Charlie wrote..
I agree with Rob that NATO and the U.S. are the fascist danger in this
war. The U.S. neo-colonial empire is built in part of many fascist
governments that are fully fascist because of their connection to the
reactionary sector or military industrial complex of transnational
Forwarding information on NATO losses from a Serbian source. The second
website (hosted by Cybercities) referred to has a discussion of the
reliability of the reports and details of the aircraft used, and it's done
by a Russian.
Cheers,
Hugh
___
Dave B writes in reply to John W in Manchester:
In response to John;
1. Dual defensism? Defense against imperialism takes priority. But
Kosovars should defend themselves also against any Serb oppression.
Right. Note that the Serb regime represents on the one hand an oppressed
nation being
Rob writes among other things:
Yeah, some argue that we in the west are now internalising a contradiction
that used to manifest at the class level (many of us are both workers and
depend for our retirements on extractions via stocks). This places the
contradiction, according to a nice English
Buford writes:
At 15:36 30/05/99 +0200, Hugh wrote
what was only his second contribution in 4 weeks, despite a post at 4 weeks
ago emphasising that we are in a revolutionary situation.
My political activity is not directly proportional to my activity on
Thaxis. A period with few posts does not
Doug Henwood wrote:
Hugh Rodwell wrote:
The reason our indirect (not so bloody indirect actually) apologists for
capital (such as Doug and Chris, with Rob flapping around them like one of
Dante's trimmers on the banks of the Styx)
[...]
keep trying to make us think
that capital is doing OK
[This post was delayed because majordomo thought the word
"unserviceable" was meant to be an unsubscription request]
Rob is very defensive of Doug:
Explains Doug (following Marx every inch of the way, Bob), credit to
producers funds greater capacity beyond consumption, while credit to
John W writes:
Thanks for all your replies but now I am completely confused.
How can money - as the universal measure of value - function if it
does not itself have any value? If value is determined by the labour
time necessary for its production.
Money does have value the same as any other
A couple of remarks in relation to Hans's nice answer on the labour theory
of value.
Hugh asked me the "Gretchenfrage" whether I think the labor
theory of value is valid.
Lovely German expression there, the "Gretchenfrage". Collins German
dictionary doesn't do it justice with "crunch question"
Neil throws a turnip:
Trotskyisms shameless defense of state capitalism...,
etc
Shume mishtake shurely- or does anyone else, apart from Trots, indulge in
this befuddled conceit?
Russ
What befuddled conceit? State capitalism or the idea of degenerated and
deformed workers states?
Trotskyism
Its interesting how the national
question has come up as THE difficult one.
Why? Because it's still unsolved, because the bourgeoisie and the
petty-bourgeoisie have no solutions at all nowadays, and because the
oppression and exploitation of weak nations (semi-colonies and to an
increasing
Good one, Dave.
More considered reaction later.
The important thing of course is that calling on the imperialists to clean
up a mess they created themselves is like giving patients with typhoid
cholera-infected water to drink. Or as Moreno loved to say, it's the
solution of the "bombero loco"
Rob confesses:
I have to rant.
Australia still hasn't
a - withdrawn recognition of Indonesian sovereignty of East Timor
b - expressed open support for Habibie against Wiranto
c - withdrawn aid
d - withdrawn our embassy staff from Djakarta and expel the Indonesian staff
from Canberra
e - stopped
I just received this from a comrade in Brazil. The events in Pakistan
affect a huge and rapidly radicalizing working class. Not to mention the
effects on Pakistani workers abroad.
Cheers,
Hugh
_
Comrades,
Today, October 10th there was a military coup in
Here's a statement by the Labour Party of Pakistan, giving the causes and
the probable effects of the coup and declaring the interests of the working
class in these events. The LPP is a revolutionary Trotskyist party close to
the LIT.
Cheers,
Hugh
==
Here is a brief article from the Labour Party of Pakistan summarizing the
first week after the coup. It is apparent how utterly indifferent most of
the political forces of that country are to democracy and the freedoms this
is supposed to guarantee with respect to organization, assembly and
Nice as slapping bottoms might be, Rob, and I never thought you were a
Madonna fan, a more
appropriate measure might be to put offenders in the front row of the scrum
in the coming
final between the Springboks and the All Blacks. Five minutes at tight head
would just about do
the trick ...
If
Hi all,
Being a newcomer on this list, I don't know what you're talking about. It
seems to me that we shouldn't be attacking people and we should
concentrate more on critiquing their ideas in a constructive manner so
that we can formulate better positions and act in the interest of the
working
Charles B (in the article he forwarded) and James F (in his remarks on the
reactionary bourgeois cultural icon Ingmar Bergman) highlight the strong
streak of right-wing reaction in Sweden.
I'd like to comment on some of the statements in the article from the
Internet Anti-Fascist/LA Times that
This might hold if Marx had ever restricted himself to the theoretical bits
of the first volume of Capital, or had not been aware of the relationship
between the laws determining the movement of capital and their empirical
manifestation, or had not intended to write sections of Capital dealing
Dave B's excellent summary of the workings of the Law of Value ends this way:
This discussion began with China. The point about getting the LOV
right is that it allows us to recognise that once the LOV is
suspended the potential is there to replace it with a healthy workers
plan that can escape
Simon writes, poetically:
Our job is not to pull the baby out of the womb. We are the baby, to use
the metaphor, being born. Or rather, we are a butterfly in the making,
reconstituting from a caterpillar via the pupae phase (the political
understanding, i.e. the form) to bursting from the
How's this for a great piece of journalism?
Mother Knows Best
Once convinced that they should expend their precious parental
energy,
mothers go to great lengths to rear their young. Most impressive is
the
Australian social spider. As her spiderlings mature, she
In his reply to me Simon just gives us more of the same.
But he adds:
And on value, well, we've been over this. You are talking
about suspending the PRICE mechanism.
No, Dave's right here, there's no capitalist price without value, as Marx
makes perfectly clear in the Grundrisse, the
Ian H writes:
I do not have the time to say too much, but would like to say that I also
found Meszaros' article a really good read, and would like people to take
up the challenge to articulate a clear vision and strategy for socialism
unemcumbered with the baggage of our political past
I'd
Bob M writes from the far north (actually just the middle if you look at
the map, he lives near Umeå) of Sweden:
Buy the way the school principle yesterday announced at a mass gathering
of students that Bob will be employed another year at school. This only
after being confronted with all the
Dear all,
I was wondering what others here thought of the issue of Ken
Livingstone standing for Mayor of London. He has made it quite clear
that he would want to work with the City of London Stock Market and
although he has made some concessions to his old Left allies on the
Underground (with
Dear Rob,
Where I am with Simon is the sensibility that we're not at the planning
stage until lots'n'lots of people are engaged. And then they'll be part
of
the planning, too, eh? I've never worn that 'saviours waving the
programme
at the masses' stuff. Don't reckon it gets you to
This piece I'm forwarding below from today's Observer, which persuasively
argues that the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was deliberate,
demonstrates:
a) the risks the most powerful capitalist nation on earth is prepared to
take to get its way;
b) the lies it (and its lapdog English
Simon makes some points:
Workers like these two toiled for a pittance for decades, with
the lifetime promise of a communist state's "iron rice bowl."
Now, caught between two economic eras, they feel betrayed.
Capitalism tells us all that we will be well off if we work hard. China, as
Rob whinges:
Whilst I obviously tend to Simon's general point of view (although I'm
closer to Hugh on the finance/'productive capital' question) - and I do
find it strange to be considered 'pb' when we own nothing, 'parasites' when
we ask nothing, 'offering blueprints' when that is precisely
RIP from the tomb intones:
Wouldn't it be nice if Hugh were right?
(It *is*, Russ...)
It's called an upsurge
In your dreams.
No cauldron about to explode- this is just a tempest in a teapot- the last
fart of hippydom whinging about selected contradictions of capital and
hoping that street
I asked:
Now if any of you cleverclogs's can show me a single quote in which Engels
or Lenin or Trotsky claim that dialectical materialism is a finished body
of philosophical doctrine, or that their own contributions to its first
steps are more than just that, then we might have a discussion.
Chris B writes:
Like Hugh, (who essentially agrees with me apart from having to take a
customary swipe at reformism) I also remember the black power salute at the
Olympics. That took courage.
I don't essentially agree with Chris. I essentially disagree with him
precisely because of the
Does anybody have any view on the West's apparent attempts to extinguish
much of the third world debt?
Yes, it's exactly that -- "apparent".
It's like a slave-driver on a Roman galley giving the rowers a day without
the whip, so they won't die on him. Sometimes the regime is "humane", like
Good news!
After Chris B's note about the Marx/Engels Internet Archive not having a
search engine I checked it out and wrote to the Archive to ask about it.
This is their reply.
Cheers,
Hugh
___
Greetings, and thank you for your inquiry.
We're in the process
Charlie's right in his reply to George, but of course he should have
mentioned the best Marxist treatment of this problem so far, that is
Trotsky's work on the Permanent Revolution.
Based on the work of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and quoting copiously from
them, Trotsky shows how the progress of
Perhaps some people have views about the settlement to end the apartheid
regime in South
Africa bringing the ANC to power.
My opinion is that the white regime agreed to a settlement because of the
weakness of the
mass movement in South Africa as led by the ANC and the trade unions.
Please
In message 001e01bf529a$768c2340$8af3143e@malecki, Bob Malecki
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
On Wed, 29 Dec 1999 20:41:20 -, "Geoff Collier"
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Now you have more time can you update us on your local fascist
problem ?
Geoff
Sure! Um in
A vote for the Stalinists in Finland is hardly in support of class
struggle historically or today.
Warm Regards
Bob Malecki
As there isn't any Bolshevik-Leninist to vote so we have to vote for what
we have.
Of course we don't support Manner as a Stalinist but because his work for
example
in the
Chris B writes:
But I agree with Hugh, (even though I suspect he may wish to leave me out
of the greetings to revolutionaries) that sometime in the next millenium,
and probably within the next century, we should be celebrating a socialist
thanksgiving, with turkey the main item on the menu.
The
Hugh declares:
HAPPY NEW MILLENNIUM TO ALL REVOLUTIONARIES WORKING TO MAKE THIS THE BIG ONE!
The above is a lot of sentimental claptrap. What does happy mean --mammy
tuck me in at
night; god look after me.
Warm regards
George Pennefather
Be free to check out our Communist Think-Tank web site
BBC person of the millennium results:
1. Mahatma Gandhi Black (sort of) subject of British Empire
(unwilling, jailed)
2. Leonardo da Vinci
3. Jesus ChristPalestinian leader, not tolerated in Roman
Empire
4. Nelson Mandela Black subject of British Empire
Chris B writes:
Gut revulsion at opportunist political leaders seems to combine with a
reading of Lenin's polemics against opportunism to create a view that the
bourgeois state can never have a progressive aspect, nor can government
policies be a terrain of struggle.
It is a controversial area,
Many thanks to Jari-Pekka for his clarifications.
And for the knowledge that there are some Trotksyists in Finland -- rare
birds indeed.
Maoists (at the time) I knew, but I only met one Trotskyist there, who
moved to Sweden and was active in the USec. Pekka Haapakoski, who wrote
about the
Sorry Charlie, but this is typical say-nothing bollocks from the "other list".
Note that Jim B neither reproduces nor summarizes Stalin's theory or
definition, nor Lenin's. Regardless of definitions, Lenin worked concretely
with the national question many times after 1913-14, and is very clear
Hugh, are your really calling Gramsci a revisionist?
And if so what type of revisionist is he, and what is your evidence?
(I will still allow that you might want to call many self-declared
*Gramscians* revisionists, but that is not necessarily the same question.)
Chris Burford
Yes.
Let's
Chris writes:
As far as revolutionary change in the west is concerned Hugh seems to make
the mistake of arguing that because Gramsci's approach implies 10,000
changes in the superstructure will be part of the process, it will
nevertheless be a gradual evolution. Turbulence and sudden change
I wrote:
So what do you prepare for -- the thousand automatic adjustments in the
bourgeois democratic regime or the decisive moment of political transition
when it will be possible to remove bourgeois political institutions and
replace them with socialist ones?
Chris B replied:
Well, I think
This just came to my notice. Anyone got any info on contacts between
dockers and wharfies in other countries and the Indian dockers?
Cheers,
Hugh
* Indian Navy Moves In As 100,000 Dockers Strike
Almost 100,000 Indian dock workers began an indefinite strike for more pay
on Tuesday, prompting
A useful address for India.
Hugh
=
If you want news on Indian strike which are continuing unabated, go
to labourstart.org/india/, where news below from Uttar Pradesh, comes
from.The government is putting the navy into the docks. Bill
The Hindu.
Chris B gets into sleaze.
At least he realizes that there's:
More than a tinge!!
Most of his comments are the usual smashing through wide-open doors, however:
For the leading party in the perfect artificially-constructed bourgeois
democracy to go through this, shows that in every country
I just received the following forward.
Obviously more news will emerge as the day continues.
Keep your eyes open! Note the websites given!
Cheers,
Hugh
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2000 4:41 PM
Subject: Insurrection Against Neo-Liberalism in Ecuador
This was just posted to Labor-List.
Cheers,
Hugh
Massive strike wave in India
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
LabourStart - http://www.labourstart.org
*** Please re-post to other mailing lists, newsgroups, bulletin boards,
etc. ***
In the last week alone, LabourStart has
Headwood wrote:
Congrats, Hugh! You've fallen for two hoaxes in one message (and I'm
not even counting the death agony of capitalism.
If you don't believe me (and why should you?) check out
http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/wobbler-hoax.html and
An example in point, my favorite list (as Rob knows) is currently
discussing whether Liberation Theology still exists! Many on this
list seem to think that LT has almost totally evaporated off the face of
the planet. If they were living in Texas as I do, they would quickly
see that the
Rob writes:
Time for Doug (to whom, many thanks for letting Hugh's little gratuity glide
past) to put his finger to the pulse, I reckon. Wassa story, Doug?
Not gratuitous, pregnant with significance as always.
However, why wake a sleeping dog to tell it it looks so peaceful when it's
asleep?
Er, perhaps I should point out it's the sentiment I find so pleasing, not
necessarily the sanguine 'new economy' exceptionalism implicit there-in.
Human work (as opposed to the inhuman work that rules the roost today) will
ever be part of the world, and no-one should be denied their whack. Being
Chris B informs us that
Ken Livingstone has taken the plunge, broken his word, and announced he is
standing for the new post of Mayor of London, against the official Labour
candidate Frank Dobson.
Very briefly cos I'm absolutely whacked...
While Livingstone has indeed gone back on what he said
Doug H amazed us all by writing about the shenanigans at the Monthly Review:
Internal disputes. My lips are sealed, except to say it's more a
clash of personalities than political principles.
Such loyalty! And yet so revealing!
Now let's see -- a megaphone for bureaucratic-academic scepticism
At 10:28 07/03/00 -0500, you wrote:
If this guy passes Hugh's test, he ain't no sellout.
CB
He's not a sell out. He is courageous and shrewd. But that does not stop
him being an opportunist.
If he wins, and it is more than likely, since he will get the largest first
preference votes, and will
What else does Marx do in "Capital" besides offend Owzyerfather's
complacent notions of Common Sense?
Well, among other things he gives us the most adequate analysis yet
provided of capitalism in the form of a NATURAL HISTORY OF THE COMMODITY.
The transformation of the product of human labour
When I wrote:
Selling your own labour-power is not where power and prosperity is at.
Selling other people's labour is.
I was asked:
Well, unless you're an artist or a novelist -- someone who produces
something completely "useless". Or?
And I replied:
The petty-bourgeoisie is in-between the
Jerry quotes from Capital II:
For instance, consider the following, from Ch. 8 , on the subject of
labour expended on the repair of fixed capital:
"The fixed capital however requires also a positive expenditure of
labour for its maintenance in good repair. The machinery must be cleaned
from
Russ writes:
This commoditiness is social, it is not in the object itself. It extends
only so long as the object is _available_ for exchange.
Robinsonades are always useful here: when a buccaneer steals some treasure
it is still a commodity, but when he buries his treasure it ceases to be
one.
On Thu, 16 Mar 2000 14:25:56 +0100 Hugh Rodwell said:
...
And it's the same with factories I guess. But I wonder whether, from a
Marxist angle, if this is all an absurdity: can capital _ever_ be truely
fixed?
The reason he called it fixed was that unlike labour-power it wasn't a
factor
Dave B writes:
Further to Hugh's.
Isnt capitalism generalised commodity production which includes
labour-power i.e. wage-labour?
Very much so.
Prior to capitalism commodity production was secondary to use- value
production, and typically not by means of wage labour. Therefore the
socially
But to say this is to say that productivity is a purely bourgeois concept.
Yes, it is.
Which is crap.
No, it isn't.
Oh yes it is!!!
Bourgeois productivity is a purely bourgeois concept. Productivity as such
isn't at all. Smallest possible input of materials and labour time for
greatest
Doug Henwood quotes me:
This is clearly the stumbling block. Joanna sees a kind of transitional
phase between bourgeois ownership of the means of production and
proletarian ownership. As if the bourgeoisie would let go of them without
some other force immediately taking over the reins of
Rob quotes important bits of Trotsky relating to the market. This doesn't
mean that Trotsky in any way viewed the system he is talking about as
*market socialism*. He's talking about a dictatorship of the proletariat in
which the smooth running of central planning depends to a great extent on
George G writes:
I wouldn't mind your comments on this particular issue related to Marxist
economics.
In a discussion on the situation of the working class under the neo-liberal
push towards globalization and the effect that this is having on the
people's of the developing countries. It was
Rob huffs and puffs a bit:
C'mon Hugh!
I argue that a socialist economy might need the market mechanism (for I can
see nothing else that would do the particular job of producing and
distributing use values) and you tell me there's going to be abundance, that
"there is *no* scarcity", that
If market socialism is such an attractive alternative, and vastly to be
preferred to party dicatatorships, and capable of arising more or less
spontaneously in periods of mass mobilization, then why
a) did it not arise spontaneously in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet
Union, either there
Hugh Rodwell wrote:
If market socialism is such an attractive alternative, and vastly to be
preferred to party dicatatorships, and capable of arising more or less
spontaneously in periods of mass mobilization, then why
a) did it not arise spontaneously in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet
Michael P writes:
Can't say I'm a very happy left social democrat,
Why ever not?
but in the absence, of a mass, radical democratic left, I'll take working
in the less reality impaired precincts of the social democratic swamp.
Try draining it.
At least they have read and thought and
Dave thinks:
This discussion is a load of shit.
Not really, it's part of the struggle for the leadership of the working
class, which at the moment is in the hands of the Social-Democrats and is
being mainly contended for by equally worthless ex-Stalinists, sceptical
New Lefters (often one and
Gidday Rob,
Sez Hugh of the little disagreement of late:
it's part of the struggle for the leadership of the working class,
It might be an analogue of some such struggle in some place and time, but I
doubt anyone here really seeks to lead the working class. I don't anyway.
Always the
G'day George,
There is a way to do this, but I'm not sure whether everyone has access to
it (I really don't grasp the technology's workings, I'm afraid). I don't
think this list has discussed a policy on disclosing the e-identities of
subscribers. For my part, I am happy for such disclosure to
=== This virus works on the honor system
If you are running a Macintosh, OS/2, Unix,
or Linux computer, please randomly delete
several files from your hard disk drive and
forward this message to everyone you know.
=
---
Love to, Bob, only I'll be alphabetising the spicerack for the foreseeable
future ...
Yours-in-search-of-a-party-who-reckon-agreeing-on-the-social-ownership-and-contr
ol-of-the-means-of-production-is-more-than-enough-reason-to-be-friends,
Rob.
Burn the spicerack,Rob, make yourself comfortable
Title: Re: M-TH: Lenin and the working
class
LO All,
Consequently it would
seem that Lenin's vanguardist elitism was a necessary
tool.
But the theory of the
vanguard is predicated on Lenin's (false) assumption of an inherently
revolutionary working class - i.e. that if the working class is
Gidday to you too, my slippery eel!
You write:
I hope we focus on the categories SC make salient,
but fail to tell us just what these might be...
rather than do that old "Lenin was Marx in practice!" "No he
wasn't!" quote-mongering dance, again. We've an archive choc-full of
that stuff
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