grew up in Kalmazoo and lived in the post-fordist scattering of production. I'm currently in upstate New York. You're point about the still relevant aspects of Leninism are well taken. The notion of finance capital being still truer today than in 1917 is quite interesting. I'm also wondering if some nuance can be added to it by incorporating Giovanni Arrighi's analysis of world-hegemons, where in hegemonic states, a shift is initiated from a primary emphasis on production capital to finance capital at a point where speculation becomes more profitable than production i.e. when US Steel bought up all those hotels in the early 80s. In this regard, not only can we see the finance capital is without question the most powerful sector of capitalism, but it is so because its the only strand of hegemony which the US still has to hold onto. The too big to fail thesis then may become a way to prevent pounding the last nail into the coffin of US hegemony. The dialectical nature of the geographic shift in production sites I think is most crucial to understanding capitalism in the 20th century and as you point out, the differences between it and the 19th century capitalism Marx was writing about. The most amazing thing for me is that the way in which decentralization combined with automation then allowed the size of the US industrial working to increase nationally while decrease in particular locales such as Detroit, Buffalo, and probably Cleavland and Pittsburgh. I also wonder how this will play out in cites/states where capital has fled from the US and its impact on Marxist economics and struggles there. AS you point out, industrial workers are still important, and I would argue most imporatnt in places like Brazil and other places where product cycles have been repeated after dealing with workers resistance in previous locales. The question, that strikes me about this particular development, and its obvious consequences for the Leninist mode of organizing workers is, given the increase in surplus value created by automation and decentralization and the contradictory process of industrial working class formation nationally yet decrease in major industrial cities, how do we understand Marx's general law of capital accumulation while taking into account the centrality of US geography which made expansion possible in ways that only could be dreamed of in the US? I think this aspect of 20th century capitalism forces us to rethink some of chapter 32 of Capital, "Historical Tendencies of Capitalist Accumulation," but I'm not sure what it mean for Marx's general law. Thanks for the engagement. Hope all is well. Peace, matt On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 10:37 AM, c b wrote: > Thanks for your note, Matt, > > It means the negation of some aspects of Leninism. Not to be cute, but > I'd say approach it dialectically as a supercession or sublation, > overcoming and preservation of the Leninist phase of Marxism. > > What is preserved ? first, I'd say the Leninist concept of finance > capitalism from the imperialist thesis is "truer" today than even in > Lenin's day. Look at how Wallstreet was able to just demand $11 > trillion plus from the US state to basically not go bankrupt. _All_ of > the finance sector was broke by its own admission that the several > individual bankruptcies posed a _systemic_ threat. "Too big to fail" > means the whole finance sector was broke. My point here is that as > they were able to avoid that by just getting an $11 trillion gift > proves that they are the ruling sector. Even GM had to go through > bankruptcy. The Detroit papers had headlines contrasting the treatment > of the Wallstreet firms and GM. So, the Leninist concept of finance > capital dominating industrial capital has reached an extreme that > wasn't even true in his day. > > The current situation is best understood as a dialectical > transformation of the imperialism outlined in Lenin's thesis, based on > the changes , in the first place, by the existence of the Soviet Union > for 75 years, and its struggle with imperialism. Inter-imperialist > rivalry was negated because imperialism had to unite against the SU > and socialist countries. Imperialist countries still export capital, > including to other imperialist countries. As I said finance capital > is still the dominant sector. It is no accident the central organs of > transnational capital are hedge funds, the US treasury, IMF and World > Bank etc. , in other words finance capital institutions. Colonialism > has been through an overthrow of the old system , especially bulwarked > by the existence of the SU, institution of a neo-colonialist system, > and now a "neo-liberal" colonialist system after the fall of the SU. > > Also, that industry is scattered and not concentrated > geographically/in space , does not mean that industry is not still an > important part of capitalism technologically, and that industrial > workers are not an important part of the working class. So, Marxists > should not fail to pay attention to industrial workers. Leninist's > thesis on opportunism based on imperialist booty corrupting the US and > other imperialist countries' working classes and trade union leaders > is pretty much the story " of our lives" , no ? So, that aspect of > Leninism is unfortunately quite valid today. > > The Leninist party model from _What is to be done ?_ was largely > specific to Russia with its lack of experience with democracy relative > to countries like the US even in 1905 -1917. Add to that the US > party going through McCarthyism, requiring strict participation in the > US traditions of electoral politics all along and certainly for 60 > years, not to mention the whole Cold War intense brainwashing of the > American population in anti-Communism, anti-Sovietism, and that's > substantially or completely negated. Having said all that, the US > Democratic and Republican parties, and unions operate on the principle > of democratic centralism, but just don't call it that. So, in a > certain sense, democratic centralism is as American as apple pie. It > 's basically the represtentative or republican principle. Also, the > two-party system is something of a fraud and a one-party system > operating as a phony two-party system. Effectively, on this issue the > main thing is not to be quoting Lenin, but a lot of his ideas are > still pertinent. > > The principles in _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_, the critique of > Kantian dualism and subjective idealism is very fresh in critiquing > post-modernism. The heart of post-modernism is neo-Kantianism , I'd > say. > > There may be some other aspects that are preserved. > > I appreciate your pushing me to articulate this > > I see you quote James Boggs. Are you in the Detroit area ? > > What say you ? > > Charles > > On 10/11/09, Matthew Birkhold wrote: > > Charles said, > > "The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > great numbers etc." > > I agree with this analysis of this shift completely. Does it mean that > the > > end of Leninism has been reached in the US? > > > > Hope all is well. > > Peace, Matt > > > > On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM, c b wrote: > > > > > post-Fordism and geographical scattering of > > > Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us > > > Tue Apr 28 19:52:54 MDT 1998 > > > > > > Previous message: M-TH: Bouncing around socalled globalization > > > Next message: M-TH: Re: Australian working class and superimperialist > > > Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] > > > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > To: Dave > > > From: Charles > > > > > > Here's some more on globalization as > > > a qualitative shift from what Lenin defined > > > as imperialism, monopoly capitalism; the > > > uniting of financial and industrial capital; > > > export of capital as a shift from export of > > > goods; the "advanced" European colonialist > > > countries dividing and redividing the world; > > > socalled world wars, meaning all European > > > wars.=20 > > > monopoly concentration; labour aristocracy > > > bought off with superprofits of booty from > > > colonialism; etc. etc.; electricity, trains, > > > assembly line as technological innovations > > > in the means of production. > > > =20 > > > Gramsciians would say the culture of this > > > was Fordism, as discussed below. > > > =20 > > > >>> "Charles Brown" 03/29 4:16 > PM > > > = > > > >>> > > > > > > From ground zero of Fordism here in Detroit, we experienced the last > 45 = > > > years of change from the classic big industrial plant (such as Ford = > > > Dearborn with 100,000 workers)concentration to scattering of the points > of > > > = > > > production as plantclosings, runaway shops, and white flight to the = > > > suburbs. So the transition to socalled post-Fordism got our attention > real > > > = > > > good and we've been trying to figure it in Marxist political economic = > > > terms. > > > > > > It occurred to me that the "new global economy", > transnationalization= > > > of monopoly capital represents a dialectical qualitative change in the > = > > > following sense. =20 > > > Marx in Capital defines two factors in the > > > qualitiative emergence of industrial capitalism over manufacture = > > > capitalism. They are the use of machinery=20 > > > and the concentration of workers in one big factory. > > > Thus, the graphic locus of the classic Leninist agitation and = > > > propaganda the giant industrial plant. > > > The qualitative change of today is the the revolution in science and = > > > technology which has begotten a revolution=20 > > > in transportation and communication, creating such things as just in > time = > > > delivery, containerization . Thus a revolution in machinery, one of the > = > > > original two breakthroughs in Marx's analysis of industrialization, has > = > > > made it possible for the capitalists to decentralize and scatter the = > > > points of production. The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. > The = > > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need > the = > > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the = > > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the = > > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > > great numbers etc. > > > I suggest the above infrastructural sketch as=20 > > > corresponding to the cultural change now > > > named post-Fordism. > > > But don't count the proletariat out. The slogan=20 > > > workers of the world unite , is more true today > > > than when Marx and Engels coined it. And the > > > proletariat is fresher than post-Fordist theory might > > > know. In other words, the proletariat knows how to > > > go with the new. Detroiters probably could show > > > post-ologists a thing or two about what is new. > > > > > > from Proletarian Central, Detroit > > > Charles > > > =20 > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > 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 > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a > moral > > obligation. > > > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- > James > > Boggs, 1990 > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 > -- If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a moral obligation. "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- James Boggs, 1990 From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Tue Oct 13 08:33:58 2009 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:33:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Langston Hughes's radical poetry Message-ID: Dawahare, Anthony. 'Langston Hughes's radical poetry and the "end of race",' MELUS 23: 3, pp. 21-41. (Fall 1998). According to the author, Hughes' radical poetry spanning the years 1932-1938 has largely been left out of anthologies and scholarly attention. Hughes himself began to repress this part of his history in 1940 in his autobiography, though it came back to haunt him in the McCarthy era. This poetry tends to be dismissed by scholars as either lacking in aesthetic qualities or "because they fail to express the 'essential identity' of the black American." [Rampersad] Furthermore, Hughes's internationalism of this period contradicts whatever image of Hughes as a nationalist people might have. The author finds this neglect regrettable, -------------- See also: "Goodbye Christ" by Langston Hughes Good Morning Revolution: Uncollected Writing of Langston Hughes. Edited and with an introd. by Faith Berry; foreword by Saunders Redding. New York: L. [Lawrence] Hill, 1973. From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Tue Oct 13 10:44:21 2009 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:44:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Langston Hughes's radical poetry: TAKE 2 Message-ID: Dawahare, Anthony. 'Langston Hughes's radical poetry and the "end of race",' MELUS 23: 3, pp. 21-41. (Fall 1998). According to the author, Hughes' radical poetry spanning the years 1932-1938 has largely been left out of anthologies and scholarly attention. Hughes himself began to repress this part of his history in 1940 in his autobiography, though it came back to haunt him in the McCarthy era. This poetry tends to be dismissed by scholars as either lacking in aesthetic qualities or "because they fail to express the 'essential identity' of the black American." [Rampersad] Furthermore, Hughes's internationalism of this period contradicts whatever image of Hughes as a nationalist people might have. The author finds this neglect regrettable, as Hughes was one of the first American poets to challenge the ethnic nationalism that followed World War I in the USA as well as in Europe (where it engendered fascism), including the nationalist tendency of Hughes' own poetry during the Harlem Renaissance. Nationalism and internationalism were hotly contested ideologies in the decades leading up to World War I. The internationalism of the Bolshevik revolution intensified nationalist reaction, including domestic repression in the USA. This had an effect on black intellectuals, as they were targeted by the Red Scare as well. The intensification of racism also diminished internationalism as a practical option. This situation favored the defensive strategy of black nationalism, including the notable extreme nationalism of Garvey. A Philip Randolph linked Garvey's nationalism to post-War Wilsonian nationalism. Du Bois' Pan-Africanism should also be seen in context of the spirit of the time. This mindset influenced the mindset of the artistic/literary intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. Black literature was seen as a natural outgrowth of the racial essence. Hughes is seen as an exemplar of what was considered to be authentic racial literature. Hughes' own manifesto, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," exemplifies this racial metaphysics. The author also asserts that the Harlem Renaissance literati expressed a dampened engagement with instrumental politics, preferring the avenue of culture to effect change. The Great Depression turned all this upside down. The emergence of the Communist Party as a substantial political force altered the prospects, and this changed situation affected Hughes as well. In 1932, Hughes wrote: "If the Communists don't awaken the Negro of the South, who will?" Though he repudiated it decades later, Hughes moved way to the left. Recognition of the multiracial character of poverty and exploitation with the massive unemployment, hunger, and homeless of the Great Depression caused Hughes to move beyond the boundaries of cultural nationalism, including his tie to his rich white patron of the 1920s. His new attitude is expressed in his poem "Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria" (1931). Hughes was decisively influenced by the Communist Party's militant anti-racist activism of the Comintern's Third Period commencing in 1928. The CPUSA also encouraged in a way black nationalism by defining the Negro masses, especially in the Southern Black Belt, as an oppressed nation entitled to self-determination. Hughes was more influenced by the internationalism of the Communist movement. Hughes claimed in the 1950s that he did not believe in the CPUSA's advocacy of a Negro state in the South. In "Scottsboro Limited" (1932), Hughes offers a class-based rather than race-based interpretation of the famed Scottsboro case, in which young black men were framed up and sentenced to death for the rape of a white girl. In "Air Raid Over Harlem" (1935) Hughes calls for multiracial unity among workers. In his poem "White Man", Hughes commences by assuming a black nationalist persona but then questioning nationalism as a basis for understanding the race problem: "Is your name spelled C-A-P-I-T-A-L-I-S-T? / Are you always a White Man?" Hughes may well have been combatting the propaganda of the Japanese fascists who claimed to represent the darker races, or the American black bourgeoisie. As Hughes turned toward the condemnation of fascism, he deemphasized race as the basis of oppression, particularly since racial nationalism was being exploited by the Right. "Let America Be America Again" (1938) embodies Popular Front rhetoric, and its alternative vision of Americanism. Curiously, from 1932-1938 Hughes abandoned the black aesthetic--blues poetry, etc.--that he had developed in the 1920s. Dawahare speculates on the political motive for doing this and embracing a working class vernacular. Hughes also worked in several genres with a view to popular performance. Parodoxically, some Communist critics saw Hughes' work of this period as too international and not national enough! The Communists were strong advocates of folk culture, per the Stalinist formula "national in form and socialist in content." The Soviet critic Lydia Filatova took Hughes to task for obliterating national boundaries and neglecting the expressive forms of the Negro nation. However, Filatova seriously underestimated the problem. "[Langston] Hughes's attempt [1932-1938] to create a working class aesthetic with mass appeal must be construed as a utopian project, however. It points to the problem of creating a truly collective poetry of form. That now quaint cityspeak of much 1930s poetry (the versified "hey buddy, can you spare a dime" line) cannot be construed as a "universal" American working class dialect, a workers' Esperanto of sorts." [p. 37] In other words, this construct of working class language, is a spurious universal; it's not really national in form in the sense of reflecting the common language of the American nation. This lingo became national primarily as a result of the mass media, and does not accurately reflect the multivaried, concrete diversity of American culture. However, Dawahare admires Hughes' achievement and notes that "national" aesthetic forms can also be the vehicle for conservative content, to which Hughes' aesthetic of this period offers a countervailing vision. -------------- See also: "Goodbye Christ" by Langston Hughes Good Morning Revolution: Uncollected Writing of Langston Hughes. Edited and with an introd. by Faith Berry; foreword by Saunders Redding. New York: L. [Lawrence] Hill, 1973. From cb31450 at gmail.com Tue Oct 13 11:32:34 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:32:34 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] German Turning Left and Turning Right Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910131032y73b657c2o2d8ef0736a36dde6@mail.gmail.com> Turning Left and Turning Right By Victor Grossman Berlin October 7th marked the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the German Democratic Republic, and the media let no-one forget it! Sarcasm prevailed, the attacks were all-embracing and almost interrupted, the only GDR relics spared in the attacks were the TV Sandman broadcasts for children, the jolly green and red figures on traffic lights for pedestrians, and the popular champagne made in East Germany. Everything else was evil, it was all wrong (including many of the facts in their media broadsides). This will all be repeated on November 9th, the date the Berlin Wall fell. Why do nearly all the media and the politicians never refrain from kicking a dead horse twenty years after its demise? Almost nobody wants to have the GDR back the way it was, so why do East Germans get hammered all the time about how miserable they had it in the years from 1949 to 1989? Why is it all so distortedly one- sided? The answer is an open secret. Whether the powers-that- be are best symbolized by the 99 billionaires and several thousand millionaires controlling most of the wealth, or the four parties which have largely run the country, they are worried because ever fewer citizens trust them or go out to vote at all. And because a new challenge is developing, especially with the young party called the Left. It is a party of mixed political parentage, with not a few inner differences, but which continues to call for a socialist future. It demands withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan and elsewhere, a reversal of anti-social measures adopted by both the Social Democratic-Green and CDU- Social Democratic governments which have run Germany since 1998. It demands job programs, more child care, free education, a return to the retirement age of 65, decent support for the jobless, better pay for working people ? and a rise in ridiculously low tax rates on the wealthy to pay for them. For some, all this can be frightening. The tried and true answer? Red-baiting, or here, ?GDR baiting?. But this is wearing thin. Four years ago 27 election districts out of 51 in eastern Germany gave the Left over 25 percent of the vote. This time it was 41. Back in 2005 in western Germany only eight districts gave 8 percent or more to the Left; this time it was 109, with many reporting double-digit results. In the capital of Berlin, even the snooty southwest borough gave the Left a surprising 7.2 percent, a borough with many foreign ? and unemployed -voters nearly double that. And in former East Berlin the Left won all four boroughs hands down, getting up to 41 percent. Those seemingly dry statistics creased many a brow in once untroubled office and government buildings. But the gains of the Left on the federal level did not stop the rightwing parties. Angela Merkel?s CDU, though it had lost two million voters since 2005, was still in the lead. The Social Democrats had lost over six million - their worst catastrophe since 1949 ? so the government will again be run by Angela Merkel and her CDU, but this time together with the Free Democrats, which got about 15 percent. This can be a damaging mix. The Free Democrats is far to the right, a ?big biz? party, with one curious exception. It is a so-called ?liberal? party, which in Germany today generally means all for ?free enterprise?, with as few regulations or workers? rights as possible. But one wing of the party, a rudiment of earlier years, opposes the controls of telephones, Email, private homes and snooping on employees which have increased so much, usually coupled with panic cries about terror attacks. Many Free Democrats oppose this ? but may well buckle under in current negotiations. In most other spheres, they are even to the right of the CDU, which still gets votes from some working people in small towns and enterprises. It is generally assumed that the new government may go fairly easy in many policies until the May elections in the state of North-Rhine-Westphalia, which has the largest population in Germany, and where Cologne, Bonn, Dusseldorf, Essen and the Ruhr Valley are located ? a sort of Rust Belt. The CDU wants very much to win there, but the SPD still has a few strongholds and the Left has been moving ahead. After May, non-wealthy Germans expect tougher anti-labor laws, sharp cuts in health insurance, more privatized utilities and higher consumer taxes. In other words, the works. Tension is still strong in three areas which already had recent state elections. In western Saarland the Social Democrats may form a coalition with the Left ? if only the Greens agree. Otherwise the SPD could join with the Christian Democrats. In eastern Brandenburg, surrounding Berlin, the Social Democrats are strongest (their last stronghold, actually). They can choose to continue governing with the Christian Democrats, or they could join for the first time with the Left, which was in second place in the recent election. Thirdly, in East German Thuringia, the ruling CDU took a beating at the polls but managed to remain in first place. Many voters were sick of it and of its unpleasant erstwhile leader, who caused the death of a woman skier last spring. The Left was again in second place, well ahead of the SPD and the Greens. The Social Democrats could have chosen to join those two and push the Christian Democrats out for the first time since 1989. The leader of the Left even renounced his right to be minister president to make the choice easier. The Greens were also willing. But then, unexpectedly, the head of the Social Democrats decided swallow any remaining pride, snub the Left (and the Greens) and become a junior partner of the CDU. This angered so many grass roots Social Democrats that it may be possible to force a change. Or it could even split the party. It was the same old story, a tradition going back to the years of the Spanish Civil War and the Munich Treaty. When the chips are down some people ? some call themselves democrats, liberals, social democrat - decide to side with the right rather with that awful left. The results have often been disastrous. It is just this decision ? turn right or left - which is being faced in three states of Germany, and which may arise on a national level in four years? time. October 8, 2009 From cb31450 at gmail.com Wed Oct 14 06:05:08 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:05:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Dialogue on White supremacy and capitalism Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910140505m175a19aewf5063c2854efbdac@mail.gmail.com> ----- If capitalism needs racism, then capitalism should be impossible in an ethnically homogenous society, such as Iceland. ^^^^^ CB: Britain was enthically homogenous at the primitive accumulation phase of capitalism , too. The racism was in colonialism and the slave trade . Capitalism would not be possible in Iceland without the whole history of colonialism and imperialism which are the heart of White Supremacy, i.e. racism. Iceland , the part, is part of the colonialist/imperialist , global whole. Capitalism still _has_ extreme racist and nationalist residential segregation of the working class within the US (localities and metropolitan areas) and globally. It also has racially and nationally endogamous marriage and mating, i.e. there isn't much racial or national inter-marriage or inter-mating, as sociologists like shag will verify. The workers of the world are not racially and nationally united in these fundamental ways. It seems likely that disunities of the working class in these ways are necessary conditions for preventing the working class from overthrowing capitalism. In this sense, capitalism "needs" racism (White Supremacy ) and nationalism. Charles -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- wrote: Carrol Cox wrote: > >>Focus on individuals fucks up political discussion, almost always. > >I gotta agree with you on this. Michaels' original point - that big >capital has entirely assimilated the diversity agenda, a point to >which the entire Obama phenomenon is related, and how a lot of the >received wisdom about how capitalism "needs" racism is badly in need >of updating - has been lost in all this effort to prove him an >asshole, or to search his book for incriminating passages. > did you actually have something to say about the substance of my argument? capitalism doesn't need racism, but it does need _racialization_. Michaels book is an absolutee impediment to that understanding. In fact, it is hostile to it since he is utterly either indifferent to or ignorant of _oppression_. to recuperating michaels' book by imputing to it the sophistication of actually participating in some discussion about whether or not capitalism needs racism cracks me up. shag ___________________________________ I don't think the English thought that Britain was ethnically homogeneous at the time -- if nothing else there were Jews and Irishmen and Welshmen and Scotts and Gypsies (all targets of ethnic hostility, I will admit). ^^^^^ CB: So, are you switching to the position that capiatlism needed ethnic conflict at its start ? Yes, the English colonized and oppressed the Irish especially, but they didn't categorize them as racially distant as ^^^^^ Why do colonialism and the slave trade require racism? ^^^^ CB: They _are_ racism or White supremacy. Before them there was no racism in the modern sense of race, no White supremacy. The modern concept of race originated in capitalism's origin in colonialism and slavery. The specific "ethnic" division that is central to capitalism is socalled White supremacy. Europeans invented this, went around the world designating themselves as White and everybody else as various colors. The concept of the White race originates in the "White race." It is a self-designation as superior to "darker" peoples. Non-Europeans were designated as less than human. Because with the rise of the concept of equality of humans with the rise of capitalism ( Feudalism had a concept of inequality among different classes of people within feudalist society; the bourgeois started to overthrow this) in , for example, the Declaration of Independence, it was necessary to designate the newly colonized and enslaved peoples as less than human to justify not treating them as equals ^^^^^ There's have been lots of imperial and slave-taking societies that had no racist ideology. The Ottomans, the Romans, the Mongols, the Aztecs (I think), etc. It is a historical accident that the European powers at the time of colonialism were taking slaves (almost) exclusively from an area of the world where people looked noticeably different from Europeans. If West Africa had been occupied by people with white skin, would things have been different, or would the slave-traders just have come up with some other ideology to justify it? ^^^^^ CB: It is not that imperialism and slavery of all types throughout history needs White supremcacy and racism. It is that _capitalism_ needs racism/White supremacy, which is identical at its origin with colonialism and slavery. wrote: > _____knows that blacks make somewhere around two-thirds the > amount of money whites do, that blacks are a kajillion times more > likely to be in prison, and a whole host of other facts that show that > racial minorities have it worse under capitalism ^^^^ CB: This is true, and it is the effect of White supremacy. But the main divisions of the working class that prevent class unity are in residential segregation and endogamous marriage and mating. In other words, de facto , not de jure, Jim Crow still exists in the North and the South, the East and the West. "At home", in the US, the working class is majorly divided. This is what capitalism "needs". >It is not that imperialism and slavery of all types throughout >history needs White supremcacy and racism. It is that _capitalism_ >needs racism/White supremacy, Why do you say needs rather than uses? ^^^^^^^ CB: It does "use" it, but I would say that we can go so far as to say that it is a form of the logical categories _modus ponens_ and _modus tolens_. White supremacy is a necessary condition of capitalism. If capitalism, then White supremacy. Not White supremacy , not capitalism "Need" is a form of the word "necessity". Capitalism needs White supremacy to keep the working class divided, both in the US and worldwide, preventing the workers of the world (and US) from uniting, and losing their chains, fulfilling Marx and Engels >"At home", the working class is >majorly divided. This is what capitalism "needs". This makes sense, and it's a different statement than "capitalism needs racism." ^^^^^ CB: I'm glad it makes sense to you. I'm not "married" to the word "needs" . I am "married" to the logic I laid out, i.e. that White supremacy is a necessary condition of capitalism. Capitalism is majorly divided at home by White supremacy. But for White supremacy, no capitalism. I'm not sure from your statement above ( "different than "capitalism needs racism") if you are saying that the major division of the working class at home is not a racist division, a White supremacist division ? What is the purpose of using words like "need" or "necessary condition" ? We are trying to figure out how to end capitalism, no ? If we can get rid of the necessary conditions of capitalism we can get rid of capitalism. So, the struggle to end White supremacy is a critical and necesary struggle in ending capitalism. I am open to other theories on ending capitalism, but so far, Marx and Engels are the source of the best theory. They emphasized that unity of the working class of all nations and nationalities is necessary (Workers of the all nations, unite). Race is a sort of aggravated form of nationality. In the US, it is especially important in keeping the working class divided. So, this hypothesis on racial unity as necessary for the revolution, is basically my accepting their theory of how to win the struggle for socialism in the US and world. There are probably other necessary conditions of capitalism , like extreme individualist philosophies rife in the population. In a certain sense, the greatest divider of the working class in the US is individualism, "rugged" and otherwise. Wage-labor is a necessary and definitional condition of capitalism. I use "White supremacy" ,because Whites and "Coloreds" are not equally responsible for the racial division or "racialization" that shag mentions. White people have more responsibility than Coloreds for the racial divide in the working class. They have more responsibility in the struggle to end racism, unite the working class and end capitalism. They don't have _all_ the responsibility,but they have more responsibility. No doubt, this claim of greater White responsibility for ending the racial divisions is controversial here and among White people in general (smile). But I'm not Obama (smile) From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 15 06:58:45 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:58:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production In-Reply-To: References: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910120737h443942afr842bcd2c4321d01b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910150558xe9d4163v80087903a891ef0f@mail.gmail.com> On 10/13/09, Matthew Birkhold > The question, that strikes me about this particular development, and its > obvious consequences for the Leninist mode of organizing workers is, given > the increase in surplus value created by automation and decentralization and > the contradictory process of industrial working class formation nationally > yet decrease in major industrial cities, how do we understand Marx's general > law of capital accumulation while taking into account the centrality of US > geography which made expansion possible in ways that only could be dreamed > of in the US? I think this aspect of 20th century capitalism forces us to > rethink some of chapter 32 of Capital, "Historical Tendencies of Capitalist > Accumulation," but I'm not sure what it mean for Marx's general law. ^^^^^^^ CB: Matthew it would be interesting to hear more of your thinking on the relationship between Marx's general law of capital accumulation , the historical tendencies chapter and the dispersal of the points of production in the current period. I gotta admit , that chapter 32 is always fun to read, so, I'll be glad to respond to your ideas. > > Thanks for the engagement. Hope all is well. > > Peace, matt > > > On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 10:37 AM, c b wrote: > > > Thanks for your note, Matt, > > > > It means the negation of some aspects of Leninism. Not to be cute, but > > I'd say approach it dialectically as a supercession or sublation, > > overcoming and preservation of the Leninist phase of Marxism. > > > > What is preserved ? first, I'd say the Leninist concept of finance > > capitalism from the imperialist thesis is "truer" today than even in > > Lenin's day. Look at how Wallstreet was able to just demand $11 > > trillion plus from the US state to basically not go bankrupt. _All_ of > > the finance sector was broke by its own admission that the several > > individual bankruptcies posed a _systemic_ threat. "Too big to fail" > > means the whole finance sector was broke. My point here is that as > > they were able to avoid that by just getting an $11 trillion gift > > proves that they are the ruling sector. Even GM had to go through > > bankruptcy. The Detroit papers had headlines contrasting the treatment > > of the Wallstreet firms and GM. So, the Leninist concept of finance > > capital dominating industrial capital has reached an extreme that > > wasn't even true in his day. > > > > The current situation is best understood as a dialectical > > transformation of the imperialism outlined in Lenin's thesis, based on > > the changes , in the first place, by the existence of the Soviet Union > > for 75 years, and its struggle with imperialism. Inter-imperialist > > rivalry was negated because imperialism had to unite against the SU > > and socialist countries. Imperialist countries still export capital, > > including to other imperialist countries. As I said finance capital > > is still the dominant sector. It is no accident the central organs of > > transnational capital are hedge funds, the US treasury, IMF and World > > Bank etc. , in other words finance capital institutions. Colonialism > > has been through an overthrow of the old system , especially bulwarked > > by the existence of the SU, institution of a neo-colonialist system, > > and now a "neo-liberal" colonialist system after the fall of the SU. > > > > Also, that industry is scattered and not concentrated > > geographically/in space , does not mean that industry is not still an > > important part of capitalism technologically, and that industrial > > workers are not an important part of the working class. So, Marxists > > should not fail to pay attention to industrial workers. Leninist's > > thesis on opportunism based on imperialist booty corrupting the US and > > other imperialist countries' working classes and trade union leaders > > is pretty much the story " of our lives" , no ? So, that aspect of > > Leninism is unfortunately quite valid today. > > > > The Leninist party model from _What is to be done ?_ was largely > > specific to Russia with its lack of experience with democracy relative > > to countries like the US even in 1905 -1917. Add to that the US > > party going through McCarthyism, requiring strict participation in the > > US traditions of electoral politics all along and certainly for 60 > > years, not to mention the whole Cold War intense brainwashing of the > > American population in anti-Communism, anti-Sovietism, and that's > > substantially or completely negated. Having said all that, the US > > Democratic and Republican parties, and unions operate on the principle > > of democratic centralism, but just don't call it that. So, in a > > certain sense, democratic centralism is as American as apple pie. It > > 's basically the represtentative or republican principle. Also, the > > two-party system is something of a fraud and a one-party system > > operating as a phony two-party system. Effectively, on this issue the > > main thing is not to be quoting Lenin, but a lot of his ideas are > > still pertinent. > > > > The principles in _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_, the critique of > > Kantian dualism and subjective idealism is very fresh in critiquing > > post-modernism. The heart of post-modernism is neo-Kantianism , I'd > > say. > > > > There may be some other aspects that are preserved. > > > > I appreciate your pushing me to articulate this > > > > I see you quote James Boggs. Are you in the Detroit area ? > > > > What say you ? > > > > Charles > > > > On 10/11/09, Matthew Birkhold wrote: > > > Charles said, > > > "The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The > > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the > > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the > > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the > > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > > great numbers etc." > > > I agree with this analysis of this shift completely. Does it mean that > > the > > > end of Leninism has been reached in the US? > > > > > > Hope all is well. > > > Peace, Matt > > > > > > On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM, c b wrote: > > > > > > > post-Fordism and geographical scattering of > > > > Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us > > > > Tue Apr 28 19:52:54 MDT 1998 > > > > > > > > Previous message: M-TH: Bouncing around socalled globalization > > > > Next message: M-TH: Re: Australian working class and superimperialist > > > > Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > To: Dave > > > > From: Charles > > > > > > > > Here's some more on globalization as > > > > a qualitative shift from what Lenin defined > > > > as imperialism, monopoly capitalism; the > > > > uniting of financial and industrial capital; > > > > export of capital as a shift from export of > > > > goods; the "advanced" European colonialist > > > > countries dividing and redividing the world; > > > > socalled world wars, meaning all European > > > > wars.=20 > > > > monopoly concentration; labour aristocracy > > > > bought off with superprofits of booty from > > > > colonialism; etc. etc.; electricity, trains, > > > > assembly line as technological innovations > > > > in the means of production. > > > > =20 > > > > Gramsciians would say the culture of this > > > > was Fordism, as discussed below. > > > > =20 > > > > >>> "Charles Brown" 03/29 4:16 > > PM > > > > = > > > > >>> > > > > > > > > From ground zero of Fordism here in Detroit, we experienced the last > > 45 = > > > > years of change from the classic big industrial plant (such as Ford = > > > > Dearborn with 100,000 workers)concentration to scattering of the points > > of > > > > = > > > > production as plantclosings, runaway shops, and white flight to the = > > > > suburbs. So the transition to socalled post-Fordism got our attention > > real > > > > = > > > > good and we've been trying to figure it in Marxist political economic = > > > > terms. > > > > > > > > It occurred to me that the "new global economy", > > transnationalization= > > > > of monopoly capital represents a dialectical qualitative change in the > > = > > > > following sense. =20 > > > > Marx in Capital defines two factors in the > > > > qualitiative emergence of industrial capitalism over manufacture = > > > > capitalism. They are the use of machinery=20 > > > > and the concentration of workers in one big factory. > > > > Thus, the graphic locus of the classic Leninist agitation and = > > > > propaganda the giant industrial plant. > > > > The qualitative change of today is the the revolution in science and = > > > > technology which has begotten a revolution=20 > > > > in transportation and communication, creating such things as just in > > time = > > > > delivery, containerization . Thus a revolution in machinery, one of the > > = > > > > original two breakthroughs in Marx's analysis of industrialization, has > > = > > > > made it possible for the capitalists to decentralize and scatter the = > > > > points of production. The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. > > The = > > > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need > > the = > > > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the = > > > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the = > > > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > > > great numbers etc. > > > > I suggest the above infrastructural sketch as=20 > > > > corresponding to the cultural change now > > > > named post-Fordism. > > > > But don't count the proletariat out. The slogan=20 > > > > workers of the world unite , is more true today > > > > than when Marx and Engels coined it. And the > > > > proletariat is fresher than post-Fordist theory might > > > > know. In other words, the proletariat knows how to > > > > go with the new. Detroiters probably could show > > > > post-ologists a thing or two about what is new. > > > > > > > > from Proletarian Central, Detroit > > > > Charles > > > > =20 > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > 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 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a > > moral > > > obligation. > > > > > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- > > James > > > Boggs, 1990 > > > _______________________________________________ > > > 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 > > > > > > -- > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a moral > obligation. > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- James > Boggs, 1990 > _______________________________________________ > 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 birkhold at gmail.com Thu Oct 15 07:09:11 2009 From: birkhold at gmail.com (Matthew Birkhold) Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:09:11 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230910150558xe9d4163v80087903a891ef0f@mail.gmail.com> References: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910120737h443942afr842bcd2c4321d01b@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910150558xe9d4163v80087903a891ef0f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Thanks Charles,I'm working on something on this now so give me a couple weeks and I'll post something to the list. Peace, Matt On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 8:58 AM, c b wrote: > On 10/13/09, Matthew Birkhold > > The question, that strikes me about this particular development, and its > > obvious consequences for the Leninist mode of organizing workers is, > given > > the increase in surplus value created by automation and decentralization > and > > the contradictory process of industrial working class formation > nationally > > yet decrease in major industrial cities, how do we understand Marx's > general > > law of capital accumulation while taking into account the centrality of > US > > geography which made expansion possible in ways that only could be > dreamed > > of in the US? I think this aspect of 20th century capitalism forces us > to > > rethink some of chapter 32 of Capital, "Historical Tendencies of > Capitalist > > Accumulation," but I'm not sure what it mean for Marx's general law. > > ^^^^^^^ > CB: Matthew it would be interesting to hear more of your thinking on > the relationship between Marx's general law of capital accumulation , > the historical tendencies chapter and the dispersal of the points of > production in the current period. I gotta admit , that chapter 32 is > always fun to read, so, I'll be glad to respond to your ideas. > > > > > Thanks for the engagement. Hope all is well. > > > > Peace, matt > > > > > > On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 10:37 AM, c b wrote: > > > > > Thanks for your note, Matt, > > > > > > It means the negation of some aspects of Leninism. Not to be cute, but > > > I'd say approach it dialectically as a supercession or sublation, > > > overcoming and preservation of the Leninist phase of Marxism. > > > > > > What is preserved ? first, I'd say the Leninist concept of finance > > > capitalism from the imperialist thesis is "truer" today than even in > > > Lenin's day. Look at how Wallstreet was able to just demand $11 > > > trillion plus from the US state to basically not go bankrupt. _All_ of > > > the finance sector was broke by its own admission that the several > > > individual bankruptcies posed a _systemic_ threat. "Too big to fail" > > > means the whole finance sector was broke. My point here is that as > > > they were able to avoid that by just getting an $11 trillion gift > > > proves that they are the ruling sector. Even GM had to go through > > > bankruptcy. The Detroit papers had headlines contrasting the treatment > > > of the Wallstreet firms and GM. So, the Leninist concept of finance > > > capital dominating industrial capital has reached an extreme that > > > wasn't even true in his day. > > > > > > The current situation is best understood as a dialectical > > > transformation of the imperialism outlined in Lenin's thesis, based on > > > the changes , in the first place, by the existence of the Soviet Union > > > for 75 years, and its struggle with imperialism. Inter-imperialist > > > rivalry was negated because imperialism had to unite against the SU > > > and socialist countries. Imperialist countries still export capital, > > > including to other imperialist countries. As I said finance capital > > > is still the dominant sector. It is no accident the central organs of > > > transnational capital are hedge funds, the US treasury, IMF and World > > > Bank etc. , in other words finance capital institutions. Colonialism > > > has been through an overthrow of the old system , especially bulwarked > > > by the existence of the SU, institution of a neo-colonialist system, > > > and now a "neo-liberal" colonialist system after the fall of the SU. > > > > > > Also, that industry is scattered and not concentrated > > > geographically/in space , does not mean that industry is not still an > > > important part of capitalism technologically, and that industrial > > > workers are not an important part of the working class. So, Marxists > > > should not fail to pay attention to industrial workers. Leninist's > > > thesis on opportunism based on imperialist booty corrupting the US and > > > other imperialist countries' working classes and trade union leaders > > > is pretty much the story " of our lives" , no ? So, that aspect of > > > Leninism is unfortunately quite valid today. > > > > > > The Leninist party model from _What is to be done ?_ was largely > > > specific to Russia with its lack of experience with democracy relative > > > to countries like the US even in 1905 -1917. Add to that the US > > > party going through McCarthyism, requiring strict participation in the > > > US traditions of electoral politics all along and certainly for 60 > > > years, not to mention the whole Cold War intense brainwashing of the > > > American population in anti-Communism, anti-Sovietism, and that's > > > substantially or completely negated. Having said all that, the US > > > Democratic and Republican parties, and unions operate on the principle > > > of democratic centralism, but just don't call it that. So, in a > > > certain sense, democratic centralism is as American as apple pie. It > > > 's basically the represtentative or republican principle. Also, the > > > two-party system is something of a fraud and a one-party system > > > operating as a phony two-party system. Effectively, on this issue the > > > main thing is not to be quoting Lenin, but a lot of his ideas are > > > still pertinent. > > > > > > The principles in _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_, the critique of > > > Kantian dualism and subjective idealism is very fresh in critiquing > > > post-modernism. The heart of post-modernism is neo-Kantianism , I'd > > > say. > > > > > > There may be some other aspects that are preserved. > > > > > > I appreciate your pushing me to articulate this > > > > > > I see you quote James Boggs. Are you in the Detroit area ? > > > > > > What say you ? > > > > > > Charles > > > > > > On 10/11/09, Matthew Birkhold wrote: > > > > Charles said, > > > > "The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The > > > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need > the > > > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the > > > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the > > > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > > > great numbers etc." > > > > I agree with this analysis of this shift completely. Does it mean > that > > > the > > > > end of Leninism has been reached in the US? > > > > > > > > Hope all is well. > > > > Peace, Matt > > > > > > > > On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM, c b wrote: > > > > > > > > > post-Fordism and geographical scattering of > > > > > Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us > > > > > Tue Apr 28 19:52:54 MDT 1998 > > > > > > > > > > Previous message: M-TH: Bouncing around socalled globalization > > > > > Next message: M-TH: Re: Australian working class and > superimperialist > > > > > Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > > > To: Dave > > > > > From: Charles > > > > > > > > > > Here's some more on globalization as > > > > > a qualitative shift from what Lenin defined > > > > > as imperialism, monopoly capitalism; the > > > > > uniting of financial and industrial capital; > > > > > export of capital as a shift from export of > > > > > goods; the "advanced" European colonialist > > > > > countries dividing and redividing the world; > > > > > socalled world wars, meaning all European > > > > > wars.=20 > > > > > monopoly concentration; labour aristocracy > > > > > bought off with superprofits of booty from > > > > > colonialism; etc. etc.; electricity, trains, > > > > > assembly line as technological innovations > > > > > in the means of production. > > > > > =20 > > > > > Gramsciians would say the culture of this > > > > > was Fordism, as discussed below. > > > > > =20 > > > > > >>> "Charles Brown" 03/29 > 4:16 > > > PM > > > > > = > > > > > >>> > > > > > > > > > > From ground zero of Fordism here in Detroit, we experienced the > last > > > 45 = > > > > > years of change from the classic big industrial plant (such as Ford > = > > > > > Dearborn with 100,000 workers)concentration to scattering of the > points > > > of > > > > > = > > > > > production as plantclosings, runaway shops, and white flight to the > = > > > > > suburbs. So the transition to socalled post-Fordism got our > attention > > > real > > > > > = > > > > > good and we've been trying to figure it in Marxist political > economic = > > > > > terms. > > > > > > > > > > It occurred to me that the "new global economy", > > > transnationalization= > > > > > of monopoly capital represents a dialectical qualitative change in > the > > > = > > > > > following sense. =20 > > > > > Marx in Capital defines two factors in the > > > > > qualitiative emergence of industrial capitalism over manufacture = > > > > > capitalism. They are the use of machinery=20 > > > > > and the concentration of workers in one big factory. > > > > > Thus, the graphic locus of the classic Leninist agitation and > = > > > > > propaganda the giant industrial plant. > > > > > The qualitative change of today is the the revolution in science > and = > > > > > technology which has begotten a revolution=20 > > > > > in transportation and communication, creating such things as just > in > > > time = > > > > > delivery, containerization . Thus a revolution in machinery, one of > the > > > = > > > > > original two breakthroughs in Marx's analysis of industrialization, > has > > > = > > > > > made it possible for the capitalists to decentralize and scatter > the = > > > > > points of production. The end of Fordism is the end of the big > plant. > > > The = > > > > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need > > > the = > > > > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in > the = > > > > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in > the = > > > > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > > > > great numbers etc. > > > > > I suggest the above infrastructural sketch as=20 > > > > > corresponding to the cultural change now > > > > > named post-Fordism. > > > > > But don't count the proletariat out. The slogan=20 > > > > > workers of the world unite , is more true today > > > > > than when Marx and Engels coined it. And the > > > > > proletariat is fresher than post-Fordist theory might > > > > > know. In other words, the proletariat knows how to > > > > > go with the new. Detroiters probably could show > > > > > post-ologists a thing or two about what is new. > > > > > > > > > > from Proletarian Central, Detroit > > > > > Charles > > > > > =20 > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > 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 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a > > > moral > > > > obligation. > > > > > > > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- > > > James > > > > Boggs, 1990 > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > 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 > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a > moral > > obligation. > > > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- > James > > Boggs, 1990 > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 > -- If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a moral obligation. "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- James Boggs, 1990 From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 15 07:44:45 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:44:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama is the product of a certain political moment and system Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910150644p2da423a7sd9980cd05834a576@mail.gmail.com> Obama is the product of a certain political moment and system The system let Obama be president. But he still may not be able to beat it Even if he is pushing the US in the right direction, it is unlikely to be far or fast enough in a political culture resisting reform by Gary Younge The Guardian (UK) - October 12, 2009 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/12/barack-obama-progressive-race At an election night party during the primaries last year I made a throwaway comment disparaging those who believed Barack Obama's mixed-race identity gave him a unique understanding of America's racial problems. "It does," said one woman. I explained that I was joking. She was not. "It really does," she continued. "He knows how black people think and he knows how white people think." "If that's what it took then Tiger Woods [whose father is of African American, Chinese and Native American descent and mother is of Thai, Chinese and Dutch descent] should be president and Nelson Mandela should have stayed in the Transkei," I said. "So why's he doing so well?" she asked. I suggested it was probably his stance on the war, the state of the economy and a desire to move on from the Clinton-Bush duopoly combined with his grassroots organising experience and use of new technology. "There's more to it than that," she said. "It's him." It is almost impossible to have an intelligent conversation about Obama. The problem isn't that people come to him with baggage. Everyone comes to everything in politics with baggage. It's that they refuse to check it in or even declare it. Any conversation about what he does rapidly morphs into one about who he is and what he might be. In New Jersey more than a third of the conservatives literally think he might be the devil. A poll last month revealed 18% of the state's conservatives know he is the antichrist, while 17% are not sure. In Oslo, where he was last week awarded the Nobel peace prize, they think he might be Mother Teresa. A peace prize for a leader, nine months into his term, whose greatest foreign policy achievement to date is to wind down one war so he can escalate another, is bizarre to say the least. Obama's particular biography, sudden rise and unflappable manner have certainly accentuated the contradictions between how different people understand his record. But the problem goes far wider than that. An obsession with celebrity, the cult of presidential personality and a culture of individualism (all of which long predated his election) have made understanding western politicians primarily within their political context a relative rarity. We talk instead of "great men", who as Thomas Carlyle claimed, made history independent of the society and cultures that produced them. So tales of their moods, thought processes, psychological flaws and idiosyncratic genius become paramount. The emphasis shifts from policy to personality: their inability to trust, failure to lead or willingness to compromise become the questions of the day. The fate of the world lies not so much in their hands as in their gut and mind. Whether they take tablets or not sparks national conversation. And so for all his individual talents, the fact that Obama is the product of a certain political moment and system, and therefore represents both its potential and its limits, is lost. Nonetheless, the potential is not difficult to see. At home his election brought together a new coalition to transform the electoral landscape. He won the vote of 97% of black Americans, 67% of Latinos and white union members, 66% of those aged between 18 and 29 and 63% of Asian Americans. Black people voted in greater numbers by 14%, Latinos by 25% and young people aged between 18 and 29 by 25%. On his coattails came substantial Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress. He is now turning out to be the most progressive president in 40 years. The agenda he has set out of raising taxes on the rich, reforming healthcare, withdrawing from Iraq, softening the sanctions on Cuba, and boosting the number of student grants marks a far bolder vision of what government is for than either Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter did. Internationally, he remains incredibly popular, not least for who he is not - George Bush. A poll released last week revealing which country is most admired around the world showed America leaping from seventh to first. "What's really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States in 2009," explained Simon Anholt of the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index. This is about as good a result as the left is going to get out of an American election. But the limits are also all too apparent. Being the most progressive American president in more than a generation is not the same as being progressive. It's all relative. He has escalated the war in Afghanistan, continued rendition and maintained many of the most noxious presidential prerogatives that Bush claimed for himself. The fact that Democrats have sufficient majorities in both houses of Congress to pass whatever they want but are struggling to pass anything that would make a decisive and conclusive break with the past suggests the problem in Washington is not "partisan politics". It's a political system and culture so crowded with corporate lobbyists, that it is apparently incapable of fulfilling the wishes of the people even when - as with a public option in healthcare - that is what they want. The fact he is a product of that system does not mean he is not necessarily dedicated to reforming it. But we cannot measure his dedication, only his achievements. And so far those achievements have not been great. Meanwhile, he has precious little to show for his global popularity. Nobody wants to increase troop levels in Afghanistan or take in Guant??namo Bay prisoners. By the time his climate change efforts emerge from Congress they are unlikely to impress the international community. "The problem is he's asking for roughly the same things Bush asked for and Bush didn't get them, not because he was a boorish diplomat or a cowboy," Peter Feaver, a former adviser to Bush, told the New York Times recently. "If that were the case, bringing in the sophisticated, urbane President Obama would have solved the problem. Bush didn't get them because these countries had good reasons for not giving them." That's not quite true. He is asking for less and prepared to give more. But the fact remains that he wants similar things and his concessions seem insufficient. Put simply, he doesn't seem to have the numbers to implement change on a scale necessary to relieve the pain of people and the planet. This risks great cynicism and even the possibility of a backlash. People will say we reached out and nobody reached back; we tried to reform healthcare but nothing much changed. Predicting these disappointments, from the left, has taken no great insight. Given his own politics and the range of institutions in which he is embedded, the limits have always been clear. It is the potential for overcoming them that has been an open question. This should neither absolve Obama of his responsibilities nor ignore his considerable abilities, but simply place meaningful criticism of him here on Earth - as opposed to in heaven or hell. The fact that he is pushing the country in the right direction does not mean he is able to push it fast or far enough. It seems the world may need more for its future health and wellbeing than what US politics can produce right now. His best may just not be good enough. [Gary Younge is a Guardian columnist and feature writer based in the US. He was formerly the paper's New York correspondent. His most recent book is Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States; he is also the author of No Place Like Home, published in 1999.] From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 16 05:10:35 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:10:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production In-Reply-To: References: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910120737h443942afr842bcd2c4321d01b@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910150558xe9d4163v80087903a891ef0f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910160410k7114cc44v941844789a107729@mail.gmail.com> On 10/15/09, Matthew Birkhold wrote: > Thanks Charles,I'm working on something on this now so give me a couple > weeks and I'll post something to the list. > Peace, Matt Great ! By the way, my hypothesis on the dispersal of the points of production in the post-Fordist period was based in a notion of dialectical contradiction and sublation of the contradiction between Modern Industrial Machinery and Cooperation as the unity and struggle of those opposites is analyzed by Marx in his Part IV of _Capital_ Vol. 1 on Relative Surplus Value. Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value Ch. 12: The Concept of Relative Surplus-Value Ch. 13: Co-operation Ch. 14: Division of Labour and Manufacture Ch. 15: Machinery and Modern Industry I'd say the contradiction between machinery and cooperation there consists in the fact that _new_ machinery, (or the constant revolutionizing of the instruments of production in capitalism mentioned in the _Manifesto of the Communist Party_) in general in introduced because it is "more efficient" in the sense that the same amount of use-values can be produced with fewer hours of labor or fewer workers. So new machinery and technology, as Waistline always reminds us, steadily erodes the number of workers in a given industry. Cooperation, on the other hand, is the process from the capitalist period of manufacture as Marx discusses to modern industry that involves the introduction of more and more workers to a production line, their _concentration_ in one geographical and physical location (in space). The relative geographical/in space scattering or dispersal of workers in post-Fordism made possible by the development of machinery with computers, micro-chips, and other hi-tech aspects of communication and transportation is , in a dialectical sense the negation or suppression of one opposite of the united opposites (machinery/cooperation) by the other opposite. Machinery develops to a point that it negates cooperation, in the senses Marx uses them in Part IV of _Capital_. Originally, in Marx's period as he describes, the capitalist increased the production of _relative_ surplus value by the introduction of both cooperation and modern machinery in the industrial stage moving away from the manufacturing phase. As he describes there. I'll post some of Chapter 12. All Power to the People ! Charles > > On Thu, Oct 15, 2009 at 8:58 AM, c b wrote: > > > On 10/13/09, Matthew Birkhold > > > The question, that strikes me about this particular development, and its > > > obvious consequences for the Leninist mode of organizing workers is, > > given > > > the increase in surplus value created by automation and decentralization > > and > > > the contradictory process of industrial working class formation > > nationally > > > yet decrease in major industrial cities, how do we understand Marx's > > general > > > law of capital accumulation while taking into account the centrality of > > US > > > geography which made expansion possible in ways that only could be > > dreamed > > > of in the US? I think this aspect of 20th century capitalism forces us > > to > > > rethink some of chapter 32 of Capital, "Historical Tendencies of > > Capitalist > > > Accumulation," but I'm not sure what it mean for Marx's general law. > > > > ^^^^^^^ > > CB: Matthew it would be interesting to hear more of your thinking on > > the relationship between Marx's general law of capital accumulation , > > the historical tendencies chapter and the dispersal of the points of > > production in the current period. I gotta admit , that chapter 32 is > > always fun to read, so, I'll be glad to respond to your ideas. > > > > > > > > Thanks for the engagement. Hope all is well. > > > > > > Peace, matt > > > > > > > > > On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 10:37 AM, c b wrote: > > > > > > > Thanks for your note, Matt, > > > > > > > > It means the negation of some aspects of Leninism. Not to be cute, but > > > > I'd say approach it dialectically as a supercession or sublation, > > > > overcoming and preservation of the Leninist phase of Marxism. > > > > > > > > What is preserved ? first, I'd say the Leninist concept of finance > > > > capitalism from the imperialist thesis is "truer" today than even in > > > > Lenin's day. Look at how Wallstreet was able to just demand $11 > > > > trillion plus from the US state to basically not go bankrupt. _All_ of > > > > the finance sector was broke by its own admission that the several > > > > individual bankruptcies posed a _systemic_ threat. "Too big to fail" > > > > means the whole finance sector was broke. My point here is that as > > > > they were able to avoid that by just getting an $11 trillion gift > > > > proves that they are the ruling sector. Even GM had to go through > > > > bankruptcy. The Detroit papers had headlines contrasting the treatment > > > > of the Wallstreet firms and GM. So, the Leninist concept of finance > > > > capital dominating industrial capital has reached an extreme that > > > > wasn't even true in his day. > > > > > > > > The current situation is best understood as a dialectical > > > > transformation of the imperialism outlined in Lenin's thesis, based on > > > > the changes , in the first place, by the existence of the Soviet Union > > > > for 75 years, and its struggle with imperialism. Inter-imperialist > > > > rivalry was negated because imperialism had to unite against the SU > > > > and socialist countries. Imperialist countries still export capital, > > > > including to other imperialist countries. As I said finance capital > > > > is still the dominant sector. It is no accident the central organs of > > > > transnational capital are hedge funds, the US treasury, IMF and World > > > > Bank etc. , in other words finance capital institutions. Colonialism > > > > has been through an overthrow of the old system , especially bulwarked > > > > by the existence of the SU, institution of a neo-colonialist system, > > > > and now a "neo-liberal" colonialist system after the fall of the SU. > > > > > > > > Also, that industry is scattered and not concentrated > > > > geographically/in space , does not mean that industry is not still an > > > > important part of capitalism technologically, and that industrial > > > > workers are not an important part of the working class. So, Marxists > > > > should not fail to pay attention to industrial workers. Leninist's > > > > thesis on opportunism based on imperialist booty corrupting the US and > > > > other imperialist countries' working classes and trade union leaders > > > > is pretty much the story " of our lives" , no ? So, that aspect of > > > > Leninism is unfortunately quite valid today. > > > > > > > > The Leninist party model from _What is to be done ?_ was largely > > > > specific to Russia with its lack of experience with democracy relative > > > > to countries like the US even in 1905 -1917. Add to that the US > > > > party going through McCarthyism, requiring strict participation in the > > > > US traditions of electoral politics all along and certainly for 60 > > > > years, not to mention the whole Cold War intense brainwashing of the > > > > American population in anti-Communism, anti-Sovietism, and that's > > > > substantially or completely negated. Having said all that, the US > > > > Democratic and Republican parties, and unions operate on the principle > > > > of democratic centralism, but just don't call it that. So, in a > > > > certain sense, democratic centralism is as American as apple pie. It > > > > 's basically the represtentative or republican principle. Also, the > > > > two-party system is something of a fraud and a one-party system > > > > operating as a phony two-party system. Effectively, on this issue the > > > > main thing is not to be quoting Lenin, but a lot of his ideas are > > > > still pertinent. > > > > > > > > The principles in _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_, the critique of > > > > Kantian dualism and subjective idealism is very fresh in critiquing > > > > post-modernism. The heart of post-modernism is neo-Kantianism , I'd > > > > say. > > > > > > > > There may be some other aspects that are preserved. > > > > > > > > I appreciate your pushing me to articulate this > > > > > > > > I see you quote James Boggs. Are you in the Detroit area ? > > > > > > > > What say you ? > > > > > > > > Charles > > > > > > > > On 10/11/09, Matthew Birkhold wrote: > > > > > Charles said, > > > > > "The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The > > > > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need > > the > > > > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the > > > > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the > > > > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > > > > great numbers etc." > > > > > I agree with this analysis of this shift completely. Does it mean > > that > > > > the > > > > > end of Leninism has been reached in the US? > > > > > > > > > > Hope all is well. > > > > > Peace, Matt > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM, c b wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > post-Fordism and geographical scattering of > > > > > > Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us > > > > > > Tue Apr 28 19:52:54 MDT 1998 > > > > > > > > > > > > Previous message: M-TH: Bouncing around socalled globalization > > > > > > Next message: M-TH: Re: Australian working class and > > superimperialist > > > > > > Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > > > > > > > > > To: Dave > > > > > > From: Charles > > > > > > > > > > > > Here's some more on globalization as > > > > > > a qualitative shift from what Lenin defined > > > > > > as imperialism, monopoly capitalism; the > > > > > > uniting of financial and industrial capital; > > > > > > export of capital as a shift from export of > > > > > > goods; the "advanced" European colonialist > > > > > > countries dividing and redividing the world; > > > > > > socalled world wars, meaning all European > > > > > > wars.=20 > > > > > > monopoly concentration; labour aristocracy > > > > > > bought off with superprofits of booty from > > > > > > colonialism; etc. etc.; electricity, trains, > > > > > > assembly line as technological innovations > > > > > > in the means of production. > > > > > > =20 > > > > > > Gramsciians would say the culture of this > > > > > > was Fordism, as discussed below. > > > > > > =20 > > > > > > >>> "Charles Brown" 03/29 > > 4:16 > > > > PM > > > > > > = > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > > > > > > > From ground zero of Fordism here in Detroit, we experienced the > > last > > > > 45 = > > > > > > years of change from the classic big industrial plant (such as Ford > > = > > > > > > Dearborn with 100,000 workers)concentration to scattering of the > > points > > > > of > > > > > > = > > > > > > production as plantclosings, runaway shops, and white flight to the > > = > > > > > > suburbs. So the transition to socalled post-Fordism got our > > attention > > > > real > > > > > > = > > > > > > good and we've been trying to figure it in Marxist political > > economic = > > > > > > terms. > > > > > > > > > > > > It occurred to me that the "new global economy", > > > > transnationalization= > > > > > > of monopoly capital represents a dialectical qualitative change in > > the > > > > = > > > > > > following sense. =20 > > > > > > Marx in Capital defines two factors in the > > > > > > qualitiative emergence of industrial capitalism over manufacture = > > > > > > capitalism. They are the use of machinery=20 > > > > > > and the concentration of workers in one big factory. > > > > > > Thus, the graphic locus of the classic Leninist agitation and > > = > > > > > > propaganda the giant industrial plant. > > > > > > The qualitative change of today is the the revolution in science > > and = > > > > > > technology which has begotten a revolution=20 > > > > > > in transportation and communication, creating such things as just > > in > > > > time = > > > > > > delivery, containerization . Thus a revolution in machinery, one of > > the > > > > = > > > > > > original two breakthroughs in Marx's analysis of industrialization, > > has > > > > = > > > > > > made it possible for the capitalists to decentralize and scatter > > the = > > > > > > points of production. The end of Fordism is the end of the big > > plant. > > > > The = > > > > > > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need > > > > the = > > > > > > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in > > the = > > > > > > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in > > the = > > > > > > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > > > > > > great numbers etc. > > > > > > I suggest the above infrastructural sketch as=20 > > > > > > corresponding to the cultural change now > > > > > > named post-Fordism. > > > > > > But don't count the proletariat out. The slogan=20 > > > > > > workers of the world unite , is more true today > > > > > > than when Marx and Engels coined it. And the > > > > > > proletariat is fresher than post-Fordist theory might > > > > > > know. In other words, the proletariat knows how to > > > > > > go with the new. Detroiters probably could show > > > > > > post-ologists a thing or two about what is new. > > > > > > > > > > > > from Proletarian Central, Detroit > > > > > > Charles > > > > > > =20 > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > > 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 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > > > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a > > > > moral > > > > > obligation. > > > > > > > > > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- > > > > James > > > > > Boggs, 1990 > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > > 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 > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a > > moral > > > obligation. > > > > > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- > > James > > > Boggs, 1990 > > > _______________________________________________ > > > 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 > > > > > > -- > If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a moral > obligation. > > "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- James > Boggs, 1990 > _______________________________________________ > 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 cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 16 05:12:23 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:12:23 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production In-Reply-To: References: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910120737h443942afr842bcd2c4321d01b@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910150558xe9d4163v80087903a891ef0f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910160412x3894b4c9obb8635db0a9037a1@mail.gmail.com> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch12.htm Karl Marx. Capital Volume One -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part IV: Production of Relative Surplus Value -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Twelve: The Concept of Relative Surplus Value -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That portion of the working-day which merely produces an equivalent for the value paid by the capitalist for his labour-power, has, up to this point, been treated by us as a constant magnitude, and such in fact it is, under given conditions of production and at a given stage in the economic development of society. Beyond this, his necessary labour-time, the labourer, we saw, could continue to work for 2, 3, 4, 6, &c., hours. The rate of surplus-value and the length of the working-day depended on the magnitude of this prolongation. Though the necessary labour-time was constant, we saw, on the other hand, that the total working-day was variable. Now suppose we have a working-day whose length, and whose apportionment between necessary labour and surplus-labour, are given. Let the whole line a c, a?b?c represent, for example, a working-day of 12 hours; the portion of a b 10 hours of necessary labour, and the portion b c 2 hours of surplus-labour. How now can the production of surplus-value be increased, i.e., how can the surplus-labour be prolonged, without, or independently of, any prolongation of a c? Although the length of a c is given, b c appears to be capable of prolongation, if not by extension beyond its end c, which is also the end of the working-day a c, yet, at all events, by pushing back its starting-point b in the direction of a. Assume that b'?b in the line ab'bc is equal to half of b c a???b'?b??c or to one hour?s labour-time. If now, in a c, the working-day of 12 hours, we move the point b to b', b c becomes b' c; the surplus-labour increases by one half, from 2 hours to 3 hours, although the working-day remains as before at 12 hours. This extension of the surplus labour-time from b c to b' c, from 2 hours to 3 hours, is, however, evidently impossible, without a simultaneous contraction of the necessary labour-time from a b into a b', from 10 hours to 9 hours. The prolongation of the surplus-labour would correspond to a shortening of the necessary labour; or a portion of the labour-time previously consumed, in reality, for the labourer?s own benefit, would be converted into labour-time for the benefit of the capitalist. There would be an alteration, not in the length of the working-day, but in its division into necessary labour-time and surplus labour-time. On the other hand, it is evident that the duration of the surplus-labour is given, when the length of the working-day, and the value of labour-power, are given. The value of labour-power, i.e., the labour-time requisite to produce labour-power, determines the labour-time necessary for the reproduction of that value. If one working-hour be embodied in sixpence, and the value of a day?s labour-power be five shillings, the labourer must work 10 hours a day, in order to replace the value paid by capital for his labour-power, or to produce an equivalent for the value of his daily necessary means of subsistence. Given the value of these means of subsistence, the value of his labour-power is given; [1] and given the value of his labour-power, the duration of his necessary labour-time is given. The duration of the surplus-labour, however, is arrived at, by subtracting the necessary labour-time from the total working-day. Ten hours subtracted from twelve, leave two, and it is not easy to see, how, under the given conditions, the surplus-labour can possibly be prolonged beyond two hours. No doubt, the capitalist can, instead of five shillings, pay the labourer four shillings and sixpence or even less. For the reproduction of this value of four shillings and sixpence, nine hours? labour-time would suffice; and consequently three hours of surplus-labour, instead of two, would accrue to the capitalist, and the surplus-value would rise from one shilling to eighteen-pence. This result, however, would be obtained only by lowering the wages of the labourer below the value of his labour-power. With the four shillings and sixpence which he produces in nine hours, he commands one-tenth less of the necessaries of life than before, and consequently the proper reproduction of his labour-power is crippled. The surplus-labour would in this case be prolonged only by an overstepping of its normal limits; its domain would be extended only by a usurpation of part of the domain of necessary labour-time. Despite the important part which this method plays in actual practice, we are excluded from considering it in this place, by our assumption, that all commodities, including labour-power, are bought and sold at their full value. Granted this, it follows that the labour-time necessary for the production of labour-power, or for the reproduction of its value, cannot be lessened by a fall in the labourer?s wages below the value of his labour-power, but only by a fall in this value itself. Given the length of the working-day, the prolongation of the surplus-labour must of necessity originate in the curtailment of the necessary labour-time; the latter cannot arise from the former. In the example we have taken, it is necessary that the value of labour-power should actually fall by one-tenth, in order that the necessary labour-time may be diminished by one-tenth, i.e., from ten hours to nine, and in order that the surplus labour may consequently be prolonged from two hours to three. Such a fall in the value of labour-power implies, however, that the same necessaries of life which were formerly produced in ten hours, can now be produced in nine hours. But this is impossible without an increase in the productiveness of labour. For example, suppose a shoe-maker, with given tools, makes in one working-day of twelve hours, one pair of boots. If he must make two pairs in the same time, the productiveness of his labour must be doubled; and this cannot be done, except by an alteration in his tools or in his mode of working, or in both. Hence, the conditions of production, i.e., his mode of production, and the labour-process itself, must be revolutionised. By increase in the productiveness of labour, we mean, generally, an alteration in the labour-process, of such a kind as to shorten the labour-time socially necessary for the production of a commodity, and to endow a given quantity of labour with the power of producing a greater quantity of use-value. [2] Hitherto in treating of surplus-value, arising from a simple prolongation of the working-day, we have assumed the mode of production to be given and invariable. But when surplus-value has to be produced by the conversion of necessary labour into surplus-labour, it by no means suffices for capital to take over the labour-process in the form under which it has been historically handed down, and then simply to prolong the duration of that process. The technical and social conditions of the process, and consequently the very mode of production must be revolutionised, before the productiveness of labour can be increased. By that means alone can the value of labour-power be made to sink, and the portion of the working-day necessary for the reproduction of that value, be shortened. The surplus-value produced by prolongation of the working-day, I call absolute surplus-value. On the other hand, the surplus-value arising from the curtailment of the necessary labour-time, and from the corresponding alteration in the respective lengths of the two components of the working-day, I call relative surplus-value. From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 16 05:40:33 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 07:40:33 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production In-Reply-To: References: <5c2e4d230910102052w40b8ea9ta4f979a8dc56bec8@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910120737h443942afr842bcd2c4321d01b@mail.gmail.com> <5c2e4d230910150558xe9d4163v80087903a891ef0f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910160440t6355883dvd118386e9adf2289@mail.gmail.com> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch13.htm Karl Marx. Capital Volume One -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Thirteen: Co-operation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Capitalist production only then really begins, as we have already seen, when each individual capital employs simultaneously a comparatively large number of labourers; when consequently the labour-process is carried on on an extensive scale and yields, relatively, large quantities of products. A greater number of labourers working together, at the same time, in one place (or, if you will, in the same field of labour), in order to produce the same sort of commodity under the mastership of one capitalist, constitutes, both historically and logically, the starting-point of capitalist production. With regard to the mode of production itself, manufacture, in its strict meaning, is hardly to be distinguished, in its earliest stages, from the handicraft trades of the guilds, otherwise than by the greater number of workmen simultaneously employed by one and the same individual capital. The workshop of the medieval master handicraftsman is simply enlarged. At first, therefore, the difference is purely quantitative. We have shown that the surplus-value produced by a given capital is equal to the surplus-value produced by each workman multiplied by the number of workmen simultaneously employed. The number of workmen in itself does nor affect, either the rate of surplus-value, or the degree of exploitation of labour-power. If a working-day of 12 hours be embodied in six shillings, 1,200 such days will be embodied in 1,200 times 6 shillings. In one case 12 ? 1,200 working-hours, and in the other 12 such hours are incorporated in the product. In the production of value a number of workmen rank merely as so many individual workmen; and it therefore makes no difference in the value produced whether the 1,200 men work separately, or united under the control of one capitalist. Nevertheless, within certain limits, a modification takes place. The labour realised in value, is labour of an average social quality; is consequently the expenditure of average labour-power. Any average magnitude, however, is merely the average of a number of separate magnitudes all of one kind, but differing as to quantity. In every industry, each individual labourer, be he Peter or Paul, differs from the average labourer. These individual differences, or ?errors? as they are called in mathematics, compensate one another, and vanish, whenever a certain minimum number of workmen are employed together. The celebrated sophist and sycophant, Edmund Burke, goes so far as to make the following assertion, based on his practical observations as a farmer; viz., that ?in so small a platoon? as that of five farm labourers, all individual differences in the labour vanish, and that consequently any given five adult farm labourers taken together, will in the same time do as much work as any other five. [1] But, however that may be, it is clear, that the collective working-day of a large number of workmen simultaneously employed, divided by the number of these workmen, gives one day of average social labour. For example, let the working-day of each individual be 12 hours. Then the collective working-day of 12 men simultaneously employed, consists of 144 hours; and although the labour of each of the dozen men may deviate more or less from average social labour, each of them requiring a different time for the same operation, yet since the working-day of each is one-twelfth of the collective working-day of 144 hours, it possesses the qualities of an average social working-day. From the point of view, however, of the capitalist who employs these 12 men, the working-day is that of the whole dozen. Each individual man?s day is an aliquot part of the collective working-day, no matter whether the 12 men assist one another in their work, or whether the connexion between their operations consists merely in the fact, that the men are all working for the same capitalist. But if the 12 men are employed in six pairs, by as many different small masters, it will be quite a matter of chance, whether each of these masters produces the same value, and consequently whether he realises the general rate of surplus-value. Deviations would occur in individual cases. If one workman required considerably more time for the production of a commodity than is socially necessary, the duration of the necessary labour-time would, in his case, sensibly deviate from the labour-time socially necessary on an average; and consequently his labour would not count as average labour, nor his labour-power as average labour-power. It would either be not saleable at all, or only at something below the average value of labour-power. A fixed minimum of efficiency in all labour is therefore assumed, and we shall see, later on, that capitalist production provides the means of fixing this minimum. Nevertheless, this minimum deviates from the average, although on the other hand the capitalist has to pay the average value of labour-power. Of the six small masters, one would therefore squeeze out more than the average rate of surplus-value, another less. The inequalities would be compensated for the society at large, but not for the individual masters. Thus the laws of the production of value are only fully realised for the individual producer, when he produces as a capitalist, and employs a number of workmen together, whose labour, by its collective nature, is at once stamped as average social labour. [2] Even without an alteration in the system of working, the simultaneous employment of a large number of labourers effects a revolution in the material conditions of the labour-process. The buildings in which they work, the store-houses for the raw material, the implements and utensils used simultaneously or in turns by the workmen; in short, a portion of the means of production, are now consumed in common. On the one hand, the exchange-value of these means of production is not increased; for the exchange-value of a commodity is not raised by its use-value being consumed more thoroughly and to greater advantage. On the other hand, they are used in common, and therefore on a larger scale than before. A room where twenty weavers work at twenty looms must be larger than the room of a single weaver with two assistants. But it costs less labour to build one workshop for twenty persons than to build ten to accommodate two weavers each; thus the value of the means of production that are concentrated for use in common on a large scale does not increase in direct proportion to the expansion and to the increased useful effect of those means. When consumed in common, they give up a smaller part of their value to each single product; partly because the total value they part with is spread over a greater quantity of products, and partly because their value, though absolutely greater, is, having regard to their sphere of action in the process, relatively less than the value of isolated means of production. Owing to this, the value of a part of the constant capital falls, and in proportion to the magnitude of the fall, the total value of the commodity also falls. The effect is the same as if the means of production had cost less. The economy in their application is entirely owing to their being consumed in common by a large number of workmen. Moreover, this character of being necessary conditions of social labour, a character that distinguishes them from the dispersed and relatively more costly means of production of isolated, independent labourers, or small masters, is acquired even when the numerous workmen assembled together do not assist one another, but merely work side by side. A portion of the instruments of labour acquires this social character before the labour-process itself does so. From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 16 07:53:09 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:53:09 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Yearing for a better America Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910160653g48e0f00cka370ebeb6cff04dc@mail.gmail.com> Posted: Oct. 16, 2009 Obama's prize signals European yearning for America's better self BY LEONARD PITTS JR. McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS ! http://www.freep.com/article/20091016/OPINION05/910160317/1322/Obama-s-prize-signals-European-yearning-for-America-s-better-self So I guess now he's a socialist-terrorist-secret-Muslim-radical-Christian-Hitler-clone and Nobel Prize winner? Forgive me for laughing, but half the fun of Friday's surprise news that President Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize lay in anticipating how his political adversaries would react. They did not disappoint. Rush Limbaugh pronounced the award "a greater embarrassment" than Chicago's failure to land the Olympics. Titular GOP leader Michael Steele said the honor reflected only the president's "star power." Blogger Erick Erickson called it "affirmative action." Of course, not even Obama's fiercest defenders -- or, for that matter, the president himself -- could argue with a straight face that he's accomplished anything that merits this prestigious prize, whose previous recipients include Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel and Martin Luther King Jr. "To be honest," Obama said, "I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize." He's right, of course. But then, one suspects that what is really being honored here is not Obama at all -- and that "honored" is probably the wrong verb, to boot. I suspect that last week's award was intended less to honor than to remind. As in, to prod a sometimes amnesiac nation into remembering and reclaiming its very best self. There has always been something rather bipolar about the United States of America. We have seesawed between competing extremes. We've been the visionary and great-hearted America that declared life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness inalienable rights, that fed and rebuilt Europe after a world war, that went to the moon, that inspired the world through the force of its ideals. And we've been the paranoid, reactionary America too small for those same ideals, the xenophobic, fraidy-cat America that wiretaps and witch-hunts and sees Reds behind every lamp post, illegals on every street corner, terrorists at every bus stop. The latter America has asserted itself emphatically in the years since Sept. 11, 2001. Encouraged by President George W. Bush and his endless appeals to expedience and fear, we retreated from our ideals the way you do from a house afire; indeed, we openly questioned whether ideals were still tenable in this frightening new era. In the absence of ideals, we tortured, detained, spied, lied and alibied, all to a chorus of demagogic appeals that would have done Joe McCarthy and Charles Coughlin proud. (2 of 2) Meantime, the world watched and wondered what had become of the other America, the better one. Then along comes Barack Obama promising hope and change. Yes, it was just a political slogan. Except that this slogan from the campaign of 2008 doesn't recede into irrelevance quite as readily as others before it -- mainly because it was not what they were. Not, in other words, simply a tool to be used in a contest between competing political visions. Rather, it was a clarion call for people left bereft by the loss of the better America. It was an invitation to feel clean again for the first time in years. And if the invitation was powerful enough to get Obama elected, it was also powerful enough to lift a world that needs the better America and was beginning to wonder where it had gone. So this prize seems to me less an endorsement of Obama than a stamp of approval for a vision of our national greatness many had feared lost for good. Granted, hope and change don't write health care bills or silence tea party extremists. But they do remind us of the values that are supposed to shape us and of the better America we can sometimes be. Obama's election suggested that some Americans have missed that America. His Nobel Prize suggests they aren't the only ones. Leonard Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him at lpitts at miamiherald.com. Single-page viewNext Page1 | 2Previous Page In Your Voice| Read reactions to this story Newest first Oldest first dummyo wrote: What a bunch of fools. Remember the phrase "Speak softly and carry a big stick" . While you cry and moan about a few speeches intended to chill out the world a little bit, true health care reform is being diluted into a giveaway for insurance companies, bank execs are helping themselves to huge piles of OUR cash, and the exporting of OUR jobs continues. Look past your stupid partisan views and see what is really going on here. If you aren't an exec in a multinational corporation, the right doesn't have much use for you, except as useful idiots. STOP CRUSADING AGAINST YOUR OWN INTERESTS! If you think that war helps anything except big corporations and Islamic extremist recruiters then you just aren't paying close attention. Don't be a lemming. Turn off FOX and do your own research. You have no idea how stupid you sound. 10/16/2009 10:14:12 a.m. EDTWhat a bunch of fools. Remember the phrase "Speak softly and carry a big stick" . While you cry and moan about a few speeches intended to chill out the world a little bit, true health care reform is being diluted into a giveaway for insurance companies, bank execs are helping themselves to huge piles of OUR cash, and the exporting of OUR jobs continues. Look past your stupid partisan views and see what is really going on here. If you aren't an exec in a multinational corporation, the right doesn't have much use for you, except as useful idiots. STOP CRUSADING AGAINST YOUR OWN INTERESTS! If you think that war helps anything except big corporations and Islamic extremist recruiters then you just aren't paying close attention. Don't be a lemming. Turn off FOX and do your own research. You have no idea how stupid you sound. dummyo Recommend New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse HankRearden wrote: "Obama's prize signals European yearning for America's better self". Did they say that? No? No. Blah blah blah. 10/16/2009 9:33:09 a.m. EDT"Obama's prize signals European yearning for America's better self".

Did they say that? No? No.

Blah blah blah.

HankRearden Recommend New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse mdavt wrote: So Europe is happy that Mr. Obama wants to make us more like them. A major surprise, that. The Uniter has proven to be king of domestic dividers, but many Europeans do love him. 10/16/2009 8:54:11 a.m. EDTSo Europe is happy that Mr. Obama wants to make us more like them. A major surprise, that.
The Uniter has proven to be king of domestic dividers, but many Europeans do love him. mdavt Recommend(1) New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse MarieLML wrote: He certainly hasn't brought peace to the USA. I have never seen so many people protesting anything or anyone since the Viet Nam war. Truthfully, I don't care about Europe's opinion. I think they have refrigerator-envy. They WISH they had our life style, our health care, our (is it a thing of the past?) self-confidence. 10/16/2009 8:43:19 a.m. EDTHe certainly hasn't brought peace to the USA. I have never seen so many people protesting anything or anyone since the Viet Nam war.

Truthfully, I don't care about Europe's opinion. I think they have refrigerator-envy. They WISH they had our life style, our health care, our (is it a thing of the past?) self-confidence. MarieLML Recommend(1) New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse Bill45 wrote: Only one sentence of this entire slobbering column matters. Pitts writes: "Of course, not even Obama's fiercest defenders -- or, for that matter, the president himself -- could argue with a straight face that he's accomplished anything that merits this prestigious prize, ..."So, then, what really happened is that a handful of America-hating Norwegian leftists gave an award to another America-hating leftist as a reward for his promising to make America the lapdog of left Euro-elites. In one of the most blatantly fabricated quotes in American history Obama's daughter, Malia, supposedly informed Obama of the prize by saying to him "You've won the Nobel Peace Prize and today is Bo's [the dog's] birthday."Perhaps Malia was really telling him that Bo deserved the NPP as much for having a birthday as Obama did for anything he had done. 10/16/2009 8:09:08 a.m. EDTOnly one sentence of this entire slobbering column matters. Pitts writes: "Of course, not even Obama's fiercest defenders -- or, for that matter, the president himself -- could argue with a straight face that he's accomplished anything that merits this prestigious prize, ..."So, then, what really happened is that a handful of America-hating Norwegian leftists gave an award to another America-hating leftist as a reward for his promising to make America the lapdog of left Euro-elites. In one of the most blatantly fabricated quotes in American history Obama's daughter, Malia, supposedly informed Obama of the prize by saying to him "You've won the Nobel Peace Prize and today is Bo's [the dog's] birthday."Perhaps Malia was really telling him that Bo deserved the NPP as much for having a birthday as Obama did for anything he had done. Bill45 Recommend(1) New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 16 08:12:06 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:12:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Teamsters fight Chrysler, GM cuts Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910160712s7cf9931w8a7f8f2028dca62f@mail.gmail.com> Friday, October 16, 2009 Teamsters fight Chrysler, GM cuts David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau Washington -- Union car haulers are angry with Chrysler Group LLC for shifting some work to nonunion companies to save money, and they fear General Motors Co. may follow suit. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says moves by Chrysler and by GM, if the automaker takes the same action, will put many of the union's 5,000 hauling jobs at risk, including up to 1,500 in Michigan. The companies, which both filed for bankruptcy this year, strongly deny they are trying to put union haulers out of business, but say rates must be competitive. Advertisement GM is in talks with its car haulers, who move vehicles from factories to dealers, because some contracts are set to expire. The Teamsters said GM demanded a 26 percent cost reduction from one union carrier. As of Oct. 1, Chrysler said it had shifted 28 percent of its carhauling business from two companies: Atlanta-based Allied Systems Holdings and Illinois-based Cassens Transport Co. Chrysler says the change will cost the jobs of 77 Teamster drivers in Michigan. Twenty of those jobs, however, will be filled by Ohio Teamsters. The union, which represents nearly 5,000 active car haulers, claims the job losses are higher: as many as 400 nationwide thus far. In a fact sheet distributed on Capitol Hill, Chrysler said its actions will pare its $111 million in annual hauling costs by $31 million in three years and will improve transit time by an average of 23 percent. The union plans protests at 70 GM and Chrysler dealerships today, including about 15 in Michigan, urging the automakers not to use cheaper, nonunion companies. The Teamsters also are unveiling a Web site, carbuyersbeware.com, to pressure automakers to stick with union haulers. "The American taxpayers bailed out Chrysler with $14 billion of our hard-earned wages in order to help our economy," said a flier Teamsters will hand out in Michigan starting today. "Chrysler took the money and now is outsourcing good Michigan car haul jobs to low-wage contractors in Ohio -- throwing more Michigan families into the unemployment lines." The decision to transfer work to Ohio irked some Michigan members of Congress, who sent protest letters to the automakers. Among the members writing the companies in recent weeks are Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, and John Kerry, D-Mass., and Reps. John Dingell, D-Dearborn; Dale Kildee, D-Flint; Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township; Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland; Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek; Thaddeus McCotter R-Livonia; and Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak. Michigan House Speaker Andy Dillon also wrote on the Teamsters' behalf. "The intent of the government's support for GM and Chrysler and the 'cash for clunkers' program was to keep the automobile industry viable and not to force companies in the supply chain like the car haul industry into bankruptcy," McCotter said in an Oct. 2 letter similar to other congressional letters to Chrysler. "Relatively minor short-term cost savings generated by shifting this work to non-unionized companies is greatly outweighed by the elimination of good-paying, union middle-class jobs." Chrysler spokeswoman Shawn Morgan said the company had been working with its car haulers for more than a year in efforts to make them more competitive. "We have to make solid business decisions that will allow us to pay back our loans to the taxpayers and be competitive," she said. The automaker's action was not, she said, a surprise or a "knee-jerk decision." The car haulers' controversy pales in comparison to dramatic cuts at Chrysler, where 29,000 hourly workers have left the company during restructuring in the past two years. A United Auto Workers health care trust fund owns 67.7 percent of the new Chrysler, but doesn't have control of the company. GM is in contract talks with its union and nonunion car haulers. "GM has no plans to phase out unionized hauling companies," said GM spokesman Dan Flores. "Open dialogue continues with the management teams at these companies." Flores said the automaker's aim "is to help solidify the most profitable business arrangements with our current providers and then to conduct a competitive bid process for the remaining business requirements." Flores noted that "all of the companies in this process are U.S. owned and operated." Teamsters are concerned that Ford Motor Co., the only one of Detroit's three automakers to avoid bankruptcy, could go the same route if GM shifts business to cheaper nonunion carriers. Ford spokesman Todd Nissen wouldn't speculate on any future contract decisions. "We would want to be competitive with the industry so we can be competitive in our own costs," Nissen said. Car haulers, like others in the auto industry, have struggled due to sharply lower sales; they, too, have been forced to consolidate. Over the past year, more than 1,000 jobs have been shed in the car hauling business, said Fred Zuckerman, the Teamsters chief negotiator and car haul division director. He noted that Teamsters drivers at Allied, for example, agreed to a 17.5 percent wage cut. There are 1,500 Teamster car haulers in Michigan, but only about 700 are working because of job cuts and layoffs. "We have done whatever we could to help," Zuckerman said. Shifting work to nonunion carriers, he said, threatens the rocky financial stability of the three largest car haulers that employ some 3,000 union drivers. Last year, the Teamsters struck Allen Park-based Performance Transportation Services, then the nation's No. 2 car hauler in the United States. The company went out of business. dshepardson at detnews.com (202) 662-8735 From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 19 10:19:07 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:19:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910190919s552267e2iedb7a09ca97ffaf0@mail.gmail.com> Fordism Fordism, named after Henry Ford, refers to various social theories about production and related socio-economic phenomena.[1] It has varying but related meanings in different fields, as well as for Marxist and non-Marxist scholars. Contents [hide] 1 Introduction 2 The history behind Fordism 3 Fordism in the United States 4 Fordism in Western Europe 5 Fordism and the Soviet Union 6 Other Marxist variations 7 Other meanings 8 Post-Fordism 9 See also 10 References 11 Bibliography [edit] Introduction Henry Ford worked as an apprentice in different Michigan machine shops and in later years as a qualified engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company.[2] Here he received the first hand knowledge of how industries were being run. Although Henry Ford was not the the inventor of the automobile, he developed unprecedented methods of production and marketing that allowed the automobile to become accessible to the American working class. Ford wanted to make cars that his workers could afford.[3] He created the Ford Motor Company, which was one of a dozen small automobile manufacturers that emerged in the early 20th century. [4]After three years of production, he introduced the Model T, which was simple and light yet sturdy enough to drive on the country's very rudimentary road system.[5] Henry Ford's success and revolutionary techniques of production were then termed Fordism. [6] [edit] The history behind Fordism Ford cars (Model A shown), became a symbol of effective mass production. Efficiency both decreased the price of the cars and allowed Henry Ford to increase the workers' wages. Hence, common workers could buy their own cars.The Ford Motor Company?s success occurred because of the introduction of a very tough and compact vehicle named Model T. The mass production of this automobile lowered its unit price, making it affordable for the average consumer. Furthermore, Ford substantially increased its workers' wages,[7] giving them the means to become customers. These factors led to massive consumption. In fact, the Model T surpassed all expectations, because it attained a peak of 60% of the automobile output within the United States.[8] Henry Ford revolutionized a system, which consisted of synchronization, precision, and specialization within a company.[9] These innovative ideas led to Fordism, and as mentioned below, this concept helped increase economic prosperity in the United States in the 1940s to 1960s.[citation needed] [edit] Fordism in the United States In the United States, Fordism is the system of mass production and consumption characteristic of highly developed economies during the 1940s-1960s. The idea of Fordism was to combine mass consumption with mass production to produce sustained economic growth and widespread material advancement. The 1970s-1990s have been a period of slower growth and increasing income inequality. During this period, the system of organization of production and consumption has, perhaps, undergone a second transformation, which when mature promises a second burst of economic growth. This new system is often referred to as the "flexible system of production" (FSP) or the "Japanese management system." On the production side, FSP is characterized by dramatic reductions in information costs and overheads, Total Quality Management (TQM), just-in-time inventory control, and leaderless work groups; on the consumption side, by the globalization of consumer goods markets, faster product life cycles, and far greater product/market segmentation and differentiation. Henry Ford was once a popular symbol of the transformation from an agricultural to an industrial, mass production, mass consumption economy. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), for example, styles the modern era AF?after Ford. Although partly myth, there is some merit to this attribution. Ford was the creative force behind the growth to preeminence of the automobile industry, still the world's largest manufacturing activity. As Womack, Jones, and Roos (1990: 11) explain: "Twice in this century [the auto industry] has changed our most fundamental ideas about how we make things. And how we make things dictates not only how we work but what we buy, how we think, and the way we live." The first of these transformations was from craft production to mass production. This helped to create the market as we know it, based on economies of scale and scope, and gave rise to giant organizations built upon functional specialization and minute divisions of labor. Economies of scale were produced by spreading fixed expenses, especially investments in plant and equipment and the organization of production lines, over larger volumes of output, thereby reducing unit costs. Economies of scope were produced by exploiting the division of labor?sequentially combining specialized functional units, especially overheads such as reporting, accounting, personnel, purchasing, or quality assurance, in multifarious ways so that it was less costly to produce several products than a single specialized one. It also engendered a variety of public policies, institutions, and governance mechanisms intended to mitigate the failures of the market, and to reform modern industrial arrangements and practices (Polanyi, 1944). Ford workers at the assembly line. The moving assembly line was instituted by Ford. Through standardization of work and components, he enhanced mass production.Ford's main contributions to mass production/consumption were in the realm of process engineering. The hallmark of his system was standardization?standardized components, standardized manufacturing processes, and a simple, easy to manufacture (and repair) standard product. Standardization required nearly perfect interchangeability of parts. To achieve interchangeability, Ford exploited advances in machine tools and gauging systems. These innovations made possible the moving, or continuous, assembly line, in which each assembler performed a single, repetitive task. Ford was also one of the first to realize the potential of the electric motor to reconfigure work flow. Machines that were previously arrayed about a central power source could now be placed on the assembly line, thereby dramatically increasing throughput (David, 1990). Ford did not invent the assembly line itself, Ransom E. Olds invented the basic concept and started the Detroit area automobile industry. The moving assembly line was first implemented at Ford's Model-T Plant at Highland Park, Michigan, in 1914, increasing labor productivity tenfold and permitting stunning price cuts?from $780 in 1910 to $360 in 1914[10][11] Hence, the term Fordize: "to standardize a product and manufacture it by mass means at a price so low that the common man can afford to buy it." From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 19 10:21:04 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:21:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910190921q6c6a2550x4c481107ce576939@mail.gmail.com> (continued) Fordism in Western Europe According to historian Charles Maier, Fordism proper was preceded in Europe by Taylorism, a technique of labor discipline and workplace organization, based upon supposedly scientific studies of human efficiency and incentive systems. It attracted European intellectuals ? especially in Germany and Italy ? at the fin de si?cle and up until World War I.[12] After 1918, however, the goal of Taylorist labor efficiency thought in Europe moved to "Fordism", that is, reorganization of the entire productive process by means of the moving assembly line, standardization, and the mass market. The Great Depression blurred the utopian vision of American technocracy, but World War II and its aftermath have revived the ideal. The principles of Taylorism were quickly picked up by Lenin and applied to nascent Soviet industry. Later under the inspiration of Antonio Gramsci, Marxists picked up the Fordism concept in the 1930s and in the 1970s developed "Post-Fordism." Antonio and Bonanno (2000) trace the development of Fordism and subsequent economic stages, from globalization through neoliberal globalization, during the 20th century, emphasizing America's role in globalization. "Fordism" for Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci meant routinized and intensified labor to promote production. They argue that Fordism peaked in the post-World War II decades of American dominance and mass consumerism but collapsed due to political and cultural crises in the 1970s. Advances in technology and the end of the Cold War ushered in a new "neoliberal" phase of globalization in the 1990s. They argue that negative elements of Fordism, such as economic inequality, remained, however, and related cultural and environmental troubles surfaced that inhibited America's pursuit of democracy. [edit] Fordism and the Soviet Union Historian Thomas Hughes (Hughes 2004) has detailed the way in which the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s enthusiastically embraced Fordism and Taylorism, importing American experts in both fields as well as American engineering firms to build parts of its new industrial infrastructure. The concepts of the Five Year Plan and the centrally planned economy can be traced directly to the influence of Taylorism on Soviet thinking. Hughes quotes Stalin: American efficiency is that indomitable force which neither knows nor recognises obstacles; which continues on a task once started until it is finished, even if it is a minor task; and without which serious constructive work is impossible . . . The combination of the Russian revolutionary sweep with American efficiency is the essence of Leninism. (Hughes 2004, 251) Hughes describes how, as the Soviet Union developed and grew in power, both sides, the Soviets and the Americans, chose to ignore or deny the contribution of American ideas and expertise. The Soviets did this because they wished to portray themselves as creators of their own destiny and not indebted to their rivals. Americans did so because they did not wish to acknowledge their part in creating a powerful rival in the Soviet Union. [edit] Other Marxist variations Mass consumption is the other side of Fordism.Fordism is also a term used in Western Marxist thought for a "regime of accumulation" or macroeconomic pattern of growth developed in the US and diffused in various forms to Western Europe after 1945. It consisted of domestic mass production with a range of institutions and policies supporting mass consumption, including stabilizing economic policies and Keynesian demand management that generated national demand and social stability; it also included a class compromise or social contract entailing family-supporting wages, job stability and internal labor markets leading broadly shared prosperity?rising incomes were linked to national productivity from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. At the level of the labor process Fordism is Taylorist and as a national mode of regulation Fordism is Keynesianism. The social-scientific concept of "Fordism" was introduced by the French regulation school, sometimes known as regulation theory, which is a Marxist-influenced strand of political economy. According to the regulation school, capitalist production paradigms are born from the crisis of the previous paradigm; a newborn paradigm is also bound to fall into crisis sooner or later. The crisis of Fordism became apparent to Marxists in late 1960s. Marxist regulation theory talks of Regimes of Capital Accumulation (ROA) and Modes of Regulation (MOR). ROAs are periods of relatively settled economic growth and profit across a nation or global region. Such regimes eventually become exhausted, falling into crisis, and are torn down as capitalism seeks to remake itself and return to a period of profit. These periods of capital accumulation are "underpinned", or stabilised, by MOR. A plethora of laws, institutions, social mores, customs and hegemonies both national and international work together to create the environment for long-run capitalist profit. Fordism is a tag used to characterise the post-1945 long boom experienced by western nations. It is typified by a cycle of mass production and mass consumption, the production of standardized (most often) consumer items to be sold in (typically) protected domestic markets, and the use of Keynesian economic policies. Whilst the standard pattern is post-war America, national variations of this standard norm are well known. Regulation theory talks of National Modes of Growth to denote different varieties of Fordism across western economies. Fordism as an ROA broke down, dependent on national experiences, somewhere between the late 1960s and the mid-1970s. Western economies experienced slow or nil economic growth, rising inflation and growing unemployment. The period after Fordism has been termed Post-Fordist and Neo-Fordist. The former implies that global capitalism has made a clean break from Fordism (including overcoming its inconsistencies) whilst the latter that elements of the fordist ROA continued to exist. The Regulation School preferred the term After-Fordism (or the French Apr?s-Fordisme) to denote that what comes after Fordism was, or is, not yet clear. From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 19 10:22:15 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:22:15 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910190922o193e5cafje09c329fe826744e@mail.gmail.com> Fordism (continued) Other meanings The concept may also refer to some of Ford's social views: It may also be applied to the fictional religion-like ideology described in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World. 'Our Ford', a parody on Our Lord, provides a centre-point in the religious celebration in Brave New World's society, and the name is used both as an incantation and source of authority throughout the book. It often describes the paternalistic "taking care of the worker" - a "family-like" mentality seen first in the auto-industry (Ford). The paternalism could be kindly (providing benefits) or restrictive (for example, Ford discouraged smoking even off premises).[citation needed] In a broader sense, Fordism refers to the classical 20th century consumer society: high productivity allows for high wages, mass production allows for mass consumption. [edit] Post-Fordism Main article: Post-fordism Information technology, white-collar work and specialization are some of the attributes of Post-fordism.The period after Fordism has been termed Post-Fordist . Fordism as a Return on assets (ROA) broke down, dependent on national experiences, somewhere between the late 1960s and the mid-1970s. Western economies experienced slow or nil economic growth, rising inflation and growing unemployment. The economies of western countries had shifted away from manufacturing and industry and towards service and the knowledge economy. Meanwhile, industry has moved from the west to second- and third-world countries, where production is cheaper. Most employees in the Fordist structure were able to purchase the product they produced.[citation needed] Indeed post-Fordism has arisen in part due to the increasing interconnectedness of the world.[citation needed] The movement of capital has become more fluid, and nation-states have withdrawn significantly from the economic sphere. Post-Fordism has arisen in part due to globalization. In Ford's time, laborers were relatively unskilled, but they could form unions, and these labor unions became very strong because capital was not so fluid. Post-Fordism can be characterized by the several attributes: ? New information technologies. ? Emphasis on types of consumers in contrast to previous emphasis on social class. ? The rise of the service and the white-collar worker. ?' The feminization of the work force. ? The globalization of financial markets. Instead of producing generic goods, firms now found it more profitable to produce diverse product lines targeted at different groups of consumers, appealing to their sense of taste and fashion. Instead of investing huge amounts of money on the mass production of a single product, firms now needed to build intelligent systems of labor and machines that were flexible and could quickly respond to the whims of the market. Modern just in time manufacturing is one example of a flexible approach to production. Post-Fordism is very much driven by information technology. Advancement in computer technologies allows for just-in-time manufacturing. There is no longer a need to stock-up on a given product. Products are made and then they are out the door. The key to production flexibility lies in the use of informational technologies in machines and operations. These permit more sophisticated control over the production process. With increasing sophistication of automated processes and, especially, the new flexibility of electronically controlled technology, far-reaching changes in the process of production need not necessarily be associated with increased scale of production. Indeed, one of the major results of the new electronic and computer-aided production technology is that it permits rapid switching from one part of a process to another and allows - at least potentially - the tailoring of production to the requirements of individual customers. Traditional automation is geared to high-volume standardized production; the newer ?flexible manufacturing systems? are quite different, allowing the production of small volumes without a cost penalty. This creates less space needed, which creates less rent. Modular processes can be taken advantage of to create custom & limited products for niche markets. Focus is now on the principal task of manufacturing. Companies are smaller and subcontract many tasks. Likewise, the production structure began to change on the sector level. Instead of a single firm manning the assembly line from raw materials to finished product, the production process became fragmented as individual firms specialized on their areas of expertise. As evidence for this theory of specialization, proponents claim that clusters of integrated firms, have developed in places like Silicon Valley, Jutland, Sm?land, and several parts of Italy. [edit] See also Division of labour [edit] References ^ "Fordism & Postfordism". www.willamette.edu. http://www.willamette.edu/~fthompso/MgmtCon/Fordism_&_Postfordism.html. Retrieved 2008-12-26. ^ Foner, Eric (2006). Give Me Liberty!: An American History. New York:W.W Norton & Company, p.591-592. ^ Foner, Eric (2006). Give Me Liberty!: An American History. New York:W.W Norton & Company, p.591-592. ^ Foner, Eric (2006). Give Me Liberty!: An American History. New York:W.W Norton & Company, p.591-592. ^ Foner, Eric (2006). Give Me Liberty!: An American History. New York:W.W Norton & Company, p.591-592. ^ Foner, Eric (2006). Give Me Liberty!: An American History. New York:W.W Norton & Company, p.591-592. ^ Sward, Keith (1948). The Legend of Henry Ford. New York: Rinehart & Company, p. 53. ^ Rae, John B. (1969). Henry Ford. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, p. 45. ^ Rae, John B. (1969). Henry Ford. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, p. 36. ^ Hounshell 1984. ^ Abernathy 1978. ^ Maier, Charles S. (1970). "Between Taylorism and Technocracy: European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial Productivity in the 1920's". Journal of Contemporary History (Sage Publications) 5 (2): 27-61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/259743. Retrieved 2009-02-08. [edit] Bibliography This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (April 2009) Antonio, Robert J. and Bonanno, Alessandro. "A New Global Capitalism? From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Oct 14 08:33:50 2009 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:33:50 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: Taylor, Veblen, and Ford. U. of Chicago Press, 1993. 431 pp. Doray, Bernard (1988). From Taylorism to Fordism: A Rational Madness. Holden, Len. "Fording the Atlantic: Ford and Fordism in Europe" in Business History Volume 47, #1 January 2005 pp 122=96127. Hounshell, David A. (1984), From the American system to mass production, 1800-1932: The development of manufacturing technology in the United States, Baltimore, Maryland, USA: Johns Hopkins University Press, LCCN 83-016269, ISBN 978-0-8018-2975-8 . Hughes, Thomas P. (2004). American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm 1870-1970. 2nd ed. The University of Chicago Press. Jenson, Jane. "'Different' but Not 'Exceptional': Canada's Permeable Fordism," Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 26, 1989 Koch, Max. (2006). Roads to Post-Fordism: Labour Markets and Social Structures in Europe Ling, Peter J. America and the Automobile: Technology, Reform, and Social Change chapter on =93Fordism and the Architecture of Production=94 Maier, Charles S. "Between Taylorism and Technocracy: European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial Productivity." Journal of Contemporary History (1970) 5(2): 27-61. Issn: 0022-0094 Fulltext online at Jstor Mary Nolan; Visions of Modernity: American Business and the Modernization of Germany Oxford University Press, 1994 online Spode, Hasso: "Fordism, Mass Tourism and the Third Reich." Journal of Social History 38(2004): 127-155. Pietrykowski, Bruce. "Fordism at Ford: Spatial Decentralization and Labor Segmentation at the Ford Motor Company, 1920-1950," Economic Geography, Vol. 71, (1995) 383-401online Roediger, David, ed. "Americanism and Fordism - American Style: Kate Richards O'hare's 'Has Henry Ford Made Good?'" Labor History 1988 29(2): 241-252. Socialist praise for Ford in 1916 . Shiomi, Haruhito and Wada, Kazuo. (1995). Fordism Transformed: The Development of Production Methods in the Automobile Industry Oxford University Press. Tolliday, Steven and Zeitlin, Jonathan eds. (1987) The Automobile Industry and Its Workers: Between Fordism and Flexibility Comparative analysis of developments in Europe, Asia, and the United States from the late 19th century to the mid-1980s. Watts, Steven. (2005). The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century. Williams, Karel, Colin Haslam and John Williams, "Ford versus `Fordism': The Beginning of Mass Production?" Work, Employment & Society, Vol. 6, No. 4, 517-555 (1992). Stress on Ford's flexibility and commitment to continuous improvements. Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordism" Categories: Production and manufacturing | Economics of production | Manufacturing | Industry | Social theories | Economic history | History of science and technology in the United States | Economic history of the United States Hidden categories: Articles needing cleanup from June 2009 | All pages needing cleanup | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from August 2009 | Articles with unsourced statements from March 2008 | Articles with unsourced statements from April 2008 | Articles with unsourced statements from August 2007 | Articles lacking in-text citations from April 2009 From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 19 10:25:39 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:25:39 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910190925h17e6ee81r87b80133e139d41f@mail.gmail.com> Ford River Rouge Complex Ford River Rouge Complex U.S. National Register of Historic Places U.S. National Historic Landmark District Aerial view of the Rouge Complex in 1942 Location: Dearborn, Michigan Built/Founded: 1917 - 1928 Architect: Albert Kahn Governing body: Private Added to NRHP: June 2, 1978[1] Designated NHLD: June 2, 1978[2] NRHP Reference#: 78001516 The Ford River Rouge Complex (commonly known as the Rouge Complex or just The Rouge) is a Ford Motor Company automobile factory complex located in Dearborn, Michigan, along the Rouge River, upstream from its confluence with the Detroit River at Zug Island. Construction began in 1917, and when it was completed in 1928 it had become the largest integrated factory in the world. Contents [hide] 1 Structure 2 Production 3 Ford Rouge Center 4 Architecture 5 References 6 External links [edit] Structure The Rouge measures 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide by 1 mile (1.6 km) long, including 93 buildings with nearly 16 million square feet (1.5 km?) of factory floor space. With its own docks in the dredged Rouge River, 100 miles (160 km) of interior railroad track, its own electricity plant, and ore processing, the titanic Rouge was able to turn raw materials into running vehicles within this single complex, a prime example of vertical-integration production. Over 100,000 workers were employed there in the 1930s. Some of the Rouge buildings were designed by Albert Kahn. His Rouge glass plant was regarded at the time as an exemplary and humane factory building, with its ample natural light coming through windows in the ceiling. More recently, several buildings have been converted to "green" structures with a number of environmentally friendly features. However, many vehicular skeletons remain buried on the grounds of the Rouge. In the summer of 1932, through Edsel Ford's support, Diego Rivera studied the facilities at the Rouge; these studies became a major part of his mural Detroit Industry, still on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts. [edit] Production Interior of the Rouge Tool & Die works, 1944The Rouge's first products were Eagle Boats, World War I anti-submarine warfare boats produced in Building B. The original Building B, a three-story structure, is part of the legendary Dearborn Assembly Plant, which started producing Model A's in the late 1920s and continued production through 2004. After the war, production turned to Fordson tractors. Although the Rouge's coke ovens and foundry produced nearly all the parts of the Model T, assembly of that vehicle remained at Highland Park. It was not until 1927 that automobile production began there, with the introduction of the Ford Model A. Later Rouge products included the 1932 Ford V8, the original Mercury, the Ford Thunderbird, and four decades of Ford Mustangs. The old assembly plant was idled with the construction and launch of a new assembly facility on the Miller Road side of the complex, currently producing Ford F-150 and Lincoln Mark LT pickup trucks. On May 26, 1937, a group of workers attempting to organize a union at the Rouge were beaten severely, an event later called the Battle of the Overpass. Peter E. Martin's respect for labor led to Walter Reuther, a UAW leader, allowing Martin to be the only Ford manager to retrieve his papers or gain access to the plant.[3] After the 1960s, Ford began to decentralize manufacturing, building many factories across the country. The Rouge, too, was downsized, with many units (including the famous furnaces and docks) sold off to independent companies. By 1992, only Mustang production remained at the Dearborn Assembly Plant (DAP). In 1987 Ford planned to replace that car with the front wheel drive Ford Probe, but public outcry quickly turned to surging sales. With the fourth-generation Mustang a success, the Rouge was saved as well. Ford decided to modernize its operations and built a new power plant to replace the original one, in which a gas explosion on February 1, 1999, killed six employees and injured two dozen more. As it ended production, Dearborn Assembly Plant (DAP) was one of six plants within the Ford Rouge Center. The plant was open from 1918 to May 10, 2004 with a red convertible 2004 Ford Mustang GT being the last vehicle built at the historic site. Demolition of the historic DAP facility was completed in 2008. (continued) From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 19 10:26:58 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:26:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] post-Fordism and geographical scattering of the points of production Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910190926u16923e76se2830e1fb411ee4@mail.gmail.com> (continuation) Ford Rouge Center Today, the Rouge site is home to Ford's Rouge Center. This industrial park includes six Ford factories on 600 acres (2.4 km?) of land, as well as steelmaking operations run by Severstal North America, a Russian steelmaker. The new Dearborn Truck factory famously features a vegetation-covered roof and rainwater reclamation system designed by sustainability architect William McDonough. This facility is still Ford's largest factory and employs some 6,000 workers. Mustang production, however, has moved to the AutoAlliance International plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. Tours of the factory were a long tradition. Tours of the facility began in 1924 and ran until 1980. They resumed in 2004 in cooperation with The Henry Ford Museum with multimedia presentations as well as viewing of the assembly floor. The management of Dearborn Truck has decreed that no vehicles from other manufacturers may park in the main employee lot. A sign proclaims "Ford family vehicles only." Hourly workers from both Ford and Severstal facilities at the complex are represented by UAW Local 600. The Ford's SS William Clay Ford was based out of the River Rouge Plant. [edit] Architecture In 1999 Architect William McDonough entered into an agreement with Ford Motor Company to redesign its 85-year-old, 1,212-acre (4.90 km2) Rouge River facility.[4] The roof of the 1.1 million square foot (100,000 m?) Dearborn truck assembly plant was covered with more than 10 acres (40,000 m?) of sedum, a low-growing ground cover. The sedum retains and cleanses rain water, as well as moderating the internal temperature of the building, to save energy. The roof is part of an $18 million rainwater treatment system designed to clean 20 billion gallons (76,000,000 m?) of rainwater annually, and sparing Ford from a $50 million mechanical treatment facility.[5] [edit] References ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23. http://www.nr.nps.gov/. ^ "Ford River Rouge Complex". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1760&ResourceType=District. Retrieved 2008-06-27. ^ Bryan, Ford: "Henry's Lieutenants", page 214, Wayne State University Press, 1993 ^ http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0801/mcd/ ^ http://archrecord.construction.com/features/bwarAwards/archives/04b_fordRouge.asp [edit] External links Photos from the Rouge Steel mill Coordinates: 42?18?34?N 83?09?44?W? / ?42.30941?N 83.16212?W? / 42.30941; -83.16212 [show]v ? d ? eMetro Detroit Topics Architecture ? Celebrities ? Culture ? Economy ? Freeways ? History ? Historic places ? International Riverfront ? Lake St. Clair ? Media ? Music ? Parks and beaches ? Skyscrapers ? Sports ? Theatre ? Tourism ? Transportation Central city Detroit Suburbs over 80,000 Canton Township ? Clinton Township ? Dearborn ? Livonia ? Sterling Heights ? Troy ? Warren ? Westland Suburbs 50,000 to 80,000 Dearborn Heights ? Farmington Hills ? Grosse Pointe ? Macomb Township ? Novi ? Pontiac ? Redford Township ? Rochester Hills ? Royal Oak ? Saint Clair Shores ? Shelby Township ? Southfield ? Taylor ? Waterford Township ? West Bloomfield Township Satellite cities Ann Arbor ? Brighton ? Flint ? Howell ? Lapeer ? Monroe ? Port Huron ? Windsor, Ontario Region Southeast Michigan Outlying regions Flint/Tri-Cities ? The Thumb ? Northwest Ohio Counties in MSA Lapeer ? Livingston ? Macomb ? Oakland ? St. Clair ? Wayne Counties in CSA Genesee ? Monroe ? Washtenaw See also: Michigan [show]v ? d ? eIndustrial landmarks in metropolitan Detroit City Antietam Avenue Bridge ? Cass Motor Sales ? Chestnut Street Bridge ? Crescent Brass and Pin Company Building ? Detroit Edison Company Willis Avenue Station ? Dry Dock Engine Works-Detroit Dry Dock Company Complex ? Edwin S. George Building ? Globe Tobacco Building ? Graybar Electric Company Building ? Milwaukee Junction ? New Amsterdam Historic District ? Parke-Davis and Company Pharmaceutical Company Plant ? Parke-Davis Research Laboratory ? Piquette Avenue Industrial Historic District ? Piquette Plant ? Frederic M. Sibley Lumber Company Office Building ? Frederick Stearns Building ? Stuber-Stone Building ? West Jefferson Avenue-Rouge River Bridge Suburbs Ford River Rouge Complex ? The Henry Ford ? Willow Run See also List of Registered Historic Places in Michigan [show]v ? d ? eHistory of Michigan Timeline Glaciation ? Paleo-Indian ? Archaic ? Woodland ? Algonquian ? French ? British ? Territory ? State Native Ojibwa ? Potawatomi ? Menominee ? Fox ? Sac ? Ottawa ? Mascouten ? Kickapoo ? Miami Colonial Fur Trade ? Coureurs des Bois ? Iroquois Wars ? New France ? Detroit ? Fox Wars ? Fort Michilimackinac ? Seven Years' War ? Peace of Paris ? Pontiac's Rebellion ? Royal Proclamation ? Indian Reserve ? Quebec Act ? Revolutionary War ? Treaty of Paris United States Northwest Territory ? Jay Treaty ? Treaty of Saginaw ? Treaty of Chicago ? Chicago Road ? Toledo War ? Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal ? Battle of Windsor ? Treaty of Fond du Lac ? Treaty of La Pointe ? Civil War ? Auto Makers ? River Rouge Plant ? Willow Run ? Ambassador Bridge ? Detroit?Windsor Tunnel ? Flint Sit-Down Strike ? Mackinac Bridge ? 1967 Detroit riot ? Gerald Ford [show]v ? d ? eU.S. National Register of Historic Places Keeper of the Register ? History of the National Register of Historic Places ? Property types ? Historic district ? Contributing property List of entries National Park Service ? National Historic Landmarks ? National Battlefields ? National Historic Sites ? National Historical Parks ? National Memorials ? National Monuments Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_River_Rouge_Complex" Categories: Historic districts in the United States | Ford factories | National Historic Landmarks in Michigan | Motor vehicle assembly plants in Michigan | 1917 architecture | Buildings and structures in Dearborn, Michigan ViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History Personal toolsTry Beta Log in / create account Navigation From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 19 12:49:14 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Will Obama Save America From Capitalism? Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910191149p5b494b1bhb5b7dc4eeb0b434f@mail.gmail.com> Color of Law Will Obama Save America From Capitalism? By David A. Love, JD - BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Black Commentator October 1, 2009 http://www.blackcommentator.com/346/346_col_obama_save_america_from_capitalism.html Michael Moore's new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, looks and sounds a lot like a huge conspiracy theory. Too bad all of it is true. Missing this time around were the legions of corporate shills employed to discredit this film, the way they tried to do with Moore's previous film about the healthcare industry, Sicko. Maybe they just gave up. There comes a time when no amount of spin will cover up the truth. You can sprinkle sugar on a turd and call it candy, but in that moment of reckoning, the truth becomes self-evident. American-style capitalism is the system that gives you airline pilots buying groceries with food stamps; sheriffs and robber barons throwing families out of their homes and into the street; corporations taking out insurance policies on their own employees; corporations slashing jobs to earn record profits; college loans the size of mortgages, and people dying because they have a pre-existing condition, or can't afford to get sick. For a number of years, the boosters, the sales representatives, the pimps and prostitutes of this deeply flawed system did a great job of convincing the rest of us that no one else in the world had it better. This is the land of opportunity, they told us. The reality is that for all of its rhetoric, America is more unequal in terms of wealth and income than other industrial democracies. Far more economic mobility is to be found in those "socialist" European nations that conservatives are so loathe to emulate. America is a nation of sharecroppers. Not in the pull- yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps sort of way, either. The few at the top now have more than ever because they stole it from the many, typically by highway robbery. And every day, they continue to dupe the many into giving more. Many at the bottom actually believe that they will emerge at the top someday, so they don't make a fuss. Capitalism, American-style, is that great big Ponzi scheme. And apparently, we was had. This is what they do, unfettered, unaccountable, and unconcerned. Elizabeth Warren, chair of the Congressional Oversight Committee that is investigating the $700 billion bank bailout giveaway, a.k.a., Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), told the Washington Post that "the middle class is under terrific assault." Middle class families are actually earning about $800 less than a generation ago. This reality precipitated the need to have two wage earners in each family, and to borrow more and save less just to stay above water. But people are drowning by the millions. Meanwhile, the economic puppeteers seem to gloat over the fact that they are stealing an ever-increasing part of the economic pie at the expense of the multitude. On March 5, 2006, Citibank - a TARP welfare recipient of late - issued a memo to investors titled, Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer. Plutnomy is defined as, "An economy that is driven by or that disproportionately benefits wealthy people, or one where the creation of wealth is the principal goal." The Citibank memo proclaimed that The latest Survey of Consumer Finances, for 2004, has been released by the Federal Reserve. It shows the rich continue to account for a disproportionately large share of income and wealth in the US economy: the richest 10% of Americans account for 43% of income, and 57% of net worth. The net worth to income ratio for the richest 10% of Americans increased from 7.4x in 2001, to 8.4x in the 2004 survey. The rich are in great shape, financially. Perhaps the most invidious part of the report warns that electoral democracy threatens to disrupt the wonderful party the rich are having: Our whole plutonomy thesis is based on the idea that the rich will keep getting richer. This thesis is not without its risks. For example, a policy error leading to asset deflation, would likely damage plutonomy. Furthermore, the rising wealth gap between the rich and poor will probably at some point lead to a political backlash. Whilst the rich are getting a greater share of the wealth, and the poor a lesser share, political enfrachisement remains as was - one person, one vote (in the plutonomies). At some point it is likely that labor will fight back against the rising profit share of the rich and there will be a political backlash against the rising wealth of the rich. This could be felt through higher taxation (on the rich or indirectly though higher corporate taxes/regulation) or through trying to protect indigenous laborers, in a push-back on globalization - either anti- immigration, or protectionism. We don't see this happening yet, though there are signs of rising political tensions. However we are keeping a close eye on developments. Capitalism is as capitalism does. Maximization of profit above all else - to the exclusion of ethics, morality and the public good - is the mark of a vulture society. And this arrogant, coldhearted endeavor has been a bipartisan effort. Beginning with Reagan, Republican administrations have championed drastic cuts to the social safety net and massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Meanwhile, the Clinton years ushered in deregulation of the financial markets, and an end to welfare as we know it. Corporations have far more power than a free society can tolerate. And both major political parties are the water carriers of this plutonomy. They are the field hands for the financial interests that currently run the show and drive public policy - and are driving this nation into the ground. The U.S. economy is worse than at any time since the Great Depression. In fact, as Simon Johnson of MIT recently told Bill Moyers, we are currently experiencing elements of a depression. But in this jobless recovery, where there is one job for every six job seekers, Wall Street is doing well because its fate is not dependent upon the employment of everyday working people. Rather, its fate is dependent upon government handouts, paper shuffling, and the exotic hustling instruments to which they have grown accustomed. But we have been here before. Eighty years ago, on October 24-29, 1929, the stock market collapsed. It was a testament to an economic system run amok, unregulated and unrestrained, for the benefit of concentrated, monopolistic power. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in the New Deal - a series of economic programs and initiatives based on relief to the unemployed and farmers, reform of business, banking and finance, and economic recovery. The New Deal meant public works and infrastructure programs, economic planning by the government, social security, and labor standards that favored union growth. There was a sense that workers, consumers and farmers should have influence with the government, not just corporations. Today - with the erosion of the New Deal legacy creating the huge mess that is early twenty-first-century America - President Obama has a golden opportunity to make things right. But will his administration step up to the plate and bring in the necessary reforms? Just as F.D.R. saved capitalism from itself, will Obama save America from capitalism? Or is the game already too fixed? These times scream out for a "new" New Deal. Jobs are sorely needed by millions, but will not appear out of thin air. The foreclosed and unemployed middle class are joining the ranks of the poor and the homeless. The national infrastructure is crumbling. And the cartels and monopolies of old have returned. A paltry and ineffectual stimulus package, accompanied by some tweaking at the edges of a carnivorous, predatory system, will not make a difference. If the Obama administration wants to be a truly transformational force in American history, rather than a slightly-better-than-average, one-term presidency with good intentions, it will give America the new New Deal. The Obama administration will find the intestinal fortitude to take on the banking system, and divest itself of Wall Street enablers and Goldman Sachs cronies. It will cast out such underwhelming individuals as Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, and seek the advice of Nobel laureates such as Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia, and Paul Krugman of Princeton. It will go beyond its laudable plans for a consumer protection agency, and either reform the current economic system, or replace it entirely with one that reduces the status of corporations, and brings economic fairness and justice to the people. In other words, President Obama will do what the people voted for in November. ______________________ BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member David A. Love, JD is a journalist and human rights advocate based in Philadelphia, and a contributor to The Huffington Post, The Progressive Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service, In These Times and Philadelphia Independent Media Center. He also blogs at davidalove.com, NewsOne, Daily Kos, and Open Salon. From dhenwood at panix.com Mon Oct 19 12:54:56 2009 From: dhenwood at panix.com (Doug Henwood) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:54:56 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Will Obama Save America From Capitalism? In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230910191149p5b494b1bhb5b7dc4eeb0b434f@mail.gmail.com> References: <5c2e4d230910191149p5b494b1bhb5b7dc4eeb0b434f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Oct 19, 2009, at 2:49 PM, c b wrote: > Will Obama Save America From Capitalism? No. Doug From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 19 13:04:25 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:04:25 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Pass Rush: Why the NFL Sacked Limbaugh Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910191204o69170356r1b9e7e2baaef7919@mail.gmail.com> Pass Rush: Why the NFL Sacked Limbaugh By Eugene Robinson Friday, October 16, 2009 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/15/AR2009101502770.html Rush Limbaugh, are you ready for some football? Um, I guess not. The right-wing radio host's attempt to become part-owner of the St. Louis Rams ended Wednesday when his fellow investors cut him from the squad. Rush got the bum's rush shortly after Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League, hinted strongly that His Loudness was most unwelcome. Controversy had focused on Limbaugh's history of incendiary and offensive remarks about race. Striking his patented tone of arrogant, bombastic victimhood, Limbaugh sought to portray his ownership bid as an urgent matter of great historic importance to the nation. "This is not about the NFL, it's not about the St. Louis Rams, it's not about me," he bellowed on his show, hours before being sacked. "This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative. Therefore, this is about the future of the United States of America and what kind of country we're going to have." No, it's not. It's about making a splash and getting attention. And it's about the free market and individual rights -- which I thought conservatives were supposed to worship. Limbaugh had every right to join the group of would-be buyers headed by sports mogul Dave Checketts, who already owns the St. Louis Blues hockey team. And, let's be honest, Limbaugh would hardly have been the only archconservative to own a piece of a pro football team. Given the demographic profile of the average NFL franchise owner -- white, male, middle-aged to elderly, richer than Croesus, egocentric -- I doubt that many of Limbaugh's political and social views would be out of place. I mean, it's not as if he were trying to join the board of the ACLU. Goodell, however, had not just the right but the duty to consider the impact that such close association with Limbaugh would have on the league. The NFL hates controversy, because controversy -- of the non-sporting kind -- is bad for business. It's one thing for fans to debate a questionable pass interference call; it's quite another for sports-talk hosts and their callers to argue about whether the league endorses tendentious and stereotypical views about African Americans. Whatever NFL owners may think about politics or race, they don't broadcast their opinions nationwide every day the way Limbaugh does. Attention has focused mostly on Limbaugh's contention in 2003 that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated and that he was being hyped because "the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well." This was stupid and wrong on every level -- black quarterbacks had already excelled, with Doug Williams having led the Washington Redskins to a Super Bowl victory 15 years earlier; and McNabb was good enough to take the Eagles to the Super Bowl two years later. The statement offended so many people that it got Limbaugh fired from his short-lived job as an ESPN football analyst. But Limbaugh has made other ugly observations. He gave this overview of the preponderance of black players in the league: "The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it." He has referred to basketball as "the favorite sport of gangs." He has called President Obama "the greatest living example of a reverse racist" and "an angry black guy" and -- because of his biracial heritage -- a "Halfrican-American." An equal-opportunity offender, Limbaugh also has called Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor a "reverse racist," compared Latino illegal immigrants to an "invasive species," and referred to Native Americans as "Injuns." Hey, I understand, it's all about the ratings. For Limbaugh, more outrageousness equals a bigger audience, and a bigger audience equals more money. But football operates by a different formula. The sport's executives and owners understand how diverse the nation has become. They realize that soon there will be no racial or ethnic majority, just a collection of minorities. They know that they're in the business of entertaining, not offending. In announcing that Limbaugh was no longer associated with his bid for the Rams, Checketts said it was "clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction." That's the way the free market works in this great country of ours. I know that Rush will join me in a chorus of "God Bless America." From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 19 13:10:15 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:10:15 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Will Obama Save America From Capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <5c2e4d230910191149p5b494b1bhb5b7dc4eeb0b434f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910191210k7b8e7470i5f28aec9790136de@mail.gmail.com> > > > Will Obama Save America From Capitalism? > > No. > > Doug Oh Charles From cb31450 at gmail.com Tue Oct 20 05:53:36 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:53:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Is O President ? Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910200453u20d0a396u6ae9e335dd503645@mail.gmail.com> From cb31450 at gmail.com Tue Oct 20 07:08:06 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:08:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Fordism Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910200608s7f702ff2mc680a13030e161ff@mail.gmail.com> http://legacy.lclark.edu/~soan221/fordism2.html REPRESENTATIONS OF WORK IN TV ADS Fordism A mid-1990s ad for Ford Motor Company opens with a still photograph of Henry Ford, nominated, on the screen, his own scratchy voice-over apparently doing the narrating. It sounds as if it is part of a speech, though when and where it might have been given remain a mystery to the casual viewer. "I will build a motorcar for the great multitudes, constructed of the best materials by the best men and women to be hired. Any person making a good salary will be able to own one. And enjoy, with his family, the blessings of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces." The ad concludes with Ford's image, with the following on the screen: "We live by these WORDS today. They are THE Vision behind everything we do throughout the world." Fordism is a term coined by Antonio Gramsci and used by critical analysts to designate a specifically 20th century corporate regime of mechanized production coupled with the mass consumption of standardized products. On the production side, this approach to mechanized production brought with it the deskilling of work (see Harry Braverman) along with the bureaucratic massification of work conditions and experiences. In turn, expanding production demanded expanded consumption, which required higher incomes. Hence, the symbolic significance of Ford's famous offer of $5 a day to workers who would put up with the alienated, regimented work conditions at Ford Motors. While Ford's narrative in this commercial paints an overly rosy picture of work in his plants, his statement does make clear Fordism's reliance on a "good salary" to permit the mass ownership of cars. Notice how Ford had already shifted the rhetoric of leisure time, compared to his capitalist predecessors a mere 20 years earlier, from laziness to pleasure. Satisfying employment, a good salary and ownership of a car bring, says the voice of Ford, "the blessings of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces." But Fordism also meant corporate bureaucratization as the largest firms sought to rationalize all conditions of managing production and consumption. Eventually, after seven decades of Fordism, the costs of Fordism had begun to haunt it. Workers eventually found the homogenization of work in the pursuit of standardization a disheartening and unfair way of life. Somewhat ironically, it was the very homogenization of labor itself that eventually seeded the success of labor organizers. In the 1930s, the UAW succeeded in its efforts to gain recognition as the bargaining agent for autoworkers. Over the following decades, union labor increased labor costs, and in conjunction with the breakdown of an aging industrial infrastructure and competition from the Japanese auto industry, a new era has emerged known variously as flexible accumulation, Postfordism, globalization, deindustrialization, etc. Postfordism refers to an economy based on flexible accumulation. Stuart Hall (1991, 58) characterizes Postfordism as follows: "a shift to the new 'information technologies;' more flexible, decentralized forms of labor process and work organization; decline of the old manufacturing base and the growth of the 'sunrise,' computer-based industries; the hiving off or contracting out of functions and services; a greater emphasis on choice and product differentiation, on marketing, packaging, and design, on the 'targeting' of consumers by lifestyle, taste and culture rather than by categories of social class; a decline in the proportion of the skilled, male, manual working class, the rise of the service and white-collar classes and the 'feminization' of the work force; an economy dominated by the multinationals, with their new international division of labor and their greater autonomy from nation-state control; and the 'globalization' of the new financial markets, linked by the communications revolution." Here is a generic pictorial representation of the Fordist assembly line signified by an early stage of steel-based industrialization driven by muscle-assisted machine labor. Ford's pictorial representation of the Postfordist assembly line stresses high tech robotic precision and the minimization of human labor. In contrast to the stage of Fordism, this succeeding stage of labor relations is characterized by the key practice of flexibility -- why assemble a massive complex like Henry Ford's River Rouge plant with all phases of the production process controlled or monopolized by Ford, when the work can be outsourced to low wage and non-union areas or temps hired? It is interesting then that Ford today, in trying to appeal to its history, implies an eternal character to the stage of Fordism. Executives at Ford, like those at General Motors, know that is not the case. Just look at how they are approaching the forthcoming negotiations with the UAW where the key issue is the outsourcing of product parts. But, of course, while taking a hardline on outsourcing may be good business, it doesn't make for very good public relations. Representations of Work: home page BACK NEXT From cb31450 at gmail.com Tue Oct 20 07:09:19 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:09:19 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?windows-1252?q?Taylorism_and_Fordism_=28see_An?= =?windows-1252?q?tonio_Gramsci=92s_Notebook_22=29?= Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910200609i34bcc985ye46f486b745a57c4@mail.gmail.com> http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth101/taylorism_and_fordism.htm Taylorism and Fordism (see Antonio Gramsci?s Notebook 22) TAYLORISM Frederick Taylor (1911) Principles of Scientific Management devised a means of detailing a division of labor in time-and-motion studies and a wage system based on performance. Taylor's gospel also known as "Taylorism" would become the standard for businesses worldwide The main elements of the Scientific Management are: time studies (e.g., screw on each bolt in 15.2 seconds), standardization of tools and implements, the use of "slide-rules and similar time-saving devices", instruction cards for workmen (detailing exactly what they should do), task allocation, etc. Taylor called these elements "merely the elements or details of the mechanisms of management" Perhaps the key idea of scientific management and the one which has drawn the most criticism was the concept of task allocation. Task allocation is the concept that breaking task into smaller and smaller tasks allows the determination of the optimum solution to the task. "The man in the planning room, whose specialty is planning ahead, invariably finds that the work can be done more economically by subdivision of the labour; each act of each mechanic, for example, should be preceded by various preparatory acts done by other men." FORDISM Antonio Gramsci called Fordism "an ultra-modern form of production and of working methods such as is offered by the most advanced American variety, the industry of Henry Ford." Henry Ford and the Model T: Ford pioneered the modern model of mass production which bears his name, and which is often said to date from the development of the first moving assembly lines, put into operation at Ford's Model T plant at Highland Park, Michigan in 1914. The assembly line increased labor productivity tenfold and permitting stunning price cuts in Ford cars: from $780 in 1910 to $360 in 1914. Fordism thus involved standardizing a product and manufacturing it by mass means at a price so low that the common man could afford to buy it. Fordism displaced predominantly craft-based production in which skilled laborers exercised substantial control over their conditions of work, Fordist production entailed an intensified industrial division of labor; increased mechanization and coordination of large scale manufacturing processes (e.g., sequential machining operations and converging assembly lines) to achieve a steady flow of production; a shift toward the use of less skilled labor performing, ad infinitum, tasks minutely specified by management; and the potential for heightened capitalist control over the pace and intensity of work. From cb31450 at gmail.com Tue Oct 20 07:13:24 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:13:24 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] fordism Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910200613v41a307ddyd2e68922b1ba6d9f@mail.gmail.com> fordism As defined by Antonio Gramsci, this refers to a form of productive organization thought to be typical of advanced capitalism and exemplified by Henry Ford's system of mass automobile production. This allied labour management according to the principles of scientific management (?Taylorism?) with a wider reorganization of production and marketing, involving a moving assembly line, standardized outputs, and demand stimulation by a combination of low prices, high wages, advertising, and consumer credit. Gramsci suggested that high levels of production could only be sustained by ?tempering compulsion ? with persuasion?. Fordism provided workers with high wages and rising levels of consumption in exchange for an intensified work regime. Many subsequent (mainly neo-Marxist) theorists have used the concept in analysing the industrial and social order of full employment, mass production, the welfare state, and rising standards of consumption, which characterized advanced capitalist societies after the Second World War. However, the term is used variously to refer to assembly-line mass production, certain leading sectors of industry, a hegemonic form of industrial organization, or a ?mode of regulation??the meaning of which probably comes closest to that intended by Gramsci. Following the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s, with associated changes in the social and technical organization of production and the alleged coming of post-industrial society, some suggest that fordism is in terminal crisis, being succeeded by ?post-fordism?, based on so-called flexible production systems. This new terminology also carries varying meanings according to the context of use and author. See also REGULATION THEORY. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. MLAChicagoAPAGORDON MARSHALL. "fordism." A Dictionary of Sociology. 1998. Encyclopedia.com. 20 Oct. 2009 . GORDON MARSHALL. "fordism." A Dictionary of Sociology. 1998. Encyclopedia.com. (October 20, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-fordism.html GORDON MARSHALL. "fordism." A Dictionary of Sociology. 1998. Retrieved October 20, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-fordism.html Learn more about citation styles Related newspaper, magazine, and trade journal articles from HighBeam Research (Including press releases, facts, information, and biographies) Searching more than 100 credible sources f_doctitle The Challenge of Restructuring: North American Labor Movements Respond. Magazine article from: Industrial and Labor Relations Review; 7/1/1994; Adams, Roy J.; 700+ words ...and Rianne Mahon. First, they set North American developments in the context of French Regulation Theory (FRT), which holds that mass production is being supplanted by a new, more flexible system and that, as a result, the established... Regulation Theory and the Crisis of Capitalism. (Book Reviews).(Book Review) Magazine article from: Capital & Class; 3/22/2003; Skrypietz, Ingrid; 700+ words ...meant to be a landmark in regulation theory. Its five heavy red...ninety-seven articles on regulation theory, include contributions...landscape: twenty years of regulation theory. 'Regulation theory... "RESPONSIVE REGULATION" THEORY AND THE SALE OF LIQUOR ACT(1). Magazine article from: Social Policy Journal of New Zealand; 12/1/1998; Hill, Linda Stewart, Liz; 700+ words ...1996a,b; Hill and Stewart 1997; Liquor Licensing Authority 1996, 1997). This paper draws primarily on "responsive regulation" theory (Ayres and Braithwaite 1992) to suggest changes to the Sale of Liquor Act that could encourage compliance by licensees... Maladaptive behavior in African-American children: A self-regulation theory-based approach Magazine article from: The Educational Forum; 4/1/2002; Tucker, Carolyn M; Vogel, David L; Keefer, Nikki L; Reid, Alaycia D; Et al; 700+ words ...included adequate samples of African-American children. In this study, we used Kanfer and Goldstein's (1986) self-regulation theory to examine factors that influence the level of maladaptive behavior exhibited by AfricanAmerican children. This theory... LG.Philips LCD To Order Equipment for Second Phase of Mass Production at P7, Its Seventh Generation Plant in Paju, Korea. Business Wire; 11/14/2005; 700+ words ...necessary for the second phase of mass production at P7, its seventh generation...equipment for the first phase of mass production at P7 in July this year. The P7 plant is scheduled to commence mass production in the first quarter of 2006... Economia, espaco e globalizacao na aurora do seculo XXI Magazine article from: Economic Geography; 10/1/1997; Castillo, Ricardo; 700+ words ...economic growth based on mass production and the welfare state. Regulation theory is one possible model...He also compares regulation theory with other theories...Schumpeterian analysis with regulation theory, pointing out discrepancies... World of Possibilities: Flexibility and Mass Production in Western Industrialization Magazine article from: Economic Geography; 7/1/1999; Benner, Chris; 700+ words ...of Possibilities: Flexibility and Mass Production in Western Industrialization. Edited...studies of "Historical Alternatives to Mass Production." While examining economic trajectories...between flexible specialization and mass production. Instead, they explore the diversity... Satisfying customer preferences via mass customization and mass production. Magazine article from: IIE Transactions; 1/1/2006; Jiang, Kai Lee, Hau L. Seifert, Ralf W.; 700+ words ...contrasting the operational formats of mass production and mass customization, we note some pronounced differences. Mass production, with Henry Ford's Model...low manufacturing cost. While mass production can still be successful today... First in mass production: five and half centuries ago, the printed bible needed a lot of letters. Magazine article from: Mechanical Engineering-CIME; 10/1/2005; Woods, Robert O.; 700+ words ...interchangeability is the hallmark of mass production. Eli Whitney IS credited with introducing...components for muskets. Henry Ford carried mass production to its present state when he introduced...identical parts. We generally see mass production as an achievement of the 20th ... FIRST IN MASS PRODUCTION Magazine article from: Mechanical Engineering; 10/1/2005; Woods, Robert O; 700+ words ...interchangeability is the hallmark of mass production. Eli Whitney is credited with introducing...components for muskets. Henry Ford carried mass production to its present state when he introduced...identical parts. We generally see mass production as an achievement of the 20th ... For more facts and information, see all related premium articles Related entries from encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses Searching more than 100 credible sources f_doctitle fordism Book article from: A Dictionary of Sociology fordism As defined by Antonio Gramsci , this refers...x2026; with persuasion?. Fordism provided workers with high wages and rising...industrial society , some suggest that fordism is in terminal crisis, being succeeded... post-fordism Book article from: A Dictionary of Sociology post-fordism See FLEXIBLE EMPLOYMENT ; FORDISM . Fordism Book article from: The Oxford Companion to United States History Fordism. See Ford, Henry ; Mass Production ; Scientific Management . Mass Production Book article from: The Oxford Companion to United States History ...mass production, known as ?Fordism,? is surprising compared to...United States. During the interwar years, Fordism, along with Frederick W. Taylor's...reformers as the way to economic security. Fordism and Taylorism were seen as the keys to... regulation theory Book article from: A Dictionary of Sociology ...distinguish two successive modes of regulation in the history of twentieth-century capitalism? fordism and post-fordism. Representative works in English include Michel Aglietta , A Theory of Capitalist Regulation: The U.S... See all related entries Ads by Google From cb31450 at gmail.com Tue Oct 20 07:41:46 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:41:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] MYTHS OF DISPERSED FORDISM Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910200641l138ed0ees511062426e2344e4@mail.gmail.com> http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/carlint.htm A Controversy About the Transformation of the Working Class MYTHS OF DISPERSED FORDISM Advocom/Echanges et Mouvement Published for Echanges et Mouvement BM Box 91 London WC1 3XX United Kingdom 1993 CONTENTS Introduction (Theo Sander - see below) Dispersed Fordism and the new organisation of labour -Towards a new type of struggle?(Carlos) Chapter2 On the situation of the modern working class - Letter from Henri Simon to Carlos Chapter 3 A critique of modern management lyrics - Letter from Theo Sander to Henri Simon Chapter 4 Old and rusted rhetorical formula- Letter from Carlos to Theo Sander Chapter 5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION The nature of class struggle and the way the working class/the capitalist class are transformed in the process have always been highly controversial subjects. The more the course of world history is dominated and accelerated by class antagonism, the more certain people who would want to see themselves as social critics develop a tendency to proclaim the end of classes, class antagonism and class history. Such proclamations have taken on very different forms: A lot of ink has been wasted in the 50s and 60s, in particular in the United States, Great Britain, France and Germany, on theories of the ?affluent worker? and the ?embourgeoisement? of the working class. In many instances this has been accompanied by triumphant claims about how Marx was completely wrong with all this nonsense he wrote about the immiseration of the working class. Nowadays it is easy to see, e.g. in the United States, why theorists are much more reluctant to spread all that rubbish about affluence. In a slightly different perspective others have argued in the 60s and 70s that the majority of the working class was no longer interested in radical social change or was unable to initiate it because of internal differentiations brought about by capitalist development. Again Marx was criticized for having been wrong in assuming the existence of a united and strong proletariat. Thus theorists began to ponder about the ?new working class? or, in a different context, about the ?mass worker? and the positive role they could play in attacking the bastions of the capitalist system. In the meantime we know only too well what has become of these supposed vanguards of class struggle. Others were prepared to declare the entire working class to be too conservative for change since their only interest resided in defending the status quo of their conditions of employment. Consequently any theory of revolution ascribing a central role to the proletariat like that of Marx was to be regarded as completely outdated. If the main aim was less work for everybody in the future, then the non-class of non-workers would inevitably replace the working class as the agent of social change. Some of the latest variants of such wild phantasies about a mythical proletariat (of which I could not even give a complete account here) go as far as diagnosing the gradual disappearance of the working class and the complete atomisation of what is left of it. The subjectivity of the traditional working class, or some of its sections, is seen as being destroyed through a double strategy of capitalist management: the introduction of the decentralised factory/of dispersed Fordism, and the use of modern electronic equipment/the introduction of a new system of industrial communication. As a result it is assumed that there is no longer a fundamental contradiction between working class and capitalist class, there is only a kind of dispersed conflictuality. It is only logical in this perspective that Marx? theory has to be thrown on the scrapheap. That is the position defended by Carlos in the first article of this small collection, and again in a subsequent letter to Henri Simon. Both pieces led to a renewed discussion inside Echanges et Mouvement about transformations fo the working class in recent decades. Fundamentally it was accepted by those involved in the discussion that major transformations had in fact taken place in the antagonistic relationship between capitalists and the working class (and not just inside the working class) although the nature of these transformations still needs to be clarified. However, we were convinced that the description as given by Carlos entirely missed the point, not only disregarding current changes in class relations but also rewriting the history of past struggles along lines of a most superficial interpretation, in contradiction with any kind of most elementary experience. Opposing the idea of an atomised working class and of dispersed conflictuality, it was thus necessary to emphasize the elements of continuity in (working-) class struggle and (working-) class structure. This is the major aim of a letter Henri Simon wrote to Carlos and which is reprinted as the third text in this brochure. It insists on analysing capitalism as a world system, on the increasing homogeneity of living conditions of workers, on an increasing centralisation of factory command with the decentralisation of production, etc. He concludes that a new society could arise out of the dynamic of present-day society, almost without the knowledge of the participants, as a result of a myriad of minor conflicts which taken individually might seem harmless but then add up to a major contradiction: the traditional contradiction between capitalists and workers. But there were also some basic theoretical problems involved in Carlos? discussion of the tendency towards a new type of struggle under the heading of ?dispersed Fordism?. These problems were discussed in a letter by myself in a letter to Henri Simon (text no. 4). It was argued that Carlos completely ignored tendencies of the production of surplus value and the inherent self-destructive mechanisms, instead reproducing modern management-produced lyrics about the valorisation of capital. It was further claimed that his analysis of Fordism, the elimination of living labour from the production process and the development fo class relations was based on a point of view regarding automation as a technical, organisational and management problem, not as part of a struggle between two antagonistic classes. It was finally maintained that his concept of the totalitarian tendencies of capital and the ?repressive unification of a world being subordinated to capital? was nothing but the unavoidable result of his failure to offer any kind of realistic analysis of class struggle, or perhaps of his offering no analysis of class struggle at all. Both pieces of critical commentary were sent to Carlos in order to have his reactions. In his response he once again explains his attitudes concerning what he calls the ?methodological limitations in Marxian analysis?, ?economic reductionism? and ?teleological assertions? (text no. 5). These arguments are of course not very new nor very well founded but form part of the standard weaponry of many decades of sociological critique of Marx in the vein of people like Theodor Geiger, Ralf Dahrendorf, Cornelius Castoriadis, Andr? Gorz, Daniel Bell, C. Wright Mills, John Goldthorpe, Anthony Giddens, etc. T.S. Next Chapter CAN Home Page From cb31450 at gmail.com Tue Oct 20 07:56:01 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:56:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Fordism and Post-Fordism Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910200656k419ed541l14b0df76f06b9d9f@mail.gmail.com> Fordism and Post-Fordism Article View On the File menu, click Print to print the information. Fordism and Post-Fordism Fordism and Post-Fordism, stages of modern capitalism, comprising the so-called ?Golden Age of Capitalism? from the 1940s and the early 1970s, characterized by institutions of large-scale mass production and Taylorist production methods, an increased division of labour, and the growth of credit to facilitate mass consumption, plus its aftermath up to the present day. Fordist production methods were initially embraced by the Ford Motor Company in Detroit in 1913 under Henry Ford and quickly generalized throughout manufacturing industry. The narrow definition of Fordism has subsequently been extended by commentators to cover a set of ?rules? that enabled this phase of capitalism to function in a stable way, these rules covering not only the organization of production (particularly the role for labour), but also the aims of production and methods for resolving conflict. The Fordist mode of production involved the conjunction of ?Taylorism? and increasing mechanization within large, multidepartment firms, most famously associated with the introduction of the moving assembly line, and the standardizing of components and finished products. Taylorism, based on principles of ?scientific management? developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, can be seen as the rationalization of production based on the separation of conception and execution of tasks, or the separation of the organizers of production (engineers, etc.) and the (semi-skilled) operatives actually carrying out production ensuring increased managerial control of the process. Thus the mental and manual aspects of work became completely separate. This represented a complete break from the past, where production was organized along the lines of crafts, with the craftsman possessing skills of organization and operation. There was considerable resistance to the changes of Taylorism, but the trade union movement eventually accepted a compromise; in exchange for acceptance of Taylorist methods of production, unions asked for a share of the productivity gains accruing from rationalization and intensification of work. This compromise was initially accepted by a small number of employers (among them Henry Ford), and despite the support of key figures in economics, notably John Maynard Keynes, it was only after World War II that the compromise was widely accepted as a series of governing rules. In seeing employees not only as inputs in the production process, but also as consumers of the final products, the gains in productivity, and the subsequent sharing out of the associated value added (via increases in the real wage), Fordism matched mass production and technical progress with higher mass consumption. The post-war Golden Age became associated with a period of full employment, high levels of capital investment or accumulation, full plant capacity, and high levels of firm profitability. Underpinning Taylorism and mass production were a series of institutions covering collectivism in industrial relations, a form of ?welfare state? which ensured a basic standard of living, so that even when not economically active (retired, unemployed, etc.) all agents remained consumers, and the development of modern banking and credit systems. This conferred on the state an active role in the management of the economy, both directly through the use of government spending (via Keynesian demand management policies), and in its role of regulator of the credit system. At an international level, coordination and trade between the developed world economies (with Fordist regimes in place) grew significantly under the leadership (or hegemony) of the United States, the dollar being accepted as the basis for international payments. The United States was keen not to see the proliferation of Communism and spent vast sums (as in the Marshall Plan) ensuring the conclusion of a Fordist compromise within the economies of Europe and East Asia. Like most compromises, the very essence of the Fordist compromise contained the seeds of its own destruction. This manifested itself initially as indications that the increased productivity gains contained within Taylorist methods were gradually being exhausted. The increased intensification of work, deskilling, and alienation on the part of workers led to forms of resistance that were sporadic and uncoordinated but all the more significant with increased automation and complexity of production. High levels of capital accumulation made any stoppages and decreases in productivity increasingly costly, and this led to a decline in the rate of profits. Towards the end of the 1960s the basis of the Fordist systems was being put into question as relations between the social partners became more antagonistic, and commitments such as full employment and the escalating cost of the welfare state put pressure on national governments. This ?crisis? of Fordism has lead many commentators to argue that developed market capitalism has moved towards a post-Fordist system of production and social relations. The pattern of post-Fordist capitalism is said to be characterized by a reversal of many of the features of Fordism through methods of production based on new product technologies, such as biotechnology, but especially microelectronics and information technology. This has lead to the replacement of Taylorism, and post-Fordist work relations and practices are claimed to be characterized by ?flexibility?, as witnessed in the work relations of the typical Japanese corporation. Keynesianism became somewhat discredited as monetarism (characterized by a faith in market forces to deliver the optimal economic outcomes) became established throughout the discipline of economics. A new individualism replaced the previous faith in the collectivist institutions of the Fordist era. Associated with these changes have been a much-reduced social role for trade unions (and declining membership) that has forced them to accept a ?new realism? over the issues over which they can influence, and a reduction of state intervention in industry?as witnessed by the extensive privatization process in the developed free market economies. It should, however, be noted that there exists considerable academic debate over the exact nature and effect of the institutions characterizing the post-Fordist era, undoubtedly a consequence of the array of institutions in capitalist market economies and associated divergence of industrial performance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contributed By: Simon Peck, B.Sc., M.A. Research Fellow, University of Leeds. "Fordism and Post-Fordism," Microsoft? Encarta? Online Encyclopedia 2009 http://uk.encarta.msn.com ? 1997-2009 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. ? 1993-2009 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. From cb31450 at gmail.com Wed Oct 21 06:35:35 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:35:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Fordism Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910210535o6ccced5bgeabb8c8233180287@mail.gmail.com> http://legacy.lclark.edu/~soan221/fordism2.html REPRESENTATIONS OF WORK IN TV ADS Craft Production and Deskilling Craft production has been so far displaced from everyday consciousness that it rarely appears even as a trace except as a testimonial to the elite status of consumption objects destined for upscale consumers. When it does appear, craftsmanship appears in trace form as the signature on an aestheticized piece of Steubing glass. Sightings of craftwork on television are few, limited mostly to endorsements of fine furniture or expensive cars. For example, an ad for Buick Reatta shows it being "signed by the craftsmen who work on it." Their signature attests to their pride of work on an object that presumably has had their personal focus, rather than merely another mass produced object pumped off an assembly line. Craftsmanship has value as the semiotic opposite of mass production. On the other hand, in the context of consumption oriented toward the middle and the working classes, the name "craftsman" has been appropriated and made to name a line of products -- e.g., the Craftsman line of tools from Sears. The legacy of craftsmanship lives on in name only in a world where craft after craft has been either deskilled or eliminated by new technologies. Craftworkers have been displaced in one field of work after another by automated tooling, but the tools they once used are now named for them, such that the qualities of craftsmen are now available via the consumption of the commodity and its sign. It is interesting that these advertising evocations of the concept of "craftsmanship" focus on the meaning of the object produced rather than the act of producing. But, as C. Wright Mills wrote in his essay on "Work," the traditional "ideal of craftsmanship" refers to a model of work gratification in which "the worker is free to control his own working action...[T]here is no split of work and play, or work and culture. The craftsman's way of livelihood determines and infuses his entire mode of living." (p.222) Yet another mid 1990s' Saturn ad addressed the question of craftsmanship in conjunction with the premise of a non-alienated workplace. The premise once again is that non-alienated relationships can be seen (register) in the quality of the product. However, this ad situates the issue in the language of "ownership" rather than craft. The few fleeting images of production that do appear are heavily abstracted from the actual relationships of production for the sole purpose of signifying production activity. These images are not unlike the image of a high-tech medical equipment tool that I have intentionally abstracted (even more so than it was in the ad from which it was taken) so far from its actual production site as possible in order to stress that craft has been divorced from human acts of production. The Saturn ad is narrated by a man we presume to be a line worker because of the way he is positioned visually in the text. "We were called an experiment. But what someone figured out is that there is something more important than machines if you want to make a good car. It's about people and giving them ownership of the product they're building. And if you have 8000 people making the right decisions individually, with the company and the car in mind, then you have 8000 people that own that car and every car that goes out. That's the way I feel." The entire ad is shot in grainy color video with the color drained out to give a sense of a slightly blued production space. To emphasize production there are scenes of Saturn machinery and equipment -- sparks flashing -- in operation. But to stress that Saturn refuses to allow its machinery to eclipse the role of labor, the remainder of the ad is devoted to scenes of workers signing a placard that reads the 1,000,000th Saturn." Representations of Work: home page BACK NEXT From cb31450 at gmail.com Wed Oct 21 09:35:27 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:35:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nobel Prize for Obama deserved? Yes! Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910210835vea03b25xbd7948c3e231f620@mail.gmail.com> Nobel Prize for Obama deserved? Yes! By Ron Walters NNPA Columnist When the world woke up on Friday, Oct. 10 it was surprised that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. But surprise should not have been a cause for derision. Instead, it should have been a cause for national pride, but right away, many in the media raised questions about whether it was deserved since he had been in office so few months that he had accomplished nothing and Republicans like Michael Steele dismissed it as ?meaningless.? I agree with those who believe that the Nobel Committee?s action was ?aspirational? in the sense that it wanted Obama to continue the course that he had set. But I also think they had concluded that in setting a different and positive course for America that he also exercised the kind of outstanding leadership for the global system that merited the award. He had, in fact, turned the corner on the approach of George Bush to the international system by announcing to the world in Berlin that the United States would renew its collaboration with nations to resolve important problems, rather than rattle our sabers and go it alone. He followed up by adopting a common approach in dealing with Iran?s nuclear capability. The surprising result is that Iran has agreed to six-party talks in Geneva and given Russia the right to enrich its uranium. Obama?s message to the Islamic world was that America sees them as friends and allies rather than enemies and that it would join them in any venture for peace if they would open their hand in friendship rather than the hand of jihad. Then he followed it up by adopting a negotiating framework with Iran to address its nuclear capability and re-starting the dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians that was dropped by Bush until the last minutes of his time in office. Obama announced in Prague that the United States policy would work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons in April of this year and followed up in September by proposing a resolution that was adopted by the UN Security Council and by beginning negotiations with Russia to reduce nuclear stockpiles. He also eliminated the defensive nuclear shield in Eastern Europe which won him instant credibility with the Russians and their assistance in dealing with Iran?s nuclear capability. Obama, far different from the Bush administration, took the position that climate change was an urgent priority and that it could not be resolved by the U. S. alone. So he followed up by reaching out to China and other countries that have recently industrialized and folded this priority into his own domestic policy to create a green revolution and manage energy differently. In his own country, Obama has continued to manage the actions begun by the Bush administration that have resulted in moving the American financial system back from the brink of disaster and toward solvency again. His actions have not affected a total recovery, but Obama should be given enormous credit for trying to stabilize the banking system, affecting a Stimulus Package to prop up areas of the economy and start job creation, stabilize the auto industry and obtain universal health care coverage, pull out of Iraq, reject torture and etc. Instead, here his actions have received persistent criticism at every turn. So, in nine months he has not only given some great speeches, but done some good things to back them up. Fundamentally what we are witnessing is the difference of opinion between American elites and Europeans who harbor a profound dislike for the fact that George Bush ruthlessly violated the common standards of democracy shared by his allies and aspired to by other states in the global system. For many Americans this is a sign that there is some serious hang-over from the Bush years. I keep reminding my readers not to forget that 57 percent of whites voted for John McCain which means that an awful lot of them were wedded to Bush politics and now feel some resentment that the international community has repudiated them so soundly by rewarding Barack Obama for changing course. For the many Blacks who support Obama, but also appeared surprised about Obama?s Nobel Prize, not to understand the basis of the Nobel Committee?s decision is a sign that they may have been so mired in the crises that face America they have not paid much attention to the genuinely pro-American attitudes that Barack Obama has re-kindled in Europe and around the world. So, why not join the Nobel Committee in saying ?well done? so far, even as we push the President to do better? Dr. Ron Walters is Professor Emeritus of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. From cb31450 at gmail.com Wed Oct 21 15:09:19 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:09:19 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] More fun with Rosa Logica Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910211409w53ed78d5icc326c9cb91b6fda@mail.gmail.com> Rosa L has got CB again ! What a whiz CB ^^^^^ Mr B Up To His Old Tricks Mr B has once again popped his head over the parapet in a debate about 'dialectical contradictions'. ^^^^^ CB: Rosa, I'm over here. Standing out in the open all the time. ^^^^^^^ But, does he actually tell us what these obscure Hegelian entities are? No. ^^^^^ CB: Contradictions, comrade. I could have sworn I mentioned contradictions in this discussion. Let me take a look back.....Sure enough, I called them "contradictions". ^^^^^^^^ His most substantive point is contained in this argument: ^^^^^ CB: We're making progress. CB has made a "most substantive point" (smile) ^^^^^^^ On the contradiction implied in "John is a man", we might ask is John the only man? If so, then the correct expression is "John is the man". So, if John is a man , then there are other men. Joe is a man. Jack is a man. Andrew is a man. If John is identical with "a man", and Joe is identical with "a man", and Jack is identical with "a man", then through some kind of transitivity of identities we reach the contradiction that John is Joe. John is Jack. Rosa L will say what is the contradiction in "John is Jack" ? It is that John is not Jack, as stipulated above when we said there are other men besides John. Jack is another man from John is identical with the expression John is not Jack. So directly the contradiction is that we have both John is Jack and John is not Jack at the same time. I have now made the contradiction implicit in "John is a man" so explicit and patent that even contradiction-blind Rosa L. should be able to see it. But thanks to Rosa for pressing the point on this example from Lenin's philosophical notebooks, as it is only in "contradiction" with Rosa that I was moved to move the thought to full demonstration. The contradiction inherent in the verb "to be" , "is", can be seen as the same as that found in "self-reference" by modern mathematical philosophers like Russell. Russell's famous paradox derived from the self-reference of "the set of all sets that don't contain themselves". The wikipedia article on paraconsistency notes the efforts at avoiding self-reference in the logics after that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent_logic In any sentence with a verb form of the verb "to be" makes a reference , a self-reference, of the subject of the sentence. The subject refers to itself in the predicate. "John is a man", is a reference of John to himself as "a man", a self-reference. So, modern mathematics rediscovered the paradoxes of self-reference that Hegel had discovered, perhaps as described in the quote of Hegel adduced on this thread by Rosa L. above Paraconsistent logics are propositionally weaker than classical logic "It should be emphasized that Paraconsistent logics are propositionally weaker than classical logic; that is, they deem fewer propositional inferences valid. The point is that a Paraconsistent logic can never be a propositional extension of classical logic, that is, propositionally validate everything that classical logic does. In that sense, then, Paraconsistent logic is more conservative or cautious than classical logic. It is due to such conservativeness that Paraconsistent languages can be more expressive than their classical counterparts including the hierarchy of Meta-languages due to Tarski et al. According to Feferman [1984]: '?natural language abounds with directly or indirectly self-referential (emphasis added - CB) yet apparently harmless expressions -- all of which are excluded from the Tarskian framework.' This expressive limitation can be overcome in Paraconsistent logic." ^^^^^^^^ Rosa: [I have slightly edited this so that it conforms to the formatting principles adopted at this site, as I have done Mr B's other comments below.] It always surprises me the extent to which Dialectical Mystics will tie themselves into knots in a vain effort to sell this ruling-class creed to the rest of us. They are indeed reminiscent of those Roman Catholic theologians and casuists who attempt to convince us, for example, that Jesus was 'god' incarnate, many of whom will try to employ sophisticated modern logic to that end, too. ^^^^^ CB: Perhaps Rosa Logica is confusing a discussion of ?knots?, which contradictions are in a sense, with being tied up in them. ^^^^^^^ Now, the above 'argument' is supposed to be a response to a long argument of mine (much of which Mr B ignores) that aims to show that this Hegelian doctrine is flawed from beginning to end. ^^^^^ CB; Not really . It is supposed to demonstrate that there is a contradiction in "John is a man". ^^^^^^^ CB: The main points of my argument were these: 1) Traditional theorists treat all words as names or singular designating expressions (i.e., they are all supposed to 'refer' to this or that -- and if we can't find a this or a that in this world for them to refer to, 'abstractions' -- or, these days, something from meta-theory -- are invented for them to designate). This is indeed part of Plato's Beard, as Quine called it. 2) Unfortunately, this destroys the unity of the proposition, since it turns propositions into lists, and lists say nothing. So, the 'propositions' that dialecticians finally end up with destroy any capacity they have for expressing generality, since this turns predicate expression into the names of abstract particulars. [Examples below; a longer explanation can be found in Essay Three Part One.] 3) Dialecticians in particular do this when they, following Hegel, turn the "is" of predication into the "is" of identity. 4) This is the only way they can 'derive' a 'contradiction'. 5) They resist the conventions of ordinary language, since the vernacular actually prevents this trick from being carried out. ^^^^^^^ CB: Rosa never asks why is it that ordinary language itself uses the same word "is" for identity and predication, thereby itself starting down the path to contradiction. Why not use different words for the "is" of identity and the "is" of predication ? At any rate, If one just uses "is" as identifying, then the subject is identified with something that it is not, a different word that follows the verb "is". So , even the "is" of identification From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 05:54:42 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:54:42 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] More Rosa Logica Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220454w20efa25cte89f2aa7bd048737@mail.gmail.com> Rosa L: Fortunately, we needn?t speculate about Marx?s opinion of Hegel since he very kindly added the following comments to Das Kapital: ?After a quotation from the preface to my ?Criticism of Political Economy,? Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on: ?The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence. ? If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own?. As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population. ? With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx?s book has.? ?Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?? [Marx (1976) Das Kapital, pp.101-02. Bold emphases added.] Rosa L.: Readers will no doubt note that Marx calls this the ?dialectic method?, indeed, ?his method?, but it is also clear that it bears no relation to the sort of dialectics Mr B has uncritically swallowed, for in there, there is not one ounce of Hegel ? no ?quantity turning into quality?, no ?contradictions?, no ?negation of the negation?, no ?unity of opposites?, no ?totality?? So, Marx?s method has had Hegel totally extirpated. For Marx, putting Hegel on ?his feet? is to crush his head. ^^^^^^^^ CB: Here Rosa is engaged in wishful thinking , or whistling past the graveyard of her ?argument.?. Rosa: ? For Marx, putting Hegel on ?his feet? is to crush his head.? CB: Oh really If Marx used absolutely nothing of Hegel, totally extirpated him, then why does he say he is a follower of the great thinker; why does he not say , ?I totally threw Hegel off ??. Why bother with talking about standing him off his head onto his feet. And how and why exactly would he crush his head by and while standing him on his feet, Rosa ? (smile) For that matter, if you crushed his head, why bother standing him up on his feet. Just lay him down and let him rest in peace, like a dead dog (smile, smile) We had this debate on Marxism-Thaxis about ten years ago. Then I found a specific quote in _Capital_ where Marx refers to and adopts for himself the law of transformation of quantity into quality. I?ll dig it up next time. But even without that, Rosa?s talking out of her arse in the above. From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 06:07:23 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:07:23 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rosa Logica Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220507n56cf203aqfc95d527f9f43bcc@mail.gmail.com> This is more from over at http://marxisthumanistinitiative.org/2009/05/05/brief-comments-on-the-relationship-between-marxism-and-the-hegelian-dialectic/comment-page-2/#comment-147 where Rosa L argues that Marx's "method" , his "dialectic" , is totally not Hegel's, that he "extirpates" Hegel. CB: Andrew K at the outset of this thread says: Marx says in his Postface to the second edition of Volume 1 of Capital [2] that his method is none other than the dialectic. It is not, however, a direct application of the Hegelian dialectic. On the contrary, Marx tells us that the dialectic in Hegel?based on the journey and self-development of the Idea, of which the world is a result or ?external appearance??is exactly the opposite of his own. With Marx we have a materialist dialectic wherein the Idea is a ?reflection? of the real world rather than its creator [3]. And yet Marx also goes on to call himself a ?pupil of that mighty thinker [Hegel],? and says that the ?mystification which the dialectic suffers in Hegel?s hands by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general forms of motion in a comprehensive and conscious manner,? calling the ?rational kernel? inherent in Hegel?s dialectic ?critical and revolutionary? [4]. Andrew summarizes the following from Marx, which Rosa L. evidently ignores: 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 CB: Engels (not a favorite of Raya D. , I know), in _Ludwig Feuerbach_ makes a more complete statement of this rational kernel and revolutionary essence of the dialectical philosophy of Hegel: In accordance with all the rules of the Hegelian method of thought, the proposition of the rationality of everything which is real resolves itself into the other proposition: All that exists deserves to perish. But precisely therein lay the true significance and the revolutionary character of the Hegelian philosophy (to which, as the close of the whole movement since Kant, we must here confine ourselves), that it once and for all dealt the death blow to the finality of all product of human thought and action. Truth, the cognition of which is the business of philosophy, was in the hands of Hegel no longer an aggregate of finished dogmatic statements, which, once discovered, had merely to be learned by heart. Truth lay now in the process of cognition itself, in the long historical development of science, which mounts from lower to ever higher levels of knowledge without ever reaching, by discovering so-called absolute truth, a point at which it can proceed no further, where it would have nothing more to do than to fold its hands and gaze with wonder at the absolute truth to which it had attained. And what holds good for the realm of philosophical knowledge holds good also for that of every other kind of knowledge and also for practical action. Just as knowledge is unable to reach a complete conclusion in a perfect, ideal condition of humanity, so is history unable to do so; a perfect society, a perfect ?state?, are things which can only exist in imagination. On the contrary, all successive historical systems are only transitory stages in the endless course of development of human society from the lower to the higher. Each stage is necessary, and therefore justified for the time and conditions to which it owes its origin. But in the face of new, higher conditions which gradually develop in its own womb, it loses vitality and justification. It must give way to a higher stage which will also in its turn decay and perish. Just as the bourgeoisie by large-scale industry, competition, and the world market dissolves in practice all stable time-honored institutions, so this dialectical philosophy dissolves all conceptions of final, absolute truth and of absolute states of humanity corresponding to it. For it [dialectical philosophy], nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher. And dialectical philosophy itself is nothing more than the mere reflection of this process in the thinking brain. It has, of course, also a conservative side; it recognizes that definite stages of knowledge and society are justified for their time and circumstances; but only so far. The conservatism of this mode of outlook is relative; its revolutionary character is absolute ? the only absolute dialectical philosophy admits. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/ch01.htm From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 06:11:55 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:11:55 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rosa Logica Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220511q3d7bf809h5e1ec99971b2b548@mail.gmail.com> Then here I recalled another clear Hegelianism in a major statement by Marx in _Capital_, contra Rosa L. ( and Andy Austin , from ten years ago here on Thaxis) claim that Marx crushed Hegel's head when he and Engels stood him on his feet. Charles Karl Marx. Capital Volume One ;Chapter Thirty-Two: Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm CB: in the body of _Capital_ in a famous penultimate chapter, Marx talks about a ?negation of negation?, which is real ?Hegelaly? and real contradictory, and which Rosa won?t be able to see as she is blind to contradictions ?The expropriators are expropriated. The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labor of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is _the negation of negation_ (emphasis added -CB). This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on co-operation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production. ? CB: Marx conceives of the transition from capitalism to socialism as a negation of a negation. The next paragraph is: ?The transformation of scattered private property, arising from individual labor, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a process, incomparably more protracted, violent, and difficult, than the transformation of capitalistic private property, already practically resting on socialized production, into socialized property. In the former case, we had the expropriation of the mass of the people by a few usurpers; in the latter, we have the expropriation of a few usurpers by the mass of the people. [2] ? From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 06:27:01 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:27:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Is "is" "is" or is it not ? Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220527t577669fbnbf7b9b0c5c0c845e@mail.gmail.com> Now back to the contradiction in ?John is a man?. Put succinctly, John is both the same and different from Joe, Rosa, Charles or any other ?man?, human. Their sameness is their humanity, their type. The difference is their particularity, individuality. The contradiction of the type with the individuality is implied in the sentence ?John is a man?. Ordinary English language uses the same word ?is? for both identity and predication. In doing so, it conveys the sense of contradiction that Hegel (or Lenin in his philosophical notebook note) draws our attention to. When we say ?John is human?, we identify him with the humanity in Joe, yet, there is more to John and Joe than there humanity. There are differences between John and Joe, which define their indivduality. For fun , on the equivocation of ?is? : Is ?is? ?is? or is it not ? Or a la Fats Waller, Is ?is? ain?t or is it is ?is? ? From shmage at pipeline.com Thu Oct 22 07:22:37 2009 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:22:37 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] More Rosa Logica In-Reply-To: <5c2e4d230910220454w20efa25cte89f2aa7bd048737@mail.gmail.com> References: <5c2e4d230910220454w20efa25cte89f2aa7bd048737@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1BFBFBEA-CD2F-4E50-AEBC-8F904C853B6E@pipeline.com> On Oct 22, 2009, at 7:54 AM, c b wrote: > > Rosa: ? For Marx, putting Hegel on ?his feet? is to crush his head.? > > CB: Oh really > If Marx used absolutely nothing of Hegel, totally extirpated him, then > why does he say he is a follower of the great thinker; why does he not > say , ?I totally threw Hegel off ??. Why bother with talking about > standing him off his head onto his feet. And how and why exactly would > he crush his head by and while standing him on his feet, Rosa ? > (smile) For that matter, if you crushed his head, why bother standing > him up on his feet. Just lay him down and let him rest in peace, like > a dead dog (smile, smile) But Marx never said he was standing *Hegel* on his feet. What Marx said is that in Hegel *the world* is standing on its head. It is the Hegelian *world* that Marx puts on its feet. But whether you're standing on your feet or doing a headstand it's still you. Whether standing on its feet or its head, it's still the same, real, world. 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 cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 07:31:49 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:31:49 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The new normal Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220631h445ae465pbd4590bb4d289413@mail.gmail.com> The new normal by: Sam Webb October 21 2009 tags: Commentary, Economy, Recession Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase are back to the "old normal." Profits are soaring - $3.2 billion and $3.6 billion respectively in the third quarter. Bonuses of $23 billion (yes, I got it right - 23,000,000,000 bucks) are in the pipeline for their managers and traders. Their field of competitors has thinned. And these leeches have morphed from "too big to fail" to "much too big" to fail. In the meantime, the rest of us are fast-forwarding to the "new normal." Let me explain. A year ago the old model of capitalist accumulation (profit making) and right-wing political governance, resting on the rise of finance, mountains of debt, record levels of inequality, unsustainable global economic imbalances, and successive bubbles in real and fictitious assets came crashing down - not with a whimper, but with a bang that triggered an economic tsunami. The U.S economy imploded, throwing people out of their jobs and homes, closing family farms, evaporating pension funds and savings, shuttering more plants and factories, and devastating cities and towns. Much the same occurred elsewhere in the world. A complete collapse of the economy was dodged, but the crisis was the worst since the Great Depression and isn't yet over. Unemployment levels, for example, are still rising. Reliable forecasts have joblessness climbing to nearly 11 percent officially in the United States. Moreover, the prospects for a quick and robust recovery seem dim. Some economists, including mainstream thinkers, argue that economic stagnation is just as likely as a vigorous recovery. In their view, the economy could operate at sub-normal levels in terms of growth, capacity utilization, employment, and income for an extended period of time. Or to put it differently, the tendencies toward stagnation are stronger than the tendencies toward full recovery. Interestingly, this insight isn't new: "It is an outstanding characteristic of the economic system in which we live that ... it seems capable of remaining in a chronic condition of sub-normal activity for a considerable period without any marked tendency either towards recovery or towards complete collapse." The author is British economist John Maynard Keynes, the quote is from his masterpiece, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money", and the year is 1936. Keynes' insight, however, fell out of favor among traditional economists with the resumption of vigorous growth in the core capitalist countries following WW II. Ironically, it was Marxist economists, and especially Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff, who further theorized this dynamic of U.S. capitalism during this period. But in the wake of the present economic crisis, Keynes' notion of long-term sub-par economic performance is reentering the mainstream dialogue, but clothed with a new name - "the new normal." In the "new normal" universe, conditions for a fresh round of capital accumulation and economic growth exist on the supply side of the equation. Because of the depth and scale of the current downturn, inefficient plant, equipment, and businesses have been destroyed, a plentiful pool of unemployed wage labor is now available, the price of labor power (wages/salaries) is cheaper, interest rates are low, and economic power is further concentrated and centralized in the hands of fewer industrial, service and financial corporations. But on the demand side of the equation, conditions for accumulation (profit making) are far less favorable. Demand (consumption and investment, domestic and global), and again because of the economic crisis (evaporation of wealth, layoffs, foreclosures, wage implosion, mountains of debt to be paid off, etc.) is insufficient relative to the productive capacity of the global economy. And there are many reasons to think that this will not change in the near or medium term. Indeed, it is hard to see where the new dynamism to power economic growth, employment, research, and broadly shared income gains will come from other than a government financed and directed economic development project. Such a project should be sustainable, green, maximize worker and community input and decision making, and dynamic enough to give a growth impulse to the whole economy. An obvious objection that will arise among friends, as well as foes, is that the federal deficit is out of control now and a project of this size goes way beyond the scope of government and would represent a massive intrusion into people's lives. The federal deficit is at record levels and there are dangers to be sure, but nothing as big as the danger (and costs) of long-term stagnation to the American people. Moreover, some of the financing could come from a reduction in the military budget and a shift of taxes to Wall Street and corporations. As for government intrusion, federally directed development could encourage municipal and regional authorities to plan and organize major projects as well as channel investment dollars to small and medium sized businesses and worker/community cooperatives. Whether a developmental project like this sees the light of day depends only in a small way on its feasibility and necessity. In a larger sense it rests on which of the competing sides (there are more than two on the political landscape) are able to frame the national conversation and win active popular majorities to its vision. At this moment, political strength, moral authority, and public opinion tilts in the direction of the new administration and the broader movement that elected him, but not to the extent that it is able to win such radical economic reforms, assuming for the moment that everyone sees their necessity. That task lies ahead. http://www.peoplesworld.org/the-new-normal/ From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 07:36:46 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:36:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] More Rosa Logica In-Reply-To: <1BFBFBEA-CD2F-4E50-AEBC-8F904C853B6E@pipeline.com> References: <5c2e4d230910220454w20efa25cte89f2aa7bd048737@mail.gmail.com> <1BFBFBEA-CD2F-4E50-AEBC-8F904C853B6E@pipeline.com> Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220636r3a7c810ai765a36c00698e547@mail.gmail.com> On 10/22/09, Shane Mage wrote: > > On Oct 22, 2009, at 7:54 AM, c b wrote: > > > > Rosa: ? For Marx, putting Hegel on ?his feet? is to crush his head.? > > > > CB: Oh really > > If Marx used absolutely nothing of Hegel, totally extirpated him, then > > why does he say he is a follower of the great thinker; why does he not > > say , ?I totally threw Hegel off ??. Why bother with talking about > > standing him off his head onto his feet. And how and why exactly would > > he crush his head by and while standing him on his feet, Rosa ? > > (smile) For that matter, if you crushed his head, why bother standing > > him up on his feet. Just lay him down and let him rest in peace, like > > a dead dog (smile, smile) > > But Marx never said he was standing *Hegel* on his feet. What Marx > said is that in Hegel *the world* is standing on its head. It is the > Hegelian *world* that Marx puts on its feet. But whether you're > standing on your feet or doing a headstand it's still you. Whether > standing on its feet or its head, it's still the same, real, world. CB: Good point, Shane (smile) "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. " > > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > 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 cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 07:44:23 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:44:23 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:[Dialectics] Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220644r3f7553d1uc632c0beb17caa5f@mail.gmail.com> Frederick Engels Socialism: Utopian and Scientific -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- II [Dialectics] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the meantime, along with and after the French philosophy of the 18th century, had arisen the new German philosophy, culminating in Hegel. Its greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them, had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought. The newer philosophy, on the other hand, although in it also dialectics had brilliant exponents (e.g. Descartes and Spinoza), had, especially through English influence, become more and more rigidly fixed in the so-called metaphysical mode of reasoning, by which also the French of the 18th century were almost wholly dominated, at all events in their special philosophical work. Outside philosophy in the restricted sense, the French nevertheless produced masterpieces of dialectic. We need only call to mind Diderot's Le Neveu de Rameau, and Rousseau's Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inegalite parmi less hommes. We give here, in brief, the essential character of these two modes of thought. When we consider and reflect upon Nature at large, or the history of mankind, or our own intellectual activity, at first we see the picture of an endless entanglement of relations and reactions, permutations and combinations, in which nothing remains what, where and as it was, but everything moves, changes, comes into being and passes away. We see, therefore, at first the picture as a whole, with its individual parts still more or less kept in the background; we observe the movements, transitions, connections, rather than the things that move, combine, and are connected. This primitive, naive but intrinsically correct conception of the world is that of ancient Greek philosophy, and was first clearly formulated by Heraclitus: everything is and is not, for everything is fluid, is constantly changing, constantly coming into being and passing away.[A] But this conception, correctly as it expresses the general character of the picture of appearances as a whole, does not suffice to explain the details of which this picture is made up, and so long as we do not understand these, we have not a clear idea of the whole picture. In order to understand these details, we must detach them from their natural, special causes, effects, etc. This is, primarily, the task of natural science and historical research: branches of science which the Greek of classical times, on very good grounds, relegated to a subordinate position, because they had first of all to collect materials for these sciences to work upon. A certain amount of natural and historical material must be collected before there can be any critical analysis, comparison, and arrangement in classes, orders, and species. The foundations of the exact natural sciences were, therefore, first worked out by the Greeks of the Alexandrian period [B], and later on, in the Middle Ages, by the Arabs. Real natural science dates from the second half of the 15th century, and thence onward it had advanced with constantly increasing rapidity. The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organized bodies in their manifold forms ? these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature that have been made during the last 400 years. But this method of work has also left us as legacy the habit of observing natural objects and processes in isolation, apart from their connection with the vast whole; of observing them in repose, not in motion; as constraints, not as essentially variables; in their death, not in their life. And when this way of looking at things was transferred by Bacon and Locke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of thought peculiar to the last century. To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects of investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses. His communication is 'yea, yea; nay, nay'; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." For him, a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another; cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis, one to the other. At first sight, this mode of thinking seems to us very luminous, because it is that of so-called sound commonsense. Only sound commonsense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. And the metaphysical mode of thought, justifiable and necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the particular object of investigation, sooner or later reaches a limit, beyond which it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions. In the contemplation of individual things, it forgets the connection between them; in the contemplation of their existence, it forgets the beginning and end of that existence; of their repose, it forgets their motion. It cannot see the woods for the trees. For everyday purposes, we know and can say, e.g., whether an animal is alive or not. But, upon closer inquiry, we find that his is, in many cases, a very complex question, as the jurists know very well. They have cudgelled their brains in vain to discover a rational limit beyond which the killing of the child in its mother's womb is murder. It is just as impossible to determine absolutely the moment of death, for physiology proves that death is not an instantaneous, momentary phenomenon, but a very protracted process. In like manner, every organized being is every moment the same and not the same; every moment, it assimilates matter supplied from without, and gets rid of other matter; every moment, some cells of its body die and others build themselves anew; in a longer or shorter time, the matter of its body is completely renewed, and is replaced by other molecules of matter, so that every organized being is always itself, and yet something other than itself. (continued) From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 07:47:06 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:47:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:[Dialectics] (continued) Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220647l3990cf6y289603a8172192e3@mail.gmail.com> Frederick Engels Socialism: Utopian and Scientific II [Dialectics] Further, we find upon closer investigation that the two poles of an antithesis, positive and negative, e.g., are as inseparable as they are opposed, and that despite all their opposition, they mutually interpenetrate. And we find, in like manner, that cause and effect are conceptions which only hold good in their application to individual cases; but as soon as we consider the individual cases in their general connection with the universe as a whole, they run into each other, and they become confounded when we contemplate that universal action and reaction in which causes and effects are eternally changing places, so that what is effect here and now will be cause there and then, and vice versa. None of these processes and modes of thought enters into the framework of metaphysical reasoning. Dialectics, on the other hand, comprehends things and their representations, ideas, in their essential connection, concatenation, motion, origin and ending. Such processes as those mentioned above are, therefore, so many corroborations of its own method of procedure. Nature is the proof of dialectics, and it must be said for modern science that it has furnished this proof with very rich materials increasingly daily, and thus has shown that, in the last resort, Nature works dialectically and not metaphysically; that she does not move in the eternal oneness of a perpetually recurring circle, but goes through a real historical evolution. In this connection, Darwin must be named before all others. He dealt the metaphysical conception of Nature the heaviest blow by his proof that all organic beings, plants, animals, and man himself, are the products of a process of evolution going on through millions of years. But, the naturalists, who have learned to think dialectically, are few and far between, and this conflict of the results of discovery with preconceived modes of thinking, explains the endless confusion now reigning in theoretical natural science, the despair of teachers as well as learners, of authors and readers alike. An exact representation of the universe, of its evolution, of the development of mankind, and of the reflection of this evolution in the minds of men, can therefore only be obtained by the methods of dialectics with its constant regard to the innumerable actions and reactions of life and death, of progressive or retrogressive changes. And in this spirit, the new German philosophy has worked. Kant began his career by resolving the stable Solar system of Newton and its eternal duration, after the famous initial impulse had once been given, into the result of a historical process, the formation of the Sun and all the planets out of a rotating, nebulous mass. From this, he at the same time drew the conclusion that, given this origin of the Solar system, its future death followed of necessity. His theory, half a century later, was established mathematically by Laplace, and half a century after that, the spectroscope proved the existence in space of such incandescent masses of gas in various stages of condensation. This new German philosophy culminated in the Hegelian system. In this system ? and herein is its great merit ? for the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process ? i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development. From this point of view, the history of mankind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence, all equally condemnable at the judgment seat of mature philosophic reason and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible, but as the process of evolution of man himself. It was now the task of the intellect to follow the gradual march of this process through all its devious ways, and to trace out the inner law running through all its apparently accidental phenomena. That the Hegelian system did not solve the problem it propounded is here immaterial. Its epoch-making merit was that it propounded the problem. This problem is one that no single individual will ever be able to solve. Although Hegel was ? with Saint-Simon ? the most encyclopaedic mind of his time, yet he was limited, first, by the necessary limited extent of his own knowledge and, second, by the limited extent and depth of the knowledge and conceptions of his age. To these limits, a third must be added; Hegel was an idealist. To him, the thoughts within his brain were not the more or less abstract pictures of actual things and processes, but, conversely, things and their evolution were only the realized pictures of the "Idea", existing somewhere from eternity before the world was. This way of thinking turned everything upside down, and completely reversed the actual connection of things in the world. Correctly and ingeniously as many groups of facts were grasped by Hegel, yet, for the reasons just given, there is much that is botched, artificial, labored, in a word, wrong in point of detail. The Hegelian system, in itself, was a colossal miscarriage ? but it was also the last of its kind. It was suffering, in fact, from an internal and incurable contradiction. Upon the one hand, its essential proposition was the conception that human history is a process of evolution, which, by its very nature, cannot find its intellectual final term in the discovery of any so-called absolute truth. But, on the other hand, it laid claim to being the very essence of this absolute truth. A system of natural and historical knowledge, embracing everything, and final for all time, is a contradiction to the fundamental law of dialectic reasoning. This law, indeed, by no means excludes, but, on the contrary, includes the idea that the systematic knowledge of the external universe can make giant strides from age to age. The perception of the the fundamental contradiction in German idealism led necessarily back to materialism, but ? nota bene ? not to the simply metaphysical, exclusively mechanical materialism of the 18th century. Old materialism looked upon all previous history as a crude heap of irrationality and violence; modern materialism sees in it the process of evolution of humanity, and aims at discovering the laws thereof. With the French of the 18th century, and even with Hegel, the conception obtained of Nature as a whole ? moving in narrow circles, and forever immutable, with its eternal celestial bodies, as Newton, and unalterable organic species, as Linnaeus, taught. Modern materialism embraces the more recent discoveries of natural science, according to which Nature also has its history in time, the celestial bodies, like the organic species that, under favorable conditions, people them, being born and perishing. And even if Nature, as a whole, must still be said to move in recurrent cycles, these cycles assume infinitely larger dimensions. In both aspects, modern materialism is essentially dialectic, and no longer requires the assistance of that sort of philosophy which, queen-like, pretended to rule the remaining mob of sciences. As soon as each special science is bound to make clear its position in the great totality of things and of our knowledge of things, a special science dealing with this totality is superfluous or unnecessary. That which still survives of all earlier philosophy is the science of thought and its law ? formal logic and dialectics. Everything else is subsumed in the positive science of Nature and history. Whilst, however, the revolution in the conception of Nature could only be made in proportion to the corresponding positive materials furnished by research, already much earlier certain historical facts had occurred which led to a decisive change in the conception of history. In 1831, the first working-class rising took place in Lyons; between 1838 and 1842, the first national working-class movement, that of the English Chartists, reached its height. The class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie came to the front in the history of the most advanced countries in Europe, in proportion to the development, upon the one hand, of modern industry, upon the other, of the newly-acquired political supremacy of the bourgeoisie. facts more and more strenuously gave the lie to the teachings of bourgeois economy as to the identity of the interests of capital and labor, as to the universal harmony and universal prosperity that would be the consequence of unbridled competition. All these things could no longer be ignored, any more than the French and English Socialism, which was their theoretical, though very imperfect, expression. But the old idealist conception of history, which was not yet dislodged, knew nothing of class struggles based upon economic interests, knew nothing of economic interests; production and all economic relations appeared in it only as incidental, subordinate elements in the "history of civilization". The new facts made imperative a new examination of all past history. Then it was seen that all past history, with the exception of its primitive stages, was the history of class struggles; that these warring classes of society are always the products of the modes of production and of exchange ? in a word, of the economic conditions of their time; that the economic structure of society always furnishes the real basis, starting from which we can alone work out the ultimate explanation of the whole superstructure of juridical and political institutions as well as of the religious, philosophical, and other ideas of a given historical period. Hegel has freed history from metaphysics ? he made it dialectic; but his conception of history was essentially idealistic. But now idealism was driven from its last refuge, the philosophy of history; now a materialistic treatment of history was propounded, and a method found of explaining man's "knowing" by his "being", instead of, as heretofore, his "being" by his "knowing". From bogus@does.not.exist.com Wed Oct 14 08:33:50 2009 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:33:50 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: discovery of this or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle between two historically developed classes =97 the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Its task was no longer to manufacture a system of society as perfect as possible, but to examine the historico-economic succession of events from which these classes and their antagonism had of necessity sprung, and to discover in the economic conditions thus created the means of ending the conflict. But the Socialism of earlier days was as incompatible with this materialist conception as the conception of Nature of the French materialists was with dialectics and modern natural science. The Socialism of earlier days certainly criticized the existing capitalistic mode of production and its consequences. But it could not explain them, and, therefore, could not get the mastery of them. It could only simply reject them as bad. The more strongly this earlier Socialism denounced the exploitations of the working-class, inevitable under Capitalism, the less able was it clearly to show in what this exploitation consisted and how it arose. but for this it was necessary =97 to present the capitalistic mode of production in its historical connection and its inevitableness during a particular historical period, and therefore, also, to present its inevitable downfall; and to lay bare its essential character, which was still a secret. This was done by the discovery of surplus-value. It was shown that the appropriation of unpaid labor is the basis of the capitalist mode of production and of the exploitation of the worker that occurs under it; that even if the capitalist buys the labor power of his laborer at its full value as a commodity on the market, he yet extracts more value from it than he paid for; and that in the ultimate analysis, this surplus-value forms those sums of value from which are heaped up constantly increasing masses of capital in the hands of the possessing classes. The genesis of capitalist production and the production of capital were both explained. These two great discoveries, the materialistic conception of history and the revelation of the secret of capitalistic production through surplus-value, we owe to Marx. With these discoveries, Socialism became a science. The next thing was to work out all its details and relations. Next: Historical Materialism From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 09:38:56 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:38:56 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?windows-1252?q?Detroit=3A_The_Death_=97_and_Po?= =?windows-1252?q?ssible_Life_=97_of_a_Great_City?= Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220838y208f832cu97a67a5a71973793@mail.gmail.com> http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1925796,00.html Thursday, Sep. 24, 2009 Detroit: The Death ? and Possible Life ? of a Great City By Daniel Okrent -_Time_ magazine If Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a ravenous flood, we'd know a lot more about it. If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we'd see it on the evening news every night. Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it ? if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice. (See pictures of the remains of Detroit.) But Detroit, once our fourth largest city, now 11th and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country. Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision-making. By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit's treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services. The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers' union to reject a philanthropist's offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high schools, is in receivership. The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans, unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit, the unemployment rate is 28.9%. That's worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent. If, like me, you're a Detroit native who recently went home to find out what went wrong, your first instinct is to weep. If you live there still, that's not the response you're looking for. Old friends and new acquaintances, people who confront the city's agony every day, told me, "I hope this isn't going to be another article about how terrible things are in Detroit." It is ? and it isn't. That's because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city's collapse. It's also about the erosion of the industries that helped build the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century. If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can't find a way to get up, what does that say about our future? See the 50 worst cars of all time. Follow TIME's Detroit reporters on Twitter. My City of Ruins On my trip to Detroit, I took a long drive around my hometown. Downtown, I visited a lovely new esplanade along the riverfront, two state-of-the-sport stadiums and a classic old hotel restored to modern luxury. In leafy Grosse Pointe, I saw handsome houses anyone would want to live in (and, thanks to the crash of the auto business, available at prices most Americans haven't seen in decades). At the General Motors Technical Center, in the industrial suburb Warren, the parking lots were mostly empty ? an awful lot of engineers have been thrown out of work ? but the survivors showed me some pretty impressive technology. I liked the cars that "talked" to other cars, making accidents all but impossible, and I was especially impressed by a prototype Chevy fueled entirely by hydrogen. Hydrogen! (See pictures of Detroit's beautiful, horrible decline.) But to a native, downtowns and suburbs, even suburbs hurting from an economic calamity, are not the real Detroit. The Detroit I both wanted to see and was afraid to see was the city itself, the elm-lined streets of fond memory where my friends and I grew up and went to school and lived idyllic 1950s lives, the place that America once knew as the Arsenal of Democracy. The neighborhood where I lived as a child, where for decades orderly rows of sturdy brick homes lined each block, is now the urban equivalent of a boxer's mouth, more gaps than teeth. Some of the surviving houses look as if the wrecker's ball is the only thing that could relieve their pain. On the adjacent business streets, commercial activity is so palpably absent you'd think a neutron bomb had been detonated ? except the burned-out storefronts and bricked-over windows suggest that something physically destructive happened as well. (See the most important cars of all time.) Similar scenes are draped across most of the city's 138 sq. mi., yielding a landscape that bears a closer relation to a postapocalyptic nightmare than to the prosperous and muscular place I remember. The City of Homeowners, some called it, a city with endless miles of owner-occupied bungalows and half-capes and modest mock Tudors that were the respectable legacy of five decades of the auto industry's primacy in the American economy and Detroiters' naive faith that the industry would never run out of gas. But it did. Detroit fell victim not to one malign actor but to a whole cast of them. For more than two decades, the insensate auto companies and their union partners and the elected officials who served at their pleasure continued to gun their engines while foreign competitors siphoned away their market share. When this played out against the city's legacy of white racism and the corrosive two-decade rule of a black politician who cared more about retribution than about resurrection, you can begin to see why Detroit careened off the road. Who Killed Detroit? Most of us thought Detroit was pretty wonderful back in the '50s and early '60s, its mighty industrial engine humming in top gear, filling America's roads with the nation's signifying product and the city's houses and streets with nearly 2 million people. Of course, if you were black, it was substantially less wonderful, its neighborhoods as segregated as any in America. On the northwest side, not far from where I grew up, a homebuilder had in the 1940s erected a six-foot-high concrete wall, nearly half a mile long, to separate his development from an adjacent black neighborhood. Still, white Detroit believed that the riots that ravaged Los Angeles in 1965 and a number of other cities the following summer would never burn across our town. Black people in Detroit, enlightened whites believed, had jobs and homes, and even if those homes were on the other side of an apartheid wall, their owners had a stake in the city. Some did, but too many others, invisible to white Detroit, did not. The riots that scorched the city in July 1967, leaving 43 people dead, were the product of an unarticulated racism that few had acknowledged, and a self-deceiving blindness that had made it possible for even the best-intentioned whites to ignore the straitjacket of segregation that had crippled black neighborhoods, ill served the equally divided schools and enabled the casual brutality of a police force that was too white and too loosely supervised. (See pictures of 50 years of Motown.) The '67 riots sent thousands of white Detroiters fleeing for the suburbs. Even if black Detroiters with financial resources wished to follow, they could not: the de facto segregation was virtually de jure in most Detroit suburbs. One suburban mayor boasted, "They can't get in here. Every time we hear of a Negro moving in ... we respond quicker than you do to a fire." Soon Detroit became a majority-black city, and in 1973 it elected its first black mayor. Coleman Young was a talented politician who spent much of his 20 years in office devoting his talents to the politics of revenge. He called himself the "MFIC" ? the IC stood for "in charge," the MF for exactly what you think. Young was at first fairly effective, when he wasn't insulting suburban political leaders and alienating most of the city's remaining white residents with a posture that could have been summed up in the phrase Now it's our turn. But by his third term, Young was governing more by rhetoric than by action. These were the years of a local phenomenon known as Devil's Night, a nihilistic orgy of arson that in one especially explosive year saw 800 houses burn to the ground in 72 hours. Violent crime soared under Young. The school system began to cave in on itself. When jobs disappeared with the small businesses boarding up their doors and abandoning the city, the mayor seemed to find it more useful to bid the business owners good riddance than to address the job losses. Detroit was dying, and its mayor chose to preside over the funeral rather than find a way to work with the suburban and state officials who now detested him every bit as much as he had demonized them. When Young finally left office in 1993, he bragged that Detroit had achieved a "level of autonomy ... that no other city can match." He apparently didn't care that it was the autonomy of a man in a rowboat, in the middle of the ocean, without oars. But Young isn't the only politician to blame. In 1956, when I was 8 years old, my Congressman was John D. Dingell. There are people in southeastern Michigan who are still represented by Dingell, the longest-serving member in the history of the House of Representatives. "The working men and women of Michigan and their families have always been Congressman Dingell's top priority," his website declares, and I suppose he thinks he has served them well ? by resisting, in succession, tougher safety regulations, more-stringent mileage standards, relaxed trade restrictions and virtually any other measure that might have forced the American automobile industry to make cars that could stand up to foreign competition. (See the most exciting cars of 2010.) By so ably satisfying the wishes of the auto industry ? by encouraging southeastern Michigan's reliance on this single, lumbering mastodon ? Dingell has in fact played a signal role in destroying Detroit. He was hardly alone; if you wanted to get elected in southeastern Michigan, you had to support the party line dictated by the Big Four ? GM, Ford, Chrysler and their co-conspirator the United Auto Workers. Anything that might limit the industry's income was bad for the auto industry, and anything bad for the auto industry was deemed dangerous to Detroit. The UAW had once been the most visionary of American unions. As early as the 1940s, UAW president Walter Reuther was urging the auto companies to produce small, inexpensive cars for the average American. In 1947 and '48 the union even offered to cut wages if the Big Three would reduce the price of their cars. But by the early 1980s, the UAW had entered into a nakedly self-interested pact with the auto companies. After the union's president joined GM's chief congressional lobbyist to defeat a tougher mileage standard in 1990, the lobbyist declared that "we would not have won without the UAW." It was, he said, "one of the proudest days of my life." The union really can't be blamed for pushing for fabulous wages and lush benefits for its members ? that game required two players, and the automakers knew only how to say yes. But the union leadership's fatal mistake was insisting that workers with comparable skills and comparable seniority be paid comparable wages, irrespective of who employed them. If a machinist at a prosperous GM deserved $25 an hour, so did a machinist who worked for a barely profitable Chrysler or for a just-holding-its-own supplier plant that made axles or wheels or windshield wipers. This defiant inattention to market reality not only placed the less healthy firms in peril, but by pricing labor so uniformly high, it also closed off Detroit to any possible diversification of its industrial base. When the automakers' inattention to engineering, style and quality caused them to crash into a wall of consumer indifference, there was no other industry that could step forward and employ workers who would have been thrilled to make even a fraction of what they once earned. Now nearly 1 in 3 Detroit residents is out of work ? and not many of the unemployed have a prayer of finding a job anytime soon. Read "For Iraqi Refugees, Detroit Is Still a City of Hope." Read "Detroit Tries to Get on a Road to Renewal." Reviving Motown If white racism, Coleman Young and a delusional dependence on the auto industry's belief in its own virtues put Detroit where it is today, what ? if anything ? can pull this tragic city out of its death spiral? You could do worse than to begin with some form of regional government. During Young's reign and for many years thereafter, the possibility of city-suburban cooperation ? which is to say, black-white cooperation ? was close to nil. The black city didn't want white suburbanites telling it what to do, and white suburbanites had no interest in assuming the burden of a black city. (Read a TIME postcard from Detroit.) L. Brooks Patterson, the long-serving and exceptionally able chief executive of suburban Oakland County, a prosperous community that borders Detroit to the north, represents the latter view well. "They say, 'As Detroit goes, so goes Oakland County,' " Patterson said a few weeks ago. "Not true!" He apparently believes that Eight Mile Road, the fabled thoroughfare that defines Detroit's northern border, is an impermeable membrane insulating his county from the city's ills. But Patterson knows that Oakland's prized AAA bond rating is in peril because the rating agencies are mindful of the county's proximity to Detroit to the south and Flint to the north. A downgrade could cost his constituents millions of dollars, and as the situation in Detroit deteriorates, he and his counterparts in adjacent counties will have no choice but to seek common solutions. For its part, Detroit must address the fact that a 138-sq.-mi. city that once accommodated 1.85 million people is way too large for the 912,000 who remain. The fire, police and sanitation departments couldn't efficiently service the yawning stretches of barely inhabited areas even if the city could afford to maintain those operations at their former size. Detroit has to shrink its footprint, even if it means condemning decent houses in the gap-toothed areas and moving their occupants to compact neighborhoods where they might find a modicum of security and service. Build greenbelts, which are a lot cheaper to maintain than untraveled streets. Encourage urban farming. Let the barren areas revert to nature. Most crucially, the entire region has to realize that defining itself solely by the misperceived needs of a single industry has left all of southeastern Michigan dazed and bleeding. And yet the conditions for resetting that economic model couldn't be more favorable. The collapse of the UAW's prohibitive wage scale, coupled with the vast unemployment, is turning what was once the nation's most expensive labor market into one of the cheapest. For the first time since Henry Ford offered $5 a day to the men who assembled the Model T back in 1914, Detroit is open to new industry. America isn't so keen on national industrial policy. But in Detroit's past, you can find an idea for its future ? and the nation's. Back in the '50s, the Federal Government began investing what would eventually reach half a trillion dollars in what became the interstate highway system. You could have considered that an incredible subsidy for the auto industry ? which it was ? but it was also an investment in the nation's future. It's an adaptable model. The fuel-cell technology that dazzled me at the GM Tech Center is less about autos than it is about energy ? energy, as hydrogen, that exists in every molecule of water. What's to stop us now from turning Detroit ? its highly trained engineering talent, its skilled and unskilled workforce desperate for employment, its underutilized production facilities ? into the Arsenal of the Renewable Energy Future? If we did, Detroit could go back to building something America needs. As a nation, we could prove that we can still make things. And while we're at it, we could regenerate not just a city but our sense of who we are. Read "How Boosting Detroit's Graduation Rates Will Boost Its Economy." See TIME's complete Detroit coverage. Click to Print Find this article at: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925796,00.html From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 10:41:09 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:41:09 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Engels explains to Rosa L Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220941i70c09bd3u3d1530179211a546@mail.gmail.com> Below, Engels explains further the ?is and is not? of Hegelian or dialectical contradiction. Can Rosa see it , yet ? CB Frederick Engels Socialism: Utopian and Scientific II [Dialectics] In the meantime, along with and after the French philosophy of the 18th century, had arisen the new German philosophy, culminating in Hegel. Its greatest merit was the taking up again of dialectics as the highest form of reasoning. The old Greek philosophers were all born natural dialecticians, and Aristotle, the most encyclopaedic of them, had already analyzed the most essential forms of dialectic thought. The newer philosophy, on the other hand, although in it also dialectics had brilliant exponents (e.g. Descartes and Spinoza), had, especially through English influence, become more and more rigidly fixed in the so-called metaphysical mode of reasoning, by which also the French of the 18th century were almost wholly dominated, at all events in their special philosophical work. Outside philosophy in the restricted sense, the French nevertheless produced masterpieces of dialectic. We need only call to mind Diderot?s Le Neveu de Rameau, and Rousseau?s Discours sur l?origine et les fondements de l?inegalite parmi less hommes. We give here, in brief, the essential character of these two modes of thought. When we consider and reflect upon Nature at large, or the history of mankind, or our own intellectual activity, at first we see the picture of an endless entanglement of relations and reactions, permutations and combinations, in which nothing remains what, where and as it was, but everything moves, changes, comes into being and passes away. We see, therefore, at first the picture as a whole, with its individual parts still more or less kept in the background; we observe the movements, transitions, connections, rather than the things that move, combine, and are connected. This primitive, naive but intrinsically correct conception of the world is that of ancient Greek philosophy, and was first clearly formulated by Heraclitus: _everything is and is not_ (emphasis added -CB), for everything is fluid, is constantly changing, constantly coming into being and passing away.[A] From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 10:42:55 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:42:55 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rosa L the metaphysician Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910220942p6d7b4b5biee8bd118b1f4fb6@mail.gmail.com> In the next two paragraphs of the chapter ?Dialectics? of _Socialism: Utopian and Scientific_, Engels describes Rosa L?s contradiction ?free?, metaphysical , formal logical thinking. CB ^^^^^^^ But this conception (dialectics), correctly as it expresses the general character of the picture of appearances as a whole, does not suffice to explain the details of which this picture is made up, and so long as we do not understand these, we have not a clear idea of the whole picture. In order to understand these details, we must detach them from their natural, special causes, effects, etc. This is, primarily, the task of natural science and historical research: branches of science which the Greek of classical times, on very good grounds, relegated to a subordinate position, because they had first of all to collect materials for these sciences to work upon. A certain amount of natural and historical material must be collected before there can be any critical analysis, comparison, and arrangement in classes, orders, and species. The foundations of the exact natural sciences were, therefore, first worked out by the Greeks of the Alexandrian period [B], and later on, in the Middle Ages, by the Arabs. Real natural science dates from the second half of the 15th century, and thence onward it had advanced with constantly increasing rapidity. The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organized bodies in their manifold forms ? these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature that have been made during the last 400 years. But this method of work has also left us as legacy the habit of observing natural objects and processes in isolation, apart from their connection with the vast whole; of observing them in repose, not in motion; as constraints, not as essentially variables; in their death, not in their life. And when this way of looking at things was transferred by Bacon and Locke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of thought peculiar to the last century. To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects of investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses. His communication is ?yea, yea; nay, nay?; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.? ( This is a quote of Jesus; Jesus was a metaphysician smile - CB)For him, a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another; cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis, one to the other. From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 11:28:42 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:28:42 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] [Historical Materialism] Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910221028k3f0b3903vea60fa3c4dc11584@mail.gmail.com> Frederick Engels Socialism: Utopian and Scientific -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- III [Historical Materialism] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view, the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange. ^^^^^ CB: Notice it is the _changes and revolutions_ that caused by _changes_ in infrastructure. Marxism doesn't hold that infra-structure continuously determines super-structure, but only that changes in infra-structure determine changes in super-structure. ^^^ They are to be sought, not in the philosophy, but in the economics of each particular epoch. The growing perception that existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that reason has become unreason, and right wrong [1], is only proof that in the modes of production and exchange changes have silently taken place with which the social order, adapted to earlier economic conditions, is no longer in keeping. From this it also follows that the means of getting rid of the incongruities that have been brought to light must also be present, in a more or less developed condition, within the changed modes of production themselves. These means are not to be invented by deduction from fundamental principles, but are to be discovered in the stubborn facts of the existing system of production. What is, then, the position of modern Socialism in this connection? The present situation of society ? this is now pretty generally conceded ? is the creation of the ruling class of today, of the bourgeoisie. The mode of production peculiar to the bourgeoisie, known, since Marx, as the capitalist mode of production, was incompatible with the feudal system, with the privileges it conferred upon individuals, entire social ranks and local corporations, as well as with the hereditary ties of subordination which constituted the framework of its social organization. The bourgeoisie broke up the feudal system and built upon its ruins the capitalist order of society, the kingdom of free competition, of personal liberty, of the equality, before the law, of all commodity owners, of all the rest of the capitalist blessings. Thenceforward, the capitalist mode of production could develop in freedom. Since steam, machinery, and the making of machines by machinery transformed the older manufacture into modern industry, the productive forces, evolved under the guidance of the bourgeoisie, developed with a rapidity and in a degree unheard of before. But just as the older manufacture, in its time, and handicraft, becoming more developed under its influence, had come into collision with the feudal trammels of the guilds, so now modern industry, in its complete development, comes into collision with the bounds within which the capitalist mode of production holds it confined. The new productive forces have already outgrown the capitalistic mode of using them. And this conflict between productive forces and modes of production is not a conflict engendered in the mind of man, like that between original sin and divine justice. It exists, in fact, objectively, outside us, independently of the will and actions even of the men that have brought it on. Modern Socialism is nothing but the reflex, in thought, of this conflict in fact; its ideal reflection in the minds, first, of the class directly suffering under it, the working class. Now, in what does this conflict consist? Before capitalist production ? i.e., in the Middle Ages ? the system of petty industry obtained generally, based upon the private property of the laborers in their means of production; in the country, the agriculture of the small peasant, freeman, or serf; in the towns, the handicrafts organized in guilds. The instruments of labor ? land, agricultural implements, the workshop, the tool ? were the instruments of labor of single individuals, adapted for the use of one worker, and, therefore, of necessity, small, dwarfish, circumscribed. But, for this very reason, they belonged as a rule to the producer himself. To concentrate these scattered, limited means of production, to enlarge them, to turn them into the powerful levers of production of the present day ? this was precisely the historic role of capitalist production and of its upholder, the bourgeoisie. In the fourth section of Capital, Marx has explained in detail how since the 15th century this has been historically worked out through the three phases of simple co-operation, manufacture, and modern industry. But the bourgeoisie, as is shown there, could not transform these puny means of production into mighty productive forces without transforming them, at the same time, from means of production of the individual into social means of production only workable by a collectivity of men. The spinning wheel, the handloom, the blacksmith's hammer, were replaced by the spinning-machine, the power-loom, the steam-hammer; the individual workshop, by the factory implying the co-operation of hundreds and thousands of workmen. In like manner, production itself changed from a series of individual into a series of social acts, and the production from individual to social products. The yarn, the cloth, the metal articles that now come out of the factory were the joint product of many workers, through whose hands they had successively to pass before they were ready. No one person could say of them: "I made that; this is my product." But where, in a given society, the fundamental form of production is that spontaneous division of labor which creeps in gradually and not upon any preconceived plan, there the products take on the form of commodities, whose mutual exchange, buying and selling, enable the individual producers to satisfy their manifold wants. And this was the case in the Middle Ages. The peasant, e.g., sold to the artisan agricultural products and bought from him the products of handicraft. Into this society of individual producers, of commodity producers, the new mode of production thrust itself. In the midst of the old division of labor, grown up spontaneously and upon no definite plan, which had governed the whole of society, now arose division of labor upon a definite plan, as organized in the factory; side by side with individual production appeared social production. The products of both were sold in the same market, and, therefore, at prices at least approximately equal. But organization upon a definite plan was stronger than spontaneous division of labor. The factories working with the combined social forces of a collectivity of individuals produced their commodities far more cheaply than the individual small producers. Individual producers succumbed in one department after another. Socialized production revolutionized all the old methods of production. But its revolutionary character was, at the same time, so little recognized that it was, on the contrary, introduced as a means of increasing and developing the production of commodities. When it arose, it found ready-made, and made liberal use of, certain machinery for the production and exchange of commodities: merchants' capital, handicraft, wage-labor. Socialized production thus introducing itself as a new form of the production of commodities, it was a matter of course that under it the old forms of appropriation remained in full swing, and were applied to its products as well. In the medieval stage of evolution of the production of commodities, the question as to the owner of the product of labor could not arise. The individual producer, as a rule, had, from raw material belonging to himself, and generally his own handiwork, produced it with his own tools, by the labor of his own hands or of his family. There was no need for him to appropriate the new product. It belonged wholly to him, as a matter of course. His property in the product was, therefore, based upon his own labor. Even where external help was used, this was, as a rule, of little importance, and very generally was compensated by something other than wages. The apprentices and journeymen of the guilds worked less for board and wages than for education, in order that they might become master craftsmen themselves. Then came the concentration of the means of production and of the producers in large workshops and manufactories, their transformation into actual socialized means of production and socialized producers. But the socialized producers and means of production and their products were still treated, after this change, just as they had been before ? i.e., as the means of production and the products of individuals. Hitherto, the owner of the instruments of labor had himself appropriated the product, because, as a rule, it was his own product and the assistance of others was the exception. Now, the owner of the instruments of labor always appropriated to himself the product, although it was no longer his product but exclusively the product of the labor of others. Thus, the products now produced socially were not appropriated by those who had actually set in motion the means of production and actually produced the commodities, but by the capitalists. The means of production, and production itself, had become in essence socialized. But they were subjected to a form of appropriation which presupposes the private production of individuals, under which, therefore, every one owns his own product and brings it to market. The mode of production is subjected to this form of appropriation, although it abolishes the conditions upon which the latter rests. [2] This contradiction, which gives to the new mode of production its capitalistic character, contains the germ of the whole of the social antagonisms of today. The greater the mastery obtained by the new mode of production over all important fields of production and in all manufacturing countries, the more it reduced individual production to an insignificant residuum, the more clearly was brought out the incompatibility of socialized production with capitalistic appropriation. The first capitalists found, as we have said, alongside of other forms of labor, wage-labor ready-made for them on the market. But it was exceptional, complementary, accessory, transitory wage-labor. The agricultural laborer, though, upon occasion, he hired himself out by the day, had a few acres of his own land on which he could at all events live at a pinch. The guilds were so organized that the journeyman to today became the master of tomorrow. But all this changed, as soon as the means of production became socialized and concentrated in the hands of capitalists. The means of production, as well as the product, of the individual producer became more and more worthless; there was nothing left for him but to turn wage-worker under the capitalist. Wage-labor, aforetime the exception and accessory, now became the rule and basis of all production; aforetime complementary, it now became the sole remaining function of the worker. The wage-worker for a time became a wage-worker for life. The number of these permanent was further enormously increased by the breaking-up of the feudal system that occurred at the same time, by the disbanding of the retainers of the feudal lords, the eviction of the peasants from their homesteads, etc. The separation was made complete between the means of production concentrated in the hands of the capitalists, on the one side, and the producers, possessing nothing but their labor-power, on the other. The contradiction between socialized production and capitalistic appropriation manifested itself as the antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie. (continued) From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 11:31:47 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:31:47 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] III [Historical Materialism] Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910221031h6fac56f1gbdb66a62afbf0285@mail.gmail.com> Frederick Engels Socialism: Utopian and Scientific III [Historical Materialism] (continued) We have seen that the capitalistic mode of production thrust its way into a society of commodity-producers, of individual producers, whose social bond was the exchange of their products. But every society based upon the production of commodities has this peculiarity: that the producers have lost control over their own social inter-relations. Each man produces for himself with such means of production as he may happen to have, and for such exchange as he may require to satisfy his remaining wants. No one knows how much of his particular article is coming on the market, nor how much of it will be wanted. No one knows whether his individual product will meet an actual demand, whether he will be able to make good his costs of production or even to sell his commodity at all. Anarchy reigns in socialized production. But the production of commodities, like every other form of production, has it peculiar, inherent laws inseparable from it; and these laws work, despite anarchy, in and through anarchy. They reveal themselves in the only persistent form of social inter-relations ? i.e., in exchange ? and here they affect the individual producers as compulsory laws of competition. They are, at first, unknown to these producers themselves, and have to be discovered by them gradually and as the result of experience. They work themselves out, therefore, independently of the producers, and in antagonism to them, as inexorable natural laws of their particular form of production. The product governs the producers. In mediaeval society, especially in the earlier centuries, production was essentially directed toward satisfying the wants of the individual. It satisfied, in the main, only the wants of the producer and his family. Where relations of personal dependence existed, as in the country, it also helped to satisfy the wants of the feudal lord. In all this there was, therefore, no exchange; the products, consequently, did not assume the character of commodities. The family of the peasant produced almost everything they wanted: clothes and furniture, as well as the means of subsistence. Only when it began to produce more than was sufficient to supply its own wants and the payments in kind to the feudal lords, only then did it also produce commodities. This surplus, thrown into socialized exchange and offered for sale, became commodities. The artisan in the towns, it is true, had from the first to produce for exchange. But they, also, themselves supplied the greatest part of their individual wants. They had gardens and plots of land. They turned their cattle out into the communal forest, which, also, yielded them timber and firing. The women spun flax, wool, and so forth. Production for the purpose of exchange, production of commodities, was only in its infancy. Hence, exchange was restricted, the market narrow, the methods of production stable; there was local exclusiveness without, local unity within; the mark in the country; in the town, the guild. But with the extension of the production of commodities, and especially with the introduction of the capitalist mode of production, the laws of commodity-production, hitherto latent, came into action more openly and with greater force. The old bonds were loosened, the old exclusive limits broken through, the producers were more and more turned into independent, isolated producers of commodities. It became apparent that the production of society at large was ruled by absence of plan, by accident, by anarchy; and this anarchy grew to greater and greater height. But the chief means by aid of which the capitalist mode of production intensified this anarchy of socialized production was the exact opposite of anarchy. It was the increasing organization of production, upon a social basis, in every individual productive establishment. By this, the old, peaceful, stable condition of things was ended. Wherever this organization of production was introduced into a branch of industry, it brooked no other method of production by its side. The field of labor became a battle-ground. The great geographical discoveries, and the colonization following them, multiplied markets and quickened the transformation of handicraft into manufacture. The war did not simply break out between the individual producers of particular localities. The local struggles begat, in their turn, national conflicts, the commercial wars of the 17th and 18th centuries. Finally, modern industry and the opening of the world-market made the struggle universal, and at the same time gave it an unheard-of virulence. Advantages in natural or artificial conditions of production now decide the existence or non-existence of individual capitalists, as well as of whole industries and countries. He that falls is remorselessly cast aside. It is the Darwinian struggle of the individual for existence transferred from Nature to society with intensified violence. The conditions of existence natural to the animal appear as the final term of human development. The contradiction between socialized production and capitalistic appropriation now presents itself as an antagonism between the organization of production in the individual workshop and the anarchy of production in society generally. The capitalistic mode of production moves in these two forms of the antagonism immanent to it from its very origin. It is never able to get out of that "vicious circle" which Fourier had already discovered. What Fourier could not, indeed, see in his time is that this circle is gradually narrowing; that the movement becomes more and more a spiral, and must come to an end, like the movement of planets, by collision with the centre. It is the compelling force of anarchy in the production of society at large that more and more completely turns the great majority of men into proletarians; and it is the masses of the proletariat again who will finally put an end to anarchy in production. It is the compelling force of anarchy in social production that turns the limitless perfectibility of machinery under modern industry into a compulsory law by which every individual industrial capitalist must perfect his machinery more and more, under penalty of ruin. But the perfecting of machinery is making human labor superfluous. If the introduction and increase of machinery means the displacement of millions of manual by a few machine-workers, improvement in machinery means the displacement of more and more of the machine-workers themselves. It means, in the last instance, the production of a number of available wage workers in excess of the average needs of capital, the formation of a complete industrial reserve army, as I called it in 1845 [3], available at the times when industry is working at high pressure, to be cast out upon the street when the inevitable crash comes, a constant dead weight upon the limbs of the working-class in its struggle for existence with capital, a regulator for keeping of wages down to the low level that suits the interests of capital. Thus it comes about, to quote Marx, that machinery becomes the most powerful weapon in the war of capital against the working-class; that the instruments of labor constantly tear the means of subsistence out of the hands of the laborer; that they very product of the worker is turned into an instrument for his subjugation. Thus it comes about that the economizing of the instruments of labor becomes at the same time, from the outset, the most reckless waste of labor-power, and robbery based upon the normal conditions under which labor functions; that machinery, "the most powerful instrument for shortening labor time, becomes the most unfailing means for placing every moment of the laborer's time and that of his family at the disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the value of his capital." (Capital, English edition, p. 406) Thus it comes about that the overwork of some becomes the preliminary condition for the idleness of others, and that modern industry, which hunts after new consumers over the whole world, forces the consumption of the masses at home down to a starvation minimum, and in doing thus destroys its own home market. "The law that always equilibrates the relative surplus- population, or industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the laborer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with the 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 (Marx's Capital, p. 661) And to expect any other division of the products from the capitalist mode of production is the same as expecting the electrodes of a battery not to decompose acidulated water, not to liberate oxygen at the positive, hydrogen at the negative pole, so long as they are connected with the battery. We have seen that the ever-increasing perfectibility of modern machinery is, by the anarchy of social production, turned into a compulsory law that forces the individual industrial capitalist always to improve his machinery, always to increase its productive force. The bare possibility of extending the field of production is transformed for him into a similarly compulsory law. The enormous expansive force of modern industry, compared with which that of gases is mere child's play, appears to us now as a necessity for expansion, both qualitative and quantative, that laughs at all resistance. Such resistance is offered by consumption, by sales, by the markets for the products of modern industry. But the capacity for extension, extensive and intensive, of the markets is primarily governed by quite different laws that work much less energetically. The extension of the markets cannot keep pace with the extension of production. The collision becomes inevitable, and as this cannot produce any real solution so long as it does not break in pieces the capitalist mode of production, the collisions become periodic. Capitalist production has begotten another "vicious circle". As a matter of fact, since 1825, when the first general crisis broke out, the whole industrial and commercial world, production and exchange among all civilized peoples and their more or less barbaric hangers-on, are thrown out of joint about once every 10 years. Commerce is at a stand-still, the markets are glutted, products accumulate, as multitudinous as they are unsaleable, hard cash disappears, credit vanishes, factories are closed, the mass of the workers are in want of the means of subsistence, because they have produced too much of the means of subsistence; bankruptcy follows upon bankruptcy, execution upon execution. The stagnation lasts for years; productive forces and products are wasted and destroyed wholesale, until the accumulated mass of commodities finally filter off, more or less depreciated in value, until production and exchange gradually begin to move again. Little by little, the pace quickens. It becomes a trot. The industrial trot breaks into a canter, the canter in turn grows into the headlong gallop of a perfect steeplechase of industry, commercial credit, and speculation, which finally, after breakneck leaps, ends where it began ? in the ditch of a crisis. And so over and over again. We have now, since the year 1825, gone through this five times, and at the present moment (1877), we are going through it for the sixth time. And the character of these crises is so clearly defined that Fourier hit all of them off when he described the first "crise plethorique", a crisis from plethora. In these crises, the contradiction between socialized production and capitalist appropriation ends in a violent explosion. The circulation of commodities is, for the time being, stopped. Money, the means of circulation, becomes a hindrance to circulation. All the laws of production and circulation of commodities are turned upside down. The economic collision has reached its apogee. The mode of production is in rebellion against the mode of exchange. (continued) From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 12:42:15 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:42:15 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] [Historical materialism] Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910221142h58da4619k739281738fc04615@mail.gmail.com> The fact that the socialized organization of production within the factory has developed so far that it has become incompatible with the anarchy of production in society, which exists side by side with and dominates it, is brought home to the capitalist themselves by the violent concentration of capital that occurs during crises, through the ruin of many large, and a still greater number of small, capitalists. The whole mechanism of the capitalist mode of production breaks down under the pressure of the productive forces, its own creations. It is no longer able to turn all this mass of means of production into capital. They lie fallow, and for that very reason the industrial reserve army must also lie fallow. Means of production, means of subsistence, available laborers, all the elements of production and of general wealth, are present in abundance. But "abundance becomes the source of distress and want" (Fourier), because it is the very thing that prevents the transformation of the means of production and subsistence into capital. For in capitalistic society, the means of production can only function when they have undergone a preliminary transformation into capital, into the means of exploiting human labor-power. The necessity of this transformation into capital of the means of production and subsistence stands like a ghost between these and the workers. It alone prevents the coming together of the material and personal levers of production; it alone forbids the means of production to function, the workers to work and live. On the one hand, therefore, the capitalistic mode of production stands convicted of its own incapacity to further direct these productive forces. On the other, these productive forces themselves, with increasing energy, press forward to the removal of the existing contradiction, to the abolition of their quality as capital, to the practical recognition of their character as social production forces. This rebellion of the productive forces, as they grow more and more powerful, against their quality as capital, this stronger and stronger command that their social character shall be recognized, forces the capital class itself to treat them more and more as social productive forces, so far as this is possible under capitalist conditions. The period of industrial high pressure, with its unbounded inflation of credit, not less than the crash itself, by the collapse of great capitalist establishments, tends to bring about that form of the socialization of great masses of the means of production which we meet with in the different kinds of joint-stock companies. Many of these means of production and of distribution are, from the outset, so colossal that, like the railways, they exclude all other forms of capitalistic expansion. At a further stage of evolution, this form also becomes insufficient. The producers on a large scale in a particular branch of an industry in a particular country unite in a "Trust", a union for the purpose of regulating production. They determine the total amount to be produced, parcel it out among themselves, and thus enforce the selling price fixed beforehand. But trusts of this kind, as soon as business becomes bad, are generally liable to break up, and on this very account compel a yet greater concentration of association. The whole of a particular industry is turned into one gigantic joint-stock company; internal competition gives place to the internal monopoly of this one company. This has happened in 1890 with the English alkali production, which is now, after the fusion of 48 large works, in the hands of one company, conducted upon a single plan, and with a capital of 6,000,000 pounds. In the trusts, freedom of competition changes into its very opposite ? into monopoly; and the production without any definite plan of capitalistic society capitulates to the production upon a definite plan of the invading socialistic society. Certainly, this is so far still to the benefit and advantage of the capitalists. But, in this case, the exploitation is so palpable, that it must break down. No nation will put up with production conducted by trusts, with so barefaced an exploitation of the community by a small band of dividend-mongers. In any case, with trusts or without, the official representative of capitalist society ? the state ? will ultimately have to undertake the direction of production. [4] This necessity for conversion into State property is felt first in the great institutions for intercourse and communication ? the post office, the telegraphs, the railways. If the crises demonstrate the incapacity of the bourgeoisie for managing any longer modern productive forces, the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies, trusts, and State property, show how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose. All the social functions of the capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first, the capitalistic mode of production forces out the workers. Now, it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus-population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army. But, the transformation ? either into joint-stock companies and trusts, or into State-ownership ? does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies and trusts, this is obvious. And the modern State, again, is only the organization that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists. The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine ? the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers ? proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is, rather, brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State-ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution. This solution can only consist in the practical recognition of the social nature of the modern forces of production, and therefore in the harmonizing with the socialized character of the means of production. And this can only come about by society openly and directly taking possession of the productive forces which have outgrown all control, except that of society as a whole. The social character of the means of production and of the products today reacts against the producers, periodically disrupts all production and exchange, acts only like a law of Nature working blindly, forcibly, destructively. But,with the taking over by society of the productive forces, the social character of the means of production and of the products will be utilized by the producers with a perfect understanding of its nature, and instead of being a source of disturbance and periodical collapse, will become the most powerful lever of production itself. Active social forces work exactly like natural forces: blindly, forcibly, destructively, so long as we do not understand, and reckon with, them. But, when once we understand them, when once we grasp their action, their direction, their effects, it depends only upon ourselves to subject them more and more to our own will, and, by means of them, to reach our own ends. And this holds quite especially of the mighty productive forces of today. As long as we obstinately refuse to understand the nature and the character of these social means of action ? and this understanding goes against the grain of the capitalist mode of production, and its defenders ? so long these forces are at work in spite of us, in opposition to us, so long they master us, as we have shown above in detail. But when once their nature is understood, they can, in the hand working together, be transformed from master demons into willing servants. The difference is as that between the destructive force of electricity in the lightning in the storm, and electricity under command in the telegraph and the voltaic arc; the difference between a conflagration, and fire working in the service of man. With this recognition, at last, of the real nature of the productive forces of today, the social anarchy of production gives place to a social regulation of production upon a definite plan, according to the needs of the community and of each individual. Then the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer, and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the products that is based upon the nature of the modern means of production; upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production ? on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment. Whilst the capitalist mode of production more and more completely transforms the great majority of the population into proletarians, it creates the power which, under penalty of its own destruction, is forced to accomplish this revolution. Whilst it forces on more and more of the transformation of the vast means of production, already socialized, into State property, it shows itself the way to accomplishing this revolution. The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property. But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes all class distinction and class antagonisms, abolishes also the State as State. Society, thus far, based upon class antagonisms, had need of the State. That is, of an organization of the particular class which was, pro tempore, the exploiting class, an organization for the purpose of preventing any interference from without with the existing conditions of production, and, therefore, especially, for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited classes in the condition of oppression corresponding with the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom, wage-labor). The State was the official representative of society as a whole; the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But, it was this only in so far as it was the State of that class which itself represented, for the time being, society as a whole: in ancient times, the State of slaveowning citizens; in the Middle Ages, the feudal lords; in our own times, the bourgeoisie. From cb31450 at gmail.com Thu Oct 22 12:42:52 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:42:52 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] [Historical Materialism] Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910221142g4d7f6ff0q45860b31ce94f277@mail.gmail.com> When, at last, it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society ? the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society ? this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not "abolished". It dies out. This gives the measure of the value of the phrase: "a free State", both as to its justifiable use at times by agitators, and as to its ultimate scientific inefficiency; and also of the demands of the so-called anarchists for the abolition of the State out of hand. Since the historical appearance of the capitalist mode of production, the appropriation by society of all the means of production has often been dreamed of, more or less vaguely, by individuals, as well as by sects, as the ideal of the future. But it could become possible, could become a historical necessity, only when the actual conditions for its realization were there. Like every other social advance, it becomes practicable, not by men understanding that the existence of classes is in contradiction to justice, equality, etc., not by the mere willingness to abolish these classes, but by virtue of certain new economic conditions. The separation of society into an exploiting and an exploited class, a ruling and an oppressed class, was the necessary consequences of the deficient and restricted development of production in former times. So long as the total social labor only yields a produce which but slightly exceeds that barely necessary for the existence of all; so long, therefore, as labor engages all or almost all the time of the great majority of the members of society ? so long, of necessity, this society is divided into classes. Side by side with the great majority, exclusively bond slaves to labor, arises a class freed from directly productive labor, which looks after the general affairs of society: the direction of labor, State business, law, science, art, etc. It is, therefore, the law of division of labor that lies at the basis of the division into classes. But this does not prevent this division into classes from being carried out by means of violence and robbery, trickery and fraud. it does not prevent the ruling class, once having the upper hand, from consolidating its power at the expense of the working-class, from turning its social leadership into an intensified exploitation of the masses. But if, upon this showing, division into classes has a certain historical justification, it has this only for a given period, only under given social conditions. It was based upon the insufficiency of production. It will be swept away by the complete development of modern productive forces. And, in fact, the abolition of classes in society presupposes a degree of historical evolution at which the existence, not simply of this or that particular ruling class, but of any ruling class at all, and, therefore, the existence of class distinction itself, has become a obsolete anachronism. It presupposes, therefore, the development of production carried out to a degree at which appropriation of the means of production and of the products, and, with this, of political domination, of the monopoly of culture, and of intellectual leadership by a particular class of society, has become not only superfluous but economically, politically, intellectually, a hindrance to development. This point is now reached. Their political and intellectual bankruptcy is scarcely any longer a secret to the bourgeoisie themselves. Their economic bankruptcy recurs regularly every 10 years. In every crisis, society is suffocated beneath the weight of its own productive forces and products, which it cannot use, and stands helpless, face-to-face with the absurd contradiction that the producers have nothing to consume, because consumers are wanting. The expansive force of the means of production burst the bonds that the capitalist mode of production had imposed upon them. Their deliverance from these bonds is the one precondition for an unbroken, constantly-accelerated development of the productive forces, and therewith for a practically unlimited increase of production itself. Nor is this all. The socialized appropriation of the means of production does away, not only with the present artificial restrictions upon production, but also with the positive waste and devastation of productive forces and products that are at the present time the inevitable concomitants of production, and that reach their height in the crises. Further, it sets free for the community at large a mass of means of production and of products, by doing away with the senseless extravagance of the ruling classes of today, and their political representatives. The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day-by-day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties ? this possibility is now, for the first time, here, but it is here. [5] With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization. The struggle for individual existence disappears. Then, for the first time, man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature, because he has now become master of his own social organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by him. Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, governed history,pass under the control of man himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history ? only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom. Let us briefly sum up our sketch of historical evolution. I. Mediaeval Society ? Individual production on a small scale. Means of production adapted for individual use; hence primitive, ungainly, petty, dwarfed in action. Production for immediate consumption, either of the producer himself or his feudal lord. Only where an excess of production over this consumption occurs is such excess offered for sale, enters into exchange. Production of commodities, therefore, only in its infancy. But already it contains within itself, in embryo, anarchy in the production of society at large. II. Capitalist Revolution ? transformation of industry, at first be means of simple cooperation and manufacture. Concentration of the means of production, hitherto scattered, into great workshops. As a consequence, their transformation from individual to social means of production ? a transformation which does not, on the whole, affect the form of exchange. The old forms of appropriation remain in force. The capitalist appears. In his capacity as owner of the means of production, he also appropriates the products and turns them into commodities. Production has become a social act. Exchange and appropriation continue to be individual acts, the acts of individuals. The social product is appropriated by the individual capitalist. Fundamental contradiction, whence arise all the contradictions in which our present-day society moves, and which modern industry brings to light. A. Severance of the producer from the means of production. Condemnation of the worker to wage-labor for life. Antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. B. Growing predominance and increasing effectiveness of the laws governing the production of commodities. Unbridled competition. Contradiction between socialized organization in the individual factory and social anarchy in the production as a whole. C. On the one hand, perfecting of machinery, made by competition compulsory for each individual manufacturer, and complemented by a constantly growing displacement of laborers. Industrial reserve-army. On the other hand, unlimited extension of production, also compulsory under competition, for every manufacturer. On both sides, unheard-of development of productive forces, excess of supply over demand, over-production and products ? excess there, of laborers, without employment and without means of existence. But these two levers of production and of social well-being are unable to work together, because the capitalist form of production prevents the productive forces from working and the products from circulating, unless they are first turned into capital ? which their very superabundance prevents. The contradiction has grown into an absurdity. The mode of production rises in rebellion against the form of exchange. D. Partial recognition of the social character of the productive forces forced upon the capitalists themselves. Taking over of the great institutions for production and communication, first by joint-stock companies, later in by trusts, then by the State. The bourgeoisie demonstrated to be a superfluous class. All its social functions are now performed by salaried employees. III. Proletarian Revolution ? Solution of the contradictions. The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialized means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus far borne, and gives their socialized character complete freedom to work itself out. Socialized production upon a predetermined plan becomes henceforth possible. The development of production makes the existence of different classes of society thenceforth an anachronism. In proportion as anarchy in social production vanishes, the political authority of the State dies out. Man, at last the master of his own form of social organization, becomes at the same time the lord over Nature, his own master ? free. To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and this the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes 1. Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust 2. It is hardly necessary in this connection to point out that, even if the form of appropriation remains the same, the character of the appropriation is just as much revolutionized as production is by the changes described above. It is, of course, a very different matter whether I appropriate to myself my own product or that of another. Note in passing that wage-labor, which contains the whole capitalist mode of production in embryo, is very ancient; in a sporadic, scattered form, it existed for centuries alongside slave-labor. But the embryo could duly develop into the capitalistic mode of production only when the necessary historical pre-conditions had been furnished. 3. "The Conditions of the Working-Class in England" ? Sonnenschein & Co., p.84. 4. I say "have to". For only when the means of production and distribution have actually outgrown the form of management by joint-stock companies, and when, therefore, the taking them over by the State has become economically inevitable, only then ? even if it is the State of today that effects this ? is there an economic advance, the attainment of another step preliminary to the taking over of all productive forces by society itself. But of late, since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism. If the Belgian State, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the State the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the Government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes ? this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions, or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in Frederick William III's reign, the taking over by the State of the brothels. 5. A few figures may serve to give an approximate idea of the enormous expansive force of the modern means of production, even under capitalist pressure. According to Mr. Giffen, the total wealth of Great Britain and Ireland amounted, in round numbers in 1814 to ? 2,200,000,000, 1865 to ? 6,100,000,000, 1875 to ? 8,500,000,000. As an instance of the squandering of means of production and of products during a crisis, the total loss in the German iron industry alone, in the crisis of 1873-78, was given at the second German Industrial Congress (Berlin, February 21, 1878), as 22,750,000 pounds. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 23 06:49:32 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:49:32 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Alba and Copenhagen Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910230549i76c7ae5ev38880e72d7b73559@mail.gmail.com> Reflections by Comrade Fidel The Alba and Copenhagen By Fidel Castro Prensa Latina October 20, 2009 http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=127392&Itemid=1 The festivities associated to the 7th ALBA Summit, held in the historic Bolivian region of Cochabamba, showed the rich culture of the Latin American peoples and the joy elicited in children, young people and adults in general by the singing, the dancing, the costumes and rich expressions of the human beings of all ethnic groups, colors and shades: aborigine, black, white and mixed people. We could see there thousands of years of human history and precious culture that explain the determination with which the leaders of various Caribbean, Central and South American peoples convened that summit. The meeting was a great success. Bolivia was the venue. I recently wrote on the excellent prospects of that country, an heir to the Aymara-Quechua culture. A small group of peoples from that area are bent on proving that a better world is possible. The ALBA -created by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Cuba, inspired by Bolivar's and Marti's ideas, as an unprecedented example of revolutionary solidarity?????has showed how much could be done in barely five years of peaceful cooperation. This started shortly after Hugo Chavez political and democratic victory. Imperialism underestimated him, and deliberately tried to oust him and remove him. The fact that for a good part of the 20th century Venezuela had been the world's largest oil-producer, practically owned by the Yankee transnationals, made the chosen path particularly rough to pursue. The powerful adversary had neoliberalism and the FTAA; two instruments of domination always used after the Cuban Revolution to crush every resistance in the hemisphere. It is irritating to think of the shameless and disrespectful way in which the US administration imposed the government of millionaire Pedro Carmona and tried to have elected President Hugo Chavez removed, at a time when the USSR had disappeared and the People's Republic of China was a few years away from becoming the economic and commercial power it is today, after two decades of over 10 percent growth. The Venezuelan people, like that of Cuba, resisted the brutal thrust. The Sandinistas recovered, and the struggle for sovereignty, independence and socialism gained ground in Bolivia and Ecuador. Honduras, which had joined the ALBA, was the target of a brutal coup d'etat inspired by the Yankee ambassador and propelled from the US military base in Palmerola. Today, there are four Latin American countries that have completely eradicated illiteracy: Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. The fifth country, Ecuador, is quickly advancing towards that goal. The comprehensive healthcare programs are underway in the five countries at an unprecedented pace in the Third World. The programs of economic development with social justice have become projects of these five states, which already enjoy great prestige in the world for their brave position in the face of the empire's economic, military and media power. Three English speaking Caribbean countries of black ancestry, determined to fight for their development, have also joined the ALBA. This alone would be a great political merit if in today's world that were the only big problem of man's history. The economic and political system that in a short historical period has led to the existence of more than one billion hungry people, and many more hundreds of millions whose lives are hardly longer than half the average of those in the wealthy and privileged countries, was until now the main problem for mankind. But, a new and extremely serious problem was strongly discussed at the ALBA Summit: climate change. A danger of such magnitude had never been known in human history. As Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Daniel Ortega waved the people goodbye in the streets of Cochabamba yesterday, Sunday, that same day, according to news spread by BBC World, Gordon Brown was chairing in London a session of the Major Economies Forum mostly made up by the highest developed capitalist countries, the main culprits for the carbon dioxide emissions, that is, the gas causing the greenhouse effect. The significance of Brown's remarks is that they have not been made by a representative of ALBA or one of the 150 emerging or underdeveloped countries on the planet but of Great Britain, the country where industrial development started and one of those which have released more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The British Prime Minister warned that if an agreement is not reached at the UN Summit in Copenhagen, the consequences will be 'devastating.' Some of the 'catastrophic' consequences would be floods, droughts and lethal heat waves claimed the environmental group Nature World Fund referring to Brown's assertion. "The climate change will be out of control within the next five to ten years if the CO2 emissions are not drastically cut down. There will not be a plan B if Copenhagen fails." The same news source claims that: "BBC specialist James Landale has explained that not everything is happening as expected." Newsweek reported that "it seems more unlikely every day that the states will commit to something in Copenhagen." According to reports from the major American press outlet, the chairman of the session, Gordon Brown, said that "if no agreement is reached, there is no doubt that the damage of the uncontrolled emissions will not be repaired with a future agreement." He then went on to mention such conflicts as "unchecked migration and 1.8 billion people afflicted by water shortage." Actually, as the Cuban delegation claimed in Bangkok, the United States led the highest industrialized countries most opposed to the necessary reduction of emissions. At the Cochabamba meeting, a new ALBA Summit was convened. The timetable will be: December 6, elections in Bolivia; December 13, ALBA summit in Havana; December 16, participation in the UN Copenhagen Summit. The small group of ALBA nations will be there. The issue is no longer "Homeland or Death"; it is truly and without exaggeration a matter of "Life or Death" for the human race. The capitalist system is not only oppressing and plundering our countries; the wealthiest industrial nations wish to impose to the rest of the world the bulk of the burden in the struggle on climate change. Who are they trying to fool with that? In Copenhagen, the ALBA and the Third World countries will be struggling for the survival of the species. Fidel Castro Ruz October 19, 2009 6:05 PM From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 23 08:14:58 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:14:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910230714v5c6b154fid1148ab8587c5675@mail.gmail.com> Michael Moore's Action Plan: 15 Things Every American Can Do Right Now By Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com Posted on October 22, 2009, Printed on October 23, 2009 http://www.alternet.org/story/143444/ Friends, It's the #1 question I'm constantly asked after people see my movie: "OK -- so now what can I do?!" You want something to do? Well, you've come to the right place! 'Cause I got 15 things you and I can do right now to fight back and try to fix this very broken system. Here they are: FIVE THINGS WE DEMAND THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS DO IMMEDIATELY: 1. Declare a moratorium on all home evictions. Not one more family should be thrown out of their home. The banks must adjust their monthly mortgage payments to be in line with what people's homes are now truly worth -- and what they can afford. Also, it must be stated by law: If you lose your job, you cannot be tossed out of your home. 2. Congress must join the civilized world and expand Medicare For All Americans. A single, nonprofit source must run a universal health care system that covers everyone. Medical bills are now the #1 cause of bankruptcies and evictions in this country. Medicare For All will end this misery. The bill to make this happen is called H.R. 3200 (but only with Rep. Anthony Weiner's amendment). You must call AND write your members of Congress and demand its passage, no compromises allowed. 3. Demand publicly-funded elections and a prohibition on elected officials leaving office and becoming lobbyists. Yes, those very members of Congress who solicit and receive millions of dollars from wealthy interests must vote to remove ALL money from our electoral and legislative process. Tell your members of Congress they must support campaign finance bill H.R.1826. 4. Each of the 50 states must create a state-owned public bank like they have in North Dakota. Then congress MUST reinstate all the strict pre-Reagan regulations on all commercial banks, investment firms, insurance companies -- and all the other industries that have been savaged by deregulation: Airlines, the food industry, pharmaceutical companies -- you name it. If a company's primary motive to exist is to make a profit, then it needs a set of stringent rules to live by -- and the first rule is "Do no harm." The second rule: The question must always be asked -- "Is this for the common good?" (Click here for some info about the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.) 5. Save this fragile planet and declare that all the energy resources above and beneath the ground are owned collectively by all of us. Just like they do it in Sarah Palin's socialist Alaska. We only have a few decades of oil left. The public must be the owners and landlords of the natural resources and energy that exists within our borders or we will descend further into corporate anarchy. And when it comes to burning fossil fuels to transport ourselves, we must cease using the internal combustion engine and instruct our auto/transportation companies to rehire our skilled workforce and build mass transit (clean buses, light rail, subways, bullet trains, etc.) and new cars that don't contribute to climate change. (For more on this, here's a proposal I wrote in December.) Demand that General Motors' de facto chairman, Barack Obama, issue a JFK man-on-the-moon-style challenge to turn our country into a nation of trains and buses and subways. For Pete's sake, people, we were the ones who invented (or perfected) these damn things in the first place!! FIVE THINGS WE CAN DO TO MAKE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT LISTEN TO US: 1. Each of us must get into the daily habit of taking 5 minutes to make four brief calls: One to the President (202-456-1414), one to your Congressperson (202-224-3121) and one to each of your two Senators (202-224-3121). To find out who represents you, click here. Take just one minute on each of these calls to let them know how you expect them to vote on a particular issue. Let them know you will have no hesitation voting for a primary opponent -- or even a candidate from another party -- if they don't do our bidding. Trust me, they will listen. If you have another five minutes, click here to send them each an email. And if you really want to drop an anvil on them, send them a snail mail letter! 2. Take over your local Democratic Party. Remember how much fun you had with all those friends and neighbors working together to get Barack Obama elected? YOU DID THE IMPOSSIBLE. It's time to re-up! Get everyone back together and go to the monthly meeting of your town or county Democratic Party -- and become the majority that runs it! There will not be many in attendance and they will either be happy or in shock that you and the Obama Revolution have entered the room looking like you mean business. President Obama's agenda will never happen without mass grass roots action -- and he won't feel encouraged to do the right thing if no one has his back, whether it's to stand with him, or push him in the right direction. When you all become the local Democratic Party, send me a photo of the group and I'll post it on my website. 3. Recruit someone to run for office who can win in your local elections next year -- or, better yet, consider running for office yourself! You don't have to settle for the incumbent who always expects to win. You can be our next representative! Don't believe it can happen? Check out these examples of regular citizens who got elected: State Senator Deb Simpson, California State Assemblyman Isadore Hall, Tempe, Arizona City Councilman Corey Woods, Wisconsin State Assemblyman Chris Danou, and Washington State Representative Larry Seaquist. The list goes on and on -- and you should be on it! 4. Show up. Picket the local branch of a big bank that took the bailout money. Hold vigils and marches. Consider civil disobedience. Those town hall meetings are open to you, too (and there's more of us than there are of them!). Make some noise, have some fun, get on the local news. Place "Capitalism Did This" signs on empty foreclosed homes, closed down businesses, crumbling schools and infrastructure. (You can download them from my website.) 5. Start your own media. You. Just you (or you and a couple friends). The mainstream media is owned by corporate America and, with few exceptions, it will never tell the whole truth -- so you have to do it! Start a blog! Start a website of real local news (here's an example: The Michigan Messenger). Tweet your friends and use Facebook to let them know what they need to do politically. The daily papers are dying. If you don't fill that void, who will? FIVE THINGS WE SHOULD DO TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR LOVED ONES UNTIL WE GET THROUGH THIS MESS: 1. Take your money out of your bank if it took bailout money and place it in a locally-owned bank or, preferably, a credit union. 2. Get rid of all your credit cards but one -- the kind where you have to pay up at the end of the month or you lose your card. 3. Do not invest in the stock market. If you have any extra cash, put it away in a savings account or, if you can, pay down on your mortgage so you can own your home as soon as possible. You can also buy very safe government savings bonds or T-bills. Or just buy your mother some flowers. 4. Unionize your workplace so that you and your coworkers have a say in how your business is run. Here's how to do it (more info here). Nothing is more American than democracy, and democracy shouldn't be checked at the door when you enter your workplace. Another way to Americanize your workplace is to turn your business into a worker-owned cooperative. You are not a wage slave. You are a free person, and you giving up eight hours of your life every day to someone else is to be properly compensated and respected. 5. Take care of yourself and your family. Sorry to go all Oprah on you, but she's right: Find a place of peace in your life and make the choice to be around people who are not full of negativity and cynicism. Look for those who nurture and love. Turn off the TV and the Blackberry and go for a 30-minute walk every day. Eat fruits and vegetables and cut down on anything that has sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour or too much sodium (salt) in it (and, as Michael Pollan says, "Eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants"). Get seven hours of sleep each night and take the time to read a book a month. I know this sounds like I've turned into your grandma, but, dammit, take a good hard look at Granny -- she's fit, she's rested and she knows the names of both of her U.S. Senators without having to Google them. We might do well to listen to her. If we don't put our own "oxygen mask" on first (as they say on the airplane), we will be of no use to the rest of the nation in enacting any of this action plan! I'm sure there are many other ideas you can come up with on how we can build this movement. Get creative. Think outside the politics-as-usual box. BE SUBVERSIVE! Think of that local action no one else has tried. Behave as if your life depended on it. Be bold! Try doing something with reckless abandon. It may just liberate you and your community and your nation. And when you act, send me your stories, your photos and your video -- and be sure to post your ideas in the comments beneath this letter on my site so they can be shared with millions. C'mon people -- we can do this! I expect nothing less of all of you, my true and trusted fellow travelers! Yours, Michael Moore MMFlint at aol.com MichaelMoore.com Michael Moore is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and author. He directed and produced Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko. He has also written seven books, most recently, Mike?s Election Guide 2008 ? 2009 MichaelMoore.com All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/143444/ From farmelantj at juno.com Sun Oct 25 05:30:08 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:30:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Islamic creationism- Boston Globe Message-ID: <20091025.073009.1520.1.farmelantj@juno.com> Islam?s Darwin problem In the Muslim world, creationism is on the rise By Drake Bennett October 25, 2009 Three weeks ago, with much fanfare, a team of scientists unveiled the fossil skeleton of Ardi, a 4-foot-tall female primate who lived and died 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. According to her discoverers, Ardi - short for Ardipithecus ramidus, her species - is our oldest known ancestor. She predated Lucy, the fossilized Australopithecus afarensis that previously had claimed the title, by 1.2 million years. The papers announcing the find described a transitional specimen, with the long arms and short legs of an ape and strong, grasping big toes suited to life in the trees, but also a pelvis whose shape allowed her to walk upright on the ground below. That, at least, is what one discovered by following the coverage in the Western press, or by reading the scientific papers themselves, published in the journal Science. If you learned about Ardi on the Arabic-language version of Al Jazeera?s website, however, you discovered something else: The find disproved the theory of evolution. (Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/yzqzqal) ____________________________________________________________ Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTFoYdBZ9pPGkfMXtXjRrmJhOjXvWCa5ifvcmLgrGF5VQcrHKOZ7Qc/ From farmelantj at juno.com Sun Oct 25 16:30:48 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 18:30:48 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Sechs prominente amerikanische Freidenker Message-ID: <20091025.183049.3184.1.farmelantj@juno.com> Those who know German can read the German translation of the article, "Six Prominent American Freethinkers" (written by myself and Mark Lindley) on the website of the journal, Aufkl?rung und Kritik, where it appears as "Sechs prominente amerikanische Freidenker." See http://www.gkpn.de/Farmelant-Lindley_SechsFreidenker.pdf In this article, the views of Col. Bob Ingersoll, Felix Adler, George Santayana, John Dewey, Ayn Rand, and Michael Harrington concerning religion, atheism and agnosticism are discussed and compared. Thanks to Peter Kopf for preparing this translation. The English text is available on the MRZine website. See: http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/fl161208.html Jim Farmelant ____________________________________________________________ Cheap Diet Help Tips. Click here. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTMersbbJQxhnQDa1x3ASE1kWW0wjVVhb1fSrN4oVLtUt75KbXd9UM/ From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 26 07:11:57 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:11:57 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Islamic creationism- Boston Globe; definition of science; law and atheism Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910260611w663090d4jd18c2b0f2a065398@mail.gmail.com> This article prompted me to look at the wikipedia article on intelligent design. The struggle with the intelligent design advocates pushes the scientific community to arrive at a succinct definition of science, copied below. Also, the fight forces the federal courts to take a side in the dispute. As I think about it, doesn't this also force the federal courts to make explicit that the law is atheistic ? When the federal judge defines science as not have religious or supernatural aspects this has significance not only for what is taught in science classes in schools, but for what is permissible as evidence in court certainly in cases that involve scientific expertise. But doesn't it have significance for cases that don't involve scientifc expertise ? I have often said on this and other lists, that (American ? Western ?) law is materialist. Also, at the origin of modern natural scientists use the law as a metaphor for natural science fundamental ideas, such as natural "laws". Indirectly, the dispute between the intelligent designers and natural scientists flushes out the law and courts as atheists and materialists. "God" or other supernatural claims are not admissable as evidence in courts. Of course, the usual legal case concerns much more mundane matters than the origin of species - landlord-tenant, murder, illegal dumping, contract disputes, personal injuries, divorce, perjury. Yet, God or supernatural causes is not pleadable in law or facts in these. In divorce, the fact that a parent regularly takes children to church or another religious place can be a factor favoring them for custody over the other parent, but that is very small exception and confined to the earthly non-supernatural activities of religion. Also, interesting in this discussion, the intelligent designers refer to the natural scientists' underlying philosophy as "materialism". Of course , they intend it derogatorily, but it is a revisiting of the old terminology of the dispute Feuerbach, Engels and Marx, et al., had with the idealists many of whom were theists, materalism vs idealism. Charles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design -clip- Defining science The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge of the natural world without assuming the existence or nonexistence of the supernatural, an approach sometimes called methodological naturalism. Intelligent design proponents believe that this can be equated to materialist metaphysical naturalism, and have often said that not only is their own position scientific, but it is even more scientific than evolution, and that they want a redefinition of science as a revived natural theology or natural philosophy to allow "non-naturalistic theories such as intelligent design".[170] This presents a demarcation problem, which in the philosophy of science is about how and where to draw the lines around science.[171] For a theory to qualify as scientific,[172][173][174] it is expected to be: Consistent Parsimonious (sparing in its proposed entities or explanations, see Occam's Razor) Useful (describes and explains observed phenomena, and can be used predictively) Empirically testable and falsifiable (see Falsifiability) Based on multiple observations, often in the form of controlled, repeated experiments Correctable and dynamic (modified in the light of observations that do not support it) Progressive (refines previous theories) Provisional or tentative (is open to experimental checking, and does not assert certainty) For any theory, hypothesis or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet most, and ideally all, of these criteria. The fewer criteria are met, the less scientific it is; and if it meets only a few or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Typical objections to defining intelligent design as science are that it lacks consistency,[175] violates the principle of parsimony,[176] is not scientifically useful,[177] is not falsifiable,[178] is not empirically testable,[179] and is not correctable, dynamic, provisional or progressive.[180][181][182] Critics also say that the intelligent design doctrine does not meet the Daubert Standard,[183] the criteria for scientific evidence mandated by the US Supreme Court. The Daubert Standard governs which evidence can be considered scientific in United States federal courts and most state courts. Its four criteria are: The theoretical underpinnings of the methods must yield testable predictions by means of which the theory could be falsified. The methods should preferably be published in a peer-reviewed journal. There should be a known rate of error that can be used in evaluating the results. The methods should be generally accepted within the relevant scientific community. In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, using these criteria and others mentioned above, Judge Jones ruled that "... we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents". From cb31450 at gmail.com Mon Oct 26 10:35:45 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:35:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Islamic creationism- Boston Globe Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910260935i3e6e168eg8dfbb33653d0abc1@mail.gmail.com> This is another interesting section of the wiki intelligent design article, which, by the way , is obviously written by an opponent(s) of intelligent design. CB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design#Defining_science Intelligence as an observable quality The phrase intelligent design makes use of an assumption of the quality of an observable intelligence, a concept that has no scientific consensus definition. William Dembski, for example, has written that "Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic signature". The characteristics of intelligence are assumed by intelligent design proponents to be observable without specifying what the criteria for the measurement of intelligence should be. Dembski, instead, asserts that "in special sciences ranging from forensics to archaeology to SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), appeal to a designing intelligence is indispensable".[201] How this appeal is made and what this implies as to the definition of intelligence are topics left largely unaddressed. Seth Shostak, a researcher with the SETI Institute, refuted Dembski's comparison of SETI and intelligent design, saying that intelligent design advocates base their inference of design on complexity?the argument being that some biological systems are too complex to have been made by natural processes?while SETI researchers are looking primarily for artificiality.[202] Critics say that the design detection methods proposed by intelligent design proponents are radically different from conventional design detection, undermining the key elements that make it possible as legitimate science. Intelligent design proponents, they say, are proposing both searching for a designer without knowing anything about that designer's abilities, parameters, or intentions (which scientists do know when searching for the results of human intelligence), as well as denying the very distinction between natural/artificial design that allows scientists to compare complex designed artifacts against the background of the sorts of complexity found in nature.[203] As a means of criticism, certain skeptics have pointed to a challenge of intelligent design derived from the study of artificial intelligence. The criticism is a counter to intelligent design claims about what makes a design intelligent, specifically that "no preprogrammed device can be truly intelligent, that intelligence is irreducible to natural processes".[204] This claim is similar in type to an assumption of Cartesian dualism that posits a strict separation between "mind" and the material Universe. However, in studies of artificial intelligence, while there is an implicit assumption that supposed "intelligence" or creativity of a computer program is determined by the capabilities given to it by the computer programmer, artificial intelligence need not be bound to an inflexible system of rules. Rather, if a computer program can access randomness as a function, this effectively allows for a flexible, creative, and adaptive intelligence. Evolutionary algorithms, a subfield of machine learning (itself a subfield of artificial intelligence), have been used to mathematically demonstrate that randomness and selection can be used to "evolve" complex, highly adapted structures that are not explicitly designed by a programmer. Evolutionary algorithms use the Darwinian metaphor of random mutation, selection and the survival of the fittest to solve diverse mathematical and scientific problems that are usually not solvable using conventional methods. Intelligence derived from randomness is essentially indistinguishable from the "innate" intelligence associated with biological organisms, and poses a challenge to the intelligent design conception that intelligence itself necessarily requires a designer. ^^^^^^^ CB: I'd say the problem with this approach is that there _is_ a designer, the programmer, initiating the whole thing and even designing the "undesigning" aspects ( randomness, selection ,mutation) . Intelligent design people can say, "see there is a designer ultimately behind your whole thing there " and substitute God in for that ultimate human designer in this computer model. ^^^^^^^^ Cognitive science continues to investigate the nature of intelligence along these lines of inquiry. The intelligent design community, for the most part, relies on the assumption that intelligence is readily apparent as a fundamental and basic property of complex systems.[205] From cb31450 at gmail.com Wed Oct 28 05:41:27 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:41:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] 5 Charged with torturing foreclosure consultants Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910280441n3e9e367dr9c37ff8ddba49333@mail.gmail.com> 5 charged with torturing Calif. home loan agents The Associated Press Monday, October 26, 2009 ^^^^ This reminded me of a self-acting armed organization of the population (smile) CB "From the viewpoint of the vast majority of Europeans of the end of the 19th century, whom Engels was addressing, and who had not gone through or closely observed a single great revolution, it could not have been otherwise. They could not understand at all what a ?self-acting armed organization of the population? was. When asked why it became necessary to have special bodies of armed men placed above society and alienating themselves from it (police and a standing army), the West-European and Russian philistines are inclined to utter a few phrases borrowed from Spencer or Mikhailovsky, to refer to the growing complexity of social life, the differentiation of functions, and so on. " _The State and Revolution_ : Special Bodies of Armed Men, Prisons, etc. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm Someone commented: ("Foreclosure consultants" market their services to individuals facing loss of their homes through foreclosure - imminent foreclosures are matters of public record in most US jurisdictions. Foreclosure consultants offer to stop or delay foreclosures in return for a fee. Very often the foreclosure consultant takes the money and does little or nothing. While foreclosure consultants are no doubt prospering in the current crisis, the "profession" has been around for years. In this case, it looks like some distressed homeowners utilized "self help" justice to deal with a couple of scam artists. ) 5 charged with torturing Calif. home loan agents The Associated Press Monday, October 26, 2009 Prosecutors say five people have been charged in Los Angeles with torturing and robbing two men they thought falsely promised to save their home from foreclosure. Two men were charged Monday with torture, robbery and false imprisonment. A man and two women pleaded not guilty to the same charges Friday. Prosecutors say two of the suspects hired loan modification agents in hopes of keeping their home but believed the men took their money and did nothing. Prosecutors claim the victims were lured to Glendale on Oct. 20, held for hours, beaten and robbed before one escaped. All five suspects remained jailed on about $1 million bail each. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/10/26/financial/f145705D39.DTL&tsp=1 From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 30 07:10:21 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:10:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Deal Reached in Honduras to Restore Ousted President Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910300610i5fede9ccr676c6f9f1bf77a60@mail.gmail.com> O bam a ! O bam a ! O bam a ! John Henry ^^^^^^^^ October 31, 2009 Deal Reached in Honduras to Restore Ousted President http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/americas/31honduras.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print By ELISABETH MALKIN MEXICO CITY ? A lingering political crisis in Honduras seemed to be nearing an end on Friday after the de facto government agreed to a deal that would allow Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, to return to office. The government of Roberto Micheletti, which had refused to let Mr. Zelaya return, signed an agreement with Mr. Zelaya?s negotiators late Thursday that would pave the way for the Honduran Congress to restore the ousted president and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed on Friday that Mr. Zelaya and Mr. Micheletti had approved what she called ?an historic agreement.? ?I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that, having suffered a rupture of its democratic and constitutional order, overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue,? Mrs. Clinton said Friday in Islamabad, where she has been meeting with Pakistani officials. The accord came after a team of senior American diplomats flew from Washington to the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, on Wednesday to press for an agreement. On Thursday, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Thomas A. Shannon Jr., warned that time was running out for an agreement. Mr. Micheletti?s government had argued that a presidential election scheduled for Nov. 29 would put an end to the crisis. But the United States, the Organization of American States and the United Nations suggested they would not recognize the results of the elections without a pre-existing agreement. ?We were very clearly on the side of the restoration of the constitutional order, and that includes the elections,? Mrs. Clinton said in Islamabad. Mr. Micheletti appeared to have been persuaded that the warnings were serious. ?The accord allows a vote in Congress on Zelaya?s possible restitution with the prior approval of the Supreme Court,? Mr. Micheletti said in televised comments late Thursday. ?This is a significant concession on the part of our government.? ?We are satisfied,? Mr. Zelaya said, according to Reuters. ?We are optimistic that my reinstatement is imminent.? Negotiators for both men were expected to meet Friday to work out the final details of the accord. Mr. Zelaya was ousted in a military coup on June 28 and flown to Costa Rica. Some Honduran political and business leaders have argued that the takeover was a legal response to Mr. Zelaya?s attempts to rewrite the Constitution and seek re-election. But they were also concerned by his deepening alliance with Venezuela?s leftist president, Hugo Ch?vez. Mr. Zelaya has denied any plan to seek re-election, which is forbidden under the Honduran Constitution. He sneaked back into the country on Sept. 21 and has been living at the Brazilian Embassy since then. It was unclear when Mr. Zelaya would be able to leave the embassy, which has had Honduran soldiers posted outside. The de facto government had said it would arrest him if he came out. According to Mr. Micheletti, the accord reached late Thursday would establish a unity government and a verification commission to ensure that its conditions are carried out. It would also create a truth commission to investigate the events of the past few months. The agreement also reportedly asks the international community to recognize the results of the elections and to lift any sanctions that were imposed after the coup. The political crisis has created turmoil inside Honduras, where regular marches by Mr. Zelaya?s supporters and curfews have paralyzed the capital. The suspension of international aid has stalled badly needed projects in one of the region?s poorest countries. Latin American governments had pressed the Obama administration to take a forceful approach to ending the political impasse, but Washington had let the Organization of American States take the lead and endorsed negotiations that were brokered by the Costa Rican president, ?scar Arias. But those talks stalled in July. New negotiations began earlier this month but broke down two weeks ago. With the Honduran elections approaching, the United States chose to step up pressure and dispatched Mr. Shannon, along with Dan Restrepo, the senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council. Mark Landler contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan. From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 30 07:18:14 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Hoh's resignation letter Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910300618h1778831p75486ffef84edf6@mail.gmail.com> Here's a link (posted on pen-l) to a news story on a ex-military, foreign service officer who resigned in protest over the Afghanistan war: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html ``If the history of Afghanistan is one great stage play, the United States is no more than a supporting actor, among several previously, in a tragedy that not only pits tribes, valleys, clans, villages and families against one another, but from at least the end of King Zahir Shah's reign, has violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency. The Pashtun insurgency, which is composed of multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups, is fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and NATO presence and operations in Pashtun valleys and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified. In both RC East and South, I have observed that the bulk of the insurgency fights not for the white banner of the Taliban, but rather against the presence of foreign soldiers and taxes imposed by an unrepresentative government in Kabul. The United States military presence in Afghanistan greatly contributes to the legitimacy and strategic message of the Pastun insurgency. In a like manner our backing of the Afghan government in its current form continues to distance the government from the people. The Afghan government's failings, particularly when weighed against the sacrifice of American lives and dollars, appear legion.... Our support for this kind of government, coupled with the misunderstandings of the insurgency's true nature, reminds me horribly of our involvement with South Vietnam; an unpopular and corrupt government we backed at the expense of our Nation's won internal peace, against an insurgency whose nationalism we arrogantly and ignorantly mistook as a rival to our own Cold War ideology'' Hoh is 36yrs old and left the Marine Corp after a couple of tours. This means to me he had to study Vietnam. So I wonder where they teach the last paragraph's appraisal of the Vietnam war in the US government? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 30 07:31:08 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:31:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Kierkegaard on the Couch Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910300631w4bddd6d9pe79e0577ea9355b4@mail.gmail.com> October 28, 2009, 9:30 pm Kierkegaard on the Couch http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/kierkegaard-on-the-couch/?pagemode=print By Gordon Marino All progress paves over some bit of knowledge or washes away some valuable practice. Within a few years, e-mail and Twitter moved the art of letter writing to the trash bin. And in an age when all psychic life is being understood in terms of neurotransmitters, the art of introspection has become pass?. Galileos of the inner world, such as Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), have been packed off to the museum of antiquated ideas. Yet I think that the great and highly quirky Dane could help us to retrieve a distinction that has been effaced. These days, confide to someone that you are in despair and he or she will likely suggest that you seek out professional help for your depression. While despair used to be classified as one of the seven deadly sins, it has now been medicalized and folded into the concept of clinical depression. If Kierkegaard were on Facebook or could post a You Tube video, he would certainly complain that we, who have listened to Prozac, have become deaf to the ancient distinction between psychological and spiritual disorders, between depression and despair. There is abundant chatter today about ?being spiritual? but scarcely anyone believes that a person can be of troubled mind and healthy spirit. Nor can we fathom the idea that the happy wanderer, who is all smiles and has accomplished everything on his or her self-fulfillment list, is, in fact, a case of despair. But while Kierkegaard would have agreed that happiness and melancholy are mutually exclusive, he warns, ?Happiness is the greatest hiding place for despair.? Despair is marked by a desire to get rid of the self, an unwillingness to become who you fundamentally are. Called ?the Fork? as a child because of his uncanny ability to find a person?s weaknesses and stick it to them, Kierkegaard?s lapidary ?Sickness Unto Death? is a study of despair, which in the Danish derives from the notion of intensified doubt. Almost as a challenge to keep out the less than earnest reader, Kierkegaard begins ?Sickness? with this famous albeit slightly ironic bit of word play: A human being is a spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation that relates itself to itself or is the relation relating itself to itself in the relation. For those who do not immediately pitch the book across the room, the magister continues, ?A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity.? Despair occurs when there is an imbalance in this synthesis. From there Kierkegaard goes on to present a veritable portrait gallery of the forms that despair can take. Too much of the expansive factor, of infinitude, and you have the dreamer who cannot make anything concrete. Too much of the limiting element, and you have the narrow minded individual who cannot imagine anything more serious in life than bottom lines and spread sheets. Though it will make the Bill Mahers of the world wince, despair according to Kierkegaard is a lack of awareness of being a self or spirit. A Freud with religious categories up his sleeves, the lyrical philosopher emphasized that the self is a slice of eternity. While depression involves heavy burdensome feelings, despair is not correlated with any particular set of emotions but is instead marked by a desire to get rid of the self, or put another way, by an unwillingness to become who you fundamentally are. This unwillingness often takes the form of flat out wanting to be someone else. Kierkegaard writes: An individual in despair despairs over something. So it seems for a moment, but only for a moment; in the same moment the true despair or despair in its true form shows itself. In despairing over something, he really despaired over himself, and now he wants to be rid of himself. For example, when the ambitious man whose slogan is ?Either Caesar or nothing? does not get to be Caesar, he despairs over it ? precisely because he did not get to be Caesar, he cannot bear to be himself. In America, there is endless talk of the importance of having a dream ? that is, a dreamed-up self that you will to become: a millionaire, a surgeon, or maybe the next Dylan or George Clooney. But master of suspicion that Kierkegaard was, he goes on to note that while the man who has failed to become Caesar would have been in seventh heaven if he had realized his dream, that state would have been just as despairing in another way ? because in that giddy self-satisfied condition, he would never have come to grasp his true self. On the issue of depression of which Kierkegaard and his entire family were very well acquainted, Kierkegaard could have been a reductionist. He seems to have recognized that we could be born into the blues. In 1846, he sighed: I am in the profoundest sense an unhappy individuality, riveted from the beginning to one or another suffering bordering on madness, a suffering which must have its basis in a mis-relation between my mind and body, for (and this is the remarkable thing as well as my infinite encouragement) it has no relation to my spirit, which on the contrary, because of the tension between my mind and body, has gained an uncommon resiliency. The spirit is one thing, the psyche another: The blues one thing, despair another. How might Kierkegaard have parsed the distinction for the Doubting Thomas who will only believe what he can glean on an M.R.I.? Perhaps he would describe it this way. Each of us is subject to the weather of our own moods. Clearly, Kierkegaard thought that the darkling sky of his inner life was very much due to his father?s morbidity. But the issue of spiritual health looms up with regard to the way that we relate to our emotional lives. Again, for Kierkegaard, despair is not a feeling, but an attitude, a posture towards ourselves. The man who did not become Caesar, the applicant refused by medical school, all experience profound disappointment. But the spiritual travails only begin when that chagrin consumes the awareness that we are something more than our emotions and projects. Does the depressive identify himself completely with his melancholy? Has the never ending blizzard of inexplicable sad thoughts caused him to give up on himself, and to see his suffering as a kind of fever without significance? If so, Kierkegaard would bid him to consider a spiritual consultation on his despair, to go along with his trip to the mental health clinic. Gordon Marino is professor of philosophy and director of the Hong/Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn. He is author of ?Kierkegaard in the Present Age,? and co-editor of ?The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard.? His new book, ?Ethics: The Essential Writings? will be published by Random House this summer. An active boxing trainer, Gordon covers boxing for the Wall Street Journal and is working on a book on boxing and philosophy. From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 30 09:36:27 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:36:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Listening to Justice Goldstone Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910300836r46e730bbn9c5a0899b02698e9@mail.gmail.com> Justice Goldstone never wavered. A committed Zionist and long-time friend of Israel, Goldstone described the Israeli behavior in no uncertain terms as an act of collective punishment against the people of Gaza for having elected Hamas (the Islamic resistance movement) in the first place. The African World Listening to Justice Goldstone By Bill Fletcher, Jr., BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor Black Commentator October 29. 2009 http://www.blackcommentator.com/348/348_aw_justice_goldstone.html On Friday night I was completely engrossed in an interview conducted by Bill Moyers of Justice Richard Goldstone [Click here for the transcript of the interview: http://tinyurl.com/yllft94] Justice Goldstone, a Jewish South African with impeccable credentials as an international human rights advocate and investigator, was charged by the United Nations with the task of conducting an investigation into allegations of human rights abuses and war crimes which took place at the time of the Israeli invasion of Gaza in December 2008. The result, a report adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council this past week, while finding war crimes committed by both sides, represented a stinging indictment of the activities of the Israeli military in its attack on the Gaza. Moyers, an outstanding interviewer, posed tough questions to Goldstone, many of which were derived from criticisms of Justice Goldstone by anti-Palestinian forces for alleged bias. In fact, a clip of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressing the United Nations (played during the show), made such charges quite explicit. Justice Goldstone never wavered. A committed Zionist and long-time friend of Israel, Goldstone described the Israeli behavior in no uncertain terms as an act of collective punishment against the people of Gaza for having elected Hamas (the Islamic resistance movement) in the first place. The executive summary of the report (the report itself is more than 500 pages) is extremely compelling. Drawn from interviews conducted by Justice Goldstone's committee, the report paints a picture of what one can only be described as barbaric vengeance on the part of the Israelis. The supposed reason behind the attacks lay in the firing of rockets at Israeli communities by Palestinians from Gaza. While the firing of rockets against civilian targets is understood internationally to be a war crime, the Israeli government had been manipulating the situation against the Gaza for some time, conducting a blockade and, in fact, breaking the truce that had been agreed to with Hamas. In that sense, the Gaza invasion seemed to be a logical extension of the behavior of the Israeli government to neutralize Hamas. It was also consistent with the sort of behavior one observed when Israel conducted its aggressive war against Lebanon in 2006, destroying civilian targets, e.g., airports, and using cluster bombs. On Friday night Justice Goldstone was absolutely steadfast in his commitment to the conclusions of his report. This has been striking not just in his responses to Moyers' questions on Friday night, but also in terms of his responses to criticisms in the immediate aftermath of the release of his report. While many people with less courage would have retracted their report or, at least, segments of their report, Goldstone stood firm and absolutely unapologetic. The issuing of the Goldstone report, and its adoption by the UN Human Rights Council, is another signal that something is changing with regard to attitudes towards Israeli aggression and the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Try as anti-Palestinian pundits might, it has been very difficult to debunk the report. Had the chair of the investigating committee been someone more closely identified with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, the Israeli allegations of bias might have had greater international weight. In the case of Goldstone's report, such charges simply did not/do not pass the straight face test. Even the United States, with the shameful criticism of the Goldstone report by Ambassador Susan Rice, could not identify one factual error in the report or one concrete reason that would support a notion of alleged bias. The Goldstone report needs to be popularized. While most people will not read its 500+ page analysis, the gist of the report needs to be broadly circulated. It is a condemnation of the horrific approach that the Israeli government has taken, not only towards Gaza, but towards the entirety of the Occupied Territories. As such, it must be used as another argument as to why economic, political and military support for the Israeli government and its Occupation needs to be halted. _____________ BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA ____________________________________________ From cb31450 at gmail.com Fri Oct 30 11:17:28 2009 From: cb31450 at gmail.com (c b) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:17:28 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Repower America Wall Message-ID: <5c2e4d230910301017q55cedf71rf91026adc59bf027@mail.gmail.com> From: Al Gore When a clean energy economy finally becomes a reality in America, people will look back to the day that together, you and I launched The Repower America Wall. The Wall is a place where literally thousands and thousands of people committed to a revolutionary new energy future for our nation and the world are coming together -- to express our hopes, share our resolve, and step up to a leadership role in building a grassroots movement for change like nothing America has ever seen. It's an opportunity for you to be part of the climate movement in a new way, in a way that takes us beyond ourselves. By asking people from all over the country to share their thoughts and images on the Wall, we are fueling a campaign that brings together the power of national media with the strength and connection of on-the-ground organizing in a way that no one has ever done before. Your voice, and the voices of your friends, neighbors and colleagues, will become the language of our campaign on TV, in print, on billboards, online, and in brand new ways that you will help us invent as we create the Wall. We know that the political will to transition America to a clean energy economy already exists. You are part of it. But now we must make sure our leaders know it too. The Wall will become our collective voice and thus transform the debate into action. It's an ambitious strategy -- and it has to be. Nothing short of every one of us joined together is needed to overcome the resistance of the powerful special interests blocking our path to a clean energy future, settling for the dangerous status quo. But the time for politics is over. We have the power to force change in America. Together, you and I will use the Wall as the foundation for all of our activism in the days and weeks ahead. But first, I need you to meet me at the Wall. Share your voice on The Repower America Wall right now. The Wall is a revolutionary approach to standing up for what we believe in -- for what our country needs. It combines the power of your voice with the force of a multi-media campaign, to build a collective call for change so loud it's undeniable. The messages you and many thousands of others leave at the Wall are the tidal wave that will break on Washington, and put us on the path to victory. Our grassroots organizers in the states will use the Wall -- your Wall -- as proof that all of our friends and neighbors are as committed to clean energy as we are -- that we are joined together in this commitment. Content shared on the Wall will be used to create ads and other forms of communication that will go directly to your elected officials so that everywhere they look they will see the very people they represent, their constituents, calling for action now on clean energy -- in the local newspaper, on television, on billboards, on the radio, and on important local and national websites. There will be no place to hide. The Wall will be everywhere. When our opponents throw roadblocks in our way, we'll gather at the Wall to fight back. And when key decisions are at hand, we'll light up the Wall to let politicians who side with powerful interests against clean energy do so at their own peril. The time to demand a clean energy future for America is now. But we must stand together. Unless we do everything in our power to make our voices heard, the change we seek will not happen. Stand up and be a part of the generation that makes future generations proud -- join the movement and share your voice on The Repower America Wall today. This is just the beginning. Next week we will take this campaign to the airwaves with new Repower America national television ads featuring real messages from the Wall. By acting now to share your own personal message on the Repower America Wall, you can insure that you were there at the start. What you and I do today will determine everything about our country's future and the world our children will inherit. The time for action is right now and the cause deserves your best efforts. If you want to win and insure our clean energy future, I'll see you at the Wall. Together we can make this happen. Thank you, From farmelantj at juno.com Fri Oct 30 13:15:51 2009 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:15:51 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Honduras Message-ID: <20091030.151551.20314.0@webmail16.vgs.untd.com> From bogus@does.not.exist.com Thu Oct 29 09:05:28 2009 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:05:28 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: by Doug Henwood Jim F. --------------------- [Greg Grandin, prof of Latin American history at NYU (and a frequent = guest on Behind the News), just sent this around.] Seems like a deal has been reached in Honduras, though still has to be = = voted on by Congress (see Times story below). Despite the fact that negotiations and compromises bestowed some = legitimacy to those who carried out the coup -- and despite that fact = that the question of whether human-rights violations committed during = the coup will be punished is unclear -- on the whole this has to be = read as a victory for progressive forces: 1. it was largely popular protests, which contrary to most predictions = = didn't dissipate over time, that prevented the coup government from = consolidating; 2. the idea that this was a constitutional transfer of power, which if = = successful would have set a dangerous precedent, is revealed to be a = lie; 3. the attempt to justify the coup in the name of anti-populism, or = anti-chavismo, has failed (along with the myth that what was at stake = in Honduras had anything to do with Venezuela); 4. the position of the OAS -- and hence the unity of progressive = governments -- was affirmed (if it had dragged on past the November = elections, there would have been strong pressure for individual = governments to recognize the results, perhaps leading to splits); 5. the violence of the coup government, as well as the fact that the = extended crisis smoked out its less than savory supporters like Otto = Reich, reveals the lie that there is a progressive, or modern = conservative alternative to the left in most countries; 6. the militaries and elites of neighboring Central American countries = = have to take from it the lesson that preemptive overreactions to the = left can, as it has in this case, actually result in strengthening the = = left; 7. It is a big push back for Republicans (and neo-lib Democrats) in = the US, who tried to use the crisis to push a more conservative US = policy in Latin America; 8. And Honduran social movements go into the next government -- = probably headed by the candidate from the National Party -- with a = sense of unity and their own power (and elites fractured and = chastised), much stronger now than they were on June 28. Not sure if = the deal reached entailed Zelaya renouncing any attempt to push for a = constitutional assembly -- it probably did -- but social movements = will continue to advocate for one, which according to at least one = poll now has majority support (largely thanks to the actions of those = who most oppose it!). ____________________________________________________________ Online Medical Insurance Get free online medical insurance quotes and save more money today. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=3DD3ov32KzVqD_1WN_5gCoZgAA= J1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAQAAAAFAAAAAHZe-z4AAAMlAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABJQNQAA= AAA=3D From bogus@does.not.exist.com Thu Oct 29 09:05:28 2009 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:05:28 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: frequent visitor to the White House, the most frequent -- the guy who helped design cap-and-trade. The guy who is helping design immigration policy, the guy who is helping design the stimulus package, and the guy who, most importantly, is designing the mother of all beasts, the health care. Listen to what he is saying in this interview. STERN [audio clip]: And we are beginning -- we have offices now in Australia and Switzerland and London, in South America and Africa. We've been working with unions around the world. And what we're working towards is building a global organization. Because comp-- you know, workers of the world unite, it's not just a slogan anymore. It's the way we're going to have to do our work. BECK: Do you understand this? Workers of the world unite. That is communist, Marxist propaganda. Communist -- they for years -- workers of the world unite. This is SEIU, the Services Employees Union International. Got it? Or whatever it is. International union. Service Employees International Union. OK? They're going international -- workers of the world unite. But there's more. The most frequent visitor to the White House, and the guy Barack Obama says he turns to -- not Mao, that's another one of his advisers -- most often, if he needs to know what to do, he turns to SEIU. Here it is. STERN [audio clip]: We're trying to use the power of persuasion. And if that doesn't work, we're going to use the persuasion of power. Because there are governments and there are opportunities to change laws that affect these companies. I'm not naive. We're ready to strike. BECK: He's not naive. He's ready to strike. UNIDENTIFIED MALE [audio clip]: It started last summer with the so called big box ordinance. BECK: Listen to this. UNIDENTIFIED MALE [audio clip]: Labor wanted it; business didn't. STERN [audio clip]: We took names. We watched how they voted. We know where they live. UNIDENTIFIED MALE [audio clip]: In October Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union -- BECK: We took names. STERN [audio clip]: There are opportunities in America to share better in the wealth, to rebalance the power, and unions and government are part of the solution. BECK: To rebalance the power and to share the wealth. Workers of the world unite; we can help you share the wealth, if you combine government and unions. Well, what the hell are we doing? STEVE "STU" BURGUIERE (executive producer): Can I have one request real quick for you to say again that he's the most -- the person who's visited the White House the most? PAT GRAY (co-host): Twenty-two times. BURGUIERE: Twenty-two times. BECK: Twenty-two times. GRAY: Except we'll probably hear, it's not that Andy Stern. Uh, that's a different Andy Stern. BECK: No, we've -- we've checked. BURGUIERE: Is it possible he's going on tours -- he just really likes the history. BECK: He is -- he is -- he has weekly meetings with the president. Weekly meetings. GRAY: He almost lives there. In fact, it was described that way. He practically lives in the White House. BECK: He has unfettered access to the Oval Office. Now you tell me, America, what is it going to take? What is it going to take? You know, yesterday I drew, if you saw on the TV show, I drew a picture of a building and all of us just jumping off of this building, because the building is so tall you just don't feel the consequences. Well, we're facing the pavement here, gang. Prepare for impact. And we have people now, and where are your damn representatives in Washington standing up and saying "Hold it, we don't want to become a socialist nation"? Stern while discussing use of "workers of the world unite" slogan: "the good news is communism's dead" Stern: "the good news is communism's dead." During the May 14, 2006, edition of CBS's 60 Minutes, reporter Lesley Stahl said to Stern: "You like to say, 'Workers of the world unite,' which sounds, it is Karl Marx. But that's your, that's your kind of slogan now." Stern replied: "Well, the good news is communism's dead, but the truth is, the phrase means a lot because all of a sudden workers in London and workers in the United States are working for the same employer and the same owners." Numerous conservatives have approvingly cited Mao's and other communists' tactics, rhetoric As Media Matters for America has documented, numerous conservatives, including Newt Gingrich and John McCain, have approvingly cited the quotes and tactics from communist and socialist dictators, and stated that they had used those tactics in their political work, or have otherwise highlighted their philosophies. Beck frequently targets progressives and Democrats as communist, Maoist, socialist lovers Beck cropped Dunn quote to falsely claim she said Mao was "the man she turns to most." Continuing Fox News' witch hunt against members of the Obama administration, both Beck and Special Report misleadingly cropped White House communicators director Anita Dunn's remarks at a high school graduation ceremony to falsely claim that she was, in Beck's words, "proclaiming Mao [Zedong] as ... the man that she turns to most." In fact, Dunn actually said that Mao and Mother Teresa were "the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices." Beck falsely claimed Dunn "worships" "her hero" Mao Zedong. Throughout most of his October 15 Fox News program, Beck falsely claimed that Dunn "worships" and "idolizes" "her hero" Mao Zedong. In fact, in the video that Beck aired as evidence to support his claims, Dunn offered no endorsement of Mao's ideology or atrocities -- rather, she commented that Mao and Mother Teresa were two of her "favorite political philosophers," and based on short quotes from them, she offered the advice that "you don't have to follow other people's choices and paths" or "let external definition define how good you are internally." Beck smears net neutrality as a Marxist plot to take over the Internet. Beck argued that the Obama administration's support for net neutrality amounted to a Marxist takeover of the Internet that would stifle innovation, when in fact net neutrality -- which was the law of the land from the creation of the Internet until 2005, and which ensured that Internet service providers were not able to control content -- has been cited by numerous Internet pioneers as the guiding principle in Internet development and innovation. Moreover, in smearing supporters of net neutrality, Beck esentially included groups such as the Gun Owners of America, the Christian Coalition, and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell's Parents Television Council in what he described as a plot "design[ed]" by "Marxists." Beck attacks "manufacturing czar" Bloom for citing Mao. Beck seized on "manufacturing czar" Ron Bloom's February 2008 statement that he agrees "with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun." Beck: Obama so clearly" a socialist, "He's surrounded himself with Marxists his whole life." On the March 9 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Beck claimed that Obama "is so clearly" a socialist because "[h]e's surrounded himself with Marxists his whole life." -- Media Matters staff