[Marxism] SWV on Earth Day 2019 and trends in environmental movement
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.
*
As the demand for climate action grows:
Build a working class movement against climate change!
(From Seattle Workers' Voice, vol. 3, #2, April 13, 2019)
As was predicted would happen decades ago, global warming is now giving rise
to increasingly devastating floods, droughts and wildfires, cyclones, polar
vortexes
and other climatic changes, and climate refugees. And as was known decades
ago, burning fossil fuels is the main cause of this warming, with
deforestation,
agricultural and other land-use practices that destroy natural "sinks" that
absorb
carbon dioxide making it worse. But greenhouse gas emissions reached record
highs in 2017 and in 2018.
How can this disastrous situation be happening?
Rather than attempting to plan and directly regulate industry, agriculture and
transportation, in the 1990s a large number of "environmentally aware"
governments embarked on the path of trying to use market measures--setting up
a market in carbon-emission certificates ("cap and trade)" and/or imposing
carbon
taxes--to rein in green house gas emissions. Other countries, such as the
United
States, didn't even do that much. Furthermore, establishment environmentalism,
as represented by Al Gore and the leaders of the mainstream environmental
groups, did their utmost to divert the environmentalists into becoming
champions
of these market solutions that have so miserably failed.
At root of this debacle is that the polluting and otherwise earth-destroying
corporations and their financiers are bitterly driven to oppose any serious
environmental measures because those will infringe on their profits. Thus, to
save these profits the IMF and World Bank, plus ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and other
oil companies have thrown their support behind carbon pricing and the carbon
tax. (1) Trump and the Republicans obviously serve them with human-caused
climate change denialism: "what problem??" But the Democrats also serve them
by foot-dragging when it comes to taking sufficient measures to curb climate
change, including Gov. Inslee's pushing the carbon tax.
So the struggle to stop and mitigate climate change is at heart a class
struggle,
but a class struggle that the polluting corporations and their political
servants
have been winning at the peril of the huge majority of humanity. The only
conclusion is that a trend of working-class environmentalism must be built up
in
order to fight and overcome them. Such a trend that has no interest in
preserving
the profits of those destroying the earth and every interest in preserving and
replenishing it. Further, such a trend must struggle against the sold out
AFL-CIO
and other union bureaucrats who fight for business-as-usual pollution, even if
means the planet becomes uninhabitable.
Recent developments show that the potential for building a working-class
environmental movement exists everywhere.
For example, the French working people are just as concerned about climate
change as everyone else, but beginning in November millions of them rose in the
powerful "yellow vest" movement that forced the government to abandon another
fuel tax increase. This was because the workers and poor were fed up with being
economically squeezed in the name of environmentalism. Indeed, in opposition
to that many raised slogans demanding that the rich should be made to pay,
while
people all over the country also pointed out that they couldn't give up
traveling in
cars because there was no mass transit where they lived. Their mass rebellion
demonstrated to the entire world that environmentalism has to make a choice.
Either side with the struggle of the masses for a decent life or side with the
corporations and the measures that they prefer, such as the carbon tax.
The potential also exists among the tens and tens of thousands of Belgium
environmental demonstrators who forced an environment minister to quit in
February, and who continue to mount protests of many thousands. Also in recent
months, new environmental groups have been organized around the world that
are demanding that governments take serious climate action now. On March 15
they helped mobilize some 1.2 million young people into streets around the
world
for a "Youth Climate Strike," including many hundreds in Seattle. On April 15
there will be another international protest called by one of these newer
groups,
Extinction Rebellion (see end for Seattle information).
And the potential exists among the millions of people who are excited by the
idea
of a Green New Deal and the concept of linking environmentalism with the
livelihood of the masses of people. This shows
Re: [Marxism] The U.S.’ Refusal of Entry to Arnold August Is a Dangerous Precedent for All Activists
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. * On 3 Apr 2019 at 8:23, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: >> > Arnold August is a FB friend. I don't know much about him except > that he > wrote a terrific book on democracy in Cuba that I reviewed about 20 > years ago. I am against the US government's harassment of Arnold August. I'm also pleased you mentioned his writing, because I've also looked at it. I ordered Arnold August's more recent book "Cuba and Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion" (2013) recently, and received it last week. I've only gotten part-way through it so far, but it does have some useful information about how Cuban elections are held, showing--without intending to--that they are a farce. Chapter 7 of August's book, "Elections in Contemporary Cuba", discusses elections to the municipal assemblies, the provincial assemblies, and to the "National Assembly of People's Power, or Parliament". He writes that, "once candidates are nominated" in elections to the municipal assemblies, "a short, biographical profile and a photo" from the candidate "are circulated and/or posted in local public places for easy access to electors. This is the only publicity permitted under the electoral law (Electoral Law No. 72 1992) ... There is no electoral campaign or funding permitting." (p. 162) So no discussion of policy is permitted in an election. All candidates can do is post a brief biographical profile and a picture. And in fact, Arnold August agrees that the elections have nothing to do with policy or orientation. He writes that the elections "are not based on competing programs or platforms. Decisions on policies, overall orientation of the Revolution and legislation are not an outcome of elections. Conclusions, courses of action and laws are worked out in other ways." (p. 153) This makes a mockery of the term "elections". These are elections which don't determine anything but, perhaps, the best personnel to carry out policies decided some other way. But continuing, how are candidates for higher office selected? According to August, "The national, provincial and municipal candidacies commissions, composed entirely of mass organization representatives from their respective levels, lead the nomination procedure." (p. 168) I haven't yet found any description of how these candidacy commissions are formed. However, "each of the six mass organizations at all three levels ... has the right to propose at least three times the number of candidates needed for each municipality to be presented in the ANPP [parliament--JG.]". (p. 169) Well that's something. Do the electors then choose between at least three nominees for every seat? Not quite. Instead "These lists of proposed nominees that the provincial and municipal candidacies commissions received from the mass organizations at those levels are funneled to the CCN [National Candidacy Commission--JG]. The CCN then is able to first pare down the long list..." (p. 169) How far does the CCN pare down the list? "...the CCN prepares the final list of 614 candidates for the same number of seats in the ANPP [parliament]." (p. 170) He writes that "Whereas in the municipal elections, there are at least two candidates from which to choose, in the national elections there is only one candidate per seat." (p. 171) Only one candidate! But, don't worry says August, that candidate has to get "at least 50 percent plus one" vote vs leaving the ballot blank or spoiling it. And, I presume, don't bother writing in another candidate. That would be usurping the role of the CCN. Besides, it might prove that this other candidate had campaigned, which is illegal. Arnold August indignantly denounces "disinformation from the U.S. monopoly media and the 'left' and right dissidents concerning the Cuban elecoral process", saying their criticism "concentrates on the fact that there is one candidate per seat for the ANPP." (p. 181) He doesn't deny that there is only one candidate per seat. So that's not the disinformation. But, he says, "The nomination process is ignored." (p. 179) With such an excellent nomination process, who needs more than one candidate per seat? And surely no one is dissatisfied. After all, "It is not accurate to assert that the electors do not have any choice at all. They can defeat a candidate who is not judged worthy [on the basis of a brief bio and a picture?--JG] by simply not voting for him or her. Electors can thus bring the vote to less than 50 percent. This forces the candidacies commission to present another candidate from their reserve list." (p. 180) August defends the system of one candidate per seat with
Re: [Marxism] venezuela --- 'a model of socialism for the 21st century'
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.
*
On 24 Mar 2019 at 9:42, michael a. lebowitz via Marxism wrote:
> J Green described my view of Venezuela and socialism as follows:
>
> "This is
> the same Lebowitz who talks about about how Venezuela is a model of
> socialism for the 21st century and lauds its democracy as an alternative to
> the "real socialism" of the Soviet model. ("What Is Socialism for the
> Twenty-First Century?",
> https://monthlyreview.org/2016/10/01/what-is-socialism-for-the-twent
> y-first-century/)."
> This is simply an idiotic distortion. Green should try
> reading.
So let's read what you wrote in 2016, that is, during Maduro's presidency, in
the
article titled "What Is Socialism for the Twenty-First Century?"
Consider the subsection labelled "The Key Link". It begins:
"So, let us explain what socialism for the twenty-first century is. There are
lessons
to be learned from the experiences of the twentieth century, and the Bolivarian
Constitution of Venezuela adopted in 1999, reflects many of those lessons. They
are evident in Article 299's emphasis upon 'ensuring overall human
development,', in the focus of Article 102,...in Article 62's declaration
They are
present in the identification of democratic planning and participatory
budgeting at
all levels of society. They are visible in the focus in Article 70 on
'self-management, co-management, cooperatives in all forms' as examples of
'forms of association guided by the values of mutual cooperation and
solidarity.'
Lastly, they can be seen as obligations noted in Article 135..."
(https://monthlyreview.org/2016/10/01/what-is-socialism-for-the-twenty-first-centur
y/)
There is no qualification that Maduro is reversing this, or that the "top-down
orientation" dominated in reality despite the words of the constitution.
And in 2012, you wrote that:
"...The society we want to build is one that recognizes that 'the free
development
of each is the condition for the free development of all.' How can we ensure,
though, that our communal, social productivity is directed to the free
development
of *all* rather than used to satisfy the private goals of caitalists, groups of
indiiduals, or state bureaucrats? A second side of what President Chavez of
Venezuela called on his 'Alo Presidente' program in January 2007 the
'elementary triangle of socialism' concerns the distribution of the means of
production. 'Social ownership of the means of production' is that second side.
Of
course, it is essential to understand that social ownership is not the same as
state
ownership. Social ownership implies a profound democracy -- one in which
people function as subjects, both as producers and as members of society, in
determining the use of the results of our social labor."
This is from the introduction, entitled "New Wings for Socialism", of your book
"Contradictions of Real of Real Socialism: The Conductor and the Conducted", p.
19. Now, isn't the term "new wings" another way of referring to models?
>I have never described Venezuela as a model of socialism; rather, I
> have stressed that there has been a struggle for socialism within it
Unless one regards socialism as a platonic, changeless perfection, there is no
contradiction between saying there are struggles within a certain society, and
that
it is a model of socialist progress in the present. Moreover, socialism is
generally
used at present to mean a society moving towards the final communist future.
Your argument reduces to that you didn't use the precise word "model" (I
didn't say you had) , but used Venezuela as an example in describing the "new
wings" of socialism and for understanding "what is socialism for the 21st
century".
>
> ... This is a process that has been described by Chavez as one of
> creating the cells of a new socialist state.
There it is again, in your own words.
> As for not bothering to meet with the 'critical chavistas'
> or PSOL leaders, I assume Fred Fuente's interest was in exploring what was
> happening at the base rather than meeting [in the limited time
> available] leaders with no followers whose positions are well-known.
You keep changing your story. Let's see. Now you claim that Fuentes couldn't
find any left-wing critics of Maduro at the base or any left-wing critics with
any
following,whereas before you said they were connected to imperialism. At a time
where every serious account notes that discontent with Maduro, and
participation
in protests, has spread to some of the neighborhoods which were Chavista
strongholds, Fuentes just couldn't find anyone worth talking to.
It's just nonsense. If Fuentes he
Re: [Marxism] Venezuela: despite the crisis, Chavez's legacy endures (Green Left Weekly)
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. * On 24 Mar 2019 at 10:21, Chris Slee via Marxism wrote: > John Reimann takes phrases out of context to give a misleading > impression of what Federico Fuentes is saying. > > Fuentes says that "hyperinflation has meant workers' wages have > plummeted". He says there is a "deep economic crisis" in > Venezuela. > > But the important point is that this crisis is to a large extent a > result of the "economic war" waged by the US and its allies against > Venezuela. You're still defending the indefensible, Chris, namely Fuentes's article. Fuentes knows that there is an economic crisis, and himself says "Venezuela´s current minimum wage - the lowest in the region - stands at less than US$6 a month, or enough to buy one egg per day." But he doesn't care. The context is, Maduro -- right or wrong. When the apologists of Maduro say that they have a criticism or two, or admit something about the economic and political crisis, it's not to take these criticisms seriously. It's to say, don't worry, we're taking care of everything. It's to say, as Chris Slee points out, that the problems have to be put in a "context", namely, defense of Maduro. The imperialists have a saying about various of their allies, "he's a bastard, but he's our bastard". The apologists of Maduro are backing that type of "wisdom", but in sham "anti-imperialist" phraseology. Hunger stalks Venezuela, and three million people have fled. That's about a tenth of the country. The apologists for Maduro generally won't say this directly. So they write the most absurd contradictions, such as that the shortages are over (which Fuentes says) and at the same time there's a deep economic crisis, and workers -- even skilled ones -- can't afford to buy these things (which Fuentes also admits, albeit in toned-down language). Then, after admitting a few things, Fuentes goes on to paint a glowing picture of how things are really quite good.These are Fuentes's contradictions; don't blame Reimann for them. Fuentes's article may admit a few things about the economic crisis, but does not go into the roots of it. Other sources have, and they have shown that this crisis began prior to sanctions starting to bite heavily. But Steve Ellner, whose article was debated on this list last month, wanted to show otherwise. According to to his account, "international sanctions" didn't begin until 2015. So to prove that some type of US sanctions had seriously harmed the economy earlier, he refers to a previous economic war but cites only one example: "... the George W. Bush administration banned the sale of spare parts for the Venezuelan Air Force´s costly F-16 fighter jets in 2006, forcing the country to turn to Russia for the purchase of 24 Sukhoi SU-30 fighter planes." (https://consortiumnews.com/2019/02/15/how-much-of-venezuelas-crisis-is-really- maduros-fault) Did the Chavista government intend to fight imperialism with jet fighter planes? Or perhaps it's that these planes were instead for the purpose of keeping the Venezuelan military happy. <> For the apologists of Maduro, it isn't important that hunger is stalking the land. It must be taken in context, that context means Maduro, right or wrong, with or without the working class, with or without sellouts to the multinationals, but Maduro forever . Let three million people flee Venezuela in economic desperation. It must be taken in context, say the apologists.. As I pointed out before, Fuentes says contradictory things in his article, because apologists for Maduro can accept any contradiction. Fuentes admits that "Venezuela´s current minimum wage - the lowest in the region - stands at less than US$6 a month, or enough to buy one egg per day. > > This is not to deny that economic mistakes have been made, or that > corruption is a serious problem. But for those of us who live in > the Western imperialist countries, our priority should be > campaigning against the blockade. > > Chris Slee > > From: Marxism on behalf of > John Reimann via Marxism > Sent: Sunday, 24 March 2019 5:36:12 AM > To: Chris Slee > Subject: Re: [Marxism] Venezuela: despite the crisis, Chavez's > legacy endures (Green Left Weekly) > > 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. > * > > First of all, as far as the relative "cheapness" of goods in
Re: [Marxism] Statement | Oppose the Coup of Trump and Guaidó: Workers Must Lead the Fight Against Imperialist Aggression and
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. * On 23 Mar 2019 at 14:15, Juan Andres Gallardo via Marxism wrote: > > No Imperialist Intervention in Venezuela! Declaration of the > revolutionary > organizations of workers, women and youth from Latin America, Europe > and > the United States that make up the Fracción Trotskista-Cuarta > Internacional > (FT-CI) / Trotskyist Fraction-Fourth International (TF-FI). > > https://www.leftvoice.org/oppose-the-coup-of-trump-and-guaido-worker > s-must-lead-the-fight-against-imperialist-aggression-and-the-misery- > to-which-they-are-subjected The title of the appeal is "Oppose the Coup of Trump and Guaidó: Workers Must Lead the Fight Against Imperialist Aggression and the Misery to Which They Are Subjected " Read as a whole, this appeal opposes Trump, Guaido, and Maduro, which is correct, and it has some sharp denunciation of the present situation. But it would be hard to use this appeal as a basis for what should be done, because it combines contradictory elements.On one hand, it presents itself as simply against the opposition from the right, so Maduro or the regime isn't even mentioned in the title of the appeal. On the other hand, it talks of "the country´s economic and social catastrophe, and the weariness of the masses with the anti-worker, anti-people and repressive economic policy of Maduro". But what should be done? It ends up proposing steps which would lead towards immediate workers' power, but through a movement that is based on simply being the most resolute in opposing the coup. How does it reconcile these points? The more it tries, the more it gets into difficulties. It says it is not giving "any endorsement of or political support for Maduro government", but doesn't characterizing the crisis overall simply as an attempt at a right-wing and imperialist coup imply at least some temporary support for the government? On the other hand, some of the struggles it suggests would, if they could be carried out, lead to immediate, irreconcilable clashes with the Maduro government and its police. Moreover, the full list of demands suggests that the movement could, by mobilizing against the right-wing coup, end up carrying out the Trotskyist transitional program, which is supposed to lead to workers' power. It can't get out of these contradictions, because it is unwilling to give a realistic estimation of the balance of class forces at this time. It has an unrealistic description of how far the internal class struggle has gone in Venezuela. It doesn't describe the existing trends in the opposition (other than a certain description of the right-wing), and it doesn't talk concretely about the situation with the present left-wing opposition and left-wing critics. It also doesn't realistically evaluate what could be done economically in Venezuela at this time. Instead it simply describes all sorts of demands, without any estimation of how far the masses could take up such demands or carry out such organization at this time or of what socialists should do given the disorientation and weakness in the workers' movement. It doesn't separate demands into the immediate and the more long-term. At one point, it talks of the "absence of a working-class alternative" in Venezuela, while elsewhere it describes a movement that is already at an extremely high level. This failure to describe the concrete situation in the class struggle is something seen repeatedlly in Trotskyist appeals. It's based on Trotskyism having reduced tactics to a single pattern to be applied to all situations, on pain of deviating into "stage-ism", which is supposed to inevitably be Stalinist reformism. Some notable excerpts: "6... With severe shortages, the astronomical devaluations of the bolivar and hyperinflation, and starvation wages that have sunk down to $5 a month, people´s living standards have fallen dramatically. The full brunt of this crisis is being most brutally felt by women workers and the poor masses. Another element of this policy saw Maduro move to violate collective bargaining agreements in both the public and private sectors, which alongside this genuine massacre of historic wages and rights, provides capital with one of the cheapest sources of labor in the world. Massive layoffs in private companies have also been endorsed and sectors of big business exempted from paying taxes. The government´s repressive response to workers´ struggles has included the imprisonment of union leaders and the use of vigilante groups to intimidate them. This whole scenario has allowed the right to win a new mass social base, capitalizing on the massive
Re: [Marxism] Venezuela: despite the crisis, Chavez's legacy endures (Green Left Weekly)
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.
*
On 23 Mar 2019 at 16:35, michael a. lebowitz wrote:
"Re Fred Fuentes' Green Left Weekly article, ... As it happens, Fred lived in
Venezuela for a number of years [eg., worked with me at Centro Internacional
Miranda], had many links with working class organisations, worked with Marea
Socialista and with trade union leaders like Stalin Perez. He has had
continuing contacts with militants ..., has organised periodic tours from
Australia
and had a list of trade union and commune militants he was planning to contact
this time. I haven't heard who he succeeded in seeing and interviewing when
there ... but I'm guessing it wasn't the 'party for socialism and freedom'
(which
was so opposed to Chavez that it joined in a fron with the CTV. the CIA labour
fed) or the 'Critical Chavistas' who (including gonzalo Gomez, Aporrea editor)
met with Guaido, the CIA handpuppet, in early february."
So Lebowitz thinks it likely that the author of an article about Venezuela, who
has
"many links with working class organizations" and trade union leaders, wouldn't
bother talking to Venezuelans who oppose Maduro, not even "critical Chavistas".
He thinks this is entirely justified, because all critics are supposedly
imperialist
agents or have met with them; why, the critical Chavistas actually "met with
Guaido, the CIA handpuppet".
Other people might think that someone claiming to tell the truth about what's
going on in Venezuela would talk to critics and opponents of the regime, as
well
as supporters. See what all the different trends say. But not Lebowitz, who
defends the article by supposing that Fuentes wouldn't get his hands dirty by
talking to the opposition, not even one-time comrades, not even long-time
socialists, not even critics from within the Chavista ranks.
Lebowitz justifies this attitude by smearing them all as imperialist agents.
This is
the same Lebowitz who talks about about how Venezuela is a model of socialism
for the 21st century and lauds its democracy as an alternative to the "real
socialism" of the Soviet model. ("What Is Socialism for the Twenty-First
Century?",
https://monthlyreview.org/2016/10/01/what-is-socialism-for-the-twenty-first-century
/). But for Lebowitz, democracy doesn't extend to those who oppose Maduro. Not
even to past comrades.
Lebowitz's viewpoint is an accurate reflection of the stand of the Maduro
government, which is seeking to hold on to power at all costs, whether it has a
majority or not. Democracy? The only criterion of the democracy, for the
apologists of Maduro, is whether Maduro and the Chavistas cling to power. And
if
Fuentes wants to keep his good name with the GLW and the regime, it's probably
best for him that Lebowitz continues to assure the world that he wouldn't think
of
talking to the critical Chavistas or the opposition.
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
_
Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm
Set your options at:
https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Venezuela: despite the crisis, Chavez's legacy endures (Green Left Weekly)
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 apologists for Maduro can believe anything, no matter how self-contradictory. The article in "Green Left Weekly" cited by Chris Slee boasts that basic goods are very cheap in Caracas--cheaper than anywhere else in the world!!!--and easily available!!!. Except... oops ... that hyperinflation is so bad that workers' wages can't afford them. It is supposed to be easy to find goods at these very cheap prices, it's just that these very cheap prices are fabulously expensive in Venezuelan money, and more expensive by the day! If this seems contradictory, well, we are told that "The Economist" said so! Would any serious, committed socialist doubt something that is supposed to come from an unnamed article in "The Economist"? As GLW puts it: "Today, it is again easy to find most of these goods - and relatively cheaply, as The Economist recently noted, ranking Caracas the cheapest city in the world. "But hyperinflation has meant workers´ wages have plummeted, making most things far from cheap for the majority. "Venezuela´s current minimum wage - the lowest in the region - stands at less than US$6 a month, or enough to buy one egg per day." On 22 Mar 2019 at 10:22, Chris Slee via Marxism wrote: > https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-despite-crisis-chavez > %E2%80%99s-legacy-endures > --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] More against US imperialism, Maduro, and Gauido!
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. * I don't know what the group "Anti-War Committees" is, but the following statement denounces in detail US imperialism, Maduro, and Guaidó, and has a bit of information about the stand of the workers' movement in Venezuela. It also says the American anti-war movement is in crisis, as seen in the leaderships of coalitions and groups like ANSWER, UNAC, and Code Pink having "reduced opposition to imperialist interventions to a mechanical isolationism that abandons popular struggles to the repression of dictatorships." -- Anti-War Committees in Solidarity with The Struggles for Self-Determination, Statement on Venezuela, February 12, 2019 No to the US Intervention in Venezuela! Oppose Trump´s Threats to Send Troops! No Confidence in Maduro or Guaidó! Corrupt Venezuelan Generals and Foreign Creditors Profit While the People Face Hunger! A severe economic crisis coupled with a deepening crisis of leadership has left Venezuela vulnerable to a US orchestrated attempt to secure a political transition that protects the military high command and restores a regime directly subordinate to Washington. Maduro offers no alternative to the economic crisis and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV by its acronym in Spanish), created by Chavez, is an obstacle to the popular mobilizations and struggles required to overcome the crisis. Although the US has recently taken economic measures to cut the Maduro government´s access to vital oil revenues, throughout the Chavista "revolution" of "21st Century Socialism", the US has been the biggest buyer of Venezuelan oil. Trump´s sanctions preventing Maduro and members of his inner circle from receiving oil revenues is effectively a blockade on oil sales to the US, but this recent development does not explain the hyperinflation and scarcity of food and medicines driving popular protests against the government. The root cause of the hyperinflation immiserating the people is the Chavez regime´s attempt to purchase the loyalty of the military high command, maintain service on the foreign debt and avoid directly challenging the economic power of Venezuela´s criollo elite through serious land reform and nationalizations aimed at breaking the power of landlords and monopolists, and securing food sovereignty and the ability to overcome Venezuela´s dependency on imports. Chavez balanced atop the popular struggle that challenged IMF-imposed austerity in the Caracazo of 1989, swept aside the power pact between corrupt political parties in 1998, and defeated a coup attempt in 2002. Initially enjoying deep popular support, Chavez replaced the old political regime and carried out a redistribution of oil revenues in popular social programs to alleviate poverty and increase access to housing and healthcare, but these policies could only be maintained as long as oil prices remained high. Chavez did not break the country´s exclusive reliance on oil revenues to purchase imports of consumers goods. With the collapse of oil prices, the needs of the people competed with the colossal waste of resources spent purchasing the loyalty of the military high command, and worst of all, the uninterrupted service on the foreign debt. Historically the resistance against austerity in Latin America has been associated with struggles against measures imposed upon governments in or at risk of default to international banks. The populist redistribution of oil revenues by Chavez was praiseworthy. Today, however, the government´s policies following the collapse of oil prices have tightened the belt on Venezuela´s people in order to purchase the loyalty of the army; the result is a massive transfer of wealth to the generals. Workers´ wages are eaten up by hyperinflation. Venezuela imports everything except oil, and an artificially low exchange rate is reserved for the regime´s allies-in particular, the high command of the military. The result is a black market that fuels inflation. The military is in complete control of food imports and distribution, and it has become an enormous parasite sucking the lifeblood from the Venezuelan people. Under Maduro, the Chavista regime has gone from populist programs to aid the poor to effectively forcing Venezuela´s poorest to bear the burden of the crisis, while enriching the generals who maintain control over the military and guaranteeing debt service to foreign creditors. The question of control over the military is key to understanding the political crisis in Venezuela. Up until recently, Guaidó was largely
Re: [Marxism] On Venezuela: Down with Trump, Maduro, and Guaido!
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. * On 6 Feb 2019 at 11:09, pb...@mail.ngo.za wrote: >. > Whether you are a transitional-programme Marxist or a Keynesian > Marxist, having exchange > controls is absolutely vital, we'd all surely agree? Hi Patrick, I would think that the essential point isn't that exchange controls are bad in themselves. The point is that the particular Venezuelan exchange controls were catastrophic. A government with different policies than the Maduro government might have been able to use exchange controls well. But the point is what happened in Venezuela under this particular government. In 2017 for example, there were three official exchange rates, differing by a factor of 30 to 1. And an unofficial exchange rate, which could differ from the lowest exchange rate by a factor of 100 to 1. As I understand it, under Venezuelan conditions, this made corruption and smuggling vastly profitable, and that was one of the bad things that took place. The government was unable to prevent that, but continued this system anyway. The result was that these particular exchange controls didn't encourage importation of essential goods as much as result in in immense corruption. And they were continued despite their catastrophic result, maybe because Maduro didn't have any idea of what else to do, or maybe precisely because the corruption was immensely profitable to certain circles with government connections. If someone repeatedly drives a car straight into a brick wall, it isn't much of a defense to point out that everyone drives cars. If you have different information, Patrick, about the results of the system of exchange rates in Venezuela, I would be interested to hear about it. Best regards, Joseph --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] On Venezuela: Down with Trump, Maduro, and Guaido!
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. * On 4 Feb 2019 at 10:23, Chris Slee wrote: > > Joseph Green claims that: "The Venezelan government's policies are > the main cause of the > economic and political crisis in Venezuela". > > While making a token expression of opposition to US sanctions, he > does not recognise them as a > major cause (I would say the main cause) of the economic crisis. All serious accounts of the Chavista economy show the role of the government's policies in the crisis. The sanctions are now becoming very severe, but the crisis originally developed, and turned into utter disaster, for other reasons. Here is a partial account of what happened, taken from an article in NACLA: "What Chávez´s spending didn´t do was invest significantly in domestic production, relying instead on imports and immediate assistance that increased consumption levels while leaving much of Venezuela´s private sector - from banks to manufacturing - in private hands ... "Meanwhile, enormous amounts of money went into artificially keeping Venezuela´s currency strong through strict exchange controls imposed in 2003. Far from a socialist plot, currency controls were an emergency response to the oil industry strike that left Venezuela in desperate need of cash: by limiting the amount of dollars individuals and businesses could purchase in the open market, the government could shore up dollars and stem capital flight. As the immediate crisis abated, however, currency controls did little more than fuel opportunities for corruption as those with access to dollars sold them at black market rates. Moreover, the oil boom simultaneously masked and fed corruption as dollars were plentiful. But when dollars became scarce as oil prices plummeted, the breach no longer held. "As authorities have stubbornly refused to lift controls - not for ideological reasons but because so many officials are now wrapped up in the web of corruption - black market demand for dollars to finance imports of everything from food to medicine to replacement parts have depressed local currency and driven inflation rates to upwards of 800 percent." >From "Explaining the Venezuelan Crisis", October 28, 2016 https://nacla.org/news/2017/04/28/explaining-venezuelan-crisis >From "Explaining the Venezuelan Crisis", October 28, 2016 > > Amongst other impacts, the sanctions affect the repair of equipment > in the oil industry, and thus > cut the government's main source of revenue. > Nice try, but the deterioration of the oil industry isn't simply sanctions. > Corruption and mismanagement are also contributing factors. But Corruption on the Venezuelan scale isn't simply some defect, but affects who are the ruling circles in Venezuela and why apparently absurd decisions are taken. > for people in the US, and its > allies such as Australia, the actions of our own governments should > be the main focus. International solidarity, support for the the working people of Venezuela, and learning from the Venezuelan disaster should be the focus. One can't fight imperialism without supporting the working people of Venezuela and of the world. And one can't support the working people if one closes one's eyes to what's happened in Venezuela and instead supports a regime whose policies have not only led to disaster, but which now rules by the whip as it has lost the support of the working masses. Moreover, the Chavista policies were put forward as "21st century socialism" and so have to be evaluated by serious activists everywhere. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] On Venezuela: Down with Trump, Maduro, and Guaido!
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. * On the situation in Venezuela: Down with Trump, Maduro, and Guaido! Solidarity with the Venezuelan protesters! (from the Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice list - Jan. 30, 2019) There is a deep crisis in Venezuela. At one time the presidency of Hugo Chavez brought immense benefits to the Venezuelan poor and workers, albeit it was done mainly through oil money, sufficient at one time to simultaneously finance social measures, bribe the military, and pay off a section of the bourgeoisie. But the days of the Bolivarian revolution are over in all but name. The country is now reeling from rampant corruption, the lack of sufficient food and medicine, spectacular inflation, mass emigration, and political repression. Hunger stalks the country. While a handful of Chavista bureaucrats and allies live in luxury, many Venezuelans have fled the country in order to survive. Meanwhile politically, the workers and the poor are caught between Maduro´s bureaucrats and the traditional rightist bourgeoisie in Venezuela. No to Trump´s intervention in Venezuela - from sanctions to the threat of military action. In desperation, some Venezuelans, not just the bourgeoisie, look towards outside intervention from anywhere. But there is a long-standing US imperialist policy towards Latin America. The US government has historically backed the most despicable forces in Latin America, and not hesitated to see popular movements drowned in blood. The US government opposed the Chavez government at a time when the condition of the masses was improving, and now sees the misery under Maduro as an opportunity. Trump, whose administration lauds the fascist-sympathizer Jair Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil, is intervening in Venezuela, not in the interests of freedom, but to restore the domination of the traditional bourgeoisie. No support for the head authoritarian, Nicolas Maduro, whose policy is simply to stay in power at all costs, no matter what the population thinks or how many people starve. The Maduro presidency is dependent, not on the will of the people, but on the continuation of support from the military, whose chieftains have enriched themselves under Chavista rule. The Venezuelan government´s policies are the main cause of the economic and political crisis in Venezuela. The Maduro government has relied increasingly on continuing Chavez´s centralization of power in the presidency. And as he lost popularity, Maduro took to more and more falsification of the voice of the people and repressive police measures. Elections have seen the banning of various opposition parties and leaders, and the coercion of those receiving social assistance or having a government job. Having lost the National Assembly to the opposition despite everything, Maduro called in 2017 for a Constituent Assembly to revise the Bolivarian constitution created under Chavez. In the elections for the Constituent Assembly, the vote of a person in a small town was worth well over 10 times that of someone in a big city like Caracas. That´s an example of what passes for legality and democratic procedure under Maduro. No support for Juan Guaido, who has declared himself the interim president of Venezuela. The mass disgust with the Maduro government doesn´t mean that the bulk of the protesters support the leaders of the opposition or that they have a clear plan of their own. The opposition´s political wing is dominated by bourgeois and neo-liberal forces, including the traditional right-wing, and Guaido appeals to outside powers to help him take over in Venezuela. He has no plan to deal seriously with the immense crisis at present in Venezuela. The opposition has a majority in the National Assembly, but it is fragmented, with nothing but opposition to the Maduro regime uniting it. As the crisis has deepened, the discontent with the Maduro government has spread to a number of poor districts that previously backed the Chavistas. A recent article in NACLA reports that "Much has changed, though, since the days of the April 2002 coup, when, in response, the Venezuelan poor famously came `down from the barrios´ to defend President Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. ... "Nearly two decades later, Venezuelan President Maduro faces a far different scenario. "Protests against Maduro and confrontations with police have been documented throughout many working-class neighborhoods, including Catia, which has been a Chavista stronghold for almost two decades, in addition to sectors like La Vega, El Valle, Petare, and San Agustin. Marches against Maduro have vastly outnumbered those in support
Re: [Marxism] On Tony Cliff and British SWP
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.
*
One of the things that Tony Cliff is widely known for is his book "State
Capitalism
in Russia". Indeed, on this mailing list, one may get brushed aside as a
suposed
follower of Cliff for holding that the Stalinist economy was state-capitalist.
But in fact, despite Cliff's denunciation of the Stalinist regime, his view of
the
internal nature of the Stalinist economy was closer than most Trotskyists care
to
admit to the "orthodox Trotskyism" that regarded that there only needed to be
a
"political revolution" that changed the leadership of the Soviet Union, not a
"social
revolution", because the Stalinist system was supposedly basically socialist
economically. While Cliff said that the "Soviet bureaucracy" formed an
exploiting
class, nevertheless, for him it was the relationship between the Soviet Union
and
the outside capitalist world that brought the capitalist law of value into the
Soviet
Union. In his words, "if one examines the relations within the Russian economy,
abstracting them from their relations with the world economy, one is bound to
conclude that the source of the law of value, as the motor and regulator of
production, is not to be found in it. In essence, the laws prevailing in the
relations
between the enterprises and between the labourers and the employer-state would
be no different if Russia were one big factory managed directly from one
centre,
and if all the labourers received the goods they consumed directly, in kind."
("State capitalism in Russia," Ch. 7, Subsection, "The Marxian law of value and
the Russian economy viewed in isolation from world capitalism")
This is a major flaw that makes a mockery of his declaration that the Stalinist
system was state-capitalist. Among Trotskyists, it was Walter Daum, of the
League for the Revolutionary Party, who sought in his book "The Life and Death
of Stalinism" to deal with the capitalist nature of the internal organization
of the
Stalinist economy, which he denounced as "statified capitalism". So in regard
to
the internal Soviet economy under Stalin, he went beyond Cliff and pointed out
things that Cliff couldn't deal with. But at the same time, he wanted to
denigrate
any difference between his views and those of Trotsky's, and he declared that
"We agree with Trotsky's outlook up to 1939" ("The Life and Death of
Stalinism",
p. 9). He sought to demolish Cliff and Mandel (p. 24), and closed his eyes to
the
fallacies of Trotsky. The result is that his book is full of a series of crying
contradictions. What he says on one page about the Soviet economy is
contradicted on another page. So one step forward, and a dozen steps every
which way.
So up to the present, not a single trend of Trotskyism has ever succeeded in
having a coherent theory of revisionist state-capitalism. I discussed Cliff's
theory
of state capitalism in passing in my article "On Walter Daum's `The Life and
Death of Stalinism': Competition among Soviet enterprises and ministries, and
the
collapse of the Soviet Union" (http://www.communistvoice.org/19cDaum.html).
Subheads of the article:
The internal rot in the old Soviet economy
Theories of the nature of the Soviet Union
Trotskyist views
The competition concealed behind Soviet planning--it's important, Daum says
No, Daum says, it isn't important
Competition and state capitalism
Daum's contradictions
The economy of a workers' state
Platonic economics
The life and death of Trotskyism
Trotsky's denial of the possibility of Soviet state capitalism
The state sector as a supposedly proletarian form
The Soviet bureaucracy was supposedly not a new bourgeoisie
The Soviet Union in the 1930s: workers' state or state-capitalist regime?
An excerpt follows:
The Trotskyists have a reputation as being among the foremost critics of
Stalinism, but it turns out that their analysis is often quite similar to that
of the
Stalinists. Their views of the Soviet economies fall into one of the following
three
categories:
*Most Trotskyist groups believe that the Soviet-bloc economies were
"degenerated" or "deformed workers' states", depending on the country. They
believe that these countries were essentially socialist or had a
"post-capitalist"
economic base, consisting of the state sector, although the government, being
Stalinist, was oppressive. Thus they hold essentially to the view characterized
above as that the Soviet Union was repugnant socialism, although they express
it
with their own terminology. This view leads them to defend some or all of the
existing state-capitalist regimes, even when they seem to denounce these
regimes in extreme language. Under
[Marxism] The 4th Climate Report in light of the "yellow vest" protests vs Macron's carbon tax
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 Fourth National Climate Assessment and the "yellow vest" protests against gas price increases -part one- (from the Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice list for Dec. 5, 2018) The Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) was released Nov. 26 by a department of the federal government. (1) It comes a month after a Special Report from the UN´s climate agency on how time is running out to prevent utter disaster. (2) These reports paint a devastating picture of the dangers facing us. They provide abundant and documented evidence of the reality of human-caused climate change, and utterly refute the climate denialism of Donald Trump and the rightist know-nothings. While Trump´s minions encourage corporations to pollute at will, the NCA4 was put out by scientists who have a backbone. The NCA4 can´t criticize the government directly, but every word shows how Trump and the pro-corporate conservatives are lying sleazebags that, for their present enrichment, are threatening the basic conditions of human life. But what does the report suggest we should do about the problem? It praises various measures currently being taken in the US to lower carbon emissions, talks about the "risks of inaction", and suggests we need to do more. But other than a fully justified skepticism about geoengineering, it has little to say about the failure of many of the current methods, and those proposed by capitalist politicians and corporate environmentalists, to live up to their promise. (3) For decades now, the pro-corporate environmentalists have advocated that market methods and pricing mechanisms should replace direct regulation of green house gas emissions. Has that worked or not? The NCA4 is, after all, a government report, and so it won´t say. At the same time that the NCA4 was released, massive demonstrations were taking place in France against fuel tax increases. They have convulsed the country for over three weeks. These "yellow vest" protests (drivers in France are required to carry highly-visible vests in their cars for use in case of emergency) have the sympathy of millions of people in France, who see Macron´s version of the carbon tax as another round of intolerable austerity being inflicted upon them. The establishment environmentalists tell us that the carbon tax is what is needed to fight global warming, and the NCA4 says that "emissions pricing (that is, GHG emission fees or emissions caps with permit trading)" is one of the tools to be used to oppose global warming. The French government is using fuel price measures to enforce austerity, but it hides under the environmental pretext. So now the question of what should be done to deal with global warming - market measures or serious regulatory measures - is coming sharply to the fore. Do we need major economic planning and mass pressure on the capitalists to have serious measures to save the environment, or should environmentalists woo the big corporations with market measures, at the price of earning the hatred of millions of working people? Carbon taxes, such as fuel price increases, are market measures. That´s why the market-worshiping and environment-destroying IMF and World Bank have been pushing the carbon tax for several years, and why ExxonMobil and various other major polluters have now come out in favor of it. The carbon tax is not a tax on energy company profits, but a sales tax passed on to the consumer; and it´s put forward as an alternative to economic regulation. It´s not especially effective, and it doesn´t provide for the development of mass transit or other ways to cut down on carbon emissions. It´s up to the market to develop the alternatives. This is not to say that some market measures don´t (or can´t) reduce carbon emissions a little, only that they have been (and will be) miserable failures in achieving sufficient reductions. Hence, at most, they can only be subordinate parts of something bigger, such as environmental regulations and economic planning, leading to a compulsory change of the energy infrastructure and of how industry and agriculture are conducted. However, to achieve such measures, one needs the enthusiastic cooperation of the workforce in forcing the corporations to obey the necessary regulations, and checking on whether they really do. (4) The French demonstrations aren´t dominated by any political party, and have an amorphous character. They reflect the distress and anger of millions of people who are being squeezed, and they are not only about fuel price increases but other austerity measures. Environmentalism has to make a choice. Either side
Re: [Marxism] The-Opportunity-Costs-of-Socialism.pdf [not sent]
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. * On 24 Oct 2018 at 19:23, Ralph Johansen via Marxism wrote: >>> Thoughts on single payer which, no less than Medicare, is at best a > way > station to what everyone deserves as birthright: adequate preventive > and > curative health assistance, at commensurate costs which do not > obscenely > enrich a few. In other words, it's an arrangement which if > implemented > still masks serious shortcomings. Present single payer schemes from > what > I see would not at all disturb the over all regime of the > pharmaceutical/medical complex in this country. ... Indeed! I strongly agree that the issue isn't simply financing the health care, and that single-payer would be simply one step forward, albeit a very important one. Back in 2007 I prepared a chart comparing four different things, * the present US system * Calif. and Mass. plans * national health care * socialist medicine. See. http://www.communistvoice.org/40cChart.html Being prepared before the ACA (Obamacare), it didn't include that. But it provided a framework that could deal with that as well. I prefaced it as follows: "A single-payer system of national health insurance would be a tremendous advance on the present system, but it still will not be socialist care. It will be subject to cost containment and budget-cutting, as all social benefits have been in the period of neo-liberal economic restructuring of the last few decades, and it will be important for the working class to insist that national health insurance is truly universal and covers all residents of this country, including the undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile the California and Massachusetts plans would funnel yet more money to private insurers, have a hard time finding the money to do so, continue the privatization of social services, and despite their promises, will not solve the problem of universal coverage." And I elaborted on this in such articles such as "What would socialist health care be like?" I contrasted a truly socialist system with capitalist medicine on such topics as -Universal coverage vs. private insurance -The limits of single-payer plans and national health care -It's still connected to profit -What is socialism? -Universality -Preventive care -Two-tier care -At the work place -Pollution -Elitism -Overmedicated. -Poverty -Workers must put their stamp on the health system See http://www.communistvoice.org/40cCompare.html -- Joseph Green --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ 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
Re: [Marxism] Reply to S. Jeong on labor-time calculation
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. * Thanks, Patrick. I would appreciate it. I couldn't find an email address for Seongjin Jeong. In solidarity, Joseph On 18 Oct 2018 at 8:14, Patrick Bond via Marxism wrote: > > Fascinating, Joseph. > > Let me cc to Seongjin, one of the most engaged and generous Marxist > thinkers I know. He'll be interested in your comradely criticisms. > > Cheers, > > Patrick > > > > > A reply to Seongjin Jeong on labor-time calculation > > and 21st century socialism > > === > > (from Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice list, Oct. 14, 2018) > > --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ 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] Reply to S. Jeong on labor-time calculation
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. * A reply to Seongjin Jeong on labor-time calculation and 21st century socialism === (from Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice list, Oct. 14, 2018) By Joseph Green * Jeong takes the labor-hour as the bottom-line of communist economic planning * But the PLTC can't handle environmental issues * Is reducing things to a single unit of measure necessary for economic calculation? * Marx vs. the single unit of measure * Calculation with many units of measure * The use of material balances does not prove an economic system is socialist * Input-output tables may or may not be material planning * The supposed abolition of labor and economic planning * Notes The issue of what economic planning under socialism would look like was discussed at one of the panels at the 50th anniversary conference of the Union of Radical Political Economists (URPE), which was held at the end of September at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Seongjin Jeong put forward the view that money would be replaced by labor certificates, and that planning would be done according to the single measure of the labor hour. I wasn't at the URPE conference; what I know about it is from a report written up by the left-wing economist Michael Roberts and placed on his blog, and from Jeong's draft paper "Soviet planning and the labor-time calculation model: implications for 21st-century socialism" which Roberts linked to. (1) In his paper, Jeong considers objections to his view, and as part of this, conscientiously refers to my three-part article "Labor-money and socialist planning", which puts forward a very different view. (http://www.communistvoice.org/00LaborHour.html) (2) My article on socialist planning centered on showing that there was no single measure that could serve as the natural unit of socialist planning, not even the labor-hour, and that the use of the labor-hour as such a measure would result in duplicating many faults of capitalism. It traced the history of the idea of labor money in the socialist movement, and the repeated failures of the attempts to use labor money. It pointed out that the labor certificate under communism, as envisioned as a possibility by Marx, was only to be used for the distribution of consumer goods and not for overall economic planning nor for how workplaces would obtain the goods they needed for their operation. My article pointed to the development of methods to plan in material terms. This might seem a rather obscure subject, but it bears on many practical matters. For example, the rationale for using market measures for environmental goals, rather than relying mainly on regulation and planning, lies in the belief that a single unit of measure is the way to achieve economic results. The rationale for reducing every decision to a calculation of profit and loss lies in the belief in a single unit of measure. And yet in reality it won't matter that much if money denominated in dollars or other national currency was replaced by calculation in labor-hours. Moreover, Jeong also claims that the Soviet planning agencies didn't really calculate properly or use input-output tables, and that this was a major cause of the shortages and disproportions in the Soviet economy. According to Roberts, this line of reasoning led to the view that "with the development of AI [artificial intelligence], algorithms, big data and quantum power, such planning by labour time calculation is clearly feasible. Communism will work." In my view, such views slur over the fact that the problem with the Stalinist economy wasn't simply bad choices by Stalin and his successors, nor was it bad calculation due to the lack of computing power, but that the Soviet Union under Stalinism became a state-capitalist country with a new ruling class. Given the importance of these issues, I would like to take this occasion to reply to Jeong's article, especially as Jeong focuses on several important points of economic analysis. Jeong takes the labor-hour as the bottom-line of communist economic planning Jeong holds that "The Marxian model of a communist economy, in its first phase, is characterized by 'planning based on labor-time calculation' (hereafter abbreviated as PLTC)." And he writes that "PLTC is one of the essential components of Marx's communism." (3 - but from here on references to Jeong's paper will simply give the page number) Now, in order to use the labor-hour in this way, it can't be
Re: [Marxism] Why Didn’t Socialism Have Over-Production Crises? | Peoples Democracy
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 Stalinist economies were subject to severe anarchy of production, as has
been noted by
all serious economists who studied the Soviet economy, no matter what their
general point of
view, provided they weren't hacks. It was manifested in a number of features of
the economy,
noted even by the Soviet authorities themselves, and yet repeated over and over
again, year
after year. For example, there was -- aside from enterprises fioghting among
themselves to
get the resources that they were supposedly entitled to in the plan, and even
having special
executives whose job was to conduct this fight -- dolgostroi ("slow-build"),
which was the
phenomenon that it took longer and longer, as the years went on, for Soviet
construction
projects to be finished. The planning authorities cried and lamented and beat
their breasts
about this year after year, and yet continued to specify plans that put forward
an unrealizable
amount of construction. This wasn't a failure in the technical ability to plan,
or else it would
have been solved in a few years. Instead it got worse over the years. It
stemmed from the
very nature of the economy, and no doubt contributed to the prolonged
stagnation that the
Soviet economy eventually fell into.
The difference among serious students of these economies is why did this
anarchy exist. In
my view, it's because they were state-capitalist economies, not socialist
economies and not
transitional economies. It was a sign the economy was run by a new bourgeoisie,
and it
occurred because the individual and small-group interests of the different
members of the
ruling bourgeoisie conflicted, and these interests had priority, in the way the
Soviet economy
actually worked, over the general interests of the ruling bourgeoisie as a
whole, to say
nothing of the economy as a whole or the population as a whole.
See "The anarchy of production under the veneer of Soviet revisioinist
planning"
at http://www.communistvoice.org/12cSovAnarchy.html
Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> https://peoplesdemocracy.in/2018/0701_pd/why-didn%E2%80%99t-socialism-have-over-production-crises
> _
---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus
_
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
Re: [Marxism] Leon Trotsky, Dupe of the NKVD — Central Intelligence Agency
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. * One might also refer to the valuable book "The GPU in the Trotskyist Movement" by the long-time Trotskyist leader Georges Vereeken (1896-1978). On 13 Jun 2018 at 7:43, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote: > Written by a Czarist agent. > > https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol16no1/html/v16i1a03p_0001.htm > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/jgreen%40communistvoice.org --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus _ 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] Seattle demo against Assad's butchery of eastern Ghouta
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. * 1. Seattle demonstration in support of Eastern Ghouta 2. About the Ghouta protest in Seattle 3. Denounce Assad's butchery of the trapped people of Ghouta -- Support the Syrian people against imperialism and tyranny! (SCSG leaflet for the Ghouta protest) Taken from the Detroit/Seattle Workers' Voice list for February 24, 2018. 1. A demonstration in support of eastern Ghouta Free Syria Seattle held a demonstration in downtown Seattle on Friday, February 23, in support of the people in Ghouta. The announcement for the demonstration stated: The Assad regime and Russia have decided to carry out the same genocide they committed in Aleppo, Homs, and Daryya to force the opposition and Free Syrian Army to give up Al Ghouta. Al Ghouta is the rural area around Damascus, and it includes several cities (Harasta, Douma, Zamalka, Ein Tarma, Kafer Batna, Hamoria). Last week, 100 people (including children) have been killed on average per day by Russian air force attacks on hospitals and areas full of civilians. <> 2. About the Ghouta protest in Seattle By Frank Arango, "Seattle Workers' Voice" The Damascus suburban area of eastern Ghouta is the last rebel-held territory in that part of Syria. For four years its estimated 390,000 people have been under siege, and since November the dictator Assad and Russia have been stepping up their merciless bombing and artillery attacks. This week these attacks reached some of the highest levels of the entire war, with over 100 people being massacred from the skies day after day. Pained and angry people around the world have mounted protests to demand the bombing be stopped and the siege lifted, and more protests are planned. The largest have been in Syria's Idlib Province, where even people from the refugee camps are demonstrating. There have also been protests of hundreds in Turkey and Germany, and perhaps 200 in Barcelona. Elsewhere, scores of people are usually demonstrating, and sometimes fewer. But all these demonstrations are important, and our Seattle experience shows some of the reasons. Ten people turned out in Seattle in freezing weather on Friday night, February 23. Naturally, everyone began introducing themselves, commenting on the state of the movement here and on the Syrian situation. But also, looking toward the future, lots of addresses were exchanged - an important step in building any movement. Marchers carried signs that helped inform people on the streets about what is taking place in east Ghouta while I passed out 45-50 copies of the leaflet below. But we also learned things, such as that the Syrian rebellion continues to have a lot of support among working people. For example, despite the cold and wind, a woman bystander raised her fist and walked with me for awhile as she denounced Assad on one correct point after another. Also, at least two people went out of their way to greet and shake hands with our Syrian comrades. One of them denounced the bloody role of all the foreign powers, and the other, an African American, said he just couldn't find the words to express how much he supported the Syrian people, and most warmly thanked our comrade for organizing the event. For newer activists, and for all activists, it is incidents like these that drive home that the solidarity movement must be organized among working people. <> 3. Denounce Assad's butchery of the trapped people of Ghouta -- Support the Syrian people against imperialism and tyranny! *Below is the text of the leaflet distributed at the Ghouta protest by the Seattle Communist Study Group:* Inspired by the other Arab Spring uprisings, seven years ago the people of Syria began demonstrating against tyranny. When Bashar Assad's Ba'athist dictatorship responded with bullets, arrests and torture this soon became a movement of millions. In it, everyday people united with army defectors to take up arms, and during the next years they liberated large parts of the country, which the local people then ran. But first with the help of Iran, then Hezbollah (entering in 2012), and then imperialist Russia (entering in 2015), Assad was able to stalemate the uprising and go on a brutal counter-offensive in which Aleppo fell over a year ago. By that time close to 500,000 people had died as a result of Assad's fight to maintain power, and half of Syria's pre-war population was either internally displaced or refugees abroad. But Assad continues the bloodbath. -Idlib Province and eastern Ghouta- The northwestern Idlib Province is the last major rebel stronghold. It has an estimated population of 2.5 million,
