On 8/2/15 11:49 PM, Charlie wrote: > > The problem is that just as the fascism that Varoufakis apprehends > extracts a human toll, so too does the imposition of "austerity"; and, > what is more, the acceptance of "austerity" by a Left government that > has been voted to power precisely to resist it can only have one > consequence, namely to get the very same "Golden Dawn Nazis, the > assorted neofascists, the xenophobes and the spivs" to power, on the > ashes of the people's illusions about the Left. > > --From Prabhat Patnaik, "Europe's Moment of Truth" at > http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2015/patnaik020815.html
This was an article from the official newspaper of the Communist Party of India, the last outfit in the world qualified to give advice on combating neoliberalism. http://sanhati.com/excerpted/1162/ December 10, 2008 By Dipankar Basu and Debarshi Das, Sanhati Eminent Marxist scholar, David Harvey (DH henceforth), has been lecturing on Marx’s Capital for over 40 years now. His lucid presentation, serious engagement with the text, constant updating of his readings to keep pace with contemporary changes in the structure and functioning of capitalism, make his lectures an invaluable introduction to the work of Karl Marx. Recently DH’s lectures have been recorded and the videos made available over the internet for a much wider audience than could possibly physically attend his lectures. From the perspective of radical scholars and activists all over the world this is a very useful development, and the organizers need to be complimented for disseminating DH’s insightful lectures in this form. The recently concluded 13 part lecture series on Volume 1 of Capital is available here: http://davidharvey.org/2008/09/capital-class-13/ In the last (13th) lecture DH discusses the conditions for the emergence and continued reproduction of capitalism. As part of this discussion he not only mentions Marx’s notion of primitive accumulation but also discusses the concept of “accumulation by dispossession”, a concept that he has developed over the last couple of years as part of his attempt to describe key features of neoliberal capitalism. Interestingly, in a less-than-a-minute comment, he draws attention of his audience to recent developments in West Bengal, India as an example of “accumulation by dispossession”. The following is a rough transcription of the relevant portion of lecture 13 where DH talks about West Bengal and the “Communist” party leading it into “industrialization” via accumulation by dispossession: “I don’t know how many of you have been following what’s been going on in West Bengal in recent months. There you have a Marxist, Communist Party that has been in power for 30 years and which has now decided that industrialization is the answer. Therefore it needs to dispossess peasants of their land. And they have violently taken the land away from peasants, killing nobody quite knows how many. When I left Mumbai last week they dug up another twenty or thirty bodies. Killing the peasants, dispossessing [them] of their land to make way for large Indonesian capital to start production in India. This, again, is accumulation by dispossession.” (approximately 19:11 minute to 19:59 minute of lecture 13) The “Marxist, Communist Party” that DH referred to, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), took note of his comments and responded. Prasenjit Bose, convenor, research cell of the CPI(M) sent a letter to DH drawing his attention to what he called a “few facts” regarding the whole matter. This letter was subsequently posted on a website on November 26, 2008 for the larger public: http://www.pragoti.org/node/2591#comment-1930 (scroll down to see the text of the letter). _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
