Re: [Marxism] Unionization rate drops to 6.9% in private sector
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 24/01/2011 03:39, Nick Fredman wrote: Richard Seymore: The embourgoisement thesis doesn't have much going for it Leonardo Kosloff: such theories of the aristocracy of labor are unhelpful I noted before that imperialism per se has little or nothing to do with the decline of union density, but more generally some comrades, not least of the state cap variety, tend to downplay or deny the political effects of relations of relative privilege within the working class, internationally via imperialism, and within national social formations in terms of more skilled, educated and/or better off sections of national working classes. Surely not? First of all, as you're talking about state caps, Tony Cliff argued that imperialism is central to the strength of reformist political attitudes. He differed with Lenin's analysis of 'labour aristocracy', but nonetheless held that capitalist expansion in the form of imperialism provided the economic basis for the Right within the labour movement. With regard to sections within the working class, Cliff's simple argument was that these tended to be more pronounced the weaker the working class is, but are reduced when the workers' standards of living go up. As for myself, I would not use the language of 'privilege', but I would agree with you on the relevance of 'feelings of superiority', or chauvinism. I am the last to deny or 'downplay' the relevant political effects of, say, white supremacy on working class cohesion and strength, which is certainly at the heart of long-term difficulties faced by the US working class for example. It's just not clear to me how theories of 'embourgoisement' or 'labour aristocracy' help with this. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] Islamic Fundamentalism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 22/01/2011 12:39, Dan wrote: Fundamentalist islam, of the sort that is being spread by contemporary preachers, is not a return to the traditional form of Islam practiced in rural areas of the Muslim world. There doesn't appear to be any sense in the category of 'fundamentalist Islam'. Fundamentalism is a category from Protestantism adverting to a literal interpretation of biblical texts. Islamism can take a variety of forms, most of them involving itjihad at some level (ie, precisely *not* literal interpretation). Though it has usually expressed itself in a right-wing way, the indeterminacy of religious doxa is such that Islamism has been compatible with a variety of political forms. Thus, for instance, liberal Islamists would include Tariq Ramadan and Rachid Ghannouchi, while leftist Islamists would have included the MEK back in the day and their maitre penseur Ali Shariati. Egyptian intellectuals like Hasan Hanafi have moved from leftist to liberal. What Islamic fundamentalists are preaching is adherence to the strict interpretation of Islam favoured by the Hanbalite school of thought, and its Whahabite and Salafist forms. I'm afraid this isn't very helpful. Salafism in its political uses (ie, that championed by al-Afghani, Abdu Rida) has little to do with a 'strict interpretation of Islam'. That's one reason why many Salafists don't accept the legacy of these thinkers, arguing that they were more interested in building anti-colonial movements than in proper religious jurisprudence. Strict control over the body of the worshipper (five prayers a day following a precise set of genuflections), Five prayers a day has nothing to do with 'fundamentalist Islam'. Salat is one of the five pillars of Islam. This tendency for the critique of fundamentalism to always slip back into the demonisation of the faith and its adherents is one of the dangers of not taking Islamophobia seriously. characterization of the modern world as being in a state of jahiliya (ignorant idolatry). This narrow-minded, sectarian world-view, in which the faithful are seen as a the only true god-fearers amidst a world perverted by jahiliya, This is Sayyid Qutb's idea, but a) Qutbism hardly exhausts the various tendencies within Political Islam, and b) while sectarian in its specific application by Qutb, the concept of jahilliya not necessarily a sectarian idea. Most of the modern world does live in a state of ignorance and idolatry. That's capitalism. The idea that marxists would be scandalised by such a suggestion is frankly rather comical. Again, it is my view that Islamism is a poison and not a useful ally in the struggle against Imperialism. Never mind useful allies. Some Islamists are fighting imperialism, and some are not. Hamas Hezbollah are fighting imperialism, while the Saudi clerical authorities are not. If you want to struggle against imperialism in perfect isolation from everyone you disagree with, denouncing those to your right as poison, then go ahead. But don't then complain about 'sectarianism'. Your /noli me tangere/ attitude is itself the absolute epitome of sectarianism, placing your specious conception of integrity above the needs of the struggle. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] A debate on Islamophobia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 20/01/2011 22:23, Dan wrote: So, out of respect for people's sensitivities, let's replace the declaration of human rights with the ten commandments, let's allow adulteresses to be stoned to death, let's applaud at the building of religious schools, let's pretend that covering women's heads is a genuine way of protecting them, let's all refrain from using words such as goddammit which might offend, let's encourage weekly prayers (they're part of the traditions of the down-trodden), let's allow faith-based organizations to regulate the way people live, let's acknowledge the role of the divine, let's pretend fundamentalists are actually misguided social activists, let's refrain from making derogatory statements against religious institutions, yeah, let's be Marxists who never talk about materialism if it might cause our brethern to stumble. By logical corollary, you would argue that those marxists who oppose antisemitism thereby also support patriarchy, circumcision, gender violence, clerical rule, fundamentalism and the genocidal declarations of Jewish religious authorities in Israel. A further corollary of your argument is that the term 'antisemitism' is just a cover for letting the Jews have the run of things. I don't expect you to accept these corollaries of your irrational, hysterical and self-serving expostulations. I expect you to be as hypocritical as you are navel-gazing. I also expect you not to notice the moral absurdity of your complaining about your oppression at the hands of Muslims in a period where Muslims are being harrassed, beaten, abducted, tortured and murdered on a planetary level. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] re : A debate on Islamophobi
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 20/01/2011 23:20, Dan wrote: Those Marxists who oppose antisemitism ALSO oppose the barbaric and idiotic laws found in Judaism. Yet, Dan, you were the one who complained that one could not oppose Islamophobia without also curtailing your right to criticise religion. Now that you recognise how absurd the corollary of your argument is, perhaps you might take the step of reconising how absurd your original complaint was. How is it a corollary of my argument that the term antisemitism is just a cover for letting Jews have the run of things ? Do you even understand my argument ? Better than you do, evidently. You may recall that your argument was that criticism of Islamophobia, even the use of the term, was a means of preventing criticism of Islam and allowing faith-based organizations to regulate the way people live and stone adulteresses to death. Or, to put it another way, criticism of Islamophobia is a way of letting Muslims have the run of things. The logical corollary would be that criticism of antisemitism is, similarly, a way of letting Jews have the run of things. Since you don't like that corollary, since you reject it (as I knew you would), perhaps you would be good enough not to be a hypocrite and reject your own absurd argument. Again, some Muslims will use the term Islamophobic to shame those who are against a certain conception of Islamic interference in secular matters. This is only tangentially relevant to the discussion. Your objection was not to the *misuse* of the term 'Islamophobia', but to the *use* of the term as such. That, by accepting that the term can be misused, you now at least tacitly accept that there can be correct uses of the term, is a step forward. But you will never stop being confused by this issue so long as you continue to be stuck in a colonial way of seeing things, in which your problems (in this case, your right to criticise Islam as a religion) come before the problems of the oppressed, now matter how much more grave theirs are than yours. I'm afraid that this spurious victimology of yours adverts the French Left's longstanding failure to engage appropriately with the legacy of the French empire and its legitimising ideologies - viz. 'republicanism' for the Left, Catholic crusades for the Right. The empire in North Africa consistently denigrated Islam in terms of much the same dehumanising tropes that are common currency today, and the Left at the time collaborated not only in that denigration but also in the massacres that such denigration existed to justify. Notwithstanding a brief period of tiers-mondisme among a minority on the far left, there has been next to no effort to come to terms with this and overcome its legacy. This failure has been responsible lately for allowing the French state pass laws that target and vilify Muslim women in a way that is both racist and deeply misogynistic, without any serious opposition from within white society. It has also, incidentally, weakened the French Left by allowing Sarkozy to bail himself out of political crises by directing the fire toward Islam. That white leftists can complain that anti-racism in some sense oppresses them, while also evincing total ignorance of the wider phenomenon to which anti-racism objects, shows how deep those traditions of colonial supremacism still run. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] re : Why Tunisia's Revolution Is Islamist-Free
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 18/01/2011 00:37, Dan wrote:been encouraged under Ben Ali. is not accurate. Once An(l)-Nahda (meaning renaissance/rebirth in Arabic, an interesting name as it was used by Arabic secularists to define a pro-enlightenment cultural movement in the 19th century) became banned, it fielded independent candidates that totaled ... 15% of the vote (not one third). Sorry Dan, I am aware that the officially acknowledged result was closer to 14%. Francois Burgat William Howell's 'The Islamic Movement in Africa' argues that the true result was plausibly closer to 30-32%. This may be misleading. They take their cue from interviews with leading Islamists in An Nahda. But given the fact that the Islamists were banned, and given that the government rigged the vote, it would seem plausible that their true level of support was undercounted. And that was in 1988. I'm pretty sure it was 1989 when these elections were held: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_general_election,_1989 Since then, the Algerian civil war has passed by (with its horrific massacres), and in 2011, it is doubtful An-Nahda will get more than 15% of the vote (if even that much). Oh, I think that's probably right. Even if they were permitted to stand, they're not in the same shape they once were. Tunisians will vote for Social Democratic parties, such as the Progressive Democratic Party or the Union for Justice and Labour. In fact, both these parties now have ministers in the new national unity government. The old, hard-core CDR will still garner around 25% of the vote. That's just my personal hunch. I could be completely wrong of course. But since I'm not betting any money ... That's an interesting assessment. Why do you say 25% for the CDR? I'd be interested to know what you think the social base is for the CDR today? -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] Why Tunisia's Revolution Is Islamist-Free
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 17/01/2011 23:01, Dan wrote: So the revolution is not Islamist-free. But what weight does An-Nahda really have ? It's not easy to say, since open support for the Islamists hasn't really been encouraged under Ben Ali. When they stood as independents in the 1989 election, it's estimated that they had almost a third of the vote. Since then, they've been systematically hunted down, and purged from the army. And, as I say, underlying economic conditions prevailed against them. But I'm wary of any analysis which starts from the assumption that Islamism was a non-starter in Tunisia for lack of interest. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] Why Loughner shot Giffords
a 'debatable' proposition. Unsurprisingly, milieus are springing up where the far right is gaining credibility and momentum. The gun nuts, militia groupies, white supremacists, NWOers, etc., simply form the right-wing pole of a community of ultra-reactionaries. In these milieus, political paranoia is not only normal, but it constitutes the organising principle of their politics. The Republican Right can't be assumed to be ignorant of all this. They've got a long history of mobilising the far right on their behalf, from the anticommunist witch-hunts to the 'southern strategy' and beyond. All the knowingly ignorant statements, the race-baiting, the calls for more violence against America's enemies, the gun porn, the in-jokes, are all calculated. It would not seem inappropriate, except to an ostrich, to situate Jared Lee Loughner in all of that, given that he imbibed and parrotted a lot of ultra-reactionary ideology and selected a Democrat on Palin's 'target' list. Whatever his immediate motivation, and we don't know exactly what caused him to pull the trigger yet, there was more than enough in his environment to prepare a vulnerable deluded young man for this sort of moment. As has been observed more than once, it's surprising this didn't happen before (although it actually did). It's been worrying to hear all the talk about the necessity for a culture of civility, etc. One of the results will be that Sarah Palin's star will fade, while some more polite and civil pal of the surplus extractors will take her place. Why should it be worrying if these scumbags have to temper their rhetoric a little bit? Will that do the rest of us any harm, if they're having to look over their shoulder just a little bit? Bear in mind that the Right's purpose here is to prevent even the most modest abridgments of the rights of surplus extractors, by persuading millions of people that a modest healthcare programme, or a slightly more progressive tax system, or any protection for immigrants, amounts to a Muslim communist totalitarian plot led by a usurper-president. Bear in mind that their rhetoric is fully intended to motivate the most reactionary elements in American society with crazed conspiracy theories, so that they can fill the space vacated by disillusioned Obama supporters. In what sense would it be a bad thing if the Left got organised to defeat this filth, and as a consequence abated some of the right-wing pressures in US society? Of course, if Loughner had been a crazy-ass Muslim or ex-Muslim, the rhetoric would be markedly different. We know exactly what the rhetoric would be, as we have precedent. The social and political context would be ignored, and it would be reduced to him and/or his religion. And that would be it - don't mention the war, it's all about dangerous kooks. It would be a shame if this was the step we took with Loughner. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] Why Loughner shot Giffords
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/01/2011 13:24, Louis Proyect wrote: Because the ulterior motive is to stigmatize extremism. This morning I am watching MSNBC news hosted by a former Republican Congressman named Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (Zbigniew's daughter) and all they are talking about is the need to ratchet down the rhetoric on both the left and the right. I realise this is your fear, but it is misplaced. The Left does not engage in 'extremism' of this kind. The fact that it's being presented by the media in this way is a predictable effort at obfuscation, which we should not buy into. We have nothing to be afraid of. The Left is not doing anything remotely equivalent or analogous to what the Palinites and the Tea Partiers are doing, and we should be saying so, and telling the Jon Stewarts of this world to fuck off. It doesn't matter if the rightwing ratchets down its rhetoric. They have a surrogate in Obama who is carrying out their agenda. It does matter, actually. This 'rhetoric' is part of the political mobilization of business-based groups to prevent the Democratic base from achieving moderately social democratic policies like decent healthcare, etc. Forcing the Right into retreat would leave the Left in a better place to apply pressure to the administration, which is otherwise going to come exclusively from the Right. Frankly, you're missing a huge open goal here: this should be the end of the Tea Party as a mainstream political movement. They should be finished, and the Left should be chucking dirt on the grave. The argument that there's essentially no difference between the Palinites and the Democrats, that the Dems are basically surrogates for the Palinites, is also mistaken at best. There are differences, not merely those within the spectrum of pro-capitalist policymaking, but also in terms of the base they each relate to. Those differences do not make the Democrats allies of the Left or the working class, but they should shape how the Left responds. Also, I take strong exception to Richard referring to any protection for immigrants as if this has something to do with the Obama administration. In fact, more undocumented workers are being thrown out of the country than under Bush. Indeed, the capitalist crisis is driving the state to ramp up repression and racism against immigrants. There are some sections of capital who want to go harder than others, and they're backing the Tea Party reactionaries. The Dems aren't giving the Tea Party everything they want. Giffords was specifically targeted on this issue, despite being a fairly mundane conservative Democrat. So, the point here would be that the Tea Party wishes to treat as communist totalitarianism any position that isn't as completely brutal as theirs. But all this was obvious in what I said, which makes it all the more mysterious what you're taking strong exception to. To return to the issue motivating your stance, I think you should reconsider the idea that left-wing 'extremism' (whatever that is) is remotely comparable in any conceivable, arguable way to the racist, near-fascistic demagoguery of the Republican Right - in terms of viciousness, violence, or the social powers ranged behind it. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] Why Loughner shot Giffords
or Colin Ferguson. Does anyone literally argue that all killers are motivated primarily by ideology? Your articulation of these killings with the neoliberal agenda makes perfect sense,but your belief that, somehow, this might sound the death knell for the Tea Party makes none. Please allow us some pessimism of the memory over here. If you insist. But, in that case, why do you believe it matters what the Left says? Why shouldn't the Left speculate about the political barbarism that might have facilitated these murders, given how little difference it makes to anything? Or, by a similar reasoning, why not at least try to hold the Right accountable for its behaviour? What have you got to lose exactly? Well: I anticipate a result more like that following the Oklahoma City bombing, which produced the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, an important coercive step on the way to the Patriot Act, which is being used right now to prosecute peace and Palestine activists in the upper Midwest If this is on the cards, then on the strength of the foregoing it is certainly on the cards whether you resist it or not. But if you were to resist such a logic, I fail to see how it would held to prophylactically strip the issue of any political significance, which is what has happened on this list in this case. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] Should anarchists or deep ecologists be blamed for the Unabomber?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/01/2011 15:07, Louis Proyect wrote: Washington Post Paper Assails 'Industrial-Technological System' Friday, June 30, 1995; Page A10 The document sent by UNABOM to The Washington Post is a densely written anarchist manifesto that calls for worldwide revolution against the effects of modern society's industrial-technological system. Do anarchists and ecologists routinely engage in the kind of barbarism that the US Right does? Is there a tradition of countersubversive expurgatory violence among anarchists and ecologists? Do anarchists and ecologists as a rule tend to call for assassinations, or support bombing anyone? Do they as a rule support the accumulation of weapons and indulge in gun porn? Do they diminish their socially weaker opponents and support their violent punishment at the hands of the state? Is there any tradition of dehumanising the 'other' among anarchists and ecologists? Do by and large inhabit and, through control of major capitalist institutions, encourage others to inhabit, a paranoid alternative universe in which the enemies are pawns of a foreign usurper imposing a socialist tyranny on America? Do they control major media outlets? Do they have a phalanx of elected lunatics spreading bile and filth through airways? Do they run their own private schools? Are they funded by major businesses? None of the above. Next! -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] Fw: The Class Battles in France
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 02/11/2010 08:46, Graham Milner wrote: I am not sure about the scale of the setback for the French labour movement. It is probably at least on the scale of the defeat of the miners' union in Britain in 1984. It might actually be rather worse. ... The French proletariat fought magnificently, and withdraws from this battle with its organisations and its honour intact. You do realise this is entirely contradictory? If the French labour movement has been defeated in a way that is on a par with, or worse than, Britain in 1984/5, then the French proletariat does not withdraw from the battle with its organisations intact and the opportunity to fight another day. It withdraws with its organisations shattered, in disarray, with the left humiliated and on the end of witch-hunts everywhere, the neoliberal right-wing ascendant, and the combativity sucked out of the class for a generation. If that's really what is happening, then there's no room for false consolations about 'honour' being intact and so on. In truth, I don't see the parallel. What has happened is nothing like 1984/5 in Britain. First of all, the outcome of this struggle is not yet decided, nor is its impact on future struggles. Secondly, unlike in 1984/5, the trade union leadership has sought to slow the movement down and negotiate a surrender. Scargill and the NUM stuck with it to the bitter end, throwing everything they had at the dispute. But the French labour bureaucracy never had any intention of taking such a stance, because a large part of the bureaucracy doesn't fundamentally object to the reforms, while other elements didn't want to continue to strike against the measure once it became law. Thus, they have taken the opportunity of the law being passed to organise a slowing down of the movement and a gradual retreat. This is having an obvious and very palpable effect on the rate and duration of strike actions, with many going back to work. But the labour movement in France has a history of ignoring the leadership, which was what proved so decisive in 1995, and that is a debate that by all accounts is taking place in the movement. It is unwise to prejudge the outcome of this struggle before the dust has settled, and certainly wrong to write it down as an historic defeat on the scale of the miners' strike in Britain. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer, blogger and PhD candidate Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book 1: http://www.versobooks.com/books/307-the-liberal-defence-of-murder Book 2: http://www.zero-books.net/obookssite/book/detail/1107/The-Meaning-of-David-Cameron 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] Christopher Hitchens: Islamophobia is a fake term
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 25/08/2010 16:26, Louis Proyect wrote: Toxic to the bitter end: http://www.slate.com/id/2264770/ Cancer is a fake disease. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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] List of democides
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 31/05/2010 21:28, dan wrote: OK, the position of the French left has always been to condemn Israel. This was also the position of the former USSR (although it did originally support the creation of Israel). That's absolutely flatly false. The USSR supported the creation of Israel and only later came into conflict with Israel's regional ambitions. Until 1967, the French Left was overwhelmingly pro-Israel. This was tied with its pro-empire policies, as Israel was seen as a reliable opponent of nationalism in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morrocco. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/05/2010 01:39, brad wrote: Everyone should read for themselves either the full article or my quotes below, which unlike Richards don't seek to completely distort the whole argument of the article (fucking wow, Richard). The trouble with your quotes is that a) I don't disagree with them, and b) they don't contradict what I said. The Labour Party is a party of the working class, a part of the labour movement, and as such is profoundly affected by any class struggle that takes place. This is what I claimed, and this is what Panitch claimed. I am fully in agreement with the Milibandian critique of the Labour Party, but if you think that it says that Labour is not a party of the working class in the sense that I've just outlined, then you just haven't been reading closely. Even your own cited articles underline the point again and again. This is how Panitch discusses the Labour Party in the 1988 article you cite: ...a social democratic working-class party like Labour In the Ralph Miliband article from 1976 which you cite, 'Moving On', he repeatedly affirms that Labour is indeed the party of the working class (using the definite article where I would not). The basis of his objection to Labourism is above all that it is not *socialist*, not that Labour is not a working class party. Indeed, the Milibandian critique of Labourism nowhere objects to the basic sociological description of the Labour Party as a party of the working class, but consistently reaffirms it, and your own preferred sources prove it. Now can you please engage with the arguments and cease with this boring pedantry? -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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] Lenin's Tomb on the British vote
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/05/2010 02:08, Jim Farmelant wrote: I have said here several times that I see little difference between the British Labour Party as it currently exists and the Democratic Party in the US. Despite the gret differences in the histories of the two parties, they have pretty much ended up in the same place politically and they perform similar functions in the British and American political systems, respectively. Just as much of the American readical left still retains illusions in the Democrats, most of the British radical left retains illusions in the Labout Party, except that British leftists seem to be much stubbornly committed to their illusions than their American counterparts, who at least realize that the Democrats are a capitalist party. Taking such a patronising, supercilious attitude to others on the Left who happen to disagree with you is not a productive way to proceed. The Labour Party is not like the Democratic Party, however much the Blairites wished to make it so. That the Labour Party is led by reactionaries, that it has consistently pursued pro-capitalist policies from inception to miserable denouement, that it has an imperialist streak a mile wide, and that it is not a socialist party in any sense, is not something I would wish to deny. But the gret [sic] differences in the histories of the two parties are not merely differences of tradition or background; they are fundamental differences in each party's relationship to the working class, and specifically to the minority of the working class that is active. If Labour was to become like the Democratic Party, it would have to sever all of its trade union links, become almost wholly reliant on membership and corporate donations, and forget about mobilising substantial working class electoral support. As it is, if the Labour Party didn't have the union link, didn't have trade union affiliation fees and donations from the political funds, and didn't have its major basis of support in the working class, it would have been wiped out in the last election. Big difference. There are, as I've said previously, secular trends toward the undermining of Labourism in the working class, and toward the erosion of Labour's relationship to the class from its 1951 zenith. There are also unions such as the PCS and RMT who are not affiliated to Labour and whose leaderships are supportive of possible left-of-Labour alternatives, which would not have been possible only ten years ago. But that does not, I am afraid, mean that Labour is not a working class party, or that the hold of Labourism in the working class has been broken. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/05/2010 01:37, Ron Cohen wrote: In what way those are organic connections? membership? representation in party conferences? participation in branches activities? there are almost none of those. membership dropped to record low, branches are empty, conferences are PR events with very little, if at all, working class participation. the only organic connection, if you may call it that, are TU donations, which are also bitterly opposed by the members - e.g. the royal mail members of the CWU. Ron, the biggest trade unions are affiliated to the Labour Party on the assent of their members; they are represented at Labour conferences where they have a block vote; they have a third of the vote in leadership contests, alongside members and MPs; the trade unions specifically sponsor a number of Labour MPs; they have representation on the NEC; and the fact is that if the members of the CWU or any other union wish to disaffiliate from the Labour Party and stop donating their money, all they have to do is vote for a resolution at conference to that effect. In 2008, eg, the CWU did debate disaffiliaton and democratising the political fund, and both resolutions were defeated. I have said in another message that there are long-term tendencies which are gradually undermining such organic connections. The FBU no longer affiliates to Labour due in large part to Labour's role in betraying the 2002-3 firefighters' strike; the PCS never did affiliate, and its political fund set up in 2005 is specifically not earmarked for Labour; and the RMT was booted out of Labour in 2004. But these are among the smaller unions. Unite, Unison, GMB, Aslef and a total of 15 of the largest unions still affiliate to Labour. The majority of the organised working class is still evidently persuaded that the link with Labour is worth preserving, even when the Labour government is consistently at war with the unions. To refuse to recognise this is to bury your head in the sand. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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] Lenin's Tomb on the British vote
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/05/2010 08:00, Greg McDonald wrote: Huh? The Democratic party doesn't have trade union links? Anyone who pays any attention at all knows that the AFL-CIO is a huge contributor to the Democratic party, and has been for a long time. This is an objective reality. Of course, the rank and file continue to get screwed over such ill-advised attempts of their so-called leadership at out-bribing the corporatists, as the democrats only repay all that cash with false promises and a kick in the teeth. So again, how is that different from the Labour Party? I'm sorry, but that's not the same. A trade union in Britain could easily donate money to the Liberals, but that wouldn't be in any way commensurate with the structured links between Labour and the organised working class. Does Democratic Party depend on the unions? No, about 14% of its funding comes from the unions. Does it depend on working class support? No, largely not, since most of the working class does not vote; of those who do vote for either party, the overwhelming majority have always self-identified as middle class. Does the Democratic Party allow unions to have a block vote at its national conventions? No. Does the Democratic National Committee have union-sponsored members? No. Are there are any Democratic congressional repesentatives or senators who are specifically union-sponsored? No. Would the unions matter in the least when it came to selecting Democratic leadership candidates? No, and certainly nowhere near as much as capital, especially finance capital. At most, the unions are a 'special interest', a lobby group that the Democrats wheel-and-deal with, but have no basis in and no organic structured connections to. Isn't this clear enough? -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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] Lenin's Tomb on the British vote
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/05/2010 09:00, Greg McDonald wrote: Not really. There are structural differences, sure, but the function and the end result is the same--namely, to neuter the working class. I'm by no means an expert on Britlander electoral politics, but seems to me you're fetishizing these structural linkages. BTW, I can call myself a Martian, just like a worker can call himself middle class, but saying so doesn't make it so. Given that your question concerned precisely the structural differences that I outlined, and given that you have now acknowledged that these exist, I don't see how you can pretend to be in any way confused by what I said. There's no question of fetishising structural links. They exist, they matter, they account significantly for the hegemony of Labourism in the British working class movement - that is all. That doesn't mean the party is a socialist party, or that it doesn't constantly end up battling its own base to secure the priorities of capital accumulation. The Milibandian critique of Labour is absolutely correct on this. But it is a working class party, it is where the working class is organised, it is part of the labour movement, and as such manifestations of class struggle do have a profound effect in and on the party. This makes a difference to how socialists should relate to the Labour Party, and not to recognise this is a sectarian mistake. Regarding class self-ID, of course these measurements are far from perfect, but as Vanneman and Cannon point out in their study, /The American Perception of Class/, most American workers have a realistic conception of class, and their self-identifications overlap considerably with their position in the relations of production. On top of that, it is also reasonably well known that non-voters in the US tend to be poorer and lack higher education, which are proxies for class. Hence, my pointing out that elections are boycotted by millions of working class voters, the majority of whom have probably never cast a vote for the Democrats, much less joined the party or affiliated through a union. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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] Lenin's Tomb on the British vote
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 10/05/2010 13:09, S. Artesian wrote: comrade Seymour is engaged in much more than theoretical contemplation. In response to a direct question he replied that he thought he had made it clear-- a liberal-labor coalition would be the best or least destructive outcome. I call that supporting an alliance with the bourgeoisie. And I call that preposterous pedantry. The question of how one intervenes in parliamentary politics is a strategic one as far as working class realpolitik is concerned. There are three options here: a Lib-Con government; a Tory minority government; and a Lab-Lib government. The first two options have the disadvantage of placing the party of industrial and financial capital in executive power. The latter would place a party with organic links to and roots in the working class movement in executive power. As a consequence of this, and of its weak mandate, its ability to impose an emergency budget of swift, deep cuts - deeper than Thatcher, remember - would be limited. Thus, I think that on balance a Lab-Lib pact would be the best of the options before us. A Tory minority government has its upsides, but I don't believe it would have any difficulty getting its emergeny budget passed, as the Liberals would then be tacit - as opposed to explicit - coalition partners. Now, if your worry is about supporting an alliance with the bourgeoisie (whatever that means - in sociological terms, it would be more accurate to describe it as an alliance between a party of the working class and a party of the middle class that has recently made encroachments on the working class), then you have to outline the alternative. Explain what would be the superior option with respect to frustrating the attack on the working class that is now on the way. If you can't explain that, then you're simply engaging in worthless sloganising, a dogmatic caricature of marxist politics that is deservedly of marginal import. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 10/05/2010 17:55, Dan wrote: I am reminded of Alice in Wonderland when I read such comments as the Labour party is a party of the working class whereas the Lib Dems is a party of the Middle Class. Labour a party of the working class ? What a bizarre statement ... NOBODY in England, in the streets at least, would ever make the claim that New Labour is a party of the working class. It is just one of the two parties competing for our votes. The trouble with this assertion is that it is not based in any way whatsoever on an objective analysis of the structure, membership and voting base of the Labour Party. It's just an extravagant claim. That, not its policies at any given moment, was always the basis for the determination that it was a capitalist workers' party. And if you think that nobody in England (or Scotland and Wales, presumably), would claim that Labour is a party of the working class, then you simply haven't been paying attention to the fact that working class people in their millions still vote for Labour, and that trade unions still affiliate to it, and that trade unionists still go on the stump for Labour. And when you say that big business financed all of Labour's election campaigns, that's not entirely true. Big business donated lots of money to Labour when it was winning: they like to back a winner, the better to gain influence. Truth be told, they've always done this - capital rallied behind the Labour Party before Blair was leader and before New Labour had even been heard of. But the biggest donors remain the unions, and in the 2010 election, Labour could not have mobilised over 8 million - overwhelmingly working class - votes if it were not for the decisive donations of Unite, Unison, et al. Contrary to the wishes of the Blairites, the union link hasn't been broken, and New Labour has never been able to become a party of the liberal wing of the capitalist class modelled on the Democrats. If you really want to understand New Labour's tortuous relationship with organised labour, and the gymnastics it has had to engage in to keep the unions on board, I recommend David Coates' Prolonged Labour (2005), which is by far the best analysis of the New Labour project in government. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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] New Labour
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 10/05/2010 18:27, Bill Stephens wrote: is the bureaucracy of the trade union movement in britain working class? aren't they middle class, part of the managerial class? I think this is better as an analogy than as a literal description. Union leaders have middle class incomes and a certain amount of status and social power, but they're not middle class in the usual sense - they don't exert social power over workers without also being subject to workers power themselves. The managerial middle class is in *no way* accountable to the working class, subject to democratic elections, vulnerable to no confidence motions, etc. Their decisions don't have to be ratified, and their power is derived exclusively from the capitalist class. This isn't true of union leaders and for that reason I would hesitate to classify them simply as part of the managerial middle class. At any rate, and somewhat more to the point, I wasn't solely talking about the union bureaucracy. Union members decide, ultimately, how their political fund is used; they also ultimately decide how unions vote within Labour on particular policies, leaders, etc. They have a collaborative input, from the shop floor to the conference. Of course there is room for all sorts of backroom deals, manoeuvering and sell-outs, and I certainly don't want to exaggerate the real level of democracy in trade unions, but in the *last analysis* the relationship between the Labour Party constitutes an organic connection between party and class. That this is subject to secular deterioration and may finally result in a complete severance doesn't alter the fact that in the present Labour is a party /of /the working class, based /in/ the working class. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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 John Rees's crew been reading the Unrepentant Marxist?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/04/2010 23:06, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == From Rees's How to start a new left wing group: the rules: Avoid the words socialist, communist, Marxist, workers and Party when coining your group's name. It is the 21st century. full: http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/blogs/66-luna17-activist/4573-how-to-start-a-new-left-wing-group-the-rules Just to be clear, that was written by a Newcastle-based member of the /Counterfire/ group named Alex Snowdon rather than by John Rees himself. It appears on /Rees's Pieces/ (/Counterfire/'s cognomenclature in the UK), I suspect, because the site features almost everything written on its' members blogs. To answer your question, it may be that Alex read your blog, and decided to take that advice. However, I suspect what is more likely is that he is making fun of how ridiculous new sects look when they take to rationalising a series of choices forced on them by circumstances beyond their control, and then offere these as a series of pat 'rules' that anyone forming a new leftist group can follow. Hence, dropping newspapers only makes sense if you don't have a grassroots network or a trade union base - otherwise it's actually not possible to build an active membership without the face-to-face interaction that paper sales provide. Having a sense of perspective about how tiny you are is only comforting if your membership is not much above sixty - usually, having a sense of perspective entails being realistic about your capacities, not soothing one's soul about the poverty of said capacities. Rediscovering the ABC of your tradition and not slagging off the party you've just left is only appropriate if you have just left a party and wish to stake a claim to its tradition (cf Lindsey German's summation of the principles of said tradition: bending the stick, seizing the key link in the chain and the polemic), while at the same time constantly slagging off the party you've just left in thinly veiled terms for having abandoned said tradition. Avoiding the words socialist, workers etc is only appropriate if either a) the group you intend to set up has nothing to do with revolutionary socialism, or b) you believe that people who might be put off by mention of socialism can be deceived into joining a marxist group. The rest is just filler, and ruins what is otherwise a very witty satire on the grandiose delusions of grand-standing personality cults. He should have called it Hot Sects! Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the RCP. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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 John Rees's crew been reading the Unrepentant Marxist?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/04/2010 14:26, Louis Proyect wrote: It all depends. In the late 1800s, socialism was a mass movement that millions of workers identified with, even if they never held membership. By the 1940s, this had changed fundamentally. Workers either viewed themselves as Communist, with all the problems this involved. Or they viewed themselves as socialists in the reformist tradition. Tiny groups vying for their allegiance called themselves socialist (or communist) as well but *never recruited large numbers of workers*. So the basic raison d'etre for launching a new socialist formation of this sort was never fulfilled. The reason Camejo explored the idea of dumping the old vocabulary was to force radicals to rethink how they connected to the masses. He followed up the North Star Network with activity in the Green Party, which for a brief time could have functioned as a pole of attraction for Marxists in the U.S., just as Die Linke does in Germany or other such groups in Europe. I think such formations will play an increasingly important role until the workers are ready in massive numbers to join a revolutionary organization that looks nothing like the self-declared vanguard parties of today. That is not to say that self-declared vanguard formations cannot play a useful role today. They do. But they are constitutionally incapable of breaking through their own self-imposed sectarian glass ceiling. Sure, but there's a difference between the question of how radicals relate to the masses and how revolutionaries should do so. I'm in favour of forming broader groups that could be called any number of things. They certainly don't have to say 'socialist', or 'workers', or 'communist', or 'hammer' in their name. I was in a group that called itself 'Respect' for Christs' sake. And I agree with your basic point that such broad radical left formations will be important in the medium term, for much the reasons that you lay out. But within such formations, there will be revolutionaries of various kinds, perhaps organised as either a faction or a party. It is important that they are open about their politics - if they take their politics seriously, that is. The sentence in Snowdon's article that we're discussing rejected the use of the language of socialism in a left-wing group's name on the grounds that it is the 21st Century. Well, yes it is. But the language of socialism does not inherently limit one's appeal, it isn't itself any more dated than the language of liberalism or conservatism (a lot less so) and it isn't what has held socialists back. The Scottish Socialist Party, eg, was not destroyed because it called itself socialist, but because it tore itself apart overt a Murdoch media witch-hunt. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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 John Rees's crew been reading the Unrepentant Marxist?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/04/2010 14:37, Louis Proyect wrote: It’s quite obvious really – why give yourself a name that sounds very old-fashioned when you are new and looking to the future? And why choose a name that sounds like every little left-wing group there’s ever been? *shrugs*... I mean, really, Louis. Who /isn't/ looking to the future? Do you know anyone who explicitly says they're looking to the past? Or who claims to want to imitate the failures of the past? Doesn't every politician in the world castigate the past relentlessly? Tired solutions, thereof. Failed remedies, thereof. Outmoded ideas, thereof. The future, by contrast, is just as glam as can be. The Idiot's Guide to PR surely has a section all of its own about how marvellous and estimable the future really is. It's just like someone saying they oppose the bad and admire the good. It's platitudinous public relations twaddle, designed to simulate openness, reflectiveness, and new thinking. More to the point, the name doesn't make the difference in this respect. What the name does is concisely communicate the nature of one's politics. It doesn't prevent one from being stuck in a time-warp, it doesn't differentiate one from Bob Avakian's gang, it doesn't stop one from being dogmatic, and it doesn't stop one from circling the drain just like previous sects. And, again, the idea that calling oneself a socialist is inherently more dated than calling oneself conservative or liberal or social democratic or Christian Democratic (etc etc etc.) is trite. No offence to my ex-comrades, but for all the emphasis they have placed on dynamism, verve and various cognate terms, I am even less impressed by the quality of their current strategic thinking than I was when they were still comrades to man. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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 John Rees's crew been reading the Unrepentant Marxist?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/04/2010 15:53, Louis Proyect wrote: I am not talking about their ideology, obviously. I am talking about their understanding of Leninism. Well, quite. But I wasn't talking about ideology either - I was speaking of culture, organisation and ways of relating to others. You infer from your experience of the SWP US things about the SWP UK, but these inferences - so I was explaining - aren't valid. If the SWP US are obsessed with revolutionary continuity, whatever that is, it doesn't follow that those of us on the other side of the Atlantic who happen to use the same name, are. It just doesn't consume us in the way that you suggested. John Molyneux, The authentic Marxist tradition The authentic Marxist tradition is not difficult to identify. It runs, from Marx and Engels ... And yet, strange to relate, this assertion does not entail that the SWP UK is the sole true bearer of the marxist tradition (note the definite article), which is the caricature upon which I originally commented. What is the purpose of the cited essay? In a nutshell, it is to distinguish marxism from Stalinism - a reasonable point, I would have thought. Since there are those who castigate marxism as an inherently totalitarian doctrine, as one that leads to dictatorship and terror wherever it is applied, Molyneux recalls that there is a better tradition, of socialism from below, which is closer to the original intent of the First Internationalists, much of the Second International, the early Bolsheviks, and the minority of marxists who rejected Stalinism since its inception. That the SWP argues that this is closer to both the letter and spirit of marxism than the scholastic pseudo-scientific official discourses of the USSR, for example, hardly amounts to the erection of a sectarian party line. That it also wishes to situate itself among that minority tradition is, again, not an argument for revolutionary purity. It is not a small matter that marxism became associated with a grotesque tyranny and its epigones, and it is not unimportant, petty or sectarian to take issue with that. The only basis on which it is possible to do so is to examine the concrete history of marxist ideas and movements as they developed, from Marx onward, and to offer an explanation as to what went wrong - which is what Molyneux was doing. Possibly, marxists should stop doing this, dump it all as so much junk, but that does mean abandoning any idea of rebutting anticommunist anathema and keeping marxist ideas relevant. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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 John Rees's crew been reading the Unrepentant Marxist?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 12/04/2010 16:58, Louis Proyect wrote: Yeah, that's a problem, however. If there is Stalinism in Cuba, something I heard on almost a daily basis from Kevin Murphy, the batty winner of the Isaac Deutscher Prize a couple of years ago, then I am a Stalinist. In fact, he used to call me Koba, the lovely chap. Well, Kevin Murphy is a scholar who has worked hard to arrive at his understanding of Stalinism, not least with his /Revolution and Counterrevolution: Class Struggle in a Moscow Metal Factory/. I don't think him at all batty, regardless of how uncivil he might have been to you in the past. Here's the substantive issue. It's not a minor principle of marxism that the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class. This happens to be fundamental. But, according to the SWP (UK), even Trotsky didn't take that point to its logical conclusion in his analysis of the USSR. Now, there is no way that the SWP regards Trotsky as somehow external to the authentic marxist tradition. Similarly, I would argue that you are wrong to describe Cuba as a socialist society, and that to see it as such is inconsistent with the basic principle that for there to be a socialist society, the working class has to be in power. But it doesn't follow that the state caps want to have you ex-communicated from the marxist tradition. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml 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
