[Marxism] Syria: Towards the Final Battle in Idlib

[RKOB via Marxism]

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https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/syria-towards-the-final-battle-in-idlib/

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Re: [Marxism] The Infinity of the Small

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 8/3/18 6:26 PM, bonnieweinstein wrote:

I would be very interested in reading the Lightman article.

Thank you,

Bonnie Weinstein



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Re: [Marxism] The Infinity of the Small

[bonnieweinstein via Marxism]

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I would be very interested in reading the Lightman article.

Thank you,

Bonnie Weinstein

> On Aug 3, 2018, at 11:54 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism 
>  wrote:
> 
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> 
> As comrades know, I forward links to articles about black holes, particle 
> physics, quantum theory, big bang, etc. even if they have no direct 
> relationship to Marxism and are often difficult to wrap your head around.
> 
> In the March 2018 Harpers, there's an article by physicist Alan Lightman 
> titled "The Infinity of the Small" that is just tremendous. Lightman is also 
> a novelist and able as such to bridge the two cultures that CP Snow referred 
> to.
> 
> It is behind a paywall but don't hesitate to contact me for a copy. This will 
> give you a sense of his approach:
> 
> Regardless of whether space is indeed grainy at very small scales, physicists 
> are confident that time and space must be chaotic at Planck. Because of the 
> indeterminate, probabilistic character of quantum physics, at the dimensions 
> of the Planck length, space and time churn and seethe, with the distance 
> between any two points wildly fluctuating from moment to moment. Indeed, at 
> the Planck scale, time itself randomly speeds up and slows down, perhaps even 
> going backward as well as forward. In such a situation, time and space no 
> longer exist in a way that has meaning to us. The sensation of smoothness and 
> substantiality that we experience in our large world of houses and trees 
> results only from averaging out this extreme lumpiness and chaos at the 
> Planck length, in the same way that the graininess of a beach disappears when 
> seen from a thousand feet up.
> 
> Thus, if we relentlessly divide space into smaller and smaller pieces, as did 
> Zeno, searching for the smallest element of reality, we arrive at the 
> phantasmagoric world of Planck — where space no longer has meaning. Instead 
> of answering the question of what is the smallest unit of matter, we have 
> invalidated the words used to ask the question. Perhaps that is the way of 
> all ultimate reality, if such a thing exists. As we get closer, we lose the 
> vocabulary. Sitting at midnight on my wooden dock by the sea and imagining 
> myself falling and falling into smaller rooms of reality, I might continue to 
> fall without limit. But once I reach Planck, space as I know it no longer 
> exists. Space has been blown thin by an ancient glassblower, so thin that it 
> dissolves into nothingness. The Planck world is a ghost world. Perhaps that 
> is where we must look for the Absolutes, even if we no longer have the words 
> to describe them.
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Re: [Marxism] The Infinity of the Small

[ioannis aposperites via Marxism]

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.


It is behind a paywall but don't hesitate to contact me for a copy. This 
will give you a sense of his approach:



Very interesting indeed. I would appreciate a copy ...
JA
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[Marxism] With dark humor and codewords, East Ghoutans unlearn ‘vocabulary of the revolution’ as Assad reasserts control - Syria Direct

[Richard Taylor via Marxism]

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> https://syriadirect.org/news/with-dark-humor-and-codewords-east-ghoutans-unlearn-‘vocabulary-of-the-revolution’-as-assad-reasserts-control/
>  
> 
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[Marxism] The Infinity of the Small

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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As comrades know, I forward links to articles about black holes, 
particle physics, quantum theory, big bang, etc. even if they have no 
direct relationship to Marxism and are often difficult to wrap your head 
around.


In the March 2018 Harpers, there's an article by physicist Alan Lightman 
titled "The Infinity of the Small" that is just tremendous. Lightman is 
also a novelist and able as such to bridge the two cultures that CP Snow 
referred to.


It is behind a paywall but don't hesitate to contact me for a copy. This 
will give you a sense of his approach:


Regardless of whether space is indeed grainy at very small scales, 
physicists are confident that time and space must be chaotic at Planck. 
Because of the indeterminate, probabilistic character of quantum 
physics, at the dimensions of the Planck length, space and time churn 
and seethe, with the distance between any two points wildly fluctuating 
from moment to moment. Indeed, at the Planck scale, time itself randomly 
speeds up and slows down, perhaps even going backward as well as 
forward. In such a situation, time and space no longer exist in a way 
that has meaning to us. The sensation of smoothness and substantiality 
that we experience in our large world of houses and trees results only 
from averaging out this extreme lumpiness and chaos at the Planck 
length, in the same way that the graininess of a beach disappears when 
seen from a thousand feet up.


Thus, if we relentlessly divide space into smaller and smaller pieces, 
as did Zeno, searching for the smallest element of reality, we arrive at 
the phantasmagoric world of Planck — where space no longer has meaning. 
Instead of answering the question of what is the smallest unit of 
matter, we have invalidated the words used to ask the question. Perhaps 
that is the way of all ultimate reality, if such a thing exists. As we 
get closer, we lose the vocabulary. Sitting at midnight on my wooden 
dock by the sea and imagining myself falling and falling into smaller 
rooms of reality, I might continue to fall without limit. But once I 
reach Planck, space as I know it no longer exists. Space has been blown 
thin by an ancient glassblower, so thin that it dissolves into 
nothingness. The Planck world is a ghost world. Perhaps that is where we 
must look for the Absolutes, even if we no longer have the words to 
describe them.

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Re: [Marxism] Young Marxist intellectuals and the Democratic Party | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 8/3/18 2:06 PM, Tim Nelson wrote:


I suppose my question is, are there existing progressive, pro-working 
class elements within the democratic party, which are easier to access 
by working with/in the party? 


I am sure there are but American society is so atomized that you are 
more likely to run into them on FB.


In the 1960s and 70s, things were a lot different. That is why I got 
such a chuckle out of the idea that the "New Politics" was some kind of 
opening for the left. There was a white-hot radicalization back then 
that was starting to penetrate the working class. For example, when 
independent truckers went on strike, they did two things. They organized 
snipers to shoot at scabs on the turnpikes. Next, they contacted the 
antiwar movement to get people to join their picket lines.


With things like that going on, it was not far-fetched to think that by 
1990 or so we'd be living in a socialist America. And by that I mean one 
that has made all the big corporations publicly owned and governed by a 
master plan.


Anyhow, when the next radicalization kicks in, it will make those 
trucker actions look like a Sunday church picnic.

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Re: [Marxism] Young Marxist intellectuals and the Democratic Party | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Tim Nelson via Marxism]

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Sorry, that should read "can't be gestated "

On Fri, 3 Aug 2018, 19:06 Tim Nelson,  wrote:

> Hi Louis
>
> This is very good. As an outsider, I can't really challenge your knowledge
> of the US Democrats. However, I do have questions with regards to the last
> few lines of your article.
>
> You maintain, correctly, that a truly socialist organisation can be
> "gestated" inside the democratic party, but could not some of the elements
> needed for such a movement exist within it?
>
> If that were not the case, it wouldn't be necessary to argue with people
> not to join/support /vote democrat. It's not like we ever need to have this
> debate about Repubicans.
>
> The debate is, surely, about whether you join the Democrats with an eye to
> splitting off the social democratic elements, or plant a flag outside in
> hopes of attracting them (it's a debate we've had in Britain about Labour
> for years, complicated obviously by Labour's organic link to trade unions,
> etc)
>
> I suppose my question is, are there existing progressive, pro-working
> class elements within the democratic party, which are easier to access by
> working with/in the party? If so, the capitalist nature of the party is, in
> my opinion, of secondary importance compared to the advantages of reaching
> a wider audience with socialist ideas.
>
> All genuine questions and unformed thoughts.
>
> Tim N
>
> On Fri, 3 Aug 2018, 18:30 Louis Proyect via Marxism, <
> marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:
>
>>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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>> *
>>
>> The “democratic socialist” movement spawned by Bernie Sanders’s 2016
>> campaign has led to an interesting development. Highly educated and
>> self-described socialists in the academy have written erudite articles
>> making the Marxist case for voting Democratic. Even if they are wrong, I
>> am impressed with the scholarly prowess deployed on behalf of obvious
>> casuistry.
>>
>> These articles often appear in Jacobin, which has managed to repackage
>> arguments made by Irving Howe a half-century ago in the snazziest of
>> graphics. In 2016, for example, Seth Ackerman, a Jacobin editor and
>> dissertation student at the highly prestigious Cornell University, wrote
>> “A Blueprint for a New Party” that advanced “new electoral strategies
>> for an independent left-wing party rooted in the working class” but in
>> fine print recommended running in Democratic Party primaries. Jacobin
>> followed up with another such article by Eric Blanc but couched in terms
>> of a “dirty break” from the Democratic Party as opposed to the “clean
>> break” advocated by Marxist dinosaurs like me. Such a “dirty break” was
>> adopted by the Nonpartisan League in the early 20th century, when it ran
>> candidates in both the Democratic and Republican parties (a case can be
>> made that the Republicans were the lesser evil at the time). Blanc, who
>> is a dissertation student at NYU, is even more steeped in Marxist lore
>> than Ackerman. One supposes that this is a prerequisite for convincing
>> congenitally radical young people to work for Democratic Party
>> candidates when disgust with the party is at an all-time high.
>>
>> full:
>>
>> https://louisproyect.org/2018/08/03/young-marxist-intellectuals-and-the-democratic-party/
>> _
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Re: [Marxism] Young Marxist intellectuals and the Democratic Party | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Tim Nelson via Marxism]

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Hi Louis

This is very good. As an outsider, I can't really challenge your knowledge
of the US Democrats. However, I do have questions with regards to the last
few lines of your article.

You maintain, correctly, that a truly socialist organisation can be
"gestated" inside the democratic party, but could not some of the elements
needed for such a movement exist within it?

If that were not the case, it wouldn't be necessary to argue with people
not to join/support /vote democrat. It's not like we ever need to have this
debate about Repubicans.

The debate is, surely, about whether you join the Democrats with an eye to
splitting off the social democratic elements, or plant a flag outside in
hopes of attracting them (it's a debate we've had in Britain about Labour
for years, complicated obviously by Labour's organic link to trade unions,
etc)

I suppose my question is, are there existing progressive, pro-working class
elements within the democratic party, which are easier to access by working
with/in the party? If so, the capitalist nature of the party is, in my
opinion, of secondary importance compared to the advantages of reaching a
wider audience with socialist ideas.

All genuine questions and unformed thoughts.

Tim N

On Fri, 3 Aug 2018, 18:30 Louis Proyect via Marxism, <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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> *
>
> The “democratic socialist” movement spawned by Bernie Sanders’s 2016
> campaign has led to an interesting development. Highly educated and
> self-described socialists in the academy have written erudite articles
> making the Marxist case for voting Democratic. Even if they are wrong, I
> am impressed with the scholarly prowess deployed on behalf of obvious
> casuistry.
>
> These articles often appear in Jacobin, which has managed to repackage
> arguments made by Irving Howe a half-century ago in the snazziest of
> graphics. In 2016, for example, Seth Ackerman, a Jacobin editor and
> dissertation student at the highly prestigious Cornell University, wrote
> “A Blueprint for a New Party” that advanced “new electoral strategies
> for an independent left-wing party rooted in the working class” but in
> fine print recommended running in Democratic Party primaries. Jacobin
> followed up with another such article by Eric Blanc but couched in terms
> of a “dirty break” from the Democratic Party as opposed to the “clean
> break” advocated by Marxist dinosaurs like me. Such a “dirty break” was
> adopted by the Nonpartisan League in the early 20th century, when it ran
> candidates in both the Democratic and Republican parties (a case can be
> made that the Republicans were the lesser evil at the time). Blanc, who
> is a dissertation student at NYU, is even more steeped in Marxist lore
> than Ackerman. One supposes that this is a prerequisite for convincing
> congenitally radical young people to work for Democratic Party
> candidates when disgust with the party is at an all-time high.
>
> full:
>
> https://louisproyect.org/2018/08/03/young-marxist-intellectuals-and-the-democratic-party/
> _
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[Marxism] Young Marxist intellectuals and the Democratic Party | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The “democratic socialist” movement spawned by Bernie Sanders’s 2016 
campaign has led to an interesting development. Highly educated and 
self-described socialists in the academy have written erudite articles 
making the Marxist case for voting Democratic. Even if they are wrong, I 
am impressed with the scholarly prowess deployed on behalf of obvious 
casuistry.


These articles often appear in Jacobin, which has managed to repackage 
arguments made by Irving Howe a half-century ago in the snazziest of 
graphics. In 2016, for example, Seth Ackerman, a Jacobin editor and 
dissertation student at the highly prestigious Cornell University, wrote 
“A Blueprint for a New Party” that advanced “new electoral strategies 
for an independent left-wing party rooted in the working class” but in 
fine print recommended running in Democratic Party primaries. Jacobin 
followed up with another such article by Eric Blanc but couched in terms 
of a “dirty break” from the Democratic Party as opposed to the “clean 
break” advocated by Marxist dinosaurs like me. Such a “dirty break” was 
adopted by the Nonpartisan League in the early 20th century, when it ran 
candidates in both the Democratic and Republican parties (a case can be 
made that the Republicans were the lesser evil at the time). Blanc, who 
is a dissertation student at NYU, is even more steeped in Marxist lore 
than Ackerman. One supposes that this is a prerequisite for convincing 
congenitally radical young people to work for Democratic Party 
candidates when disgust with the party is at an all-time high.


full: 
https://louisproyect.org/2018/08/03/young-marxist-intellectuals-and-the-democratic-party/

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Re: [Marxism] SyrianObserver.com: Jamil al-Hassan: Any and All Opposition Will Be Eliminated

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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I don't recognize the name of the writer, and I'd appreciate any
information anyone on the list has about him. I say this because there are
a number of direct quotes in the article, which is about a speech given to
very high-ranking military and intelligence officials of the Syrian regime,
so I cannot but wonder how accurate the quotes are.

This is a very scary article on its own terms. I'm pretty sure one of the
reasons someone might want it to get out, from a regime-friendly point of
view, would be to discourage refugees from returning to Syria. I believe it
would be a mistake to think this is just bullying and posturing, although
it is those things.

Arendt makes the point that it is characteristic of totalitarian regimes
that the full implementation of mass terror does not begin until all real
enemies have been eliminated. It has previously occurred to me that Assad's
meets the primary requirement Arendt ascribes to totalitarian regimes, that
they have no permanent goal beyond world conquest, if you allow that
Assad's total conquest is of his own country.

In the Syria Observer article the Chief of Air Force Intelligence notes not
only the 3 million already prepared cases against Syrians considered
opponents of the regime, but says right out that a Syria of 10,000,000
tractable people is preferable to 30,000,000 rabble & terrorists, the
latter of which he defines as anyone they regime dislikes. Then he mentions
the 150,000 rich families that have also made their way onto the list.

Since "the list" can include people who have never spoken against the
regime, it is clear that absolutely random killings will follow; this is
another key element of totalitarianism, that everyone must fear for their
life AT ALL TIMES, regardless of their actions and even unvoiced thoughts,
in order for utter subjugation to be the normal state of being.

We are watching a state where the only effective ruling entities are the
secret police announce there will be no end to the war against the people
of Syria.
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[Marxism] “We Rise Together, Homie”

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/wildcat-strike-indianapolis-shut-down
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[Marxism] Boots Riley takes on the nightmare of American capitalism | Vijay Prashad | Salon

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://www.salon.com/2018/08/02/boots-riley-takes-on-the-nightmare-of-american-capitalism_partner/

Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] SyrianObserver.com: Jamil al-Hassan: Any and All Opposition Will Be Eliminated

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The Head of the Air Force Intelligence said that more than three million 
Syrians are wanted and their judicial cases were ready. He added that 
“the huge number of people wanted will not be a major difficulty in 
achieving the plan.


“A Syria with 10 million trustworthy people obedient to the leadership 
is better than a Syria with 30 million vandals,” as he put it.


http://syrianobserver.com/EN/Features/34576
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[Marxism] Green Party, Eyeing the 2020 Presidential Race, Prepares for the Midterms

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Aug. 2, 2018
Green Party, Eyeing the 2020 Presidential Race, Prepares for the Midterms
By Liam Stack

SALT LAKE CITY — The progressive activists who gathered in Utah two 
weeks ago to strategize for the midterm elections could each recall a 
moment when they realized the Democratic Party was their foe and decided 
to quit it.


For Kenneth Mejia, 27, who ran for Congress as a Democratic write-in 
candidate two years ago, it happened when the party declined to include 
policies that inspire him — like single payer health care and a ban on 
fracking — in its 2016 party platform.


For Diane Moxley, 49, who canvassed for Barack Obama in 2008, it was 
when the Occupy Wall Street movement introduced her to others who shared 
her unease with the party’s acceptance of corporate donor money.


And for Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, 30, who wept when Al Gore lost the 2000 
election, the moment came when Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton 
for president at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. It 
is an event he calls “the Wells Fargo Center incident,” named for the 
convention’s location.


All three are now members of the Green Party, the leftists often accused 
of spoiling presidential elections for the Democrats. Each of them is 
now running for Congress in a year when young liberal activists have 
energized the Democratic Party, which increasingly echoes Green Party 
goals on issues like health care and campaign finance. But the Greens 
want no part of Democratic Party’s ascendant left wing: As much as they 
may loathe President Trump, they say several issues — including 
corporate donations and support for capitalism — have rendered both the 
Democrats and the Republican Party rotten to the core.


“Regular working people, families, are not being represented by the 
government in Washington right now,” said Mr. Cortes Barragan, a 
psychologist who is living with his parents while he pays off $40,000 in 
student loans. “That is because the Democratic Party followed the 
Republican Party in aligning itself with corporate America.”


A wave of liberal excitement has raised hopes for a “blue wave” in the 
midterms and empowered a new crop of progressive Democrats, like the 
democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But it has also paid 
dividends for the Green Party, whose formal endorsement of 
anticapitalism in 2016 helped set them apart from the Democrats and 
contributed to a swell of new members, many of them young people and 
ex-Democrats embittered by Mr. Sanders’ primary loss.


The Greens find themselves looking optimistically toward the 2020 
presidential election, but it is unclear who their standard-bearer would 
be. Jill Stein, the party’s nominee in 2012 and 2016, said in an 
interview that she would like to see the party cultivate new leaders.


“Three times is a lot. It’s a lot for any one person and it’s a lot for 
a party,” she said. “I would be kind of shocked if it came to that.”


But she remains widely popular among party activists, despite suspicion 
expressed by the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee over her 
relationship to Russia, which she rejects.


“This is a generation that has been so badly burned and sees their 
future so bleak right now that they’re not terribly forgiving,” she 
said. “They really see Democrats as having misled them.”


Party leaders say there are now over 255,000 registered Greens in the 21 
states, plus the District of Columbia, that give voters the option to 
register with the party, an increase from 216,000 in July 2016.


Their growth is due not just to the failure of Mr. Sanders campaign, but 
to what many Greens see as the success of Ms. Stein’s, which raised 
three times as much money, $3.4 million, and got over three times as 
many votes as she did in 2012. She appeared on the ballot in 45 states, 
the most ever for a Green nominee, and won over 1.4 million votes, or 
roughly one percent.


Last month, 175 Green Party activists from more than 40 states gathered 
at the University of Utah for their annual conference, where they dined 
on pizza alongside students in the cafeteria, placed bids on secondhand 
sci-fi books and homemade wine at a silent auction, and discussed their 
dream of implementing eco-socialism and ranked choice voting.


But the most pressing matter was the midterm elections, which for them 
are an important first step in the 2020 presidential campaign. Under the 
state-by-state patchwork of ballot access laws, Green candidates need to 
win enough votes in November, generally between one and five percent, to 
secure a spot on the presidential ballot in most states.


Party leaders s

[Marxism] The “Next” Financial Crisis

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(From Michael Hudson interview.)

Since 2008, people talk about “look at how that GDP is growing.” 
Especially in the last few quarters, you have the media saying look, 
“we’ve recovered. GDP is up.” But if you look at what they count as GDP, 
you find a primer on how to lie with statistics.


The largest element of fakery is a category that is imputed – that is, 
made up – for rising rents that homeowners would have to pay if they had 
to rent their houses from themselves. That’s about 6 percent of GDP 
right there. Right now, as a result of the 10 million foreclosures that 
Obama imposed on the economy by not writing down the junk mortgage debts 
to realistic values, companies like Blackstone have come in and bought 
up many of the properties that were forfeited. So now there are fewer 
homes that are available to buy. Rents are going up all over the 
country. Homeownership has dropped by abut 10 percent since 2008, and 
that means more people have to rent. When more people have to rent, the 
rents go up. And when rents go up, people lucky enough to have kept 
their homes report these rising rental values to the GDP statisticians.


If I had to pay rent for the house that I have, could charge as much 
money as renters down the street have to pay – for instance, for houses 
that were bought out by Blackstone. Rents are going up and up. This 
actually is a rise in overhead, but it’s counted as rising GDP. That 
confuses income and output with overhead costs.


The other great jump in GDP has been people paying more money to the 
banks as penalties and fees for arrears on student loans and mortgage 
loans, credit card loans and automobile loans. When they fall into 
arrears, the banks get to add a penalty charge. The credit-card 
companies make more money on arrears than they do on interest charges. 
This is counted as providing a “financial service,” defined as the 
amount of revenue banks make over and above their borrowing charges.


The statistical pretense is that they’re taking the risk on making loans 
to debtors that are going bad. They’re cleaning up on profits on these 
bad loans, because the government has guaranteed the student loans 
including the higher penalty charges. They’ve guaranteed the mortgages 
loans made by the FHA – Fannie Mae and the other groups – that the banks 
are getting penalty charges on. So what’s reported is that GDP growth is 
actually more and more people in trouble, along with rising housing 
costs. What’s good for the GDP here is awful for the economy at large! 
This is bad news, not good news.


As a result of this economic squeeze, investors see that the economy is 
not growing. So they’re bailing out. They’re taking their money and running.


https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/03/the-next-financial-crisis/
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Re: [Marxism] Apple's $1 Tr. valuation and corporate consolidation

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Agreed, a crucial article!

Regarding its impact on the falling rate of profit, I have to assume the
short-term profit booms will slacken and then reverse given the tremendous
increase in the organic composition of capital represented by the high-tech
nature of the industry (one could say a meta-high-tech) -- but I leave it
to Michael Roberts for a final say.

And of course this is all more evidence of the need for a socialist program
for the industry - including the industries ensnared in Apple et al.'s
tentacles.

p.s. see articles on huge gains made by China's Huawei
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[Marxism] Let Us Now Praise Infamous Animals

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Animal trials were held in two distinct settings: ecclesiastical courts 
and secular courts. Ecclesiastical courts were the venue of choice for 
cases involving the destruction of public resources, such as crops, or 
in crimes involving the corruption of public morals, such as witchcraft 
or sexual congress between humans and beasts. The secular and royal 
courts claimed jurisdiction over cases where animals were accused of 
causing bodily harm or death to humans or, in some instances, other animals.


When guilty verdicts were issued and a death sentence imposed, a 
professional executioner was commissioned for the lethal task. Animals 
were subjected to the same ghastly forms of torture and execution as 
were condemned humans. Convicted animals were lashed, put to the rack, 
hanged, beheaded, burned at the stake, buried alive, stoned to death and 
drawn-and-quartered. In 14th century Sardinia, trespassing livestock had 
an ear cut-off for each offense. In an early application of the 
three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule, the third conviction resulted in 
immediate execution.


https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/03/let-us-now-praise-infamous-animals-2/
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[Marxism] The Rebirth of Social Democracy in the U.S. | New Politics

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://newpol.org/content/rebirth-social-democracy-us
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[Marxism] After another antisemitism crisis, the Labour Party is closer than ever to a split – and this is how it could happen | The Independent

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/corbyn-antisemitism-row-brexit-labour-party-split-centrists-a8472856.html
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[Marxism] An ancient lake holds secrets to the Mayan civilization's mysterious collapse, study finds

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(I wrote about the Mayan collapse in a critique of Jared Diamond's 
"Collapse". My critique jibes with this Washington Post article. 
https://louisproyect.org/2005/03/22/jared-diamonds-collapse-part-two/)


Washington Post Blogs, August 2, 2018
An ancient lake holds secrets to the Mayan civilization's mysterious 
collapse, study finds; Sediment under a lake in Mexico quantifies for 
the first time the intensity of the drought that contributed to the 
Mayan civilization's collapse.

by Kate Furby

The sediment under a lake in Mexico contains some of the long-sought 
answers to the mystery of the Mayan demise.


Ancient Mayans, primarily concentrated in what is now the Yucatan 
Peninsula, were among the most advanced civilizations of their time. 
Mayans were some of the first to build cities. They used astronomy to 
advance agricultural production, and they created calendars and used 
advanced mathematics. But despite all of their progress, the Mayan 
empire,  built over thousands of years, may have crumbled in just a few 
hundred .


Scientists have several theories about why the collapse happened, 
including deforestation, overpopulation and extreme drought. New 
research, published in Science Thursday, focuses on the drought and 
suggests, for the first time, how  extreme it was.


While analyzing sediment under Lake Chichancanab on the Yucatan 
Peninsula, scientists found a 50 percent decrease in annual 
precipitation over more than 100 years, from 800 to 1,000 A.D. At times, 
the study shows, the decrease was as much as 70 percent.


The drought was previously known , but this study is the first to 
quantify the rainfall, relative humidity and evaporation at that time. 
It's also the first to combine multiple elemental analyses and modeling 
to determine the climate record during the Mayan civilization demise.


Matthew Lachniet, a professor of geosciences at the University of Nevada 
at Las Vegas, who was not involved in the study, said the quantification 
of the drought is important, because it illustrates the power of natural 
climate variability alone.


"Humans are affecting climate. We're making it warmer and it's projected 
to become drier in Central America," Lachniet said. "What we could end 
up with is double-whammy of drought. If you coincide drying from natural 
causes with drying from human causes, then it amplifies the strength of 
that drought."


The new research analyzed sediment cores, something climate scientists 
commonly do to determine conditions of the past, using the ancient dirt 
like a geological time capsule. Each layer of sediment buried deep 
underground contains evidence of rainfall, temperature and even air 
pollution. Via chemical processes and interactions, the climate 
conditions are "recorded" in the surface soil at the time and eventually 
buried. Scientists can bore a deep core of dirt and carefully analyze it 
layer by layer, year by year, to reconstruct a timeline.


For this study, scientists painstakingly examined the layers of mud and 
clay in the cores from under Lake Chichancanab.  During dry periods, the 
lake volume would have shrunk, said Nick Evans, a graduate student 
studying paleoclimatology at Cambridge University and first author of 
the study. As the water evaporated, lighter particles would have 
evaporated first, leaving behind heavier elements.


If the drought was intense and long-lasting, gypsum crystals formed and 
incorporated existing lake water directly into their structure. The 
"fossil water" inside the crystals allowed Evans and his co-authors to 
analyze the properties of the lake water during each period.


"It's as close as you'll ever get to sampling water in the past," Evans 
said.


The chemical composition of the fossil water indicated periods of 
drought in the Mayan timeline and revealed how long and intense this 
particular drought was.


Many theories about the drought triggers exist, but there is no smoking 
gun some 1,000 years later. The drought coincides with the beginning of 
the Medieval Warm Period, thought to have been caused by a decrease in 
volcanic ash in the atmosphere and an increase in solar activity. 
Previous studies have shown that the Mayans' deforestation may have also 
contributed. Deforestation tends to decrease the amount of moisture and 
destabilize the soil. Additional theories for the cause of the drought 
include changes to the atmospheric circulation and decline in tropical 
cyclone frequency, Evans said.


Evans and his team hope their research will help archaeologists 
understand how the ancient drought may have impacted Mayan agriculture 
at a critical time in their history.


Curr

[Marxism] Apple's $1 Tr. valuation and corporate consolidation

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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There's lots more to this NY Times article, but here are the highlights.
The article is definitely worth reading. One question: How does this affect
the tendency for the rate of profit to fall? It seems to me that it would
mitigate it, no?

"Apple on Thursday reached a milestone that these icons of capitalism never
dreamed of: a market value of more than
$1
trillion



"Today, a smaller cluster of American companies commands a larger share of
total corporate profits than since at least the 1970s

"In 1975, 109 companies collected half of the profits produced by all
publicly traded companies. Today, those winnings are captured by just 30
companies

"The difference between how much it costs American companies to make their
products and how much they sell those products for — a metric of the power
that companies possess in their markets — is at its highest level since at
least 1950

"Apple and Google combined now provide the software for 99 percent of all
smartphones. Facebook and Google take 59 cents of every dollar spent on
online advertising in the United States. Amazon exerts utter dominance over
online shopping and is getting bigger, fast, in areas like streaming of
music and videos

"Today, almost half of all the assets in the American financial system are
controlled by five banks. In the late 1990s, the top five banks controlled
a little more than one-fifth of the market. Over the past decade, six of
the largest United States airlines merged into three. Four companies now
control 98 percent of the American wireless market, and that number could
fall to three if T-Mobile and Sprint are allowed to merge

"And in the labor market, scholars have linked

 corporate consolidation to rising income inequality and the declining
share of the nation’s wealth

 that goes to workers. The so-called labor share of the economy has been
declining in the United States and other rich countries since the 1990s,
coinciding with the trend toward corporate concentration. And that decline
has been most pronounced in industries undergoing the greatest
consolidation."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/business/apple-trillion.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

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*“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
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Re: [Marxism] Untangling the left’s Nixon debates | SocialistWorker.org

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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Why nothing in this article about Nixon's anti-union statements??
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[Marxism] A new global credit crunch to come? | Michael Roberts Blog

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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The story of the last ten years since the Great Recession is that the 
world capitalist economy has staggered on at low levels of growth and 
investment and with virtually no improvement in real incomes for the 
90%.  And it has only staggered on because of a huge build-up in debt, 
particularly in the capitalist sector.  Now, monetary authorities are 
trying to reverse the credit binge and restore ‘normality’.  As a 
result, the cost of servicing that debt is on the rise and availability 
of more credit to finance is shrinking.


https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2018/08/03/a-new-global-credit-crunch-to-come/
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[Marxism] [UCE] Debate on Capitalism in China

[RKOB via Marxism]

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Here is report with pictures and video of a discussion about capitalism 
in China. It contains remarks of Michael Pröbsting, International 
Secretary of the /Revolutionary Communist International Tendency/ (RCIT) 
and a reply by Professor Cheng Enfu who is the Director of the “Academic 
Division of Marxism Studies” at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. 
He is furthermore a member of the /Education and Science Committee/ at 
the /National People’s Congress of China/. Both contributions can be 
viewed below in English and Chinese language.


https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/debate-on-capitalism-in-china/

--
Revolutionär-Kommunistische Organisation BEFREIUNG
(Österreichische Sektion der RCIT, www.thecommunists.net)
www.rkob.net
ak...@rkob.net
Tel./SMS/WhatsApp/Telegram: +43-650-4068314



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