[Marxism] Request re ACW, ante-bellum South etc
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Hi, I'm teaching a bunch of 16-18 year old history students and we're looking at the causes and consequences of the American Civil War. We have started looking at the nature of the Southern States pre-war and the nature of US chattel slavery. They need to understand issues like the idea that if the Union had not pressured the South (over things like Lincoln's plan to not expand slavery into new states), slavery might have died out anyway. At this stage I have suggested to them that chattel slavery was more robust and flexible than pre-modern slavery (eg slave owners could hire out their slaves to the railway building companies etc) and that therefor the institution could conceivably have survived a lot longer. I pointed out to them that slave owners could choose to make more "conventional" investment choices but chose to reinvest in slaves and cotton lands as a means of achieving a return - that "unfree" slave labour is different from "unfree" peasant labour in that it can be sold to another slaver where a peasant is bound to the land. I've suggested that in many ways US slavery was a distorted version of capitalism rather than a whole different pre-modern economic system. However I feel a bit out of my depth here and have been improvising a bit. I wonder if anyone could point me to some accessible online resources on this question (and the Civil War issue itself) that I could use. Obviously when we come to the consequences, I'll be looking at reconstruction, the enduring legacy (Jim Crow etc), ongoing loyalty to the Southern flag with all that that suggests, popular culture (music etc). I know there are lots of US people on this list and y'all know about this stuff . . . Thanks in anticipation, John _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Hegel for Marxists made easy
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * The ever-present bane of many Leftists today is the fact that at the core of a good deal of socialist philosophy lies the nearly incomprehensible work of Hegel, the German philosopher whose dialectical system inspired Marx. Lenin’s famous quote about Hegel seems almost like a challenge from beyond the grave akin to Marx’s final thesis on Feurbach. In the proper contexts, Hegel can be an enriching philosophical exercise that helps one better understand the workings of culture and society. In the hands of one who misunderstands these things, perhaps most notably in the instance of vulgar Communists who do not know any better, it is a galling opposites game bearing striking resemblance to Manichean theology. Andy Blunden, an Australian philosopher and writer who is a member of the Marxist Internet Archive has created a new paper that lays out the philosophical genealogy of Marxism in relation to Hegel and provides a level of understanding, in simple English, about Lenin’s famous quote. In his paper Goethe, Hegel, and Marx, he outlines the philosophical genealogy that is essential to grasp when try to tackle this question. Capital Through the Hegelian Looking-Glass describes how Marx used Hegel’s intellectual devices to write his analysis of political economy, delivered in the form of a book review on a volume related to this topic. Blunden was kind enough to sit down for an interview with me where he outlines his finding in terms that are easy to understand. The entire program is 83 minutes. https://rimediacoop.org/2016/05/15/andrew-stewart-from-goethe-to-lenin/ -- Best regards, Andrew Stewart _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: An Old Idea, Revived: Starve Cancer to Death - The New York Times
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (The Sunday NY Times Magazine is devoted to articles on cancer, a topic I have had a fair amount of interest in both politically and scientifically ever since I worked at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in the mid-80s. I recommend the article on Otto Warburg that is focused on his research into the biology of cancer cells and the possibilities of "starving" it from glucose that is essential to its growth. The passage below does not get into the science but it is a fascinating take on Warburg's personality and career.) Born in 1883 into the illustrious Warburg family, Otto Warburg was raised to be a science prodigy. His father, Emil, was one of Germany’s leading physicists, and many of the world’s greatest physicists and chemists, including Albert Einstein and Max Planck, were friends of the family. (When Warburg enlisted in the military during World War I, Einstein sent him a letter urging him to come home for the sake of science.) Those men had explained the mysteries of the universe with a handful of fundamental laws, and the young Warburg came to believe he could bring that same elegant simplicity and clarity to the workings of life. Long before his death, Warburg was considered perhaps the greatest biochemist of the 20th century, a man whose research was vital to our understanding not only of cancer but also of respiration and photosynthesis. In 1931 he won the Nobel Prize for his work on respiration, and he was considered for the award on two other occasions — each time for a different discovery. Records indicate that he would have won in 1944, had the Nazis not forbidden the acceptance of the Nobel by German citizens. That Warburg was able to live in Germany and continue his research throughout World War II, despite having Jewish ancestry and most likely being gay, speaks to the German obsession with cancer in the first half of the 20th century. At the time, cancer was more prevalent in Germany than in almost any other nation. According to the Stanford historian Robert Proctor, by the 1920s Germany’s escalating cancer rates had become a “major scandal.” A number of top Nazis, including Hitler, are believed to have harbored a particular dread of the disease; Hitler and Joseph Goebbels took the time to discuss new advances in cancer research in the hours leading up to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. Whether Hitler was personally aware of Warburg’s research is unknown, but one of Warburg’s former colleagues wrote that several sources told him that “Hitler’s entourage” became convinced that “Warburg was the only scientist who offered a serious hope of producing a cure for cancer one day.” Although many Jewish scientists fled Germany during the 1930s, Warburg chose to remain. According to his biographer, the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Hans Krebs, who worked in Warburg’s lab, “science was the dominant emotion” of Warburg’s adult life, “virtually subjugating all other emotions.” In Krebs’s telling, Warburg spent years building a small team of specially trained technicians who knew how to run his experiments, and he feared that his mission to defeat cancer would be set back significantly if he had to start over. But after the war, Warburg fired all the technicians, suspecting that they had reported his criticisms of the Third Reich to the Gestapo. Warburg’s reckless decision to stay in Nazi Germany most likely came down to his astonishing ego. (Upon learning he had won the Nobel Prize, Warburg’s response was, “It’s high time.”) http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/magazine/warburg-effect-an-old-idea-revived-starve-cancer-to-death.html _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Was Saudi Arabia behind 9/11? | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://louisproyect.org/2016/05/17/was-saudi-arabia-behind-911/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Translated: “A Discussion Paper on Local Councils in Syria” by the Martyr and Anarchist Comrade, Omar Aziz | Qawem.
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://muqawameh.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/translated-quota-discussion-paper-on-local-councils-in-syriaquot-by-the-martyr-and-comrade-omar-aziz/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Talks from the book launch meeting for Khiyana | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * https://louisproyect.org/2016/05/17/talks-from-the-book-launch-meeting-for-khiyana/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Amazon Proves Infertile Soil for Unions, So Far
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * NY Times, May 17 2016 Amazon Proves Infertile Soil for Unions, So Far By NICK WINGFIELD SEATTLE — In early April, Kellen Wadach, the general manager at Amazon’s warehouse in Middletown, Del., told hundreds of workers at the cavernous facility a troubling story about his family being abandoned by his father’s union. Flashing a photograph of himself as a boy with his father, Mr. Wadach said the union did not help his family financially after his father died suddenly in front of their house, not even bothering to send a condolence card, according to three current workers at the warehouse who heard him speak and asked for anonymity for fear of losing their jobs. The problem with Mr. Wadach’s story was that much of it appears to have been untrue. For years, Amazon has successfully battled to keep unions out of the company. And the incident involving Mr. Wadach was an illustration of how important it was to Amazon — or at least to some of its employees — to keep it that way. Just days after a reporter approached Amazon about inconsistencies in Mr. Wadach’s story, Scott Stanzel, an Amazon spokesman, said Mr. Wadach was no longer with the company. Mr. Wadach did not respond to repeated messages sent to his email address and Facebook account. A voice mail message left at a listed number for his mother was not returned. In the United States, Amazon employs more than 90,000 people in what the company calls fulfillment centers, giant warehouses where customer orders are prepared and shipped. Some Amazon fulfillment center workers see unions as a way to gain more influence on pay, how job assignments are doled out and the handling of workplace complaints. Amazon worries unions will burden its operations with red tape, hurting the nimbleness of facilities it is constantly adjusting to be more efficient with robots and other innovations. “Amazon’s culture and business model are based on rapid innovation, flexibility and open lines of direct communication between managers and associates,” Mr. Stanzel said. “This direct connection is the most effective way to understand and respond to the wants and needs of our associates.” Union officials think Amazon fights so hard to keep them at bay to prevent a domino effect among its warehouses. “This is Amazon’s biggest fear,” said Andy Powell, a district organizer for the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers who is trying to organize Amazon fulfillment center workers in Delaware and several nearby states. “The minute one falls and people see they got a better deal, it’s going to be a cancer for them.” Unions have not made much progress at Amazon after years of campaigns, which union officials and warehouse workers blame partly on the high turnover rate in its fulfillment centers. A labor union in Germany has organized frequent strikes over pay and workplace conditions by a portion of workers at Amazon fulfillment centers in the country, though workers do not have a union contract with the company. In 2014, the machinists union helped organize a union vote by a small number of technicians and mechanics who worked on order-fulfillment equipment at the fulfillment center in Middletown, a community of about 19,000 about a half-hour from Wilmington. It was the first vote of its kind at an Amazon warehouse, but workers voted 21 to 6 to reject the plan, which was opposed by Amazon. The company said there were about 3,000 full-time workers at the facility. Since late fall, representatives of the machinists union, including Mr. Powell, have passed out leaflets at a busy intersection outside the fulfillment center. Some employees at the facility have encouraged co-workers to consider the potential benefits of joining a union. In many cases, pay and benefits are not even the top concerns of workers — pay at the Middletown warehouse starts around $13 an hour and health care and parental leave benefits are the same for warehouse workers as they are for senior executives at Amazon. The company said full-time workers at the facility made, on average, over $15 an hour in overall compensation when including base pay, bonuses and stock awards. But workers want things like better protection from termination and mechanisms for contesting favoritism by managers. Mr. Stanzel said the company had a process for employees to appeal terminations and an open-door policy that encourages workers to bring their concerns to managers. Like many other companies, Amazon employs standard “union avoidance” techniques, telling workers in gatherings that they will no longer be able to
[Marxism] "What to make of the US primary elections?"
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-9eb5-What-to-make-of-the-US-primary-elections _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
