[Marxism] Blog post: Playing To Win
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2014/05/05/playing-win/ When I was a boy, I loved sports. Baseball was my passion, and I could be found in the backyard, even in the middle of winter, endlessly throwing a rubber-coated baseball into the air and hitting it as far as I could with my bat. I played organized ball from the age of nine to twenty-two, in Little League, Pony League, American Legion, High School, College, and in town leagues. When I began teaching, basketball became my new sports obsession, and I played seven days a week for many years. In a working class town, excellence in sports was much prized, and for me, helped secure my budding “manhood.” It greatly aided my desire to fit in, to be considered someone who was physically tough. Sports allowed me to be good at something and respected at the same time. Academic excellence wasn’t even a close second. It was impossible then, in the 1950s ane 1960s, just as it probably still is, to be sports-crazy and not worship competition. When I played, I wanted to win. Defeat bothered me; there was never a game that I didn’t do whatever I could to win. This often led me to behave badly. I had no sympathy for teammates whose performance was below par. I’d yell and scream at them. Once when I was fifteen and pitching in an important contest, our third baseman dropped an easy pop fly. I shouted an obscenity at him. My father was watching the game and was so angry at my outburst that he came onto the field and told me to apologize. To little effect, however; I wasn’t chastened and didn’t change my behavior. . . . Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Interesting interview with Hungarian intellectual G. M. Tamás
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is a very interesting interview. It perhaps sheds a good deal of light on the conditions and politics of the countries of Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/979.php Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] A Syrian novelist driving a cab in Chicago
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A good story. Now if he had been a US native, he'd have been on facebook begging for cash, deriding those who wouldn't pony up, saying that he had a God-given right to be a writer. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Angela Davis letter in support of the CUNY Graduate Center for Worker Education
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == by Angela Davis I join with the many students, faculty, labor leaders and elected officials who call upon Brooklyn College President Karen Gould to restore the Graduate Center for Worker Education to its full academic glory as a leading graduate program for New York's working class. The GCWE developed generations of labor, legal, academic and political leaders and activists for over 30 years. The recent tragic destruction of the Graduate Center for Worker Education and the wholesale purging of progressive faculty, staff and graduate students is an unconscionable assault on an invaluable urban working class institution. Brooklyn College also ended its support for the Center's esteemed peer review journal Working USA. Reminiscent of the McCarthy era, under the pretext of administratively prosecuting Professor Joseph Wilson, and tellingly, without any substantiated legal or administrative findings, Brooklyn College used the attack as a cover to dismantle the Worker Education program. The long list of distinguished scholars associated with the Graduate Center for Worker Education makes this attack even more outrageous. Prolific public intellectuals including historian Gerald Horne, legal scholar Genna Rae McNeil, labor scholar and activist Bill Fletcher, award winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson, journalist Juan Gonzalez, and Immanuel Ness, pathbreaking editor of the International Encyclopedia of Protest and Revolution, are part of the extraordinary radical worker education legacy CUNY and Brooklyn College seeks to sully and erase. I recall with great pride my participation, a few years ago, in the hallmark Worker Education conference Black Woman and the Radical Tradition . The conference attracted scholars from around the U.S., Europe and Africa. We need to insure that the Graduate Center and the rich intellectual activism giving rise to this tradition is defended and restored. http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/save-brooklyn-college?mailing_id=22039source=s.icn.em.crr_by=1482010 Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post: Home Sweet Home
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2014/04/29/home-sweet-home/ A recent article by New York Times journalist Neil Irwin finds that the housing market is still operating as a drag on the economy. While a few markets like New York City and San Francisco are booming and perhaps even reaching the “bubble” stage, most are not. One reason for this is the lower rate of household formation. “The number of households rose by an average of 569,000 a year from 2007 to 2013, according to census data, down from 1.35 million a year from 2001 to 2006.” When children leave their parents’ residence and move into an apartment or a newly purchased home, an additional household is created. If an adult child moves out of his or her own dwelling into someone else’s, a household is destroyed. Since the start of the Great Recession, children have become much more likely to either remain at home or move back. This is because young people, roughly between the ages of twenty and thirty-five, are suffering higher rates of unemployment than in the past, along with lower wages and less secure job tenure. They don’t see futures as bright as did previous generations. And as John Maynard Keynes taught us, pessimistic expectations about the future lead to lower expenditures on capital goods, and by extension big ticket consumer items like new homes. . . . Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] •Re: • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for all the useful information on this. Even Bustelo's caustic remarks are appreciated. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Lawrence Wishart: despicable bourgeois profiteers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I signed one petition, with this comment: As a publisher, I don't think Lawrence and Wishart should demand removal of these invaluable archives from MIA or any other entity. These are the works of Marx and Engels, published a long time ago and now part, as they should be, of the public domain and, more importantly, the struggle for socialism. To demand that MIA take these works down after it has been distributing them free for years is pretty outrageous. If this is the only way the company can stay in business, it ought to think about closing shop. And to argue that translators have to be paid out of the money from copyright is disingenuous. My family's future in terms of health care is tied to a radical publisher's survival, but I would never argue that radical presses in India or China or any poor nation should pay us a copyright fee to publish our books. We make the books available so that they can be sold at very low prices in these places. If we go out of business as a consequence of necessary comradely actions, then th at is what will be. Perhaps the analogy isn't perfect but this action of yours seems similar to those of the Martin Luther King family and the current leaders of the United Farm Workers peddling the copyrighted images of Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez for money. I am sure these heirs would say they are doing God's work with the money, but we all know that isn't true. I hope you reconsider your decision and rescind it immediately. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] •Re: • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect gives Monthly Review a lot of credit. I might add that, as I said on the petition site, we don't charge copyright fees for our books to publishers in poor countries, so that they are able to sell our books for rock bottom prices, even much less than one dollar. We have no objection to taking payment for publication rights when a Press can obviously afford to pay us. But our overall goal is to publish in the interest of socialism. And my own policy has always been to pay for books myself when someone cannot afford them, or have the Press just donate them, as when prisoners ask for books.We're not perfect, but we do the best we can in this shitty world. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Can comrades explain to me what is so outrageous about the publisher's defense of its actions? I really would like to know. I don't know much about Lawrence and Wishart. They did a copublication with Monthly Review Press of John Tully's fine book on the Silverton (in London) strike in which Eleanor Marx played a prominent role. we appreciated their agreement to do this, and the support they have given to John in his London promotion of the book. Hopefully Billy Bragg won't find out about L and W's nefarious nature and refuse to endorse the book. He's met Tully and we sent him a copy of the book. He agreed to hype the book a bit after I asked him if he would be willing to do so. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Why does the mass media ignore mass murder in Syria?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Probably for the same reasons the media ignored mass murder in Viet Nam, Indonesia, East Timor, El Salvador, Chile, Argentina, and many, many other countries. Why would Syria be different? Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] •Re: Good article by Gregg Shotwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Chris Phelps must not have been reading what I have written in Monthly Review!!! Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Good article by Gregg Shotwell
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I would be interested to know what people think of Gregg's article. http://monthlyreview.org/2014/04/01/practical-solution-urgent-need Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Please aid an imprisoned Iranian union organizer
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == An Iranian friend sent me this letter. Please consider signing the petition linked below (second link): I am writing this to first inform you of a threat that is facing Shahrukh Zemani, a labor activist in Iran. Shahrukh has been in jail for few years now and recently entered a hunger strike. His sole “crime” is his political activities relating to organizing unions. Shahrukh went on hunger strike after authorities decided to remove him from political prisoners’ ward into a ward full of dangerous prisoners. He has been on hunger strike for about 37 days now. Shahrukh has lost about 70 pounds so far. I am asking you to write a few sentences to condemn Shahrukh’s detention as well as for prisons’ authorities not granting his demand of being returned to political prisoners’ ward. Here are few English links about Shahrukh: http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2014/04/06/shahrokh-zamani-hunger-strike http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-iranian-government-free-shahrokh-zamani https://www.facebook.com/freesharokh Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Marxism] Why Russians got involved with high-frequency trading
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Perhaps the system of Soviet planning, with its perverse incentives, had something to do with this. But I think their proficiency in math and computer science trumped this. Our system is full of holes that can be gamed, but we are not nearly so well versed in the sciences. One of the team that did the gaming (and as Joe Nocera pointed out in the NYT, there were several and others involves, which Lewis fails to mention) was Chinese. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] New book from Monthly Review Press; PolyluxMarx
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here is a great guide for studying Marx. Translated very nicely by our good comrade, Alex Locascio. http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/cl4406/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Tea Party’s “absurd” socialism obsession: An actual Marxist sounds off - Salon.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Ben Kunkel says in this interview: So at least in theory, you could have a market economy where everybody receives the same income. It might not work for other reasons — because there would be, I suppose, no incentive at all to do a better job than someone else in terms of what you received in compensation — but at least in theory, there’s no incompatibility between an absolute equality of income, and absolute freedom in terms of how that income’s spent. This seems so far off the mark that it is hard to know where to begin. He could use some familiarity with the work of Michael Lebowitz, Paul Sweezy, and Harry Magdoff. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Lettuce Picking and Left-Wing Organizing » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Bruce Neuburger's book, Lettuce Wars, has much of interest for anyone who would go into workplaces with a radical outlook. Bruce went into the fields more or less by accident, along with his friend, Frank Bardacke, author of the magnificent Trampling Out the Vintage. Bruce was working as an antiwar activist helping radicalized soldiers protest the War in Viet Nam. He spent a long time in the fields, too many to be thought of simply as a colonizer. He even made the migrant workers' long round of travel back and forth between Mexico and the valleys of California, often living in Mexicali. Bruce actually talked to his workmates about China, Mao, and many other things. Sometimes they were sympathetic and sometimes not. Many Mexican workers had some union and leftwing political experience in Mexico, and these were just the workers Cesar Chavez feared and did his best to deny any power in his union. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Bhagat Singh
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Bernard D'Mello interviews Chaman Lal concerning Chaman's new book, Understanding Bhagat Singh. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2014/dmello230314.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] progressive academics and bds
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Calling Eric Alterman an academic, progressive or otherwise, is pretty funny. And boy, that Todd Gitlin is a real jackass. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post: Teaching Workers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2014/02/28/teaching-workers/ Karl Marx’s famous dictum sums up my teaching philosophy: “The philosophers of the world have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” As I came to see it, Marx had uncovered the inner workings of our society, showing both how it functioned and why it had to be transcended if human beings were to gain control over their lives and labor. Disseminating these ideas could help speed the process of human liberation. From a college classroom, I thought that I could not only interpret the world, I could indeed change it. Thinking is one thing; the trick is bringing thoughts to life. How, actually, does a person be a radical teacher? How, for example, can students be shown the superior insights of Marxian economics in classes that have always been taught from the traditional or neoclassical perspective—taught, in fact, as if the neoclassical theory developed by Adam Smith and his progeny is the gospel truth? My college expected me to teach students the “principles” of economics: that people act selfishly and independently of one another, that this self-centeredness generates socially desirable outcomes. And further, that capitalism, in which we, in fact, do act out of self-interest, is therefore the best possible economic system. Had I refused to do this and taught only Marxian economics, I doubt I could have kept my job. My students were mostly the children of factory workers, miners, and other laborers, just the young people I wanted to reach and move to action. However, nearly all of them were hostile to radical perspectives, having been taught that such views were un-American. Their animosity was sometimes palpable, especially when I pointed out the many things they did not know about our country’s unsavory relationships with the rest of the world. A retired Marine told me that, after we watched a particularly radical film about U.S. imperialism, he wanted to come down the aisle and strangle me I welcome comments. Please pass along to anyone you think might be interested. If you post this to a website, please let me know. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The Surrender of America's Liberals | Moyers Company | BillMoyers.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I read Adolph Reed's essay in Harpers, which I assume is the basis of this interview. He seems to belabor the obvious about liberals and Obama, making points that many others have made. Not that he is wrong, just that he offers nothing new. He says that we need to rebuild the labor movement, and he criticizes Trumka. He says that we all must commit ourselves to labor and to class politics. Well, yes, but so what? In the aftermath of the labor debacle in Wisconsin, Reed took some of us to task for airing labor's dirty laundry in public, actually saying that we were giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Yet, how is labor to be rebuilt without open and critical discussion of the sorry state of organized labor in the United States? Reed never says. Maybe he does that behind close doors, lest labor's enemies get wind of it. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Exclusive excerpt from John Tully's 'Silvertown: The Lost Story of a Strike that ... Helped Launch the Modern Labor Movement' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == John Tully, who also authored the seminal book on the rubber industry (The Devil's Milk), has in this book done another wonderful job of historical research and writing. The strike at Silverton was championed by Eleanor Marx, who worked tirelessly to support the strikers. She also taught one of the strike's leaders to read! The horrors of working class life in London at the turn of the nineteenth century are described in vivid detail by John Tully and these alone make the book an eye-opener and a chilling read. We at Monthly Review Press are proud to have published this fine book. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post. Choosing an Occupation: The Science of Economics.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2014/01/25/science-economics/ The name, “Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science,” tells us that those who give the prize believe that economics is a science. This is certainly what my professors thought when I was a student. One argued that every good economist is a good physicist. There was even a joke that an exceptional economist who dies is reincarnated as a physicist, while a mediocre one comes back as a sociologist. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Historian Gerald Horne on the dismantling of the Graduate Center for Worker Education
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis has posted links to both the NYT's take on this controversy and some criticisms of the Times' article. Here is a link to an essay by historian Gerald Horne, who has taught at the Center and is strongly opposed to getting rid of it. I should note that even supposing that the deposed director of the Center did indeed engage in wrongdoing, this is hardly a reason to shut down a program that has long served working class students in New York City. http://www.popularresistance.org/protect-the-brooklyn-graduate-center-for-worker-education./ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] A story of two visits to Viet Nam
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I think that this is a wonderful essay. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/13/back-to-vietnam/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Jacobinned: The Story Behind the Story Jacobin Refused to Publish
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here is something on the immigration rights movement by David Bacon, someone who knows a lot about it and has been an active participant in it, in both the United States and Mexico. His latest book is The Right to Stay Home. See http://www.migrantologos.mx/index.php/component/content/article/69-notas-periodisticas-relevantes/1685-demands-rise-on-congress-to-guarantee-immigrant-rights-by-david-bacon-truthout- And though I am no fan of Jacobin, it might be good to get their take on what happened. Plus, the first couple of paragraphs of the article Louis references from thenorthstar make sweeping generalizations about the immigrant rights movement that are patently ridiculous (e.g. the author says, The immigration movement in the United States is punitive, dismissive of the needs of millions who desperately need real legislation, and powerful in its silencing of those who might dissent from its mainstream, neoliberal agenda of only guaranteeing safety and relief for the chosen few.) If there is a movement, it is made up of many parts, not all of which are in agreement concerning the DREAM Act and many other things. The author seems to think that anything goes as prelude to the main course, a trashing of Jacobin. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Bukharin's Philosophical Arabesques at a bargain price
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == From Louis' review of the Bukarin book: As a work of Marxist philosophy, Philosophical Arabesques can rank with such classics as Engels's Anti-Duhring or Lenin's Materialism and Empiro-Criticism. It is an attempt to defend Marxism as a philosophy against a wide range of opponents, from 19th century idealism to the kind of obscurantist mysticism that was being churned up by capitalism in its death throes. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Special Page at Monthly Review: Exchange with M. Heinrich on Crisis Theory,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Angelus Novus refers us to an exchange between Michael Heinrich and his critics concerning the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall. Let me say first that I like Michael Heinrich a great deal and the same is true for brother Angelus Novus. So I tend to take what they say in as favorable a light as possible. However, in reading the exchange at http://monthlyreview.org/commentary/heinrich-answers-critics, I think that I would give the nod to Heinrich and Angelus Novus even if I hated the two of them. His critics seem like four stumblebums going into the ring with Manny Pacquiao. They think that a bit of fancy footwork will show the champion that they are not to be trifled with. But they forget that the champion not only throws a lot of punches but that each punch hurts and together the blows will be fatal to their aspirations. And if you have an argument about this, take it up with Heinrich. He's a hell of a lot smarter than I am as is Angelus Novus. Of course, neither will ever convince their critics. The latter are true believers. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post: In Search of the Real America
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/11/27/search-real-america/ This past June, I attended the Left Forum at Pace College in Lower Manhattan. I used to love to go to this city. We visited often and moved there twelve years ago, planning to stay for at least five years, while I worked for Monthly Review magazine and Monthly Review Press. We lasted one year, knowing that we had made a mistake. We enjoyed Manhattan, but not enough to compensate for the stresses of daily life. I went to the conference to help my comrades at Monthly Review Press sell books. It was nice to see acquaintances and meet people I knew only through correspondence. I didn’t attend any of the hundreds of sessions or make a presentation, concentrating instead on promoting our publications and generating much-needed revenue. After the last plenary session, some of us went to dinner and enjoyed interesting conversation. And so, the weekend passed. This was the fourth time I traveled to New York City since we left in 2002. I anticipate each trip with excitement. I hope that my old love affair with the nation’s greatest metropolis will be rekindled. But it never is. After years of living on the road, seeing the country up close and personal, hiking thousands of miles in beautiful places, enjoying solitude, Manhattan seems a nightmare. Trash everywhere, noise, traffic, pedestrians cheek by jowl, too much light at night. Precious little green space. The city used to be a center of working class militancy, radical politics, and popular art, literature, and music. But today, it is mainly a haven for the world’s rich, who exploit the (increasingly immigrant) working class that serves them. It seems just a monument to shopping, dining, and deal-making. Everybody is hustling, all day, every day. . . . Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A Radical Vision for Victory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Charlie asks whether our book about the Freedom Budget goes into the incompatibility of capitalism and full employment. Yes, it does. We think that the original Freedom Budget was a product of the American Century of Keynesian optimism and did not deal at all effectively with the nature of capitalism. We think that people must make demands on the state, the more radical the better, and decently remunerated and meaningful work is one such demand. I think that whatever makes working people more secure should be demanded: single payer healthcare, security in old age, a steady flow of income, etc. Plus things that make life enjoyable, such as access to nature, free time, good and liberal education, etc. But for me, besides demands made on the state, it will be necessary to engage in collective and egalitarian self=help measures, as did organizations like the Black Panthers, workers in some general strikes, parts of the Occupy movement, and many other collective and cooperative entities . Like most people, I grope toward visions of a better future. But I can't help but see that the masses of people worldwide have been abandoned by their governments, increasingly abused by the rich, their employers, and anyone else who can make a buck from human misery. Plus our environment faces multiple catastrophes, the results of which we can see all around us. What will save us except collective self organization? Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post: The Treadmill of Life
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/11/10/treadmill-life/ Yesterday, we took a strenuous hike in the maze of rocks high above Moab, Utah. We were searching for petroglyphs and enjoying a warm, sunny autumn day. One of our sons was with us, helping us spot the ancient native pictures and making a detailed photographic record of what we found. It is difficult to describe the pleasure I feel on such days and the sense of wonder that people not only lived for thousands of years in this harsh place, but made beautiful art too. We let our minds wander. What do the figures on the rocks mean? Who were the artists? Could we communicate with them if they were standing before us? What would they think of what we have done to their home? The ugly potash plant we see in the distance. The jeeps, ATVs, and motorbikes wreaking havoc on the land. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] 'A Prairie Home Companion' is wretched and unlistenable - SBNation.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Michael Smith suggests that all comedy is conservative. I guess then that comedy and a book or show or play or whatever that makes you laugh are two different things. I have never laughed at anything Keillor said, though maybe this is because I find his voice so irritating. On the other hand, Charles Bukowski's Post Office and John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces had me laughing so hard that I couldn't breathe. But then again, I loved the Three Stooges. And my mother and I laughed til we cried when we read Groucho Marx's autobiography. If I gave you a list of all the trashy shows, comedies or otherwise, that I have enjoyed, you'd wonder why I didn't swoon over PHC. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] My latest blog post: Night Thoughts.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/11/03/night-thoughts/ What happened to my mother’s dreams? And my father’s too? They’re gone, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I see all the dead men and women walking arm in arm, talking, around the block near the old house. I walk with them. What are they saying? “I didn’t think it would be like this, Mike.” “I sat in the dark every morning and cried and prayed. I didn’t believe in it, but I allowed it anyway. Will God forgive me.” “It hasn’t been a happy life, Michael.” . . . Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] 'A Prairie Home Companion' is wretched and unlistenable - SBNation.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I have hated this show from the first time I listened to it, or at least as small a segment of it as I could bear. I had two (former) friends, both English teachers, as elitist as they come, who loved this shit. I told them that the show almost made me hate Norwegians. Just dreck, awful, horrible, stupid crap. I could go on, but no matter how many boring lines I wrote, I could never surpass the vapidity of PHC. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Lou Reed
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I saw Lou Reed perform with the Velvet Underground at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, in February 1969. There was a radio station in the city, WAMO, where DJ Porky Chedwick pioneered doo wop and soul music. For some reason, the station began to play hippie-psychedelic, druggie music, with Porky as DJ. He must have hated it, but we used to call in requests, usually under the influence of one drug or another. Heroin was one of our favorites, and Porky played it regularly. Alligator by the Grateful Dead, and Trouble Comin' Everyday by Frank Zappa were two other songs I'd ask Porky to play. Hard to believe Lou Reed was just four years older than I when he played that night in Pittsburgh. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] To Be Black in Cuba
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It is remarkable that the writer of this essay could have missed the book Race in Cuba by Esteban Morales Dominguez, the leading Cuban scholar on race. This was published this year by Monthly Review Press. In a few months we will also be publishing Gerald Horne's, Race to Revolution: The US and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow, which delineates the complex relationship between blacks in the US and Cuba, and how this relationship helped end Jim Crow and set the stage for the Cuban revolution. It is interesting how, no matter what efforts you make to publicize radical books, it is difficult for them to get reviewed, especially in any mainstream media. Verso has perhaps gotten around this problem, but only by agreeing to have W.W. Norton be its distributor. Hopefully, this won't weaken the radical thrust of Verso's publishing endeavors. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] A Capital Workbook in Slides
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Monthly Review Press will be publishing the English edition of Polylux Marx next April. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] To Be Black in Cuba
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Annette asks: What essay? Link? It is, as posted by Louis: Chronicle of Higher Education October 14, 2013 To Be Black in Cuba By Antonio López Louis posted the essay in a previous marxmail post. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Brazil tribe plagued by one of the highest suicide rates in the world | World news | theguardian.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is a heartbreaking story. Not many people care that these things are common when connections to the land are severed. The entire history of capitalism is one of people being forcibly separated from the land. The misery that results is swept under the rug of progress. How we lived before this separation is dismissed as primitive and not worthy of our attention. We go on about the idiocy of rural life, as if those who grasped the primacy of connection to our earth are demented. They are not real, somehow, while we are. We are civilize, they are not. We have nothing to learn from them. We should look around ourselves. I spent a few months in the DC area. Clotted traffic, polluted air, everyone hustling to work and back, unsmiling zombies. Don't get in their way. Don't say hello. The one group we met that weren't like this were recent immigrants for Ethiopia and elsewhere. And older black people would still smile and say hello. Life is a dead end in late capitalism. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post. The Road Beckons: Excerpt from Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/09/29/road-beckons-excerpt-cheap-motels-hot-plate/ We have been on the road for 12 years. It's interesting how your perspective on life changes when you see things firsthand. Anyone can talk or write about the environment or the economy or what people in the US are like, for example, but to see the devastation wrought by mining and agriculture, to see the thousands of gas wells in Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, to see the low wage labor that makes the nation's economy tick, to see the bleak landscape the Navajo call home, to talk to people, to have small joys in strange places, well these have, taken together, made us feel confident in what we say about this country. I am proud that there are very few descriptions of things we have witnessed or analyses of why things are the way they are that I have had to retract since the book was published. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Chipotle Promotes Self, Better Farming Practices With Eerie Video - Truthdig
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == When I wrote the essay on Chipotle Louis posted, I hadn't ever eaten in one of its stores. Recently, I did. What surprised me was that the food was served assembly line style, with servers plopping food onto a plate or onto a burrito. The food itself was tasteless. Luckily I had salsa on it, or it would have been slightly above average cafeteria food. I read recently that Chipotle might be preparing to start using meat from animals treated with antibiotics. It is hard to find accurate information on this. There is no limit to the slop people in the US will eat. And no limit to the amount of it they will eat. In Capital, Marx writes about the adulteration of the food workers consumed, anything to keep the price low and reduce the value of labor power. His analysis is as valid today as ever. Low quality, cheap food, combined with the stress of poverty and low income all combine to generate obesity and disease. Chipotle has taken this sorry state of affairs and carved out a tremendously profitable niche. A few steps above Taco Bell, a little more expensive, and food not so corrupted (though full of calories), all combined with slick advertising and low wages. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Black America and a New Freedom Budget
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Paul Le Blanc and I have an essay up at truthout. Here is the link: http://truth-out.org/news/item/18757-black-america-and-a-new-freedom-budget I still find the data on the socioeconomic condition of our black sisters and brothers astonishing. I welcome comments. I posted a reference to the book Paul and I wrote on a facebook page dedicated to people who grew up in my hometown in the 1950s and 60s. I said that I remembered a great deal of racism in the town. This elicited some remarkable comments, either denying racism or saying that they (the commenters) and their families faced similar hardships. This is, to say the least, not true. But no facts that I provided dented their beliefs. The subtext was, of course, that blacks should have bucked up and made something of themselves, as they had. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you | The Great Debate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Marc Bloch tells us in his masterful Feudal Society that there were significant productivity gains during the feudal period in Europe. The introduction of the three-field system of crop rotation raised productivity by as much as 50 %. This argues against a stagnant society. Such increases gave rise to struggles between lords and serfs over who would get the surplus output. As to the holidays, it is good to remember that the word serf derives from the Latin servus, or slave. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Why a medieval peasant got more vacation time than you | The Great Debate
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Carl is correct that the serf is not a slave. I only made the point about the serf as servus to suggest that those free days were embedded in an oppressive system of exploitation. The serfs weren't taking holidays at the beach. In early capitalism, weavers working at home under the putting out system had considerable freedom in terms of the use of their time. As Thompson tells us, there were weavers who had mastered calculus. But the putting out system beat down wages so severely that collections were taken up for the next school child who would die of hunger. Capitalism eventually forces a modern time discipline. Time is money as they say. And this is felt as a loss of freedom by those whose own lives were pretty miserable. The factory whistle that I took for granted when I was a child wasn't taken for granted by the weavers. Even given the horrors of feudal oppression, we can still see the lack of a strict time discipline as something capitalism takes away, and with it part or our humanity. Certainly, this humanity is worth winning back. By the same token, the leisure time of gatherers and hunters is something we should envy, rather than dismissing our ancestors as primitive with little to teach us. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post: Memorializing Martin Luther King, Jr.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/08/30/memorializing-martin-luther-king-jr/ We often visit the monuments and museums along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and each time I am surprised at my heightened emotions when we are there. Maybe it is because the museums are free and some of the memorials grand and inspiring, and I can imagine for a few hours that this country will one day live up to its professed ideals. In the city a few weeks ago, we looked forward to seeing our old favorites and were excited to see for the first time the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Syria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Patrick Cockburn has an essay in counterpunch worth reading: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/28/only-a-peace-conference-can-stop-further-bloodshed/ We can fulminate against the wretched Assad all we want, but even if the US starts bombing, he is unlikely to be deposed anytime soon. We can say that we hope the FSA gets arms, but there are many other groups involved in the opposition to Assad, and some have serious arms provided by their patrons. How will arms get to the FSA? Will they be sufficient to defeat Assad? Won't the FSA have to wage war against the other groups? Won't any arms sent to the FSA get in the hands of other groups? We (leftists in the US) cannot provide the FSA with arms, and I haven't noticed anyone saying he or she was going to Syria to fight alongside the FSA. Cockburn says that the best hope right now is for an internationally brokered ceasefire. Stop the death or at least as much of it as possible. Go from there. It is pathetic that people would threaten Louis or anyone else over this. I watched a demonstration on Sunday in front of the White House by an anti-Assad group imploring Obama to take action because of the chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government. Some other people threatened some violence, but the police got in their way in less than a minute. The entire affair seemed almost farcical. Imploring Obama to bomb. What freedom could come from this? Shouting pro-Assad provocations. What good will this do those who are dying? I am no kind of expert on Syria. I don't speak the language, and I have never been there. What I do know is that no good will come from US bombs. No good will come from Assad. No good will come from the jihadists. Perhaps Cockburn is correct in his assessment. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The American Dream rewards few, enslaves millions | Bhaskar Sunkara | Comment is free | theguardian.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis says Sunkara's Guardian piece is refreshingly honest. Well, not long ago he wrote about the great political conversation around his family's dinner table. How did his parents manage to find the time, when according to him they weren't around much because they were working such long hours? Then he says he had to save up money for college. He went to George Washington University, one of the most expensive colleges in the country. So either his dope selling made a pile of dough, or he had to have been given a great deal of financial assistance. I could go on, but as Dan said, who cares? BTW, it isn't only professors who give talks, etc. to burnish their image. Sunkara follows a path trod by many other professed urban intellectuals, some of whom many of us know well. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The American Dream rewards few, enslaves millions | Bhaskar Sunkara | Comment is free | theguardian.com, Louis Proyect,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis insists on the painful honesty of Sunkara. I'll agree if we accept that the Guardian piece itself is part of the hustle. One thing I have learned in life is that hustlers are never painfully honest. Dishonesty is part of the hustler's code. Be like Fast Eddie Felson going into a poolroom and telling everyone he was a pool shark and then making a few trick shots to prove it. Maybe hustler is the wrong word. Con artist might be better. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] counterpunch articles on California prisoners' hunger strike
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Counterpunch has published at least two interesting and moving essays on the hunger strike by California's prisoners. One is at http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/22/my-friend-todd-ashker-inmate-at-pelican-bay/ Jeffrey St. Clair has taken a lot of criticism over the past couple of months, most of it unwarranted in my view. But here we have something that is praiseworthy by all radicals. People are rotting away in solitary confinement, sometimes for decades. They represent US government crimes against humanity. Worse by an incalculable magnitude than anything counterpunch has done. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Book Event - Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Alan Wieder is speaking at Orca Books in Olympia, Washington. I believe the owner is John Bellamy Foster's sister. She is a good and welcoming person. This is a great venue. I spoke there in 2007. If you are in the area, check this talk out. The book is a good one. Alan captures not just the inspiring political lives of Ruth and Joe, but their personal lives as well. Many sacrifices have to be made in terms of family when you are revolutionaries waging war against a police state. Alan brings these out with empathy but without romanticizing them through his oral histories and his own analysis. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] reviewer wanted
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Hell's Kitchen book that George refers to is a complex and interesting work. It provides new insights into the meaning of space and how it is constructed. More importantly, the author argues that space is not just used by elite groups as a vehicle to suppress the working class. Rather workers deconstruct the built environment that elites construct to serve their own needs. However, working class interests are varied and not always in harmony. So it is rare that workers act as one unit. This happens but not very often. The rise of unions and mass working class efforts are then seen as exceptional and difficult to sustain. The author, Joseph Varga, is a former truck driver, forklift operator, service worker, shop steward, and union organizer. He teaches in the labor studies program at Indiana University. I am proud to served as his editor for this book. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers | Informed Comment
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I have been involved in discussion with some people about the inequality along every economic, social, and demographic outcome between whites and blacks. There are those who say that we shouldn't keep harping about racism and white privilege. What we need to do is focus on the fight for greater equality, by demanding full employment, universal health care, an end to the criminal injustice system, etc. Since black persons will benefit disproportionately, these efforts, which are not overtly race conscious, are our best bet for movement building. Others of us have said that race has an independent impact of the above mentioned outcomes, and therefore, race has to be addressed head on in any attempts to bring about radical change. In Cuba, for example, there has been much greater equality than in any capitalist society, more or less full employment, and conscious efforts to eradicate racial disparities. Yet 54 years after the Revolution, Esteban Morales tells us that racial disparities continue to exist and still greater efforts are needed to eradicate them. What do others think? Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Help Defend Jacobin / CounterPunch and the War on Transgender People
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I urge everyone to read the Jacobin essay that is the source of the plea by Jacobin for legal defense money. In it, Samantha Allen makes serious accusations against attorney Catherine Brennan, about whom she says, Apart from a sordid internet history of harassing, misgendering, and mocking trans* people, Brennan co-authored a letter with Elizabeth Hungerford to the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to argue against — yes, against — legal protections based on “gender identity or expression.” The letter mentioned in the quote can be accessed here: http://radicalhubarchives.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/communication_csw_un_brennanhungerford_08012011_.pdf I have read the letter, and the claim made by Allen seems wildly inaccurate. However, I am not well-versed in all of this, so I would like to hear from others about it. Allen also accuses counterpunch of publishing articles (by Julian Vigo and Dorian Adams, who take opposing positions) that in effect debate whether or not transgender people should exist. This again seem wildly inaccurate. She says, And even the leftist publication CounterPunch has felt the need to cover “both sides” of the issue in a series of articles that debate the legitimacy of transgender identity as if we were theoretical abstractions and not human beings. There are not two sides to a debate about whether a group of people should exist.a A reading of the essays in question, essays that don't pull many punches, didn't make me think that anyone was saying any group shouldn't exist. I also thought that Jacobin's titling of Allen's essay was aimed at gaining readership at counterpunch's expense, but maybe I am reading into things. Allen's essay is not primarily about counterpunch. Nor is counterpunch, to the best of my knowledge, waging war against transgender people. I believe that attorney Brennan is suing Jacobin. I don't know the bases for the suit. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Books about Cuba
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In addition to Esteban Morales' Race in Cuba, mentioned by Erik, two other recent Monthly Review Press books are worth reading: The Economic War Against Cuba by Salim Lamrani and One Day in December: Celia Sanchez and the Cuban Revolution. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] 35% off July Book of the Month: Insurgent Images: The Agitprop Murals of Mike Alewitz by Mike Alewitz Paul Buhle, foreword by Martin Sheen
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for posting your review of this, Louis. It is a beautiful book, expensive to produce. We are offering it at a bargain price! Scott Borchert, our promotions person, got the idea to have a bargain book each month from our backlist. Watch for these on the Monthly Review website. Suggestions for titles to be our monthly promotion are welcome. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Glenn Greenwald Regularly Attends Marxist-Leninist Conferences
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Jeffrey Masko says, So? Why is this hit piece here? I applaud him for looking to other alternatives. It doesn't say he is a Marxist-Leninist, so what if he attends them? He going to be in Chicago for the ISO sponsored conference along with Dave Zirin and a host of others why is this news or important? Is this sarcasm that I'm missing from Louis? So Louis posts something from deranged right-wingers, and we are to think that somehow Louis has done something wrong? Haven't we all seen that Louis posts a lot of things without comment. We can read them or not, as we choose. There is no deeper meaning! What will be interesting to see is if the mainstream media pick this up, to tar Greenwald as a communist and therefore not to be taken seriously, or worse yet, to be considered a traitor himself. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post: Karen's Cancer
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/06/13/karens-cancer/ Karen was diagnosed with cancer five years ago, in March 2008. She had surgery, then radiation and chemotherapy. There followed many visits to doctors, first every three months, then every six months. Finally, three weeks ago, Karen’s doctor said that, barring some sudden change in health, she now has to return just once a year. Our relief has been palpable. I was slow to react to the news that there was a tumor growing in Karen’s body. My behavior in those first weeks was sometimes selfish and hurtful. We knew we would have to be in Tucson for a much longer time than we had planned, and I manically insisted that we look at a house on the same day we learned that Karen would have to have surgery. One morning, we talked in the parking lot by a grocery store, and she expressed her anger with me. When I saw that what I was doing and saying made her cry, I felt awful, but sometimes guilt makes me strike back, and I did this, making myself even uglier in her and my own eyes. I did do helpful things, taking notes when nurses called, answering the phone when Karen didn’t want to talk, taking care of certain household chores, signing an agreement when we found a house to rent, and trying to be as supportive as I could. We had one son living with us then, and another came as soon as we told him the bad news. Their presence helped me focus better on what needed to be done. I wanted to set a good example for them. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Public School Teachers fighting back: June issue of Monthly Review
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The June issue of Monthly Review is about public school teachers fighting back against attempts to gut the US system of public education. Good articles on the Chicago Teachers Union and more. If you are interested in bulk orders, send me an email. mikedjya...@msn.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Merchants of Shame » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Let's see now. ISO people bandy about words like filth and disgusting and locker room humor and so forth. No one seems to notice or care that Jeffrey St. Clair's own daughter has a rare and debilitating form of cancer. Maybe like a woman I taught with said about another colleague, a man, who had two daughters with cancer, Well, he's the father, I doubt he takes care of them, they think Jeffrey, as a man, doesn't have feelings. Only the ISO men grasp sexism. And those who support CP and don't see anything wrong with Ruth Fowler's article are denounced as old white men who are sexist. Without a shred of evidence. So, maybe a fuck the ISO and all the other chowderheads who have made stupid comments is in order. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Statement: Refusing to Accept Sexism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dan said he tried to unsub. Must not have tried too hard. But, please, unsub away. No doubt, you'll want to write up your thoughts beforehand, such as they might be. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Another review of Heinrich
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The review by Matthijs Krul of Michael Heinrich's isn't too bad, and it is nice that he avoids the hysterical nonsense I have read in some places. However, a couple of things struck me as off the mark. First, to say that Kliman has consistently applied Marxist economics, is I am certain, a matter of debate. Matthijs sort of gives away the game, pretty much saying that Heinrich is so fundamentally wrong about something so vital that he can hardly be said to be writing in the Marxist tradition. Yet, if Heinrich is correct and Marx himself had abandoned the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to fall, then maybe it is up to us to develop better crisis theories. And maybe to admit that crisis can arise in any number of ways, each unique perhaps. Second, I don't see how it can be argued that if a crisis is ameliorated, a worse one will occur. This seems a way of looking at the world that misses all of its complexity and changes that defy theoretical analysis at all. Third, the fact that capitalism works through the exploitation of wage labor, that it is consistent with all manner of other forms of subordinated labor, such as slavery, that it means the degradation of most human beings, and so on and so forth, means that a severe economic crisis is hardly needed for us to see the barbaric nature of the system and the need to get rid of it. Crisis mongers seem like religious zealots to me. Or worse yet, libertarians, who no matter how many times they are proved wrong, just say that, well, the markets aren't really free. For our falling rate of profit diehards, it is well, wait til next time, or well, yes it looks like profits have risen but that is only because you haven't defined profits properly. And finally, why bother with unions, national healthcare, and the like? These are just redistribution schemes. I took Heinrich's introduction about so-called worldview Marxism as saying that we cannot introduce Marx for beginners if we start with that. Fair enough in my view. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Another review of Heinrich
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == There may be no necessary difference between what Louis says and what MAK says. I have been a teacher for 45 years now. In every class, in every imaginable venue, I have made the argument that capitalism itself gives rise to human and environmental degradation of all kinds. But that is an argument you hope will take at some point in people's lives. But we live in the here and now, so we tried when I worked on a campus to help the custodians and groundskeepers and librarians and teachers form unions and to organize ourselves into unions. If I wanted someone to cast of vote for a union or to get people to agree that we should try to make the college operate more democratically, it wouldn't be too useful to point to capitalism as the root cause of whatever evil we were trying to address. Everything depends on circumstances I think. What does Kliman do at Pace College where he works? On NYC where he lives? I don't know. Maybe what we need to do is struggle for things that benefit the masses of workers, peasants, what have you, and do what we can in terms of education to promote a way of thinking that is radical, so that people have a way to interpret what is happening to them. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] bluff, bluster, and bullshit at CounterPunch
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I want to second Louis's post on the article by Ruth Fowler in counterpunch (plus her follow-up essay and the one by Julian Vigo). It is certainly possible to disagree with what they say. But to call them filth and the editors of counterpunch purveyors of such sickening fare is really insane. If you can't say why these pieces are filth, you ought not to say anything. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The real working life of a chef
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks, Richard Fidler, for that great post on your work on the trains. Fascinating stuff, great details! Michael Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Obama and LBJ
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The most recent volume of Robert Caro's biography of LBJ, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, gives a great account of how LBJ wielded power. After Kennedy was killed, Johnson's advisers, told him not to press for civil rights legislation. He answered to the effect that, well, what's the presidency for. Somehow Obama manages to convince his supporters that he is besieged by implacable enemies and can do nothing. Of course, the truth is that he doesn't give a shit about the poor, about black people, or anyone without plenty of cash. LBJ was a scoundrel, but there was at least some sincerity in his sympathy for the poor. And he did something about it, however flawed. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Slide Show: Jobs and Freedom
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Paul Le Blanc has put together a good slide show: JOBS AND FREEDOM: THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON AND THE FREEDOM BUDGET. The book referred to in Paul's description below is A Freedom Budget for All Americans: Recapturing the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in the Struggle for Economic Justice Today. Description of the book can be found at http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb3607/ Here is a slide-show on the civil rights movement, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the Freedom Budget that was advanced by A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King and others. It is related to a book by Michael Yates and myself that will be coming out in August. (In the slideshow there is an error -- C. T. Vivian is wrongly identified as Fred Shuttlesworth -- but hopefully this will be corrected shortly.) http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/leblanc100513.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Niall Ferguson trashes Keynes for homosexuality
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This really is a new low. For a low person to begin with. He is the Laurence A. Tisch professor of history at Harvard. Who would take a chair like this, named for some scoundrel Wall Street billionaire? An asshole, I guess. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post: Cades Cove: History Is So Much Fun!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/04/21/cades-cove-history-is-so-much-fun/ While visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we spent a day at Cades Cove. Twenty-seven miles west of Gatlinburg, Tennessee and once a thriving farming community, it is now the park’s major tourist attraction, receiving more than two million visitors each year. We enjoyed the trip between the town and the Cove, on a narrow road, winding our way along wide mountain streams, often between steep, tree-covered hills. As we got closer to our destination, our excitement grew as we anticipated several hours exploring the remnants of the old village and taking a hike to Abrams Falls. When we arrived at Cades Cove, we found ourselves on a one-way, eleven-mile loop road. We came upon some gorgeous open fields surrounded by mountains, and we stopped to photograph a small herd of deer. We wondered why these fields were here, fenced in and some burned, seemingly prepared for plowing. The scene looked too pristine, almost staged. Later we learned that, although no one still lives in the Cove, a few families pay a fee to the park for the privilege of doing some farming. Something struck us as peculiar about this landscape. The usual policy of the National Park Service in the Smokies has been to let formerly farmed areas revert to nature, and we saw many examples in other parts of the park. Why wasn’t this the case in Cades Cove? We returned to our car and continued on the road, noticing signs along the way, directing motorists toward one or another old but restored structure: a cabin, a church, a cemetery, a grain mill. Apparently, nothing had been left in its original state. We began to feel disappointed and angry. Cleared fields, “farmers” paying to till the soil, restored buildings? This was looking like a movie set. Traffic was picking up, and we envisioned a long, slow drive, our irritation rising as we passed more and more tourist venues. Fortunately, we came to the unpaved road that led to the Abrams Falls trailhead. We put on our backpacks and began to hike. Soon we were in our element. The trail overlooks a stream surpassing in its beauty, meandering its way to the falls. Along with other hikers, we enjoyed the wildflowers, singing birds, and the wonderful waterfall, which pours into a large and inviting pool. We talked to some hikers and for a couple of hours forgot about the loop road Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Grad student who discovered Reinhart and Rogoff Excel error
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This was a student of my friend and excellent economist, Robert Pollin. Bob was skeptical at first, but he realized that his student (and the student's girlfriend) was right. This reminded me of the error made by the wretched Martin Feldstein, who made his name by arguing that the social security system lowered the rate of capital formation and hence the rate of economic growth. Two researchers at the Social Security Administration asked Feldstein for his data, and when, after a couple of years, he gave it to them, they couldn't replicate his results. He had made a programming error. He soon redid his work and claimed that the results were the same. Unfortunately for him the Social Security staffpersons found the opposite of what Feldstein claimed to be true. As I understand it, Rogoff and Reinhart have done the same thing, but are backtracking from their claim, saying they never said what is attributed to them. In Paul Krugman's recent NYT column, he doesn't even have the generosity to mention the graduate student's name. What a prick. Of course, nothing will come of this. Austerity will continue. Just as capital will resist raising the minimum wage, despite the truth that raising it will boost both incomes and employment. And just as those with power will continue to insist, with the support of Obama, that the social security system is near insolvency despite the falsity of this claim. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] A Radical Anthropologist Finds Himself in Academic 'Exile' - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == David Graeber's upset at his inability to find an academic job in the US has been more or less mocked by some because he found a job in London. This misses the point, which is the sorry state of academe in the United States, its near complete isolation from anything that matters politically. Not to mention, it is just mean spirited. The Chronicle article mentions a conflict Graeber had with the odious J. Bradford DeLong. Made me like Graeber more than I already do. DeLong is a real (fill in your own expletive). Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Lettuce Wars by Bruce Neuburger
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Monthly Review Press has just published Lettuce Wars: Ten Years of Work and Struggle in the Fields of California. This is an excellent, ey-opening account of work in the fields of California agriculture during the years when the UFW was making history. It is also a great story of one person's political awakening. Bruce was an open communist in his workplaces and in the union. As the UFW grew more reactionary and Chavez more paranoid, Bruce faced severe antagonism from the union, at one time even having his own personal goon. Bruce went to work in the fields with Frank Bardacke, whose Trampling Out the Vintage is a marvelous history of farm labor, the UFW, Chavez, and his own labor in the fields. Frank strongly recommends Bruce' book. For more information, see http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb3324/ I know a lot about the UFW, but I learned a great deal from Bruce's book, which gives a unique rank and file perspective that adds much to Bardacke's narrative. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Heinrich on Marx's Crisis Theory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Michael Heinrich has an essay in the April Monthly Review on Marx's crisis theory, or lack thereof. We will await a 200 page rebuttal from our comrade, the lawsuit king. http://monthlyreview.org/2013/04/01/crisis-theory-the-law-of-the-tendency-of-the-profit-rate-to-fall-and-marxs-studies-in-the-1870s Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Alan Wieder wrote: Just finished final editing before layout of my book on Ruth First and Joe Slovo that will be published this summer by Monthly Review in the U.S. and Jacana in South Africa. You can see the Monthly Review blurb at http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb3560/. Note that we are probably using a different cover photo that can be seen in their online catalog. Monthly Review Press is proud to be publishing Alan Wieder's new book.It is a fine work of biography and oral history. Those whose words help us understand the protagonists are a who's who of the anti-apartheid struggle. The Foreward to the book is written by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer, Congratulations, Alan! Your long and hard efforts have produced a book of great interest and value. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] John Foster is not speaking at the British SWP Marxism 2013 Festival in London this July
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == We at Monthly Review have learned that editor John Bellamy Foster is listed as a speaker at the British SWP Marxism 2013 conference. John was never asked to speak, nor does he intend to do so. I only post this here because there has been much discussion about the British SWP on this list. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post: Mike and Bruce
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/03/28/bruce-and-mike/. Bruce Williams was my best friend for nearly all the years I was a teacher. Although he wasn’t happy when I told him I was retiring, I knew that we would keep in close contact from wherever I traveled. Then, suddenly and sadly, he died, twelve years ago, on March 27, 2001. For awhile afterward, Karen and I would have an adventure or meet an interesting person, and I would say to myself, “I’ll have to remember to tell Bruce about this.” Then I’d remember he was dead. I still think sometimes, “I bet Bruce would appreciate this.” So much has happened to both of our families since that day. His son got married. His daughter, my goddaughter, has a new life in San Francisco. His wife survived a terrible illness. Karen and I have a granddaughter. Life goes on, as they say. Sometimes I wish it didn’t. That we could all be forever young. Here is the eulogy I gave for Bruce’s memorial at the college, held a few weeks after his death. Bruce, I hope you are still resting in peace Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Another response to 'Catastrophism' book
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Ian Angus has written a good response to the essay on the environment in the Catastrophism book. When you face a catastrophe, you say so. It doesn't matter what your class enemies say or do. You try to educate people about these, as well as the catastrophe. We've been traveling around the U.S. for 12 years now, and the environmental changes are palpable, even in that short period of time. And call it what you will, and all due respect to the resilience of capitalism and its capacity to absorb critique and turn it to its own advantage, but we are in a shitload of trouble on many fronts. As Mother Jones said, educate yourself for the coming conflicts. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Advice needed - Book on Gramsci
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A good book on Gramsci is Antonio Gramsci by Antonio A. Santucci, the English edition of which is published by Monthly Review Press. Santucci was a renowned scholar of Gramsci. I helped oversee the publication of this book, working with the translators and doing some editing as well. It is a good book, well worth reading. Gramsci's life and work are both inspirational. I read the Prison Notebooks while awaiting surgery in Pittsburgh many years ago. Pretty impressive stuff, the earlier poster's foolish comments here on marxmail notwithstanding. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Economics professor defends himself against Zionist smear campaign
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Professor Alam is a talented scholar and good human being. We should support him as best we can. His son, M. Junaid Alam, was coeditor, with Derek Seidman, of Lefthook, a left magazine aimed at radical youth. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] What Rules Should Govern US Drone Attacks? by Kenneth Roth | The New York Review of Books
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This fellow no doubt is an asshole. But people like Robert Naiman, who has been redbaiting leftists on another list and who fancies himself an upcoming liberal mover and shaker, believe the same thing. Typical liberal claptrap. Oh, god, if we could only get some small change, bigger ones are bound to follow. Not much different, really, than what Bill Fletcher and company say. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] blog post: OWS and the Importance of Political Slogans
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/02/28/ows-and-the-importance-of-political-slogans/ Radical political movements always employ slogans that encapsulate in a few powerful words the aspirations of those fighting for a new world. The French revolutionaries fought under the banner, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” words that still resonate with radicals. The first words of the U.S. Constitution—“We the People”—have quickened the hearts of generations of populist activists. Emiliano Zapata’s soldiers longed for “Tierra y Libertad,”and the peasant armies of Mao Tse Tung went to war for “Land to the Tiller.” Every slogan has a context, circumstances that give rise to the words and make them effective. For example, when the Chinese communists were waging their long struggle against the army of Chiang Kai-shek, they relied upon mass support from peasants, who formed the base of the Red Army. China was still a largely feudal society, and peasants were brutally exploited by rich landlords. Those who worked the land wanted it, and the communists promised to give it to them. “Land to the Tillers” expressed this desire and the Party’s commitment to it. Even today, after decades of capitalist restoration, China’s rural people still have land rights won in revolutionary struggle. The catchphrases of political upheaval are always somewhat vague. In China, there were the farmers who tilled the soil and the landlords who owned it. However, both classes included people of varying economic means. There were small, medium, and large landholders. Not all peasants lived in squalor and destitution. Yet, all landlords tended to be lumped together, and all of their land was fair game for expropriation. The imprecise nature of political slogans is a virtue. Actual political programs do not derive from words alone but from the balance of class forces that exist at a particular point in time. What slogans do is clarify the most basic political cleavages; they help people develop the mindset most suited to active participation in whatever struggles are at hand. In China, “land to the tiller” said that those who worked the land should possess it; those who owned but did not till, should not. That some both owned and tilled did not and should not have mattered. Such complexities would have to be dealt with later, when a new constellation of class forces had come into being. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Giroux on Pathologies of Power today - excellent/new book by Giroux from Monthly Review Press
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Monthly Review Press will be publishing in April Henry Giroux's new book, America's Education Deficit and the War on Youth. We're excited about this. http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb3447/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Empty Cuba blather
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis decries the lack of analytical posts. This is true. People seem to have fixed positions and they use these to sledgehammer those with different fixed positions. Complexity, nuance, openness to different ways of thinking about things, etc. are often absent. But another problem is that posters go on and on about sectarian politics. What so and so said said sixty years ago in some sect is of no interest to most of us. You were in the SWP, for example, and the organization consumed your life, just as does religion when a person becomes a zealous adherent to a faith. Then you get disillisioned for one reason or another, but spend the rest of your life rehashing the past and pointing fingers at those who are now in the sect. Like a drug addict who can't get enough talk about drugs and using drugs, but then when he or she kicks the habit, the rest of life is spent going to meetings and reliving, in a way, the old drug life, except now as a former addict. This all gets boring beyond words. Life goes on, and most of the world's inhabitants are miserable. Going on endlessly about the sex abuse scandal in the British SWP seems a waste of time to me and to anyone who would like to see this misery end. One last point for all the Cuba bashers here. I'd say Cuba has done more to end misery in the world than just about any nation in the world, certainly in proportion to its size. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Empty Cuba blather,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I used the word you in my last post. This did not refer to Louis, but was a generic you. And I don't care if list participants comment on the British SWP controversy or about sectarian politics now or in the past. I am free not to read them, which I don't, except usually Louis's since his posts will keep me up to date on the topic at hand, and he is interesting. Anyway, no offense meant to anyone. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Bloomberg Defends College’s Right to Sponsor Israel-Boycott Talk
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Naturally, it is better that the mayor defend the right of a public college to practice free speech. But his statement that NYC is the most free city in the world is preposterous. The city has paid tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits just in the last decade or so because the police routinely violate speech rights. And it would be interesting to ask black people how free the city is. The bar is set so low now in the United States for all manner of things that we should take for granted that the Brooklyn College BDS controversy seems a great victory for the people. The president of the college is seen as a steadfast champion of civil liberties and the voices of a few tenured professors are seen as heroic. It all kind of cheapens the actions of real champions of civil liberties and true heroes. No doubt we have to take what we can get. But read president Gould's statement (let me add that I wrote her a letter, as asked by the sponsors of the event). It is pretty wishy washy. Same for the political science department's statements. Everyone wants to be fair and balanced, like Fox News. During the Vietnam War, boatloads of professors came out publicly against it. Teach-ins, all kinds of events were held on campuses. Nobody gave a damn about balance or even bothered to consult administrations. We didn't make statements saying how we respected all sides of the issue. It would have been a cold day in hell before my small department would have invited someone who favored the war to campus of sponsored an event of a group that did this. But president Gould wants to convene a committee to make sure that balance prevails.And she goes further, as Michael J. Smith notes on his blog. She says, As the official host of the CUNY center for study abroad in Israel, our college has a proud history of engagement with Israel and Israeli universities… We deeply value our Israeli partners and would not endorse any action that would imperil the State of Israel… Some balance. I remember our college president in a tenure meeting asking about a philosopher's syllabus for an ethics class. Where were the pro war articles he wanted to know. We nearly hooted him out of the room. Now the definition of academic freedom is so pinched and constrained that we hail minor victories as akin to revolution. Let's not be so foolish as to believe that this one small victory marks the beginning of a weakening of US support for the criminal Israeli state. And even if it did, Israel certainly won't lose its atomic weapons or any or its other weapons of mass destruction. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Bloomberg Defends College’s Right to Sponsor Israel-Boycott Talk
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Andrew Pollack makes the good point that seen from the perspective of those who are opposed to the state of Israel's brutally racist policies and acts, the BDS free speech campaign at Brooklyn College is a big victory, and one that will help them push the cause forward. And, naturally you look for allies wherever you can find them. Even college presidents and tenured professors!! But let's at least say who the courageous and heroic people are. Give them some of the favorable publicity that Gould and the profs got but really didn't much deserve. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Pham Binh: why Leninism persists
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == These comments by Michael Heinrich in his Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital might shed light on this. It is a bit long but worth reading: For the Social Democratic parties, Marx and Engels constituted a sort of think tank: they engaged in an exchange of letters with various party leaders and wrote articles for the Social Democratic press. They were asked to state their positions concerning the most varied political and scientific questions. Their influence was the greatest within the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), founded in 1869, which developed at a particularly rapid pace and soon served as a model for the other parties. Engels composed a series of popular works for the Social Democracy (the SPD), in partic-ular the so-called Anti-Dühring. The Anti-Dühring and above all the short version Social-ism: Utopian and Scientific, which was translated into many different languages, was among the most widely read texts of the workers' movement in the period before the First World War. Capital, on the other hand, was usually taken note of by only a small minority. In the Anti-Dühring Engels critically engaged with the ideas of Eugen Dühring, a university lecturer in Berlin. Dühring claimed to have developed a new, comprehensive system of philosophy, political economy, and of socialism, and was able to win an increasing number of adherents in the German Social Democracy. Dühring's success rested upon a strong desire within the workers' movement for a Weltanschauung or “worldview,” a comprehensive explanation of the world offering an orientation and answers to all questions. After the worst outgrowths of early capitalism had been eliminated and the everyday existence of the wage-dependent class within capitalism was somewhat secure, a specific Social Democratic workers' culture developed: in workers' neighborhoods there emerged workers' sports clubs, workers' choral societies, and workers' education societies. Excluded from the exalted bourgeois society and bourgeois culture, there developed within the working class a parallel everyday life and educational culture that consciously attempted to distance itself from its bourgeois counterpart, but often ended up unconsciously mimicking it. And so it was that at the end of the nineteenth century that August Bebel, the chairman of the SPD over the course of many years, was graciously honored in a manner similar to the way that Kaiser Wilhelm II was honored by the petit-bourgeoisie. Within this climate, there emerged the need for a comprehensive intellectual orientation that could be opposed to the dominant bourgeois values and worldviews, in which the working class played no role or merely a subordinate role. Insofar as Engels not only criticized Dühring, but also sought to counterpose the “correct” positions of a “scientific socialism,” he laid the foundations for the worldview of Marxism, which was appreciatively taken up in Social Democratic propaganda and further simplified. This Marxism found its most important representative in Karl Kautsky (1854–1938), who until the First World War was regarded as the leading Marxist theoretician after the death of Engels. What dominated the Social Democracy at the end of the nineteenth century under the name of Marxism consisted of a miscellany of rather schematic conceptions: a crudely knitted materialism, a bourgeois belief in progress, and a few strongly simplified elements of Hegelian philosophy and modular pieces of Marxian terminology combined into simple formulas and explanations of the world. Particularly outstanding characteristics of this popular Marxism were an often rather crude economism (ideology and politics reduced to a direct and conscious transmission of economic interests), as well as a pronounced historical determinism that viewed the end of capitalism and the proletarian revolution as inevitable occurrences. Widespread in the workers’ movement was not Marx's critique of political economy, but rather this “worldview Marxism,” which played above all an identity-constituting role: it revealed one’s place as a worker and socialist, and explained all problems in the simplest way imaginable. A continuation and further simplification of this worldview Marxism took place within the framework of “Marxism-Leninism.” Lenin (1870–1924), who became after 1914 so influential, was intellectually rooted in worldview Marxism. He openly expressed the exaggerated self-confidence of this “Marxism”: The teaching of Marx is all-powerful because it is true. It is complete and harmoni-ous, providing men with a consistent view of the universe, which cannot be recon-ciled with any superstition, any reaction, any defense of
[Marxism] blog post: why is our work so meaningless?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/02/02/lucky-to-have-a-job/ Workers in a hospital are sick of management violating their collective bargaining agreement. Their work is ever more stressful: hours keep getting longer; patient loads rise; safety rules are ignored. They tell their union steward that it is time to bombard the bosses with grievances before they explode in rage. He tells them, “You better not do that. You’re lucky to have a job.” In every industry in the United States, there are more people seeking employment than jobs available. Conservatives and liberals alike say we have to put men and women to work. They differ in how they would achieve this, but both shout out the mantra, “jobs, jobs, jobs.” Little is ever said about the kinds of jobs that need to be created. What will they pay? Will they provide benefits? Will they be interesting, safe, fulfilling, socially useful? Perhaps the reason we don’t ask such questions is that we take our work for granted, beyond our control and as inevitable as the rising sun. But looked at in the long sweep of human existence, the jobs we do and the way we do them are unlike anything we did before the rise of capitalism . . . Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Why the ideas of Karl Marx are more relevant than ever in the 21st century
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dan R writes: The article is obviously not intended for committed revolutionarysocialists, who represent an absurdly small audience. The publicity Jacobinis getting/generating for Marxism and socialism is fantastic and anybodywho doesn't see that or writes it off because it is affiliated with theYDSA are sectarian assholes. Maybe this depends on the understanding of Marx and the vision of socialismbeing promoted. The recent essay in Jacobin titled The Red and the Blackdoesn't cut it for me and for many others in terms of the latter. We shall seehow Bhaskara develops. With mentors like Corey Robin, there is reason forpessimism. Of course, I could just be a sectarian asshole, though I have neverbelonged to a sect of any kind, unless you count the Catholic Church, whichI was in until I was 18. I read recently that young persons in the US are moving more toward the center.If this is a move from the right, I suppose we could give some credence to polls thatsay youth are now more attracted to socialism. But again, I wonder what they meanby socialism. Market socialism (a real non sequitur) seems to have a foothold at Jacobin.Hopefully this will change. But the blandishments of notoriety are strong, and radicalsmuch older and more experienced that Sunkara (who says he came to Marxism by reading,something I thought very funny) have succumbed to them. I hope he does not. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Re Tarantino Flunks American History,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here is something Michael Smith wrote that I thought was good: http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2013/01/aaron-swartz-zl/ Michael is smart and a good writer. Plus he is funny too. What I liked about what he wrote about the suicide of Aaron Swartz is that he didn't make it about himself, he was obviously sympathetic to Aaron's depression, he didn't focus on Mr. Swartz' genius (as he correctly says, there are a lot of smart people out there), and he noted Swartz's boldness in a worthy cause. As to the Tarantino film, I haven't seen it. But I have talked to people I like and think are smart and good radicals who liked the movie. And I know those, whom I also like and respect(that's you Louis!), who hated it. Sometimes we can beat these things to death. I never get tired of berating Robert Naiman (who I have inadvertently been calling Newman, probably because every time I see his name I think of Seinfeld saying Newman!). He is such a stupid liberal. But I am probably wasting my time. I had a friend when I was young. A black guy. We were talking one night, and he said, Yeah, I used to watch Amos n' Andy too. Maybe he liked it because every character was black, and it was set in Harlem, where nearly everyone was black as well. Who can say? Maybe he'd have rather lived there than it the shitty racist factory town where we both did live. Anyway, it was a television show. We've moved on since then. I would no doubt be embarrassed to watch it now. By the same token, Django is just a film. We'll all recover from whatever its flaws might be. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] blog post: Oliver Stone, Obama, and the War in Vietnam
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2013/01/11/oliver-stone-obama-and-the-war-in-vietnam/ Oliver Stone’s Showtime series, Untold History of the United States, is the most radical mainstream television I have ever watched. Eye-opening scenes, shocking speech by our presidents, splendid narration by Stone, all make for a compelling series. A 700-page book by Stone and historian Peter Kuznick accompanies the ten-part program; it provides greater detail and covers more ground than the Showtime installments, allowing viewers to gain an even better understanding of our “untold history.” Episode 7, which is mainly about the War in Vietnam (or the Second Indochina War as it is also called), riveted me to the screen. Stone atones for whatever guilt he has felt about being a soldier in Vietnam by laying out the horrors of the war, the sheer murderous violence of it, in vivid detail. I came of political age in those years, and I got angry all over again watching the bombs and defoliants falling, the victims screaming, and the politicians and generals lying. It will be a joyous day when that master liar and war criminal Henry Kissinger dies and joins his cohorts in mass slaughter, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. His name should become a synonym for murderer. . . . Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Sol Yurick 1935-2013
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sol Yurick wrote a great article in the Dec. 1970 issue of Monthly Review, one I used to use in classes: The Political Economy of Junk (junk as in heroin). Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Good article about Jerry Tucker and what labor can learn from his life
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.tnr.com/blog/alec-macgillis/111488/the-man-who-tried-save-organized-labor Some on the left are dismissive of organized labor, often with good reason. But this horrible system always brings forth brothers and sisters like Jerry Tucker. I met him just once, but I felt his strength. I've met others like him, like my comrades Fernando Gapasin and Elly Leary. Working class heroes. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] William Lorent Katz on Lincoln
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == So I read a bit of this review, got bored, and looked at the bottom of the page to see how the author is identified. Seems Katz has written at least 40 books and edited 212 more. I kid you not. At just three months per book, this is 636 months or 63 years. Now, of course, he could have worked on several at once and got them all done in fewer years. Any way you cut it though, this is one productive fellow. He churns out books at an almost assembly line pace! Makes Dickens and Balzac look like slackers. Christ, what he might have done with graduate assistants! Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] William Lorent Katz on Lincoln,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == That should be 756 months, not 636. The number of books was so astonishingly high that my mind went suddenly blank! Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] William Lorent Katz on Lincoln
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis, you have forgotten those other 212 books he edited. These take a lot of time too, but I have edited books, and what do I know? wikipedia says he taught in NY public schools for 14 years. So what if he went to Syracuse? More power to him that he did well despite this. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] blog post: My Christmas Story (for Tatiana)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2012/12/20/my-christmas-story-for-tatiana/ (Tatiana is my first and just born grandchild) When I was a boy, I wore mostly hand-me-down clothes. The neighbors next door had a son a year or two older than I, about my size, and I got his discarded shirts and pants. Grandma or my mother would alter them to fit me better. Maybe some cousins’ outgrown outfits found their way into my closet too. I don’t remember now. I didn’t like wearing old garments, but lots of other kids wore them so there was no shame in it. Besides, I spent my days playing baseball, reading dime novels and comic books, building my train set, and inventing games connected in one way or another to sports. Who cared about old flannel shirts with two pockets and pants that didn’t quite match the size and shape of my legs? Things changed when puberty reared its strange and disconcerting head, somewhere between the age of twelve and thirteen. All of a sudden, what hadn’t mattered before did now. Girls, cars, clothes. Games and toy trains didn’t seem to hold my attention like they used to. At my parents’ urging, I got a job delivering newspapers. The route was large, 105 customers spread out over more than three miles. The weight of the papers carved grooves in my shoulders, especially on Thursdays when advertisement inserts nearly doubled the size of the bundles Old Man Nelson delivered to our front porch every afternoon. The pay was a meager $6 every two weeks. It was so low and the work so hard that within a short time, I confronted my bosses at the local newsstand and insisted on a raise. The boy who had taught me the route was now in college, and I figured that they wouldn’t be able to teach anyone else since only I knew it. Remarkably, they met my demand, boosting my wages to $9.80. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] fish as a healthy alternative to red meat
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dennis Brasky says, The path to good health is social and political action, not individualsolutions. Ok, but in the meantime, enjoy that cheeseburger inside a donut bun. You might not livelong enough to engage in action or be in good enough shape to do so! Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post. Sego Canyon: Rock Art Glory, Mining Town Ruins
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2012/11/28/sego-canyon-rock-art-glory-mining-town-ruins/ One of the most enjoyable things we do in the southwest is search for petroglyphs and pictographs, the rock art made by the native peoples. Sometimes we come upon them as we hike in canyons and at the base of cliffs. Sometimes we find information about them in books or online, and then we go hunting. It often takes several tries and some luck, as when, with our son, we finally located the famous solstice snake near Pritchett Canyon in Moab. When we came upon it, we gasped in amazement at the serpent, impeccably pecked in the rock, more than fifteen feet long. Petroglyphs are designs incised onto the rocks, and they are both more recently made and more common than pictographs, which were painted onto the rocks, typically more than 1,500 years ago. It is always special to find rock paintings. We wonder how they have lasted so long, and we marvel at their beauty. Their strangeness forces us to ask what they might mean. What were these ancient artists thinking when they created them? We saw our first major concentration of pictographs at Sego Canyon in Utah. We knew they were there, but somehow it took us many visits to nearby Moab before we went to find them in 2011. So far, we have made three trips to marvel at what can only be described as astonishing works of art. No matter how many times we look at them, we are endlessly fascinated and filled with joy. These glorious rock paintings, made during the archaic period (roughly 8,000 to 1,500 years ago), are a short trip from Exit 187 on Interstate 70, which is forty-four miles from the Utah-Colorado border. The road off the exit passes through the nearly deserted town of Thompson Springs, named for E.W. Thompson, who operated a sawmill in the area. There was a railroad stop here, and cattle were shipped from it. A spur line from a coal mine five miles up the canyon gave further life to the place, but the collapse of mining in the 1950s when trains stopped using coal and the building of Interstate 70 spelled the demise of Thompson Springs. The 2010 Census notes a population of thirty-nine. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Charles Post catches the Samuel Farber flu
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Whatever faults the Cuban leaders might have, they have been victims of the insidious and heavily enforced blockade of the island by the United States. Monthly Review Press will publish next spring a book by Salim Lamrani, originally published in France, titled The Economic War Against Cuba: A Historical and Legal Perspective on the U.S. Blockade. This blockade, which violates all manner of international and national laws kills people in Cuba every year and denies to them available and necessary medical procedures and drugs. It is also nothing short of diabolical in its denial to US citizens of fundamental rights. Here is a quote from the book: In April 1996, Kip Taylor, 73, and Patrick Taylor, 58, a couple from Traverse City, Michigan, went to Cuba aboard a sailboat. Aware that U.S. law forbids any expenditure on the island, they took with them the necessary provisions for a three-month stay. When they returned they were caught by a storm and the mast of their boat was badly damaged. Rescued by the Cuban Coast Guard in international waters, they were returned to Cuba. When they approached the Treasury Department to ask permission to repair their sailboat, they found themselves up against a refusal. The U.S. authorities ordered them to abandon their boat and their two dogs and return to the United States by air, something that the couple refused to do. With the help of foreign sailors, the Taylors were finally able to repair their boat and return safely without violating the regulations on travel to Cuba. Upon their return, they were interrogated by the U.S. authorities to whom they revealed having provided gauze and tape to a Cuban cook who had burned his hand. The Treasury Department then accused them of having provided medical services to a Cuba national and ordered the couple to pay a fine of tens of thousands of dollars. Here is another: Thus, the U.S. government monitors carefully even the slightest infringement of the legislation on economic sanctions against Cuba. At the prompting of Max Baucus, a U.S. Senator from Montana, the Treasury Department reported having made, since 1993, ninety-three investigations regarding international terrorism. At the same time, it also performed 10,683 investigations designed to prevent North Americans from exercising their right to travel to Cuba. Following the ninety-three terrorism investigations, the Treasury Department imposed a total of 9,425 dollars in fines on defendants. On the other hand, it demanded a total of eight million dollars in fines from American tourists who had visited the island. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Blog Post: Fruita, Orderville . . . Mitt Romney
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Full at http://cheapmotelsandahotplate.org/2012/10/26/fruita-orderville-romney-2/ The orchards in Capitol Reef National Park in south central Utah are located in what used to be the tiny village of Fruita. The setting is extraordinary. High rock cliffs, formed when the earth erupted and folded back on itself millions of years ago, surround a small, lush valley of green, fed by the waters of the Fremont River and Sulphur Creek. A tiny band of Mormon pioneers settled the area in the 1880s and, using irrigation paths first built by ancient indigenous peoples, planted fruit trees to take advantage of the relatively long growing season. Over the next few decades, the settlers, never more than a dozen or so families, “planted thousands of trees bearing Jonathan, Rome Beauty, Ben Davis, Red Astrachan, Twenty-Ounce Pippin and Yellow Transparent apples, Morpark apricots, Elberta peaches, Bartlett pears, Fellenburg plums, and the Potawatomi plum. Settlers also planted English and black walnuts and almonds. Grape arbors appeared later.” Like most rural folk, the men and women of Fruita produced for their own use, bartered their surplus for certain skilled work, and sold some of it to buy what they could not produce. Much labor was collective, especially that which benefitted the entire community, like building the little school where children learned their ABCs, and adults and kids alike participated in dances and other social events. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
