[Marxism] Venezuela: PSUV activist killed in opposition-run Tachira
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Alexander Ramírez, a local councillor in Uribante municipality, and member of the PSUV’s political bureau said Delgado is the third PSUV activist to be assassinated in Tachira in the past six weeks. United Socialist Party of Venezuela Activist Assassinated in Tachira State http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/5198 Published on March 19th 2010, by Kiraz Janicke – Venezuelanalysis.com Caracas, March 18, 2010 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Jorge Enrique Medina Delgado, a member of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), was assassinated in the city of San Antonio del Tachira, in the opposition controlled state of Tachira yesterday. Delgado, a 51 year-old, school teacher, was a local leader of the PSUV and active member of the El Palotal community council. News of Delgado’s assassination was announced by Ramon Maldonado, the chief of investigations of the Scientific Criminal and Forensic Police (CICPC) in Tachira. Maldonado said the incident occurred when the victim was travelling in a brown Ford Maverick vehicle, near the municipal cemetery of San Antonio del Tachira in the Bolívar Municipality, where he was intercepted by two people on a motorcycle, who fired several shots.” Police are carrying out further investigations. Delgado’s wife “was also wounded by two bullets, and was transferred to a hospital in the area, where she was treated and underwent surgery and is now out of danger, Maldonado said. Alexander Ramírez, a local councillor in Uribante municipality, and member of the PSUV’s political bureau said Delgado is the third PSUV activist to be assassinated in Tachira in the past six weeks. The two other PSUV members assassinated were Enyelber Berrios, municipal education coordinator in Fernández Feo municipality and Cirilo Rubio, head of the local transport office in the same municipality. Ramírez accused the opposition governor of Tachira, César Pérez Vivas, of being behind the escalating violence against PSUV members in the state. Colombian paramilitary groups financed by Pérez Vivas are infiltrating the local security forces and generating fear in the border state, Ramírez said. These paramilitary groups are exhorting local traders and street vendors, forcing them to pay a *vacuna** *, or “vaccine” protection money and “many of them are infiltrators in Tachira state police, where they collect all the information and work with intelligence groups,” Ramírez alleged. The state is in total chaos and as a result we have suffered three casualties of our municipal leaders, events that occur after announcements made by the governor.” he continued. We hold the fascist Governor Cesar Perez Vivas, responsible” for the violence, Ramirez declared. -- “Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism “The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker 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] Immigration demo in D.C. this Sunday
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for the info. _ The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID27925::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:032010_3 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] I miss Peter Camejo
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Ain't that the truth!!! I hardly look to the left of the Democrats without seeing that void his passing left us there. 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
[Marxism] Challenging Paul Kelly on East Timor
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Review Essay – The March of Patriots by Clinton Fernandes (Original published in Dissent magazine Vol 31, Summer 2009/2010.) Paul Kelly’s latest book, The March of Patriots, has been launched with great fanfare. Some people have responded to it with reverence and ecstasy. Alan Kohler, chairman of the book's publisher, Melbourne University Publishing, praised Kelly and his “intellectual journalism”. “For journalists”, Kohler said, “Paul is a benchmark and an inspiration.”[1] Prime Minister Rudd said the book was “a stupendous piece of work… a monumental account that will become a benchmark for future research on this period of Australian history.”[2] Les Carlyon wrote, “This is how political history should be written but seldom is.”[3] Not to be outdone, Laurie Oakes called it “brilliant – ambitious in scope and forensic in detail.”[4] Since the book is just over 700 pages long and life is short, I decided to read a section of the book that dealt with the independence of East Timor. It’s a subject with which I’m familiar, and I wanted to see how Kelly handled it. His central argument is that throughout 1999 Prime Minister John Howard and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer were secretly working to bring about an independent East Timor, even though nearly everyone else – including the Defence Department – believed that the plan was to keep East Timor within Indonesia. To assess Kelly’s claim, it helps to examine his methodology. History is a reconstruction of past events. The credibility of the reconstruction depends in large part on the sources of evidence used by the historian, as well as the emphasis given to various aspects of the narrative. Richard Evans, the distinguished Cambridge University historian, once provided an expert report as a witness in a trial between Holocaust-denier David Irving and Penguin Books. Evans wrote that historians “distinguish between primary sources, which were produced at the time of the events to which they relate, and secondary sources, which were produced afterwards and rely on memory or on the work of other historians. Clearly, primary sources are prima facie regarded as more reliable, although they must of course be assessed critically as to their authenticity, their authorship and their purpose.” It is important, wrote Evans, to ask “what were the motives behind a particular document coming into existence” so as to “control it for possible bias, tendentiousness, or downright intention to mislead.” However, “perhaps the most problematical kind of evidence” is “interviews conducted with participants after the event by the historian.” For obvious reasons, decision-makers will tend provide the most self-serving explanations, justifications and excuses. Historians must therefore “probe the motives and purposes of those whom they are interviewing; and they must not take everything they are told at face value.”[5] Turning now to Kelly’s chapter on East Timor, we find that it runs for 35 pages with an additional 140 references. An astounding 97 of these are nothing more than interviews with the participants. In addition, Kelly relies heavily on “East Timor in Transition 1998–2000: An Australian Policy Challenge”. This book was published by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in 2001 and launched by Alexander Downer. Unlike other historical publications by DFAT, this book was not produced by DFAT’s Historical Documents Project, but by a team of departmental officers who had worked on East Timor during the crisis. In other words, those who had implemented policy were assessing their own performances within the covers of a book they had themselves written, using material they had themselves selected. As one foreign affairs expert has noted, its discussion of East Timor’s political awakening and the period of Indonesia’s invasion is “by far the weakest and might induce informed readers to proceed no further.” Its discussion of Australia’s role is “profoundly misleading.”[6] Kelly’s reliance on this book casts further doubt on his methodology. My point is not that he shouldn’t quote participants, of course; it’s that he shouldn’t take everything he’s told at face value. He should verify claims against available documentary evidence, and compare the participants’ actions with their subsequent claims. Under Howard, Australian policy towards Indonesia was operating within a long-established bi-partisan framework; he maintained his predecessor’s support of the Suharto regime and of Indonesian rule over East Timor. When the regime cracked down on pro-democracy demonstrators in July 1996, there had been no official expressions of criticism or even disapproval from the new Foreign
[Marxism] Berkeley divests
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.kabobfest.com/2010/03/uc-berkeley-student-senate-passes-divestment-resolution.html UC Berkeley student senate passes divestment resolution By Yaman Press release from UC Berkeley SJP. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For the first time in the University of California history, the UC Berkeley Student Senate has approved a bill to divest from two US companies in response to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and to Israel’s siege and bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The Senate bill directs both the UC Regents and the Student Government to divest from General Electric and United Technologies. General Electric manufactures Apache helicopter engines; United Technologies manufactures Sikorsky helicopters and F-16 aircraft engines. In addition, the bill creates a task force to look into furthering a socially responsible investment policy for the UC system. Student Senator Rahul Patel supported the bill, declaring that “in the 1980s the Student Government was a central actor in demanding that the university divest from South African apartheid. 25 years later, it is a key figure in shaping a nationwide movement against occupation and war crimes around the world. Student Government can be a space to mobilize and make decisions that have a significant impact on the international community. We must utilize these spaces to engage each other about issues of justice worldwide.” The Senate deliberation, which started Wednesday night, concluded at 3 am Thursday morning, March 18. The meeting was flooded with students, educators, and community members, which prompted the relocation of the Senate session from the Senate Chambers to a larger room. The attendees took turns making impassioned arguments for and against the bill. The diverse list of guest speakers included 76 names, ranging in age from college freshmen to Vietnam veterans. After amendments, the final bill passed on a 16-4 vote. In addition to Israeli military action, the student initiative was motivated by an 2005 call on behalf of 171 Palestinian civil society organizations calling on “people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel … until it fully complies with the precepts of international law.” According to Emiliano Huet-Vaughn, co-author of the bill, “this vote is an historic step in holding all state and corporate actors accountable for their violations of basic human rights. The broad cross section of the community that came out to demand our university invest ethically belies the notion that the American people will tolerate the profiting from occupation or other human rights abuses.” Student Senator Emily Carlton, co-sponsor of the bill, agreed, adding “this action will only be historic if it is repeated throughout the country and the world; I hope that student governments all over America will see in this a sign that the time to divest from war is now.” In 2009, Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, became the first US educational institution to divest from companies directly involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Hampshire College action was advocated by the group Students for Justice in Palestine, and ultimately adopted by the Board of Trustees. Today, through its Student Senate bill, UC Berkeley becomes the first large, public US institution to endorse a similar measure. UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine has been working on a divestment campaign from entities that profit from the occupation of Palestine since 2000. UC Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, founded in 2007, played a central role in researching the legal issues and the international laws pertaining to Israeli human rights violations. 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] I miss Peter Camejo
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I think it was an article recently posted here that quoted Ralph Nader as saying that the autobiography is due out shortly. I think Haymarket Books is issuing it. Gary's commends on the need for a strong Left in the U.S. is still haunting me and I hope that it does the same to others on the list in a position to do something about it. We could do a great deal most in the context of these objective conditions, but not without seriously rethinking the organizational premises we've assumed since the Russian Revolution. What we really need to learn is that what we're doing must be organically rooted in what's around us Peter was a great orator, to be sure, but his reputation for this rather eclipsed his skills as a strategist. His early leap to the Greens was brilliant and he also knew when to start looking elsewhere. 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] Jon Stewart's brilliant take on Glen Beck last night....
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Of course, he has also been shilling for the healthcare bill all week as if he thinks it will do any good. I try to just enjoy it for what it is... 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] I miss Peter Camejo
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I thought I ordered ijt on the net from Alibirs but got back a notice that it was not available? Does that mean that it came out and sold out? Who was supposed to have published it? -Original Message- From: Bhaskar Sunkara bhaskar.sunk...@gmail.com To: Wayne M. Collins sha...@aol.com Sent: Fri, Mar 19, 2010 4:14 pm Subject: Re: [Marxism] I miss Peter Camejo == ule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. = hat's the deal with is autobiography? I thought he had most of the anuscript for one done and it was awaiting publication, or did I make of hat up? On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 9:12 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://rustbeltradical.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/i-miss-peter-camejo/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/bhaskar.sunkara%40gmail.com ___ end list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu et your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/shacht%40aol.com 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] I miss Peter Camejo
==
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http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/North-Star-Challenging-the-Power
Available for ordering...
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Re: [Marxism] unsubbed?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink.net writes: Did you check your subscription page and make sure you selected the option to receive a copy of your own posts? I meant to say that I never see my own posts *on purpose*, having deliberately selected not to see them. I should have added that he should check his sub settings. -- In Solidarity, Billy O'Connor 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] Class antagonism as class struggle: the dialectic (OK Ralph)
Class antagonism as class struggle: the dialectic : (exposition) The decay of feudalism and transition to capitalism shows two distinct form of change: class struggle as contradiction and class struggle as antagonism. I. Localized manual labor with the serf working the land for the nobility provided the economic based for feudalism. The primary form of wealth is landed property. The political and social structures were based on monarchy or the King and Queen as ruler with their courts of civil servants and in Europe the Church as a powerful land owner. II. The serf struggled in contradiction - not antagonism, with the landowner and nobility. The slow introduction of manufacturing meant the introduction of new tools and a new division of labor in society. These new productive forces created the growth of towns of people separating them from thousands of years living off the land, previously trapped in the ritual culture and custom of feudal society. Trade created and enlarged the towns. The struggle of the towns and towns people for cheap food from the countryside, against privately own trade routed cutting across land controlled by lords, for a market for their goods was a sharp clash of classes or the struggle of the towns and countryside. The rising bourgeoisie represented the town and the feudalist the countryside. This kind of class struggle expressed the antagonism between new classes and old classes. III. Feudal relations, contradictory to the manual labor of the serf striving to better his family life, faced a new danger - antagonism, in the towns and the process of large scale mechanization possible with the steam engine. Feudal society was founded on manual labor and was overthrown by new social forces - classes, created by mechanical labor. The way this overthrow took place was a sharp struggle involving all the classes of the old and new society with the new classes of modern worker and capitalist fighting for revolutionary change or a qualitatively different kind of society. In dialectics connections - interactivity, are a special kind of relations between and within things. Marxists search out and unravel these connections to describe and understand the self movement of what is being examined. Through the landed property relations the serf and his labor was connected with nobility as land owners. This interactive relationship as the point of production defines feudalism. Not so with the rising merchant capitalist and proletariat. The merchant capitalist and rising capitalists, as a class, shares no connection or interactive relations with the nobility or serf as the unity of capitalist commodity production. The proletariat as a class, shares no connection or interactive relations with the nobility or serf as the unity of commodity production. Rather, capitalists and proletarians constituted a new unity of production; a new production relation operating within feudal society but outside the property relations of feudalism There is a connection between all the old and new classes but not interactivity as the production process. This connection as the evolving market where things are brought and sold. The nobility purchases and consumes products created outside the landed property relations or that the serf does not create. Thus, these class exist and intermingle external to one another. The struggle of the new classes against the old was that of external collision within a dying social order. This form of class collision - struggle, express class antagonism. IV. Contradictions of the old society - the struggle between serf and nobility, were superseded by antagonism, or superseded by the external collision of new classes unable to fit into the old system, and the social revolution way underway. The struggle of the serf against the nobility did not disappear but found a new channel of support and assistance from the new classes in antagonism with the nobility and the landed property relations. Society moves in class antagonism. Marx sums up this entire historical process as : We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organization of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
[Marxism-Thaxis] Ralph: Class antagonism ... the dialectic (OK Ralph) .
Comrade Ralph: A new Marxist glossary is being prepared. The last Marxist Glossary receiving large distribution in America was L. Harry Gould’s 1943 Glossary of Marxist Terms. A larger second edition was published in 1946 called Marxist Glossary and reprinted in the 1970’s by Proletarian Publishers. Us. Things are heating up and small circles are forming everywhere. Most of the younger people and older workers are 100% unfamiliar with Marxism or any Marxist concepts. A new glossary is needed. I vowed to do such a glossary ten years ago in a discussion on Marxism list. The problem was being unable to find an audience. Since Obama's election things have heated up dramatically and the material from ten years ago, and most certainly that of the old Soviet era is totally inadequate. I have taken the lead on writing a Marxist glossary but it is part of a collective effort amongst a core of comrades. However an outside view is needed. By this I mean outside our meetings in Detroit. A fundamental draft will be prepared by the March 30, 2010 deadline. I would love to send you the entire glossary no later than March 30, and or discuss terms on line in the open. I do wish to send you the entire glossary off line through. Why? Because of your uncompromising critical and informed point of view. Ralph we might not find this in our lifetime but I assure you no one is rolling over or going out like a bunch of mutherfucking suckers. Right or wrong (and we already know what are going to be historically in error) we are dedicated to opening the new era of proletarian onslaught in the flesh. The bourgeoisie is not going to take everything away from us and we stand around like simpletons talking about where are the people. The people been in motion and this is the kind of shit we live for. Victory of death. Proletarian Unite. WL. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from _http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) ___ 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
[Marxism-Thaxis] Californians March into the Heartland
Californians March into the Heartland By David Bacon The Nation, web edition, March 17, 2010 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100329/bacon Shafter, CA - As the March for California's Future left Bakersfield, marchers trudged past almond trees just breaking into their spring blooms. From Shafter and Wasco across dozens of miles to the west, white and pink petals have turned the ground rosy, while branches overhead are dusted with the delicate green of new leaves. The San Joaquin Valley's width--over seventy-five miles at its widest point--is even more impressive than its length, as it stretches several hundred miles from the Tehachapi Mountains in the south overlooking Bakersfield to the delta of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers in the north. In the heart of that delta lies Sacramento, the state's capital and the marchers' goal. This immense space is filled with almond orchards, grape vineyards, dairies, and alfalfa and cotton fields. A myriad of crops, grown on a huge industrial scale, make obvious the historical source of the state's wealth. For almost two centuries, that wealth has located California's political center here. The conservatism of the valley's political and economic establishment has been the main obstacle to the growth of progressive politics, which long ago shaped the coastal metropolises of San Francisco and Los Angeles. For decades growers succeeded in preventing rural industrialization, for fear it would bring unions and higher wages. Even mass housing was discouraged, until the corporations that own the land realized that the profits of development rivaled those of grapes and pears. The March for California's Future is challenging that power, and the stranglehold it still exerts over the state. Holding the budget hostage while California unemployment tops 12 percent, growers and their political allies here have slashed the funding for schools and social service. Now teachers, homecare workers and those who depend on public services are walking into the growers' front yard, defying the past. When cotton was king and thousands of workers were still needed to bring in the harvest, immigrants and Dust Bowl refugees rose in rebellion in 1933. The Associated Farmers kept the valley under virtual martial law, while growers gunned down strikers in front of the sheriffs' station in Pixley, a town along the march's route. In the '60s the United Farm Workers was born in another town on the marchers' way--Delano. The UFW's most implacable enemies were always here--the San Joaquin grape growers, and the politicians who protected their crops, their water, their cheap labor and their profits. Valley Republicans are still mounting the watchtowers along that same wall of protection. Two brothers, Tom and Bill Berryhill, represent adjacent districts in the state assembly. Tom, a fourth-generation farmer, lives in Modesto, home of the Gallo wine empire. Bill, who represents Ceres, sits on the board of the Allied Grape Growers. Both inherited their membership in the political class here from their father, legendary Republican legislator Clare Berryhill. Today Valley Republicans are a primary obstacle to the passage of a budget that would continue to fund basic services for Californians, especially schools and healthcare. The state has a requirement that two-thirds of the legislature approve any budget. Even more important, any tax increase takes a two-thirds vote as well. So even though urban Democrats have had a majority for years in both chambers, a solid Republican block can keep the state in a continual economic crisis until Democrats agree to slash spending. With huge deficits from declining tax revenues, and a recession boosting state unemployment to over 12 percent, converting a budgetary crisis into a political one is not difficult. Ironically, nowhere is unemployment higher than in California's rural counties, often twice as high as on the coast. Small agricultural towns like Shafter and Delano are filled with workers who can't find jobs, while at the same time budget cuts reduce the social services for unemployed families and shower teachers in the local schools with pink slips. Bill Berryhill bemoans that Stockton's schools have just sent out 192 layoff notices. But turning reality on its head, the budget cuts demanded by the Berryhills and their colleagues are not responsible, they say. The culprits are taxes and regulations on business. While the state flirts with tax increases, our agricultural, trucking and educational sectors continue to decline, he says. Since I first arrived at the capital fourteen months ago, I have been shocked to see the barrage of misguided proposals for tax increases, fee hikes and more regulations on families and job creators. We already pay some of the highest taxes in the nation, including gas and sales taxes, and yet some lawmakers want us to pay more. One of their political allies is Jeff Denham, a state senator whose district not only
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Class antagonism as class struggle: the dialectic (OK Ra...
In a message dated 3/19/2010 9:16:57 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, cb31...@gmail.com writes: I. Localized manual labor with the serf working the land for the nobility provided the economic based for feudalism. The primary form of wealth is landed property. The political and social structures were based on monarchy or the King and Queen as ruler with their courts of civil servants and in Europe the Church as a powerful land owner. ^ CB: The institution of the monarchy marks the transition from feudalism to capitalism. During feudalism proper the secular section of the ruling class is feudal lords ruling feudal manors , self-contained local economic units The nation , with national monarchs, is a bourgeois formation, rooted in a national , capitalist economy. Reply Thanks, but I am not sure what this means for a description of class antagonism and its emergence within the feudal system. More over for two groups of people who have zero understanding of the Marxist approach. Will gladly send you the entire draft by the end of the month. Actually, the draft can be sent today, but the problem is that all the words and terms have not been completed. Further, work takes place on this project everyday with meetings three times a week, squeezed between classes. A draft sent today would be different from the draft being prepared for Monday. Then there is a total of four sections to the glossary. Section one is word and term definitions with narrative. In section one for instance there are four different indexes for the word class. Class, class strata, class as the shape of property and class as a concrete form of labor in different historical eras. Interestingly, the words Trotskyism and Stalinism are not in the text. Nor is there a critique or criticism of the CPUSA or any other group for that matter. More interesting is Section one beings with the American Revolutionary War. Yep. Section Two summarizes all the communist international organizations from the First to th Fourth. Section 3 is Expositions deploying many of the terms in section one Section 4 is literally Marxist catch phrases. Sutff like the philosophers have only interpreted the world in so many ways, the point if to change it. At this writing there is 40 individual pages 4 and 1/4 by 5 and 1/2 or an 6 by eleven sheet folded. We top out at 50. The problem is the rapid transitions in the writings and construction. WL. ___ 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
[Marxism-Thaxis] Class antagonism as class struggle: the dialectic (OK Ralph)
Is the difference between antagonism and contradiction that antagonism is irreconcilable, but contradiction is reconcilable ? There were some other new classes in the new bourgeois system besides the bourgeoisie and the proletariat - slaves and colonial subjects. The new forces and relations of productionin in antagonism with the feudal order included colonialism and slavery as well as wage-labor/capital. Marx says that colonialism and slavery were the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. The different momenta of primitive accumulation ...These methods depend in part on brute force, e.g., the colonial system. But, they all employ the power of the State, the concentrated and organised force of society, to hasten, hot-house fashion, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition. Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power. Of course, here, force is forces of destruction, military might. Capitalism's newly developed means and instruments of production had as a byproduct means and instruments of destruction and war that were superior to those of the feudal system. Karl Marx. Capital Volume One Chapter Thirty-One: Genesis of the Industrial Capitalist The genesis of the industrial [1] capitalist did not proceed in such a gradual way as that of the farmer. Doubtless many small guild-masters, and yet more independent small artisans, or even wage-labourers, transformed themselves into small capitalists, and (by gradually extending exploitation of wage-labour and corresponding accumulation) into full-blown capitalists. In the infancy of capitalist production, things often happened as in the infancy of medieval towns, where the question, which of the escaped serfs should be master and which servant, was in great part decided by the earlier or later date of their flight. The snail’s pace of this method corresponded in no wise with the commercial requirements of the new world-market that the great discoveries of the end of the 15th century created. But the middle ages had handed down two distinct forms of capital, which mature in the most different economic social formations, and which before the era of the capitalist mode of production, are considered as capital quand même — [all the same] usurer’s capital and merchant’s capital. “At present, all the wealth of society goes first into the possession of the capitalist ... he pays the landowner his rent, the labourer his wages, the tax and tithe gatherer their claims, and keeps a large, indeed the largest, and a continually augmenting share, of the annual produce of labour for himself. The capitalist may now be said to be the first owner of all the wealth of the community, though no law has conferred on him the right to this property... this change has been effected by the taking of interest on capital ... and it is not a little curious that all the law-givers of Europe endeavoured to prevent this by statutes, viz., statutes against usury The power of the capitalist over all the wealth of the country is a complete change in the right of property, and by what law, or series of laws, was it effected?” [2] The author should have remembered that revolutions are not made by laws. The money capital formed by means of usury and commerce was prevented from turning into industrial capital, in the country by the feudal constitution, in the towns by the guild organisation. [3] These fetters vanished with the dissolution of feudal society, with the expropriation and partial eviction of the country population. The new manufactures were established at Weapons, or at inland points beyond the control of the old municipalities and their guilds. Hence in England an embittered struggle of the corporate towns against these new industrial nurseries. The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. On their heels treads the commercial war of the European nations, with the globe for a theatre. It begins with the revolt of the Netherlands from Spain, assumes giant dimensions in England’s Anti-Jacobin War, and is still going on in the opium wars against China, c. The different momenta of primitive accumulation distribute themselves now, more or less in chronological order, particularly over Spain, Portugal, Holland, France, and England. In England at the end of the 17th century, they arrive at a systematical combination, embracing
[Marxism-Thaxis] Class antagonism as class struggle: the dialectic (OK Ralph)
Thanks, but I am not sure what this means for a description of class antagonism and its emergence within the feudal system. ^ CB; You mentioned kings and queens in your analysis of class antagonism and its emergence within the feudal system. So, whatever your mention of them meant for a description of class antagonism , etc, would be impacted by this. Basically, I guess, the institution of the monarchy was more in between the bourgeois side and the feudal side of the antagonism More over for two groups of people who have zero understanding of the Marxist approach. ^ CB: Many people who have zero understanting of the Marxist approach do have some idea of kings and queens. So, this European historical institution might be a hook for them to get some understanding. ^ Will gladly send you the entire draft by the end of the month. Actually, the draft can be sent today, but the problem is that all the words and terms have not been completed. Further, work takes place on this project everyday with meetings three times a week, squeezed between classes. A draft sent today would be different from the draft being prepared for Monday. CB: OK. Thanks Then there is a total of four sections to the glossary. Section one is word and term definitions with narrative. In section one for instance there are four different indexes for the word class. Class, class strata, class as the shape of property and class as a concrete form of labor in different historical eras. Interestingly, the words Trotskyism and Stalinism are not in the text. Nor is there a critique or criticism of the CPUSA or any other group for that matter. More interesting is Section one beings with the American Revolutionary War. Yep. Section Two summarizes all the communist international organizations from the First to th Fourth. Section 3 is Expositions deploying many of the terms in section one Section 4 is literally Marxist catch phrases. Sutff like the philosophers have only interpreted the world in so many ways, the point if to change it. At this writing there is 40 individual pages 4 and 1/4 by 5 and 1/2 or an 6 by eleven sheet folded. We top out at 50. The problem is the rapid transitions in the writings and construction. WL. ^ CB: This is a suggestion that if you mention monarchy in the writings, you might want to say it's not a feudal institution, but a transitional institution between feudalism and capitalism. This might be enlightening (smile) for many , as many people think of kings and queens as a main part of feudalism, when they are transitional Also, you might want to mention that the nation arises with the bourgeoisie. ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Class antagonism as class struggle: the dialectic (OK Ra...
In a message dated 3/19/2010 10:20:08 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, cb31...@gmail.com writes: Is the difference between antagonism and contradiction that antagonism is irreconcilable, but contradiction is reconcilable ? There were some other new classes in the new bourgeois system besides the bourgeoisie and the proletariat - slaves and colonial subjects. The new forces and relations of production in antagonism with the feudal order included colonialism and slavery as well as wage-labor/capital. Marx says that colonialism and slavery were the chief momenta of primitive accumulation. Reply 1. The concept of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions is not put forth in the glossary, with no disrespect meant to the Soviet Textbook of Marist Philosophy or Mao’s writings on Contradiction. Antagonism is not contradiction. Antagonism is a form of resolution of the contradiction between more than less static relations of production and mobile productive forces. Here is how Marx writes this: 5). At a certain stage of their development, 6). the material productive forces of society 7). come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – (this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms ) with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated up until then. 8). From forms of development of the productive forces 9). these relations turn into their fetters. 10). Then begins an epoch of social revolution.. (1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy) _http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm_ (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm) Antagonism is how a society rent with class contradiction, leaps to a qualitative new mode of production. The form of resolution takes place as the wiping out, destruction or liquidation of the old classes connected to the old means of production. The serf form of servitude, as a property relations - landed property, and founded on hand labor and early manufacturing, is liquidated from history on the basis of a development of new productive forces and new social relations that correspond to the new means of production. 2). Agree with the second part of the issue. The problem of a glossary is isolating what is fundamental. Thus, an index called fundamentality is part of the glossary. Then there is an index titled primitive accumulation. I swear I am going to send you the draft before it is completed and professionally edited. If you know a professional editor, preferably a comrade let me know and they can be paid a stipend. Forces of destruction is not an index although included in crisis of capital as overproduction and the destruction of commodities and means of production. Charles, swear to God gonna holla before the month is out but been on jam. Yet, no way we could leave out primitive accumulation of capital. Again, this is written for folks with zero understanding of anything remotely Marx. But they are flocking to any center of gravity with new thinking that express what they see and feel. WL. ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Class antagonism as class struggle: the dialectic (OK Ra...
On 3/19/10, waistli...@aol.com waistli...@aol.com wrote: Reply 1. The concept of antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions is not put forth in the glossary, with no disrespect meant to the Soviet Textbook of Marist Philosophy or Mao’s writings on Contradiction. Antagonism is not contradiction. Antagonism is a form of resolution of the contradiction between more than less static relations of production and mobile productive forces. ^^^ CB: I believe Engels and Lenin use antagonism in conjunction with irreconcilable, irreconcilable antagonism. I'm leaving , but I'll look it up next week. I'm pretty sure it's in _The State and Rev._ and _The Origin_. That might be a pertinent concern in a Marxist glossary Here it is: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ Preface 6 Chapter I: Class Society and the State 39 k The State: A Product of the Irreconcilability of Class Antagonisms Special Bodies of Armed Men, Prisons, etc. The State: An Instrument for the Exploitation of the Oppressed Class The Withering Away of the State, and Violent Revolution Let us being with the most popular of Engels' works, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, the sixth edition of which was published in Stuttgart as far back as 1894. We have to translate the quotations from the German originals, as the Russian translations, while very numerous, are for the most part either incomplete or very unsatisfactory. Summing up his historical analysis, Engels says: “The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; just as little is it 'the reality of the ethical idea', 'the image and reality of reason', as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into _irreconcilable antagonisms_ ( emphasis added -CB) which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of 'order'; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state. (Pp.177-78, sixth edition)[1] Here is how Marx writes this: 5). At a certain stage of their development, 6). the material productive forces of society 7). come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – (this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms ) with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated up until then. 8). From forms of development of the productive forces 9). these relations turn into their fetters. 10). Then begins an epoch of social revolution.. (1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy) _http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm_ (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm) ^^^ CB: I don't see the word antagonism in what you quote. ^ Antagonism is how a society rent with class contradiction, leaps to a qualitative new mode of production. The form of resolution takes place as the wiping out, destruction or liquidation of the old classes connected to the old means of production. The serf form of servitude, as a property relations - landed property, and founded on hand labor and early manufacturing, is liquidated from history on the basis of a development of new productive forces and new social relations that correspond to the new means of production. ^ CB: I think the thought is thought provoking and gets at important ideas. But since Engels and Lenin use antagonism as they do above, it might be good to consider their usage in a _Marxist_ _glossary_. It's semantics, but a glossary is a text of semantics or word meanings 2). Agree with the second part of the issue. The problem of a glossary is isolating what is fundamental. Thus, an index called fundamentality is part of the glossary. Then there is an index titled primitive accumulation. I swear I am going to send you the draft before it is completed and professionally edited. If you know a professional editor, preferably a comrade let me know and they can be paid a stipend. ^^^ CB Please do. ^ Forces of destruction is not an index although included in crisis of capital as overproduction and the destruction of commodities and means of production. ^ CB: My use of Forces of destruction originates with me , i.e. I didn't get it from Marx, Engels or Lenin, though it is a logical extension of their forces of production. They just say force. though it might be in something they wrote that I haven't read. I think it's a useful concept
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ralph: Class antagonism ... the dialectic (OK Ralph) .
I think we should all discuss this publicly, pooling our knowledge and abilities. I doubt I have a unique ability lacking in others here. But you are most welcome to send me a copy of the whole text and I'll give whatever useful feedback I can. Have you found the first or second edition of Bottomore's Dictionary of Marxist Thought useful for some of your source material? At 09:23 AM 3/19/2010, waistli...@aol.com wrote: Comrade Ralph: A new Marxist glossary is being prepared. The last Marxist Glossary receiving large distribution in America was L. Harry Gouldâs 1943 Glossary of Marxist Terms. A larger second edition was published in 1946 called Marxist Glossary and reprinted in the 1970âs by Proletarian Publishers. Us. Things are heating up and small circles are forming everywhere. Most of the younger people and older workers are 100% unfamiliar with Marxism or any Marxist concepts. A new glossary is needed. I vowed to do such a glossary ten years ago in a discussion on Marxism list. The problem was being unable to find an audience. Since Obama's election things have heated up dramatically and the material from ten years ago, and most certainly that of the old Soviet era is totally inadequate. I have taken the lead on writing a Marxist glossary but it is part of a collective effort amongst a core of comrades. However an outside view is needed. By this I mean outside our meetings in Detroit. A fundamental draft will be prepared by the March 30, 2010 deadline. I would love to send you the entire glossary no later than March 30, and or discuss terms on line in the open. I do wish to send you the entire glossary off line through. Why? Because of your uncompromising critical and informed point of view. Ralph we might not find this in our lifetime but I assure you no one is rolling over or going out like a bunch of mutherfucking suckers. Right or wrong (and we already know what are going to be historically in error) we are dedicated to opening the new era of proletarian onslaught in the flesh. The bourgeoisie is not going to take everything away from us and we stand around like simpletons talking about where are the people. The people been in motion and this is the kind of shit we live for. Victory of death. Proletarian Unite. WL. ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Class antagonism as class struggle: the dialectic
Perhaps an illuminating example is that of modern Japan at the creation in the last quarter of the 19th century. When the institutionalized feudal system of Japan was completely overthrown (a revolution led by daimyo, samurai and lesser retainers with one foot in each pond, if you will--feudal privilege, modern capitalist state), they also made sure to revive a near-dead monarchy to be at the top of the new system. A hereditary monarchy has less of an issue with succession, and its symbolic power confers legitimacy to the ruling elite. That Tom Cruise film, Last Samurai, seems to have confused people over the nature of the revolution (as well as on the issue of the extent and nature of outside imperialist interference). Nice New Zealand scenery though--like Lord of the Rings. I believe the 'constitutional' issues the ruling elite of Japan were trying to deal with was the status and power of shogun, daimyo, samurai and emperor (or possibly emperors). As for Japan's current emperorship, it's an 'ancient' institution that has been in place since the late 19th century, and was constitutionally revised by McArthur and and a team of lawyers during the Occupation. 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
