[Marxism] Perry Anderson idiocy on China
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don’t have much time to elaborate but I wanted to make a reference to Paresh Chattopadhyay’s book, ‘The Marxian concept of Capital, and the Soviet experience’. Chattopadhyay, who was a student of Charles Bettelheim and friends with Sweezy, argues that the Soviet Union was capitalist even to the extent that there was in fact no restoration of capitalism. For him, even though the form of accumulation was not classical in the sense that it was based largely on accumulation of absolute surplus value, the dynamic of competition between state enterprises and the characteristic problems of a mass of relative surplus population and overaccumulation of capital were still pungent in the USSR, with their own particularities. He relies quite a bit on the work of Janos Kornai. I haven’t read the book carefully enough to have a well thought-out appraisal but I think it’s very well researched, so a good point to start, even if one disagrees. Chattopadhyay is quite the anti-Leninist too, so that should make it all the more enjoyable. _ Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/201469227/direct/01/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Perry Anderson idiocy on China
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Here's where I have problems with Chattopadhyay and others: For him, even though the form of accumulation was not classical in the sense that it was based largely on accumulation of absolute surplus value, : 1. absolute surplus value is indeed a classical form of accumulation; perhaps the most classical form, one to which the bourgeoisie always turn and return when push comes to shove. 2. to accumulate absolute or relative surplus VALUE, value must be the organizing principle of property and labor; the production and reproduction of value for nothing other than the reproduction and accumulation of value must be the purpose, the necessity, the essential axis upon which everything rotates. 3. Can we actually say that the production of value was that organizing principle of property and labor? If so, we need to know not just why the Soviets did such a piss-poor job of it, but how they did it without embracing the international bourgeoisie, without in essence doing in 1933 what it did do in 1991. To say that the Soviets were permeable to the eruption of millions of pockets of petty capitalist reproduction; that the Soviets were eroded from the inside by the failure to overcome the laws of value is different than saying that the Soviets were engaged in a system of value reproduction. We might want to make a distinction between surplus labor and surplus value. Certainly the USSR developed through the accumulation of surplus labor and surplus product; but did that mechanism of accumulation take on the identity of surplus VALUE? - Original Message - From: Leonardo Kosloff holmof...@hotmail.com I don’t have much time to elaborate but I wanted to make a reference to ’s book, ‘The Marxian concept of Capital, and the Soviet experience’. Chattopadhyay, who was a student of Charles Bettelheim and friends with Sweezy, argues that the Soviet Union was capitalist even to the extent that there was in fact no restoration of capitalism. For him, even though the form of accumulation was not classical in the sense that it was based largely on accumulation of absolute surplus value, the dynamic of competition between state enterprises and the characteristic problems of a mass of relative surplus population and overaccumulation of capital were still pungent in the USSR, with their own particularities. He relies quite a bit on the work of Janos Kornai. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Australian labor movement: a mixed bag
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is a communication from the head of the Maritime Union in Australia that I got from a comrade. He prefaced it with this observation: The union leadership is asking its members to petition the Australian connection in the Dutch royal family, our very own version of Lady Diana, to get her to speak for us. So this is indicative of the state of the a section of the Australian union movement - emails and twits instead of militant action not as an adjunct. --- Mobilise against Maersk In the last few days hundreds of Australians have sent e-mails backing Aussie oil-rig workers wanting iconic Danish multinational to recognise union rights. The Offshore Alliance of the Maritime Union of Australia and the Australian Workers' Union is running a campaign to get the Danish multinational container shipping firm, and oil rig operator to return to the negotiating table and come to an agreement with the unions representing workers on the the drill rig Nan Hai 6. The unions have been trying to seal a deal with Danish shipping giant Maersk for nearly 2 yrs. But the company has been a keen user of the Howard-era WorkChoice laws and anti-union individual contracts. Now we are calling on all MUA members and supporters to add their protest. Send Maersk executives Claus Hemmingsen and Martin Flojgaard a protest email. Show them Australians don't like extremely wealthy foreign firms who discriminate against union members. The e-mail protests are coming from trade union-backers angered that Maersk seems to consistently discriminate against union members. Our members have reached out to the wider community to tell Maersk you can’t mistreat Australian union workers in this way. Nearly 500 e-mails have been sent from across Australia and the globe in a little over 48 hours. These workers have a right to have a union represent them, the company should sit down and talk – and not offer side deals to the non-union workers which so obviously discriminate against our members. Maersk employees on the Nan Hai 6 oil rig - employed on non-union AWA individual contracts - enjoy extra leave, are provided with health insurance coverage and receive salary increases denied to union members. The leaders of the MUA-AWU Offshore Alliance, Paul Howes and I have today announced to the media that we are aware that the company and its 90 year old owner prides itself on how it deals with its workforce – but in the case of Australia they have not matched their own standards. We say the two-year stand-off in negotiating a collective agreement with the union should end. Send Maersk executives a protest email now. The MUA-AWU Offshore Alliance appreciates that Maersk normally has a good reputation. That’s why they should sit down together with our people, end the stand-off, and make a deal good for the company, good for workforce, the union leaders said. Mr Maersk Mc-Kinney Moeller is the wealthiest man in Denmark. He and his company are highly respected and close to the Danish Royal family – which in turn has a special Australian connection, through the Tasmanian-born Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark. The Crown Princess and her husband Crown Prince Frederik are regular guests of Maersk helping to promote the interests of this important Danish company right across the globe. Next time Princess Mary comes back to Australia we hope she will take the opportunity to meet with some of our oil rig members employed by this extraordinarily successful Danish firm. We hope she can help us to end the log-jam ,and get talks happening quickly, resulting in a decent agreement good for the company and good for union members. A campaign involving the web, social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, the global trade union website LabourStart, as well as an e-mail campaign, has ensured thousands have learnt about the MUA-AWU Offshore Alliance call for Maersk to treat its workforce equally. Join the campaign Send Maersk executives Claus Hemmingsen and Martin Flojgaard a protest email. Show them Australians don't like extremely wealthy foreign firms who discriminate against union members. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Hurt Locker
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == My wife and I saw the Hurt Locker on cable last night. I must have missed Louis P's review on it, but amidst all the glowing tributes, dug up this obscure short review on Rotten Tomatoes which exactly mirrors our own responses. Anyone see any redeeming qualities in the film? * * * The Hurt Locker Movie Review: Cowboys And Insurgents By Prairie Miller Daily Blaze December 3, 2009 A kind of 'Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb' - but for real, The Hurt Locker is basically about a military explosives expert in Baghdad who gets a huge rush out of his job, and he's not kidding. Which is to say that The Hurt Locker and its war is fun mantra - move over videogames and those second hand vicarious thrills a minute - is just about as irresponsible as can be. This combo macho glee and military mechanics grating reality show style thriller crafted with icy precision and little else, is written by Mark Boal, a news reporter who spent time embedded in tanks with the US army in Iraq. And it shows. Claustrophobic in the extreme both politically and physically even when prowling the wide open spaces of the Iraqi desert, The Hurt Locker dismally lacks any point of view. Other than to imply that the Iraqi population ranges primarily from predators to ingrates, and without so much as even a hunch as to why we're there or what the locals may resent about that. Which is to say that the story could just as well be taking place in a cops and robbers inner city venue, or right out of a classic western. And the fact that this war movie is directed by a woman, Kathryn Bigelow - and one with impressive unusual creds for making gritty, testosterone fueled films about men (Point Break, Strange Days, The Widowmaker) that delve into the raw male psyche at that, is inconsequential. Bigelow disappoints here, as a director for hire simply following rules in a man's game. Never mind that a substantial number of female soldiers are part of these bomb detection crews, there's not a military woman in sight. The hurt locker in question is a souvenir box of Iraqi bomb making material that Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) hides under his bed between adrenaline quick fix danger junkie outings either dismantling explosives or killing people. And the other men in the Bravo Company alternate between jealousy and admiration for this mysterious guy, who doesn't let a trifling matter like dying himself at any moment, ruin his day. And in the course of this long and tedious movie, seemingly more from the point of view of screenwriter Boal peering from inside the relative safety of a tank, the audience is subjected to what feels like real time surveillance and shootouts for no particular reason at all. And what plays out as he-men 'hadji hunting' and occasional boy bonding with the typical 'they all look alike' street kid, dubbed 'base rat.' And we're never allowed to forget for a minute that bomb maven and intermittent free lance vigilante James, no matter how depraved from time to time, is a man's man. A big clue is that he doesn't even bother to take off his fatigues while showering after an especially dangerous mission, that tends to be filmed more like a heroin fix or a satisfying sex scene, than warfare. After all, the tag line opening the movie is that 'war is a drug.' So the question is, whose drug. The soldiers, or the filmmakers. And is Bigelow more interested now in scrutinizing the male species, or being one. And how about impressionable kids watching this movie, and being awed by the razzle dazzle industrial light show amidst killing and dying. And with the main character pausing to reflect on his addiction with about as much insight as the filmmakers: 'I don't know, I guess I don't think about it.' The Hurt Locker: War is never having to say you're sorry. Summit Entertainment Rated R 1 star Prairie Miller is a multimedia journalist online, in print and on radio. Contact her through NewsBlaze. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] New Left Revuew
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I have been searching the web today for confirmation that Perry Anderson has resigned from the editorial board of NLR - no mention on their web-site, and his name just leads to a long list to his contributions - all of which, no doubt, considering my long=time subs to NOR I have read in the past. If true I would beg him to reconsider, because his article of China in the current edition, I regard as the best in the issue, while the article said to be the reason for his resignation is not worth the paper it is written on. As a veteran Marxist I regard the theory of anthropometric (and catastrophic !! climate change) as a new war on terrorism - but in this case a war aimed at the working classes of the imperialist world, suggesting we are all to blame for the impending end of the planet. I have tried to argue over a number of years against this theory of anthropometric climate change, and the so-called threat of carbon-dioxide emissions over quite a number of years on this site, only to be met with ad-hominem opprobrium - and no real discussion of the science involved, The apparent split in the NLR editorial board should bring this to forefront of serious Marxist discussion - as it is crucial to a proper understanding of class struggle, where environmental issues are an important, but subsidiary, issue. No one, surely disputes that climate change is real - so why the opprobrium with the talk of deniers (or heretics, with its suggestion of medieval religious persecutions). Historical and archeological sources are sufficient to indicate that the earth has gone through many climate periods, even during the relatively short time that humans have developed. The discovery of the remains of a mammoth in the cliffs at West Runton, Norfolk, UK, are sufficient to show that some past eras were far warmer than today; and well-authenticated stories and pictures of hog roasts and markets on the frozen Thames in Tudor and Georgian Times are enough to show climate has often been much colder than today. Climate science is a new phenomenon, a closed connection, who seem to take little notice of basic physics, chemistry or biology, and whose basic project seems to be to prove their thesis that current climate changes are due to human (and specifically industrial - on which our whole current lifestyle is based) intervention. Their basic hypothesis is based on what they claim is a correlation (over the short period of not more than 100 years of the millennia humans have existed on this planet - and the very much longer time that climate had varied) with carbon-dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Disregarding the basic criterion of statistics that correlation does not indicate a cause - and disregarding the obvious fact that human intervention in CO2 release before the late 20th century was minimal - we are led to believe that current (1940-2000) warming is due to industrial (coal and oil-burning emissions). I have to point out that the greatest sink of CO2 are the oceans (apart from the land deposits in previous sea-beds as limestone !!) - and that solubility of CO2 in water DECREASES with rising temperature - so that rising CO2 cam equally be explained by rising temperatures as rising temperatures can be explained by rising CO2. (Then we have ecologists suggesting that rising CO2 is threatening acidification of the oceans, disregarding the fact that H2CO3 is about the weakest acid known to chemists). I can only wonder, how such idiocies have not only been taken up by much of the left, parroting the latest idiocies of their imperialist masters, as it has apparently been sucked up by so many scientists, who have not been able to transcend their natural reluctance to criticise scientists in fields outside their own specialism (apart from the fact that currrently the easiest way to secure cash for a research grant is to link the project with such words as and its effect on global warming). Consider CO2: it is a very minor consitituent of the atmosphere - around 350 ppm (0.035%) - its IR spectrum (absorbance) is limited almost entirely to 2 specific wavelengths, as distinct from water vapour whose absorbance covers a large proportion of the IR spectrum and a much higher proportion of the atmosphere - both together making CO2 surely a smaller contributor to the greenhouse effect. Secondly, without CO2 there would be no life at all. All animal (and human if you don't like us being talked of as animals) life depends on the ability of green plants to combine CO2, water, and the energy received from the sun into carbohydrates (sugars and starch), and all plus nitrogen into proteins, which we use as food to supply our needs for energy and
Re: [Marxism] Perry Anderson, China, etc.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Does anyone care to refute the below, which I consider to be almost total nonsense, before I do? I sincerely hope somebody else finds Paddy's remarks as antithetical to Marxism as I do. - Original Message - From: Paddy Apling e.c.apl...@btinternet.com But, for a primitive economy like China's the revolutionary possibilities of capitalism are the obvious choice for improving the economy - and the lives of the mass of the population, PROVIDED it can be controlled by strong leadership of a Marxist-inspired Communist party. And THIS is to me is the route the Chinese leadership has chosen - an experiment never tried before, apart from the short-lived New Economic Policy of Lenin's last years. A really new phenomenon = Communist-controlled capitalism. In my view it has a much greater possibility of success than the autartichal, but inspiring Stekhanovite movement, [involving a minute fraction of the huge population] development of the Soviet Union, hamstrung as it was by the contiuous threat of external invasion. China, without provoking militauist intervention, is becoming [has already become] such a major player in the world econmy that the US imperialists do not dare to enter into miltary conflict with it - what a contrast this is to the problems which beset the Soviet Umion in the 1930s and which, nevertheless, they managed to contend with sufficent prowess to tear the guts out of the Nazi war machine. The difference in setting is also that the Bolsheviks seized power from a decayed autocracy in the middle of a war - and with little class support apart from general opposition to the war - whereas the Chinese leadership had a whole generation remembering the struggles for national liberation, led by that Communist Party, against the Japenese invasion - which leads them to support whatever it suggests is the best way foward. In my view the prospects are bright for a new successful development of Marxism and Communism.. Paddy Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Perry Anderson, China, etc.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian wrote: Does anyone care to refute the below, which I consider to be almost total nonsense, before I do? I sincerely hope somebody else finds Paddy's remarks as antithetical to Marxism as I do. I don't think that every heterodox (to put it charitably) post to Marxmail has to be seen as something that needs rebuttal, especially when it comes so infrequently as from Paddy. Now there have been people on Marxmail in the past who were single-issue interventionists who posted on almost a daily basis just in order to become a lightning rod for angry responses, giving them a sense of ill-deserved vindication. We are not dealing with such a situation here. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Who resigned from New Left Review?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The person who resigned from New Left Review is Alexander Cockburn, not Perry Anderson. Unlike almost all climate scientists, Cockburn shares Paddy's unorthodox views on anthropogenic climate change Ian Angus Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Has Hezbollah shifted left?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == From* Mehdi Kia, cut and paste excuse the formatting:* There is no doubt that on the international scene Hezbollah has allied itself with progressive forces (as has the Iranian regime). But to call it anti-imperialist is to misunderstand what social forces can be truly anti-imperialist. It is undoubtedly true that Hezbollah provides social services and security for the Shia poor. But then so do the drug gangs running the flavelas of Brazil, to name but one. What I think is missing in this, and many articles relating to the Shia Islamist movement, is the central role expediency plays in Shia ideology. This is critical for a minority religion trying to survive in the midst of Sunni dominance over the centuries. Khomeini crystallised it in his addition to the constitution of the Islamic Republic when he introduced the concept of *velayate motlaqeh faqih*, which proclaimed that the supreme leader can do anything, and bring in any laws, to strengthen “the Islamic government” - even including the suspension of the fundamentals of religion, such as the daily prayer, fasting, etc. In other words what you say and who you ally with should only have one long-term aim - to consolidate the rule of Islam. It is in this light that we have to accept Khomeini’s pronouncement in Paris that in the post-revolutionary regime communists would be free to organise and that the choice of female attire would be entirely voluntary - only to retract the latter within three months and the former once the Tudeh had served their purpose in 1983. This is how we should view Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s ‘progressive’ pronouncements. At its base, the Hezbollah is a top-down, totalitarian movement that splits the working class of Lebanon along Shia, Sunni and Christian (not to speak of male-female) lines. Such an organisation is not in any sense anti-imperialist. Indeed in the long run it will help imperialist domination on the region - as the Islamic regime has done. This should not stop us supporting its legitimate opposition to Israeli rule in the region. But let us spread no illusions over its true historic role - which is to slow down progress, not aid it. On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 2:19 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: In his last will and testament in 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini included a scathing attack on communism: Islam differs sharply from communism. Whereas we respect private property, communism advocates the sharing of all things -- including wives and homosexuals. [19] In Tehran, communists and other political dissidents are summarily executed, and outed homosexuals publicly hanged. In Beirut, they walk freely and Hezbollah does not hunt them down. Will Hezbollah ever criticize or break with the Islamic Republic and its founder? full: http://www.zcommunications.org/whither-hezbollah-by-assaf-kfoury Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] CPUSA stays the course
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.peoplesworld.org/defend-the-democratic-coalition?commentStart=0 Defend the democratic coalition by: Rick Nagin March 4 2010 The broad democratic coalition that elected Barack Obama faces sharp attack from the ultra-right as well as from some on the left and it is critical for progressives to come to its defense. This coalition is multi-class and is basically an alliance of two constituent groupings. The first comprises the people's forces led by organized labor and includes racially oppressed communities, youth, women, and many progressive organizations and movements fighting for peace, environmental protection and social justice. The members of this grouping have their own programs which are generally in advance of the platform and program of the Obama administration and while this grouping was critical, in no way was it able to elect Obama on its own. It needed the organization, resources and standing of the corporate liberals and moderates who lead the Democratic Party. There are obvious conflicts and contradictions between the two groups but there was agreement on one thing - the need to defeat the Republicans and end the 30-year nightmare of increasingly right-wing government and assault on the living standards and rights of working people, as well as its reckless foreign policy. The success of this alliance produced an additional democratic breakthrough of profound historic importance - the election of our country's first African American president, whose roots and sympathies are with the people's forces. The election was a serious setback for the dominant right-wing section of the U.S. ruling class but, as has become clear over the past year, did not in any way represent their fundamental defeat. Even with the loss of the White House and from a minority position in Congress, the right has been able to block significant progress on every front, especially the economic crisis and health care. After being in power for decades, the right-wing is deeply entrenched, not only in elected branches of government, but also in the courts, the military, the intelligence community, the media, the churches, the think tanks, etc. They do not recognize Obama's presidency and are determined to make his government fail. They see this as their only hope of returning to power and continuing to push the country in a fascist direction. With total control over the Republican Party their tactics have become clear. They seek in lockstep to block the normal functioning of the national government even on routine appointments or on measures that they themselves endorsed. They obviously cannot propound their real program of maximizing corporate profits and power, slashing living standards, pursuing aggressive war and restricting democratic rights. They seek to block progress on the economic crisis and through their various media and ideological outlets use racism and anti-communism to incite fear and prejudice and build a phony populist grassroots movement. The success of their efforts was demonstrated by the special election in Massachusetts, which serves as a warning of the danger of serious setbacks in the 2010 mid-term elections. The initiative of the AFL-CIO to build a mass movement for jobs is of utmost importance in and of itself but also in creating a political climate to counter this danger. It is urgent for progressives to build this movement as well as work directly in the electoral arena to hold the line. The fact is, despite their frantic efforts, the right has been weakened, and it is possible to make gains both legislatively and electorally. This is all the more reason why it is necessary to answer the divisive actions of those on the left who seek to focus and divert the anger of progressives into a sharp attack on the Democrats and the Obama administration. This does not mean we cannot criticize Obama and the Democrats. The expansion of the war in Afghanistan cannot be justified, nor can Obama's support for charter schools or the futile attempts to appease and cooperate with the Republicans. These are all reflections of the influence of the corporate forces inside the administration. Labor and its allies have no intention to stop pushing for action that goes beyond the limited programs offered so far to deal with health care and unemployment. But the leaders of the people's forces understand that criticism of a coalition partner is not the same as criticism of the main enemy and cannot be conducted in an irresponsible way that feeds the phony populism of the ultra-right and threatens the survival of the coalition. Support for Obama is not unconditional, but until the ultra-right danger is ended or until labor and its
Re: [Marxism] CPUSA stays the course
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == So the CPUSA has done a pretty good job of outlining much of what is happening nowadays only to draw the silliest conclusions. Reminds me of a michael moore film. 90 minutes of why capitalism ought to be destroyed only to end up coddling capitalism in its conclusion. The CPUSA says that criticizing a coalition member is different than criticizing an enemy. I didn't know Obama was in a coalition with them. Lol. They must be watching too much foxm. Obama is in a coalition with wall street and as likable a guy as he seems to be, he is an enemy, period. Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Historical Materialism Toronto May 13-16
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The HM Toronto website is up at http://www.yorku.ca/hmyork/index.html even though the program is coming soon. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Indonesia: People's Democratic Party relaunched as `open, mass-based cadre party' | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == By *Peter Boyle* March 11, 2010 -- An historic decision to relaunch itself as an open party was made at the seventh congress of the People's Democratic Party (PRD) of Indonesia on March 1-3. The party's socialist politics will be expressed within the five principles laid out by Indonesia's first President Sukarno's June 1, 1945, speech on “Pancasila” (nationalism, internationalism, democracy, socialism and belief in god). “For the last decade and a half we have organised both above and below ground because of repression”, the new Secretary-General of the PRD, Gede Sandra, explained to /Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/ and /Green Left Weekly./ “But since the fall of the Suharto dictatorship there has been more democratic space and we need to maximise the opportunities this presents to build our party.” Full article at http://links.org.au/node/1555 * Subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism Or join the Links Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Perry Anderson, China, etc.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes, but you have to appreciate Paddy's certainty. : - ) The one thing I think did NOT happen is that these states changed their fundamental class character without having to demolish and displace the old state. Btw, I really appreciate this thread. If nothing else, it's laying out positions and presenting various alternative explanations and options. That has real value, in and of itself... ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] George W. Julian
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == There's Patrick W. Riddleberger's biography from the 1960s, _George Washington Julian, Radical Republican_. David Montgomery's old book from that period, _Beyond Equality_ also deals with the Radical Republicans and labor. Julian wasn't unique in thinking beyond emancipation. Even in the lofty setting of Congress, Joshua R. Giddings, Galusha Grow, Ben Wade, and others talked not only about emancipation but radical land redistribution... A number of these Congressmen also had connections with the electoral efforts of the Free Democratic Party and its bits in the early 1850s. They were so radical on things other than slavery that the socialists practically ran the organization in places like Wisconsin and their presidential candidate, Sen. John Parker Hale used to address meetings in NYC from a platform surmounted with red flags. As the Hale story indicates, Radical Republicanism had some real workingclass roots. In 1860, the Republicans ran John Commerford for Congress from the Lower East Side. The former head of the chairmakers' union who had been involved in workingclass politics since the 1820s, he lived long enough to open correspondece with the First Internaitonal The Republicans in that part of the city were pretty much run by the workingclass land reformers Marx and Engels praised in the Communist Manifesto. Rep. Grow came into the city to campaign for Commerford. Much later, after the Republican betrayal of Reconstruction, a number of the Radical Republicans---including Julian--were favorable to launching a third party Google books has a good sample of complete writings and speeches by Julian, as well as his own political autobiography. Regards, Mark L. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism-Thaxis] An Okinawan Angle on the 50th Anniversary of the US-Japan Security Treaty
From: Yoshie Furuhashi critical.monta...@gmail.com Subject: [A-List] The Travails of a Client State: An Okinawan Angle on the 50th Anniversary of the US-Japan Security Treaty To: A-List a-l...@lists.econ.utah.edu,Rad-Green rad-gr...@lists.econ.utah.edu Message-ID: cd351fdc1003110724t4927c297w345fc111015af...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 Japan is the polar opposite of the country I really love. -- Yoshie http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/mccormack110310.html The Travails of a Client State: An Okinawan Angle on the 50th Anniversary of the US-Japan Security Treaty by Gavan McCormack It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and so willingly that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement. -- Etienne de la Bo?tie (1530-1563), Discours de la servitude volontaire ou le Contr'un (Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, or the Anti-Dictator).1 For a country in which ultra-nationalism was for so long a problem, the weakness of nationalism in contemporary Japan is puzzling. Six and a half decades after the war ended, Japan still clings to the apron of its former conqueror. Government and opinion leaders want Japan to remain occupied, and are determined at all costs to avoid offence to the occupiers. US forces still occupy lands they then took by force, especially in Okinawa, while the Government of Japan insists they stay and pays them generously to do so. Furthermore, despite successive revelations of the deception and lies (the secret agreements) that have characterized the Ampo relationship, one does not hear any public voice calling for a public inquiry into it.2 Instead, on all sides one hears only talk of deepening it. In particular, the US insists the Futenma Marine Air Station on Okinawa must be replaced by a new military complex at Henoko, and with few exceptions politicians and pundits throughout the country nod their heads. MAP: Okinawa in the East China Sea Okinawa in the East China Sea: Why the Ryukyus are the Keystone of the Pacific for US strategic planners Chosen dependence is what I describe as Client State-ism (Zokkoku-shugi).3 It is not a phenomenon unique to Japan, nor is it necessarily irrational. To gain and keep the favor of the powerful, dependence can often seem to offer the best assurance of security for the less powerful. Dependence and subordination during the Cold War brought considerable benefits, especially economic, and the relationship was at that time subject to certain limits, mainly stemming from the peculiarities of the American-imposed constitution (notably the Article 9 expression of commitment to state pacifism). But that era ended, and instead of gradually reducing the US military footprint in Japan and Okinawa as the enemy vanished, the US decided to ramp it up. It pressed Japan's Self Defence Forces to cease being boy scouts (as Donald Rumsfeld once contemptuously called them) and to become a normal army, able to fight alongside, and if necessary instead of, US forces and at US direction, in the war on terror, specifically in support of US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It wanted Japanese forces to be integrated under US command, and it wanted greater access to Japan's capital, markets and technology. Client State status required heavier burdens and much increased costs than during the Cold War, but it offered greatly reduced benefits. Ever since the Hatoyama team first showed signs of being likely to assume government, and talked of equality and of renegotiating the relationship, Washington has maintained a ceaseless flow of advice, demand and intimidation to push it into the kind of subservience that had become the norm. The same Japan experts and Japan-handlers that in LDP times offered a steady stream of advice to show the flag, put boots on the ground in Iraq, and send the MSDF to the Indian Ocean, now send a steady drumbeat of: Obey! Obey! Obey! Implement the Guam Treaty! Build the new base at Henoko! Yet, with the important exception of Okinawa, there is little sign of outrage in Japan. Instead, US demands are echoed by a chorus of Japanese voices agreeing that Hatoyama and his government be realistic. One well-placed Japanese observer recently wrote of the foul odor he felt in the air around Washington and Tokyo given off by the activities of the Japan-expert and the pro-Japan Americans on one side and slavish US-expert and pro-American Japanese on the other, both living off the unequal relationship which they had helped construct and support.4 Another recent Japanese critic, quoting the passage from de la Bo?tie that prefaces this article, writes: Struggling to be 'best' under the American umbrella, and taking it as matter for pride when cared for by the US, has
[Marxism-Thaxis] Time for a US Revolution - Fifteen Reasons
Time for a US Revolution - Fifteen Reasons by Bill Quigley Countercurrents.org (March 07 2010) It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people. The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution. Martin Luther King, Jr, said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a radical revolution of values in the United States. He preached a true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. It is clearer than ever that now is the time for radical change. Look at what our current system has brought us and ask if it is time for a revolution? Over 2.8 million people lost their homes in 2009 to foreclosure or bank repossessions - nearly 8000 each day - higher numbers than the last two years when millions of others also lost their homes. At the same time, the government bailed out Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the auto industry and enacted the troubled asset (TARP) program with $1.7 trillion of our money. Wall Street then awarded itself over $20 billion in bonuses in 2009 alone, an average bonus on top of pay of $123,000. At the same time, over seventeen million people are jobless right now. Millions more are working part-time when they want and need to be working full-time. Yet the current system allows one single US Senator to stop unemployment and Medicare benefits being paid to millions. There are now 35 registered lobbyists in Washington DC for every single member of the Senate and House of Representatives, at last count 13,739 in 2009. There are eight lobbyists for every member of Congress working on the health care fiasco alone. At the same time, the US Supreme Court decided that corporations now have a constitutional right to interfere with elections by pouring money into races. The Department of Justice gave a get out of jail free card to its own lawyers who authorized illegal torture. At the same time another department of government, the Pentagon, is prosecuting Navy SEALS for punching an Iraqi suspect. The US is not only involved in senseless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US now maintains 700 military bases world-wide and another 6000 in the US and our territories. Young men and women join the military to protect the US and to get college tuition and healthcare coverage and killed and maimed in elective wars and being the world's police. Wonder whose assets they are protecting and serving? In fact, the US spends $700 billion directly on military per year, half the military spending of the entire world - much more than Europe, China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and Venezuela - combined. The government and private companies have dramatically increased surveillance of people through cameras on public streets and private places, airport searches, phone intercepts, access to personal computers, and compilation of records from credit card purchases, computer views of sites, and travel. The number of people in jails and prisons in the US has risen sevenfold since 1970 to over 2.3 million. The US puts a higher percentage of our people in jail than any other country in the world. The tea party people are mad at the Republicans, who they accuse of selling them out to big businesses. Democrats are working their way past depression to anger because their party, despite majorities in the House and Senate, has not made significant advances for immigrants, or women, or unions, or African Americans, or environmentalists, or gays and lesbians, or civil libertarians, or people dedicated to health care, or human rights, or jobs or housing or economic justice. Democrats also think their party is selling out to big business. Forty three years ago next month, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr preached in Riverside Church in New York City that a time comes when silence is betrayal. He went on to condemn the Vietnam War and the system which created it and the other injustices clearly apparent. We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing oriented' society to a 'person oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered. It is time. _ Bill is legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans.
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] An Okinawan Angle on the 50th Anniversary of the US-Japan
Gavan McCormack seems to miss his own points. Japan isn't under its 'old' emperor system (which isn't older than baseball actually--nor is professional sumo for that matter). It's in thrall to its new emperor, the USA. The problem resides with the weakness, ineffectiveness and inability to do anything of 'local' governments. A prefectural governor mostly just dispenses patronage and attends parties. A local mayor dispenses patronage, attends parties, and makes international news if his principality happens to be affected by the US military and is on Okinawa Honto (main island). The national government reigns supreme, but guess what? It isn't that large and doesn't do that much after a 'system', a way of doing something, has been set up. It is mostly impervious to 'popular' demands. Politicians who are elected are chosen by popular vote, but they are first vetted by a small number of parties, LDP, Komeito, etc. Even the current 'opposition' party now in power is mostly just castoffs from the LDP-Komeito axis. At the highest level, politicians are expected to cooperate with bureaucrats and APPEASE the US, especially when a conservative Demoncrat like Obama is in office--because the Demoncrats will always, always work trade issues with Japan to win votes at their own end. In Japan some are thinking the Toyota incidents in the US are a hoax (that last one in California does seem totally unbelievable). When the Repugnicans are in office, the American appeasers who run Japan try to expand the country's military power--that is the best way to appease Repugnicans because arms sales to Japan are very lucrative to those interests.With the current Obama regime you have quite a bit of both effects taking place. Japan is supposed to suffer a collapse in trade, a major permanent rise in its currency (still yet again), and it must 'step up' for its own defense while bending over for the US military to continue to do what it wants in Japan and Okinawa (mostly with the idea of extending US military power towards Taiwan and Korea, having little to do with the defense of Japan). Stepping up also means paying for still yet more of the US military presence in Asia--for all we know, the US military actually makes a profit from its Okinawa-based 'protection racket', since its fiscal situation is totally opaque at that level. It also tranships and stores nukes in 'non-nuclear' Japan. The issue comes down to change in America. Most Americans have no idea what its rogue national security state does in other countries through treaties and bases. Nor do most care. They have to see instead that the reason they get no health care and retirement is because their welfare is not a priority. The last time anything changed in Okinawa was when the Okinawans--not its pro-Japan politicians--took matters in their own hands and burned hundreds of US military vehicles stored there for the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, instead of pursuing independence for Okinawa, the US gave Okinawa (some of it anyway) back to Japan, its Pacific puppet. CJ -- Japan Higher Education Outlook http://japanheo.blogspot.com/ ELT in Japan http://eltinjapan.blogspot.com/ We are Feral Cats http://wearechikineko.blogspot.com/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
