Re: [Marxism] Unionization rate drops to 6.9% in private sector
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Jan 23, 2011 at 3:45 AM, Joaquín Bustelo jbust...@bellsouth.netwrote: More than 150 years ago, Engels was writing to Marx: “...The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable.” * [see footnote] * * * Of course, Britain is now not the only country in that position. A handful of countries have organized themselves into a cartel that exploits the whole world and where even the AVERAGE worker enjoys a standard of living which most workers in the rest of the world could barely imagine. ... the privileges that come with this exploitation of other nations are not limited to ONE class in the exploiting nation. The embourgoisement thesis doesn't have much going for it, and the above suggests you're arguing for the weakest version of it. The primary reasons why the average worker enjoys a better standard of living in the advanced capitalist societies are: 1) the development of infrastructure etc means that *the rate of exploitation in the imperialist core is higher* even when living standards rise. The reason why the vast majority of firms in advanced capitalist states continue to invest chiefly in those self-same states is because there the rate of exploitation tends to be higher, and thus the rate of profit tends to be higher. 2) the *accumulated outcomes of past class struggles* has compelled ruling classes in imperialist countries to accept parliamentary democracy, welfare and trade unionism, which ensured that living standards would rise. Moreover, if you're trying to explain the low rate of trade union membership in the United States, it makes no sense to refer to imperial privileges. Imperialism does come into it, but rather in the sense that it consolidates the power and cohesiveness of the ruling class and divides and weakens the working class, thus reducing its bargaining power. That is how white supremacy works. The reality is that unionisation is low because the working class was defeated by a combination of imperialism, the domestic slaveocracy and the peculiar binding force of anticommunist nationalism. The major defeats for organised labour and the Left in the country as a whole in 1919-21, then in the South in 1934-6, then as a result of the anticommunist purges in the period from 1947-56, then from 1978 onward have all shared different combinations of these elements. Imperialism by itself is not necessarily incompatible with high levels of unionisation, but combined with racist paternalism on the part of employers, and with anticommunism in the form of state-sponsored countersubversive inquisitions, it is toxic for working class self-organisation. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml # # # # Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] More on the Hurt Locker as half-baked Nietzscheanism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 9:37 AM, Bill Stephens wrstp...@gmail.com wrote: well we're not crucifying people along the trans-canada highway so at least we've made some progress since spartacus - a low standard i know. So you were exaggerating for effect. I understood that. My reply was not to be taken literally. films come out of nowhere often enough and set the style followed by numerous copy cat movies. you seem to think that ideology is all top down. isn't there more of a dialectic going on, if they have such a enormous advantage in well mind control why the need for ever more security forces? It's true that there are accidental successes from time to time. Reservoir Dogs would perhaps be an example. Smart producers respond to that by finding out what explains the success and trying to replicate it. Does this mean that ideology is all top down? I don't think so. I haven't claimed that these producers independently produce the dominant ideologies. I've claimed that they find out what people already think, feel, desire, and find ways to appropriate and commodify those experiences. If they do it effectively, if their team of directors and subeditors and cinematographers etc do their job well, if the technology works, they have a hit film. And it doesn't matter if some people watching the film don't enjoy it, so long as they got their market. Hence, to return to the original point, the fact that you derived no satisfaction from the sadistic violence in Inglourious Basterds doesn't mean that this isn't in the film. It doesn't mean that the violence isn't intended to be appealling. Actually, we know from the statements of the producer Lawrence Bender and the director Quentin Tarantino, as well as from various reviews, that it was intended to be an orgasmic experience. it's not a mistake it's one of many ways to look at movies. It's a solipsistic error to think that the meaning of a film is determined by one's own reaction to it. everything has a nature. there are certain things we can do and a great many other things, a veritable infinity of things we can't do. There are biological givens, but if that's all we're talking about, then 'human nature' is a tautology - like 'bee nature', 'nettle nature', 'asteroid nature' etc. It was clear from your useage that you intended 'human nature' to mean something more than that, something politically significant (cf the dark concept of human nature that conservatives have). This doesn't exist. There is no 'human nature' in the sense of our being either naturally 'good' or 'bad', cooperative or competitive, altruistic or selfish, etc. There is no 'human nature' that is relevant to the question of whether people are susceptible to emotional domination by well-made movie technologies. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Lindsey German?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Shane Hopkinson chen9692...@yahoo.comwrote: Rosa I knew I'd regret it. Ok so let's say she was 'forced to resign' because we know that despite 35 of service to a revolutionary socialist organisation she has unexpectedly become a pro-capitalist renegade whose differences can no longer be tolerated by her former comrades. Its all pretty familiar stuff. Get a grip of yourself, Shane. Lindsey was not 'forced to resign'. She chose to resign because of differences of strategy that emerged between the majority of the party and the faction she supported, the Left Platform. No one has said she has become a pro-capitalist renegade. As for tolerating differences, Lindsey was actually elected to the National Council at the last conference by a majority of members, and would have still been on the central committee had she not chosen to withdraw. She and her confederates were over-represented at conference.* Every effort was made to accomodate those 'differences'. It was the decision of Lindsey German and the Left Platform supporters that they could no longer tolerate their differences with the party majority. **They had 17 out of 350 delegates at conference, which means they attained the support of just under 5% of the delegates represented at conference. There is one delegate for every 10 subs paying members. If their representation at conference was proportionate, they should have been able to attract 170 subs paying members in their split. They actually attracted 60 members, which is 1% of total members, or 2% of registered subs paying members, roughly the same number and percentage that signed their original statement.* -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Germany's Die Linke shows the way for the left
On Sun, Sep 20, 2009 at 1:26 PM, Einde O'Callaghan eind...@freenet.dewrote: I feel that both Richard and Lüko have an over-negative attitude to DIE LINKE. Ahem, ahem! It was *sarcasm*. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Germany's Die Linke shows the way for the left
On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 8:03 PM, Lüko Willms lueko.wil...@t-online.dewrote: The Partei Die Linke shows the way forward? Well, yes, back into bourgeois politics. Yeah, because the working masses have already *abandoned* bourgeois politics, and the Linke wants to *trick* them back into that old shell game. -- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Frank Furedi: risk aversion undercuts war effort in Aghanistan
On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 11:23 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7349/ He has obviously been reading Martin Shaw's '*The New Western Way of War*', which concerns precisely the risk-averse strategy of Western states in war. Shaw - as an ex-IS man (IS was, for the uninitiated, a precursor to the SWP UK) - must feel vaguely insulted to be used as contrarian lube by the doyen of the RCP. Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombb...@googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
