[Marxism-Thaxis] Freedom: from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom

[Charles Brown]

 
The concept of necessity appears again
in Engels famous distinction between the
kingdom (realm) of necessity and the
kingdom of freedom. The transition from
one to the other marks the end of class
divided and exploitive society to communism.

The terms and idea here is based on Hegel
famous notion that freedom is the mastery 
of necessity. The freedom in communist 
society is based on humans mastering
their own social structure in the sense
that exploiting classes no longer are
able to exploit exploited classes by
conditioning provision of basic necessities or
meeting biological and physiological needs,
upon exploited classes serving up
material surpluses to the exploiting
classes. As Engels says in the quote
below, "
 
"And he has now
> become master of his own social 
> organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto
> standing 
> face-to-face with man as laws of 
> Nature foreign to, and dominating 
> him, will then be used with full understanding, and so
> mastered by 
> him."

He was mastered by his/her own social 
organization before by the existence
of Masters,rulers who exploited "him
and her".

The masses of women and men master
the Masters who were imposing necessity
on the many, controlling them by
conditioning proviision of their necessities
on the giving of surpluses, as discussed
at length in the last few posts. This is the specific
necessity that is mastered by the masses
and the specific character of the freedom
of this "kingdom of freedom".

The science that comprehends and intellectually
masters the peculiar
complex of necessity in exploitative society
(the kingdom of necessity)
is the science of historical materialism, Marxism.

Once it successfully leads revolution to world
socialism and communism, it makes its own
subject matter - exploitative societies of 
all types, especially in the final conflict
capitalism = obsolete, kaput, thrown in
the dustbin of history. Like the proletariat
ending all classes including itself, historical
materialism and its practice self-abolishes.
The kingdom of freedom will have a new art
 of society, which will be less a science. 
The system of thought that guides action
in the realm of freedom  will have a 
heavier proportion of idealism rather than
materialism (science), because, as I 
say above the artificially imposed necessity
of class society will be no longer imposed
The freedom of communism will in part be
that ideas, thought, human will, conscious planning
rather than material necessity will guide
action and activities. Humans will be able
to do what they will and want, that is
be free.


On Sat, 2/14/09, Charles Brown  wrote:

> From: Charles Brown 
> Subject: kingdom of necessity
> To: cdb1003 at prodigy.net
> Date: Saturday, February 14, 2009, 8:31 PM
> From Anti-Duhring
> 
> With the seizing of the means of production 
> by society, production of 
> commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the
> mastery of the 
> product over the producer. Anarchy in 
> social production is replaced by 
> systematic, definite organization. The struggle for
> individual 
> existence disappears. Then, for the 
> first time, man, in a certain 
> sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal
> kingdom, and 
> emerges from mere animal conditions
> of existence into really human 
> ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which
> environ man, 
> and which have hitherto ruled man, 
> now comes under the dominion and 
> control of man, who for the first time becomes the real,
> conscious 
> lord of nature, because he has now
> become master of his own social 
> organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto
> standing 
> face-to-face with man as laws of 
> Nature foreign to, and dominating 
> him, will then be used with full understanding, and so
> mastered by 
> him. Man's own social organization, 
> hitherto confronting him as a 
> necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the
> result of his 
> own free action. The extraneous 
> objective forces that have, hitherto, 
> governed history,pass under the control of man himself.
> Only from that 
> time will man himself, more and 
> more consciously, make his own history 
> — only from that time will the social causes set in
> movement by him 
> have, in the main and in a constantly 
> growing measure, the results 
> intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom
> of necessity 
> to the kingdom of freedom



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[Marxism-Thaxis] Insert for Locus of material necessity in human society and history

[Charles Brown]

I didn't finish these thoughts in what I posted

CB

The Second Thesis on Feuerbach -
the test of theory is practice -
is also rooted in or expresses
the determination of ideas by
material practice, "practical-
critical , revolutionary,activity"
(from the First Thesis on Feuerbach)
Theory, a system of ideas, is 
proven true or changed when it
is used to guide material practice
in both "physics" and "economics".
Social theory or ideology that
guides real practice gives rise
to contradictions that react back
to change the theory, "disprove"it,
if it  contradicts material necessity
even if only in the long run as in
human history. Theb proof of the
pudding is in the eating. The disproof
of capitalism's theory or ideology,
is in the continuous immiseration of
masses and the periodic crises, 
wars and pollution.




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[Marxism-Thaxis] Derivatives

[Charles Brown]

Derivatives

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2009w06/msg00016.htm

by Warren E Buffett, Chairman and CEO

>From the Chairman's Letter of the 2002 Annual Report of Berkshire
Hathaway Incorporated. "Charlie" is Mr Buffet's partner, Charles T
Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire.


Charlie and I are of one mind in how we feel about derivatives and the
trading activities that go with them: We view them as time bombs, both
for the parties that deal in them and the economic system.


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[Marxism-Thaxis] kingdoms of necessity and freedom

[Charles Brown]

--- On Sat, 2/14/09, Charles Brown  wrote:

> From: Charles Brown 
> Subject: kingdom of necessity
> To: cdb1...@prodigy.net
> Date: Saturday, February 14, 2009, 8:31 PM
> From Anti-Duhring
> 
> With the seizing of the means of production 
> by society, production of 
> commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the
> mastery of the 
> product over the producer. Anarchy in 
> social production is replaced by 
> systematic, definite organization. The struggle for
> individual 
> existence disappears. Then, for the 
> first time, man, in a certain 
> sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal
> kingdom, and 
> emerges from mere animal conditions
> of existence into really human 
> ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which
> environ man, 
> and which have hitherto ruled man, 
> now comes under the dominion and 
> control of man, who for the first time becomes the real,
> conscious 
> lord of nature, because he has now
> become master of his own social 
> organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto
> standing 
> face-to-face with man as laws of 
> Nature foreign to, and dominating 
> him, will then be used with full understanding, and so
> mastered by 
> him. Man's own social organization, 
> hitherto confronting him as a 
> necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the
> result of his 
> own free action. The extraneous 
> objective forces that have, hitherto, 
> governed history,pass under the control of man himself.
> Only from that 
> time will man himself, more and 
> more consciously, make his own history 
> — only from that time will the social causes set in
> movement by him 
> have, in the main and in a constantly 
> growing measure, the results 
> intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom
> of necessity 
> to the kingdom of freedom

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[Marxism-Thaxis] Locus of material necessity in human society and history

[Charles Brown]

This is a reworking and expansion of a thesis I have been
developing on Thaxis

Charles

Materialism, Necessity and Freedom: Rehearsal of the Fundamentals of Marxism




By the
_Manifesto of the Communist Party_ every
Marxist knows the A,B,C's of historical materialism or the materialist
conception of
history. The history of  hitherto existing society, since the breaking
up of the
ancient communes, is a history of class struggles between oppressor and
oppressed.
Classes are groups that associate in a division of labor to produce
their material
means of existence. Why are class struggles fundamental in determining
the whole of society's laws and rules, it's 
history and culture, the
"super-structure" ?

Because exploited classes are coerced into producing 
surpluses for
exploiting classes by making supply of the physiological necessities of
life to the exploited classes conditional upon 
their producing those
surpluses. Not only do exploited classes produce the physiological and
derivative material necessities of life for 
society , but they are
denied the fruits of their labor unless they supply the bosses, the
ruling classes with super fruits.

Ruling class coerce this exploitation by
control of the state power or special
repressive apparatus

   In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels implied this 
elementary
anthropological or "human natural" rationale for this conception of
class relations determining substantially
 the shape of society as a
whole. In a section titled
"History: Fundamental Conditions, they say:
   "*life involves before everything else eating and
drinking,
   a habitation, clothing and many other things.  The first
historical
   act is thus the production of material life itself.  And
indeed this
   is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all
history, which
   today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly
be
   fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life."

  Production and economic classes are the starting point of
Marxist analysis
of  human society because human life, like all plant and animal life
must fulfill
biological needs to exist as life at all. It is an appeal to biologic
(which I
support, all of the anti-vulgar materialist critiques to the contrary
notwithstanding,
but that's my other paper).  Whatever humans do that is "higher" than
plants and
animals, we cannot do if we do not first fulfill or plant/animal like
needs, physiological necessities.

Marx and Engels define scientific analysis as
tracing the materially or objectively _necessary_ connections in a
phenomenon. Thus, the scientific understanding
of human society must be based in the materially
necessary connections of human society. Fulfillment
of physiological or biological requirments are
the materially necessary "connections" for
humans.

These biological necessary connections exist
in all human societies. But it is only in'
class divided society that , as said above,
surpluses are extorted from exploited classes
by ruling classes by employment and threat of
deployment of the 
forces of destruction and violenced, standing bodies of armed
men , against the exploited 
and ruled classes less
they disgorge the surplus fruits of their labor to
the ruling classes.

For not only is supply of food, shelter, air
etc. biologically and materially necessary
for living. The _absence_ of being killed or
bodily harmed by armed men is materially necessary
to live. Thus, the mode of destruction is as central
to the necessary connections of human society as
the mode of production. The mode of destruction as
critical in ruling class coercion and extortion
of the ruled classes is a mode of necessity in
human society and history. 

Thus the mode of necessity in human society
consists in both the mode of production and
the mode of destruction.

On Materialism ( speaking of Mao),
 there are two levels of
 the relationship between 
thought and being: 
"economics" and "physics". 
While society remains in 
the Realm (or kingdom) of Necessity ,
society during its class divided history,
 ruling classes control 
masses by conditioning 
fulfillment of the _material_
needs of the exploited 
classes on the exploited 
classes ' producing surpluses
 for the ruling , exploiting 
classes. The materialism
 (determinism by the material)
 at this level derives from
 the coercive use of conditional
 provision of material needs. 
In all societies, including 
those in the Realm (kingdom of Freedom
 ( socialist, communist future
 and ancient) , all people 
must , of course, "obey" 
the laws of physics, 
chemistry, biology, 
physiology, objective 
reality etc. "physics", in 
the general sense. 




 The "higher" (cultural, semiotic. super-structrual, social
conditioning traditions, "super-natural,
 aesthetic, artistic etc.) human
activities are limited or negatively determined ( See Marshall Sahlins'
_Culture and Practical Reason_ on 
biologi

[Marxism-Thaxis] socialism icon needed

[Charles Brown]

Ralph Dumain  


Aside from the hammer-and-sickle, and photos of Marx or other iconic 
figures, what other emblem of socialism can you think of?

^^^
CB: The color red.

  red flag



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[Marxism-Thaxis] Douglass and Feuerbach

[Charles Brown]

Ralph D:
And here's an atheist treat:

Letter to Ludwig Feuerbach from Ottilie Assing about Frederick Douglass
http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/dougls1.html

^
CB: Cool , Ralph !


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[Marxism-Thaxis] from the kingdom of necessity

[Charles Brown]

From Anti-Duhring

With the seizing of the means of production 
by society, production of 
commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the 
product over the producer. Anarchy in 
social production is replaced by 
systematic, definite organization. The struggle for individual 
existence disappears. Then, for the 
first time, man, in a certain 
sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and 
emerges from mere animal conditions
 of existence into really human 
ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, 
and which have hitherto ruled man, 
now comes under the dominion and 
control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious 
lord of nature, because he has now
 become master of his own social 
organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing 
face-to-face with man as laws of 
Nature foreign to, and dominating 
him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by 
him. Man's own social organization, 
hitherto confronting him as a 
necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his 
own free action. The extraneous 
objective forces that have, hitherto, 
governed history,pass under the control of man himself. Only from that 
time will man himself, more and 
more consciously, make his own history 
— only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him 
have, in the main and in a constantly 
growing measure, the results 
intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity 
to the kingdom of freedom.


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[Marxism-Thaxis] Why is history a history of class struggles ? Critique of Althusser

[Charles Brown]

Charles Brown 
Althusser says:

"In 1845, Marx broke radically with every 
theory that based history and politics on an 
essence of man. This unique rupture contained 
three indissociable elements. 

(1) The formation of a theory of history and 
politics based on radically new concepts: the 
concepts of social formation, productive forces, 
relations of production, superstructure, ideologies,
 determination in the last instance by the economy, 
specific determination of the other levels, etc. 

(2) A radical critique of the theoretical 
pretensions of every philosophical humanism. 

(3) The definition of humanism as an ideology. "


^
CB: By at least 1848 with the _Manifesto 
of the 
Communist Party_, we can infer that 
Marx has 
relocated the essence of humans , 
his humanism in Althusser's sense, 
in human labor. 

^
CB: However, Althusser does _not_
say what I am saying here about 1848
and Marx relocating human essence
in human labor.

^^

This is in part 
the reason that
 history is a history of class 
struggles. For 
exploitation of labor triggers a 
human instinct in 
exploited laborers to  recover 
and enjoy all 
the fruits of their labor, 
appropriate all the 
products of their work. History 
progesses
as exploited laborers win victories
 restructuring 
the immense
superstructure with each revolution.


CB: Althusser doesn't say this , though.
I do.

^^

Althusser's claim that Marx's radical
new theory is scientific is correct
because the new theory deals with
_necessary_ connections in human
society. Labor is necessary for
human life.

Capital I: "So far therefore as 
labour is a creator 
of use value, is useful labour, it is a 
necessary condition, independent of all forms of 
society, for the existence of the human race; 
it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity, 
without which there can be no material exchanges 
between man and Nature, and therefore no life. "





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[Marxism-Thaxis] Marxism and Humanism; Laborious Humanism

[Charles Brown]

CB: In Althusser's terms, 

^^^
CB: As far as I know, Althusser
doesn't say what I say below. It
is an extension, by me, of Althusser's
basic argument in his famous essay
beyond what he says. I believe Althusser
concludes that there is no "humanism"
in the mature Marx. I am disagreeing
with Althusser , a sort of negation of
his negating humanism in Marx

^^^

the mature Marx significantly 
relocates humanism and essentialism, philosophical 
anthropology  to human labor in that it is a main
 source of value; and there is a sense of human 
essence in the abstract equality of all abstract 
human labor. It's "homogeneous" and "uniform". It "exists in the 
organism of every ordinary individual."
It's "human labour pure and simple. ", "identically 
abstract" ( and abstractly identical", "human labor 
generally"


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[Marxism-Thaxis] Frederick Douglass (14 Feb 1818 – 20 Feb 1895)

[Ralph Dumain]

Happy birthday & Valentine's Day . . .

Fred was born the same year as Marx and died the same year as Engels.

Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

And here's an atheist treat:

Letter to Ludwig Feuerbach from Ottilie Assing about Frederick Douglass
http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/dougls1.html


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[Marxism-Thaxis] from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom of freedom

[Charles Brown]

From Anti-Duhring

With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of 
commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the 
product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by 
systematic, definite organization. The struggle for individual 
existence disappears. Then, for the first time, man, in a certain 
sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and 
emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human 
ones. The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, 
and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and 
control of man, who for the first time becomes the real, conscious 
lord of nature, because he has now become master of his own social 
organization. The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing 
face-to-face with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating 
him, will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by 
him. Man's own social organization, hitherto confronting him as a 
necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the result of his 
own free action. The extraneous objective forces that have, hitherto, 
governed history,pass under the control of man himself. Only from that 
time will man himself, more and more consciously, make his own history 
— only from that time will the social causes set in movement by him 
have, in the main and in a constantly growing measure, the results 
intended by him. It is the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity 
to the kingdom of freedom.

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[Marxism-Thaxis] The Jewishness of Jews Without Money

[Charles Brown]

http://www.jbooks.com/interviews/index/IP_Buhle_Gold.htm
The Jewishness of Jews Without Money
By PAUL BUHLE

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of 
the 1996 edition of Jews Without 
Money (originally published in 1930) was 
how the political wrangling of 
the past had slipped into history, leaving
 behind one of the most 
magnificent of Jewish-American sagas. Alfred 
Kazin’s introduction to the 
new edition almost skipped over Michael Gold’s better-known reputation 
as polemicist for the Daily Worker and 
its literary counterparts through 
some thick and much thin, all the way to Gold’s death in 1967. Jews 
Without Money had been written as 
Gold’s own personal story of Jewish 
slum life with a heroic-political ending as brief and irrelevant as the 
ending of a Hollywood melodrama. 
The real thing was the rest of the saga.

And what a saga! The Yiddish short-story
 writer and dramatist Leon 
Kobrin became known, mainly by virtue of his stories in the Forverts, as 
the “Jewish Zola,” chronicler of misery 
and impoverishment. If the 
sobriquet had not already been earned, Gold would have had the best 
claim. Original Sin is not the problem 
of the Lower East Side 
inhabitants; poverty sinks into every corpuscle of their collective 
blood. The Sin is real, but it belongs
 to the bullies and the braggarts. 
Generations before Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors roasted the 
hypocritical figures among the 
Jewish-American arrivistes, Gold 
lacerated the diamond-wearing matrons, the slum lords, the sweatshop 
kings, and others who had scant mercy 
for their own people (and wanted 
to be accepted by the Gentiles, preferably rich Gentiles, more than 
anything).

Not all the villains were Jews, by 
any means. Gold was keen on the Irish 
cops of New York who took pride in drawing blood with their clubs at any 
Jewish labor activity, especially 
if they could bash a young radical 
woman. He took in the others, boxers to politicians, who were part of 
Jewish life but not of it. But Gold 
was more interested in human 
consequences. In one of his famous phrases, “America is so rich and fat, 
because it has eaten the tragedy of 
millions of immigrants.”

Gold wrote, in his own introduction to the 
book, that he could not 
accept America’s gods because he had his own idol: his mother. If this 
sounds amazingly saccharine for an avowed 
atheist and revolutionary, it 
is nevertheless the deepest sentiment in the novel and the one that 
rings the truest after all these years.
 A wife: a “buttinski” and 
reformer, self-sacrificing for anyone in trouble, literal midwife for 
home births, defender of neighbors threatened 
by drunken husbands, also 
proud to be Jewish in no small part because antisemitism showed how low 
and animalistic the haters were—all this 
thanks to a marriage broker. 
Jewish also because the memory of Europe, the relatives left behind in 
Europe, one might suggest the 800 years of 
Yiddishkayt, was inextricably 
part of her sense of family and self. What would a Jew be without that 
memory, or the generosity of spirit toward 
the poor that his mother 
represented?

Jews Without Money, the testimony of Michael 
Granich aka Mike Gold, is 
alive as long as Jewish-American immigrant history plays a vivid role in 
collective memory—and that shows no sign of 
dissipating. For all Gold’s 
particularities, it’s certain that the election of Barack Obama with the 
overwhelmingly enthusiastic support of Jewish 
voters is one more 
reminder that if poverty is the real sin, reform offers redemption. Mike 
Gold knew it a long time ago.

Paul Buhle's latest project is "Yiddishland,"
 a comic-art volume 
collaboration with Harvey Pekar and others. Reprinted with permission 
from the journal Sh'ma (January 2009) as part 
of a larger conversation 
about Jews and Money (www.shma.com).


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[Marxism-Thaxis] Ian Angus on Charles Darwin

[Charles Brown]

Ian Angus on Charles Darwin

http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?p=366


February 6, 2009


Charles Darwin and Materialist Science


*By Ian Angus. *February 12, 2009 is Darwin Day, the 200th anniversary 
of the birth of Charles Darwin. His masterwork,
 /On the Origin of 
Species/, was published 150 years ago, in November 1859, initiating a 
revolution in science that continues to this day.

Although Darwin’s political views were far 
from radical, his insights 
became the central weapons in the battle to establish materialist 
science as the basis for our understanding 
of the world, and contributed 
to the development of Marxism.

Charles Robert Darwin was, to say the 
least, an unlikely revolutionary. 
His father was a prominent physician and wealthy investor; his 
grandfather was Josiah Wedgwood, founder 
of one of the largest 
manufacturing companies in Europe. He could have lived a life of leisure 
— instead he devoted his life to science.

After graduating from Cambridge in 1831,
 22-year-old Charles Darwin 
boarded the British survey ship /HMS Beagle/ as an unpaid naturalist, 
subsidized by his doting father. 
When he returned after five years, he 
had thousands of pages of scientific observations, over 1,500 carefully 
preserved specimens — and growing 
doubts about the dominant scientific 
and religious ideas of his day.

*A heretical conclusion*

At that time, Darwin wrote in his 1861
 introduction to /Origin/, “the 
great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable 
productions, and had been separately 
created.” Biblical literalists and 
deists alike agreed that species were fixed by divine law. Dogs might 
vary in appearance, but dogs don’t 
give birth to cats.

After five years of travel and two years 
of study at home, Darwin came 
to a heretical conclusion: species were not immutable. All animals were 
descended from common ancestors, 
different species resulted from gradual 
changes over millions of years, and God had nothing to do with it.

It is difficult, today, to understand 
how shocking this idea would be to 
the middle and upper classes of Darwin’s time. Religion wasn’t just the 
“opium of the masses”— it gave the wealthy
 moral justification for their 
privileged lives in a world of constant change and gross inequality. The 
world was unfolding according to God’s 
wishes, and anyone who questioned 
that endangered the very fragile social order.

Nevertheless, by the 1830s educated people knew that the /Genesis/ 
creation story couldn’t be literally true.
 The rise of capitalism in the 
1700s had led to booms in mining and canal building: those works exposed 
geological layers and ancient fossils that 
clearly contradicted the idea 
of a recently-created earth.

In the same period, imperialism led to global exploration and the 
discovery of more varieties of plant and animal 
life than any European 
had ever imagined. Why had the Creator been so extravagant? And why, if 
each animal was created separately, were 
their underlying structures so 
similar — why do bats’ wings, whales’ flippers, lions’ paws and human 
hands all contain the same bones?

Many attempts were made to preserve a central 
role for God and creation 
in the face of this evidence. Perhaps the most sophisticated was 
developed in the 1850s by Richard Owen, 
head of natural science at the 
British Museum and inventor of the word “dinosaur.” He argued that all 
animals are variations on ideas — 
“archetypes” — in God’s mind. God 
“foreknew all variations” on those archetypes, and made them real in 
forms that would suit various environments or 
situations over time.

At the opposite end of the philosophical spectrum, the great French 
biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck offered a
 non-religious explanation. He 
proposed that there is a “chain of being,” a ladder of life, with 
single-celled animals at the bottom and 
humans at the top. Nature 
constantly and spontaneously creates new creatures that have an innate 
drive to climb the ladder, becoming more 
complex, or perfect, over time.

As they climb, they also adapt to environmental changes: giraffes have 
long necks because their ancestors had 
to stretch to reach high leaves, 
while fish that live in caves are blind because their ancestors’ vision 
declined as a result of disuse. This 
concept was not central to 
Lamarck’s theory, but “inheritance of acquired characteristics” has 
since become inextricably connected to his name.

*A materialist explanation*

While Lamarck and others just /speculated/ 
that species changed over 
time, Darwin provided convincing /evidence/. More important, he showed 
that it happened by natural processes, 
without any help from gods or 
mysterious progressive forces. That is, his explanation of evolution was 
/materialist/.

In Darwin’s theory, three factors combine 
to create new species: 
variation, inheritance, and natural selection. There are many 
differences between the members of 

[Marxism-Thaxis] WHY THE U.S. STIMULUS PACKAGE IS BOUND TO FAIL

[Charles Brown]

WHY THE U.S. STIMULUS PACKAGE IS BOUND TO FAIL
DAVID HARVEY

Much is to be gained by viewing the contemporary 
crisis as a surface
eruption generated out of deep tectonic shifts in
 the spatio-temporal
disposition of capitalist development. The tectonic 
plates are now
accelerating their motion and the likelihood of
 more frequent and more
violent crises of the sort that have been 
occurring since 1980 or so
will almost certainly increase. The manner, 
form, spatiality and time
of these surface disruptions are almost 
impossible to predict, but
that they will occur with greater frequency 
and depth is almost
certain. The events of 2008 have therefore 
to be situated in the
context of a deeper pattern. Since these 
stresses are internal to the
capitalist dynamic (which does not preclude 
some seemingly external
disruptive event like a catastrophic pandemic 
also occurring), then
what better argument could there be, as Marx 
once put it, "for
capitalism to be gone and to make way for some a
lternative and more
rational mode of production."

I begin with this conclusion since I still 
find it vital to emphasize
if not dramatize, as I have sought to do over 
and over again in my
writings over the years, that failure to 
understand the geographical
dynamics of capitalism or to treat the 
geographical dimension as in
some sense merely contingent or epiphenomenal,
 is to both lose the
plot on how to understand capitalist uneven 
geographical development
and to miss out on possibilities for 
constructing radical
alternatives. But this poses an acute 
difficulty for analysis since we
are constantly faced with trying to distill
 universal principles
regarding the role of the production of 
spaces, places and
environments in capitalism's dynamics, out 
of a sea of often volatile
geographical particularities. So how, then, 
can we integrate
geographical understandings into our theories 
of evolutionary change?
Let us look more carefully at the tectonic shifts.

In November 2008, shortly after the election 
of a new President, the
National Intelligence Council of the United 
States issued its delphic
estimates on what the world would be like 
in 2025. Perhaps for the
first time, a quasi-official body in the 
United States predicted that
by 2025 the United States, while still a 
powerful if not the most
powerful single player in world affairs, 
would no longer be dominant.
The world would be multi-polar and less 
centered and the power of
non-state actors would increase. The report 
conceded that US hegemony
had been fading on and off for some time but 
that its economic,
political and even military dominance was now 
systematically waning.
Above all (and it is important to note that 
the report was prepared
before the implosion of the US and British
 financial systems), "the
unprecedented shift in relative wealth and 
economic power roughly from
West to East now under way will continue."

full: http://grupodapiedade.posterous.com/radical-europe-fwd-moneybanksc


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