Re: M-TH: China and LOV
You shoudnt be so sensitive Rob. My post was directed to Simon and his World Socialism. If you identify with this current that's your problem. By the way pb covers those like you and me who own their own tools of intellectual trade. Parasitism? Depends what you do with the state pay check. Blueprint. Definitely. Russia failed to live up to it. exploiting defeat? Well the menshies took a back seat until the end of the SU, not wanting to own up to any affinity with Stalin. Then they popped up all fresh with their Eurocentric patented democratic socialism. That's what is patronising, including the belief that we are not onto you. Dave. > Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1999 22:30:49 +1100 > To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > From: Rob Schaap <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: M-TH: China and LOV > Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 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 what we know > we can not do, 'exploiting defeat' when it is all we hold dear that is > being defeated, and 'patronising' for believing in the potency of > democratic activism - I'd've thought we had better things to talk about. > > Like the democratic activism going on in and regarding Seattle. > > That consumate poll-watching politician par excellence, Clinton, is > actually opting to walk the thin high wire on this one - and the attempts > to ridicule the protesters are waning because this is too big, right across > the spectrum - and that little distinction between what is human and what > is market is pressing itself on people's attention around the world - and > third-worlders are feeling sufficiently cocky to talk about power gaps in > globalist paradise - and people are asking loudly how does the > socio-economic system we have address the gaps it immanently produces - and > our suits are coming to learn no-one is swallowing their tripe any more - > and unionists, students, anarchists, greenies and Marxists are getting used > to the feel of each others' shoulders again - and they're learning that the > great democracy's answer to popular expression comes from the barrels of > guns - but they're also tasting popular potency for the first time in a > generation. All this in the belly of the beast, too! > > Geez, that wouldabeen nice to talk about, eh? > > Obviously not. > > Cheers, > Rob. > > > > > > > > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- > --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: China and LOV
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 what we know we can not do, 'exploiting defeat' when it is all we hold dear that is being defeated, and 'patronising' for believing in the potency of democratic activism - I'd've thought we had better things to talk about. Like the democratic activism going on in and regarding Seattle. That consumate poll-watching politician par excellence, Clinton, is actually opting to walk the thin high wire on this one - and the attempts to ridicule the protesters are waning because this is too big, right across the spectrum - and that little distinction between what is human and what is market is pressing itself on people's attention around the world - and third-worlders are feeling sufficiently cocky to talk about power gaps in globalist paradise - and people are asking loudly how does the socio-economic system we have address the gaps it immanently produces - and our suits are coming to learn no-one is swallowing their tripe any more - and unionists, students, anarchists, greenies and Marxists are getting used to the feel of each others' shoulders again - and they're learning that the great democracy's answer to popular expression comes from the barrels of guns - but they're also tasting popular potency for the first time in a generation. All this in the belly of the beast, too! Geez, that wouldabeen nice to talk about, eh? Obviously not. Cheers, Rob. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: China and LOV
Thanks Dave, I haven't really been reading much of this thread I'm afraid but reading your reply here I counldn't help but agree with every word. I thought I would just say (for the record!) John > Simon shows all the signs of evolutionary menshevik thinking. > Because for him the LOV is universal to class society, he can't see > that the revolution in Russia was a qualitative change. Nor that the > deformed revolution that followed in China was also. He cannot see > that the reason that the imperialist powers campaigned for 70 years > to defeat the revolution was that it posed a genuine alternative to, > not just a slightly less efficient model of, capitalism. He > counter-poses to that actual history, where Lenin used the term > 'state capitalism' in a very different way to mean the survival of > the market in a workers state, a blueprint of 'real socialism'. This > is the quiescent, academic "world party of socialism" intellectuals > offering their blue print to the masses, covered by the patronising > bullshit about 'self-activity'. > > Frankly, this is a petty bourgeois rendition of marxism. It has its > material roots in the non-historic but nonetheless reactionary role > of petty bourgeois intellectuals who must attach themselves as > parasites to one or other of the main classes to survive. Those who > attach themselves to the working class attempt to suck it dry. > Today the western pb intelligentsia is reviving classic menshevism > by exploiting the current period of historic defeats of workers > with the disintegration of the SU and other DWS's. Its theme is > that the revolution has not happened yet (October was premature, the > Bolsheviks were substitionist blah blah) and will not until > capitalism has exhausted its developmental potential for creating > privileged jobs for the petty bourgeois. But the reality is that in > this whole century capitalism has been objectively ripe for > revolution, and it was the Bolsheviks, particularly Lenin and Trotsky > who developed marxism beyond Eurocentric menshevism to take > advantage of that reality. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: China and LOV
Simon writes:
>The state has the role of maintaining the labour army, including its
>reserve. It may be that provision is private: it is still the state's role
>to ensure that this is done. This can be seen in the transition from state
>to private pensions: the market is introduced, and many workers will lose
>out, but it is still the job of the state to see that this is done
>properly. (Of course, those who are superannuated, the state may say hell
>with them: but this would mean they need looking after by their relations,
>who would demand compensation elsewhere through higher pay etc.)
>
>The welfare state was imposed FROM ABOVE. Nothing to do with the balance of
>class forces, a well-fed and educated labour army is necessary to compete
>as a world capitalist power and fight in various wars etc.
>
>What we are really talking about is the historical battle
>between manufacturing capital, and finance and landed capital which
>approaches capital "as a consumer" (Marx's words). Manufacturers require as
>immediate aims a well-fed, trained, docile workforce. The others require no
>such thing as long as manufacturers are still paying their bills, however
>the burden is distributed.
This is the usual petty-bourgeois lament about "productive capitalists"
(what Simon calls "manufacturing capital") getting a rough deal while the
"unproductive capitalists" ("finance and landed capital") get all the
goodies. The Americans are far better at this kind of radical democratic
anti-fat-cat polemic, because there there are so many radical
petty-bourgeois who still have no conception that socialism is the only
actual historical alternative. (Examples: Ferdinand Lundberg "The Rich and
the Super-Rich", Estes Kefauver, etc etc and today Noam Chomsky). This
critical current doesn't accept Marx's analysis that all other capitalist
groups are swallowed up by finance capital. Even in Marx's time the
"productive" bourgeois element in manufacturing was not the owners but
employed management. Of course the (relative) exploitation of this group of
hireling specialists and supervisors, and especially their exclusion from
the real heights of financial capitalist power is what really aggravates
the petty-bourgeois democrat critic.
It's also -- and many thanks to Simon for making this point so clearly -- a
hymn to the supposed benevolence of the bourgeois state as such. Necessity
and duty dictate that the state "maintains" the labour army and its
reserve. And the workforce must be "well-fed and educated", "well-fed,
trained, docile". But this is hogwash. Such things of course help a society
and an economy, but no bourgeois state wishes to pay for them. The most
that can be claimed is that a state might have an interest in living
labour-power as opposed to dead, and that this labour-power should be in a
position not to fuck up any machine it is told to operate. But living
labour-power can be imported when needed, and companies can train staff on
the job. No need for welfare, health or education funded by the public
purse.
The "competitive edge" is utopian long-term thinking that is foreign to the
bourgeoisie. Their mouthpieces sometimes trumpet this as policy but it's
only holiday speechifying.
I remember about ten years ago an amazing article in The Economist that
praised the Swedish system of education and employment offices because it
guaranteed a large, energetic, skilled and flexible workforce. The trouble
was that the article came at precisely the time that all this was going
down the drain in Sweden thanks to the active intervention of the state to
dismantle, to demolish everything the magazine was praising. And of
course, in Britain by then even the faintest hope of emulating the supposed
Swedish model had gone.
Capital doesn't need educated workers, it needs brain-dead workers.
Educated workers are dangerous.
It doesn't need skilled workers, it needs trained workers. Skilled workers
are proud and demanding.
It doesn't need independent workers, it needs (and Simon is right on this
point -- even a blind hen may find a grain of wheat!) docile workers.
Independent workers know they can do it all better without the capitalists
and their hangers-on.
I wrote:
>> Seems to me that the state as such is responsive to the contradictory
>> pressures in society in the west, and the availability or not of benefits
>> of various kinds is directly related to the balance of class forces in the
>> society in question
>>. If the bourgeoisie has the upper hand, the benefits
>> are cut (regardless of the ostensible slant of the government of the
>>day)
Simon disagreed with this. He can see contradictions among different
sectors of the bourgeoisie, apparently, but not between the great classes
of society.
Simon writes:
>The state becomes the source
>of wealth, and that group which controls the state constitutes a ruling
>class, just as in free market capitalism the group which controls the
>shares and deeds constitutes a ruling class.
Re: M-TH: China and LOV
Simon shows all the signs of evolutionary menshevik thinking. Because for him the LOV is universal to class society, he can't see that the revolution in Russia was a qualitative change. Nor that the deformed revolution that followed in China was also. He cannot see that the reason that the imperialist powers campaigned for 70 years to defeat the revolution was that it posed a genuine alternative to, not just a slightly less efficient model of, capitalism. He counter-poses to that actual history, where Lenin used the term 'state capitalism' in a very different way to mean the survival of the market in a workers state, a blueprint of 'real socialism'. This is the quiescent, academic "world party of socialism" intellectuals offering their blue print to the masses, covered by the patronising bullshit about 'self-activity'. Frankly, this is a petty bourgeois rendition of marxism. It has its material roots in the non-historic but nonetheless reactionary role of petty bourgeois intellectuals who must attach themselves as parasites to one or other of the main classes to survive. Those who attach themselves to the working class attempt to suck it dry. Today the western pb intelligentsia is reviving classic menshevism by exploiting the current period of historic defeats of workers with the disintegration of the SU and other DWS's. Its theme is that the revolution has not happened yet (October was premature, the Bolsheviks were substitionist blah blah) and will not until capitalism has exhausted its developmental potential for creating privileged jobs for the petty bourgeois. But the reality is that in this whole century capitalism has been objectively ripe for revolution, and it was the Bolsheviks, particularly Lenin and Trotsky who developed marxism beyond Eurocentric menshevism to take advantage of that reality. Today that reality of crisis ridden capitalism is even more pressing, and the only lack is a revolutionary leadership. So while the WPS, and its local mouthpiece Simon, attempt to defame and confuse the real history of revolution, it will hold no truck whatsover with the masses as the pre-revolutionary situations unfold in Russia, Latin America and before long in Asia. I for one won't be treating these menshevik ramblings as anything more than a diversion from the real business of building a revolutionary communist international. Dave > To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > From: "The World Socialist movement (via The Socialist Party of Great >Britain)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: M-TH: China and LOV > Date: Mon, 29 Nov 99 15:16:08 PST > Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Dear Hugh, > > The "iron rice bowl" was no promise, it was a reality. As was cheap > > accommodation. A pittance the wages might have been, but they didn't have > > to stretch to cover exorbitant prices for the most basic necessities > > So instead of high wages and expensive subsistence, they have low wages and > cheap subsistence. Sounds like their wages are being tailored to their > subsistence to me. > > . And > > agricultural workers won't thrown off the land > > No, its happening now because historically the Chinese state is reaching > the point where the British state had its enclosures, in world historical > terms. > > , and factory workers weren't > > thrown on to the streets. > > I know lots of unemployed factory workers not thrown on the streets. their > dole isn't all that much below their wages. > > > The sense of betrayal is not at an unfulfilled > > promise, but at a system of permanent security that was destroyed with the > > move away from a workers state with planning to a capitalist state where > > the LOV has free play (including the tender mercies of the multinationals > > and monopolies that this gives rise to). > > Again. The price mechanism is now being used to DETERMINE the value of that > labour. as I have pointed out above, previously it was guessed but on the > basis that it existed (the subsistence bit). The LOV didn't change. > > > Simon seems to assume that state control automatically implies universal > > welfare schemes. I'd like to see some arguments for this assumption. > > If the state is the only or predominant employer, it is up to it to ensure > a reserve labour army for itself. In free market economies, the state > intervenes for the capitalist class as a whole to perform this task, so it > is not as homogeneous as state capitalism where effectively the entire > labour force in in barracks and catered for on that basis. Right? Even the > US has welfare for this purpose. > > > > >> In the past, sta
Re: M-TH: China and LOV
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 >elsewhere. Then, as now. Wrong. The "iron rice bowl" was no promise, it was a reality. As was cheap accommodation. A pittance the wages might have been, but they didn't have to stretch to cover exorbitant prices for the most basic necessities. And agricultural workers won't thrown off the land, and factory workers weren't thrown on to the streets. The sense of betrayal is not at an unfulfilled promise, but at a system of permanent security that was destroyed with the move away from a workers state with planning to a capitalist state where the LOV has free play (including the tender mercies of the multinationals and monopolies that this gives rise to). >> China has only begun to create Western-style unemployment, >> welfare, pension and health insurance systems -- all vital to >> smoothing the transition from the old government-run economy to a >> modern market one. > >Because when the state ran industry it was not necessary to have a separate >state welfare scheme. Simon seems to assume that state control automatically implies universal welfare schemes. I'd like to see some arguments for this assumption. >> In the past, state enterprises had lifelong obligations to their >> workers, including living allowances and medical care for those >> laid off. > >Just as the state has in the West. A very sweeping statement that begs too many questions. Particularly historical-political ones relating to the origin and purpose of the various state-run enterprises in question in different economies. Seems to me that the state as such is responsive to the contradictory pressures in society in the west, and the availability or not of benefits of various kinds is directly related to the balance of class forces in the society in question. If the bourgeoisie has the upper hand, the benefits are cut (regardless of the ostensible slant of the government of the day). Now in workers states, the pressures were not so much from internal contradictions as from the interaction between the counter-revolutionary bureaucratic regime (which of course *is* a kind of internal contradiction, but not a class one, rather a *caste* one) and world imperialism. This is shown by the permanence of the benefits until the decisive breakdown of the bureaucracy in the face of the untenable pressures on them from the workers at home and the imperialists in the world market. Once the bureaucracy chooses to capitulate to the imperialist bourgeoisie rather than hand over their power and privileges to the democratic control of the associated producers, the floodgates are opened and the "welfare" mechanisms of the workers states unravel at a hair-raising pace. The instant qualitative aspect of this demonstrates clearly enough that a qualitative change is taking place -- from a workers state to a bourgeois state, from a state that keeps the LOV at bay, to one that doesn't. In the west there is no such instant and dramatic transformation, there is the slow grind of class war in the usual win-a-few lose-a-few process. Unless of course a change of regime from bourgeois democratic reaction to bourgeois Bonapartism (military dictatorship) makes it possible to attempt to suppress the rights of the organized working class at one fell swoop. Cheers, Hugh --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: M-TH: China and LOV
What ultimately matters is whether finance capitalism rules in China. So far the Chinese state has not shown signs of permitting this but of keeping the reins very much in its own hands. Indeed it must have been with Chinese approval that the Hong Kong stock exchange severely punished the financial raiders last year. It is true that labour power has become increasingly a commodity, but it is unimpressive to read the schadenfreude of the west in a paper like the New York Times when the inequalities of health care in the richest country of the world are a disgrace. I note that no one contested my interpretation of the workings of the law of value on a global scale, that there is a very steep gradient in the value of labour power between different countries and that there is a magnetic attraction by which value tends to be sucked towards the centres of global finance capitalism. China is hopefully making a compromise which will allow it to compete more not less effectively if this malign world environment. It cannot afford to allow its position to sink, like virtuous Tanzania. If the combination of more competitive world trading conditions plus state control of finances at the highest level allows it to accumulate more surplus within its borders, good luck to it. But I assume Hugh was as usual trailing his coat when he wrote: > There is still no better way of understanding the workings of capitalism than studying and understanding Capital, Theories of Surplus Value and the other works by Marx relating to these, in the context of Marx's whole political and revolutionary activity. This is shown by nothing more clearly than the complete reliance of the most successful revolutionaries of our century (Lenin and Trotsky) on Marx's findings and method, and the disasters produced by working class leaders (most particularly Stalin and Mao, as usurpers of the revolutionary Bolshevik tradition... << Since dissident workers in China are now reported to be picking up Mao's picture, could Hugh explain the criticisms of Mao's economics in relation to the law of value. Possibly only marxism-thaxis would be able to host such a debate. Chris Burford London. At 00:22 19/11/99 +, you wrote: >Futher to the discussion on China. > >NYT November 18, 1999 > >Caught Between Eras: China's Factory Workers > >By ERIK ECKHOLM > >BEIJING -- The middle-aged workers outside the aging Beijing >No. 2 textile factory Wednesday said that they already knew their >days of employment were numbered -- that they knew it even before >China signed a landmark agreement this week to open its doors wider >to global competition. --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
M-TH: China and LOV
Futher to the discussion on China. NYT November 18, 1999 Caught Between Eras: China's Factory Workers By ERIK ECKHOLM BEIJING -- The middle-aged workers outside the aging Beijing No. 2 textile factory Wednesday said that they already knew their days of employment were numbered -- that they knew it even before China signed a landmark agreement this week to open its doors wider to global competition.Their biggest worry, they said, is not the impact of China's probable admission to the World Trade Organization. They agree that it is essential for China's future, and they know that it should eventually expand the country's exports of textiles, like the cotton cloth their factory makes. What worries them now, said the two workers, who stopped for a discreet conversation, is how well the government will support them after they get the inevitable notice from their factory, which sheds more workers every month. Will they get a livable allowance? What if they need expensive surgery? Will they have any help finding new jobs in a fast-changing economy? I hope they won't just throw us out into the society," said one of the workers, Wu. Now in his late 40s, he said he doubted that he could ever find another job, because his health had been damaged by 28 years of loud noise and cotton dust in the plant. Wu and a fellow worker, Tang, in his early 50s, spoke candidly about their fears -- and their surprisingly bitter feelings toward their factory managers -- on condition that their full names be concealed. 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. Tang pulled his last pay slip from his pocket and pounded on a table, his voice quivering. "Look at this!" he said. "Eighty dollars a month, after 35 years of work!" "We haven't had a pay raise in seven years, but during that time the wallets of the managers have grown fatter and fatter," Tang said. "In this country the workers have the lowest status." Such fears and angers, shared by millions across the country, add up to one of China's greatest challenges. And it will be even greater if China fulfills the market-opening commitments it made Monday to the United States in return for U.S. endorsement of its application to join the World Trade Organization. That challenge is the creation of a better safety net for the tens of millions of workers who are being displaced in this wrenching transition. Even more daunting than the problem of urban workers, and receiving far less official attention, is the task of creating new jobs and lives for millions of inefficient farmers who are expected to lose out to global trade and may join the country's vast floating population of migrants who compete for bottom-rung jobs in the cities. "China's social security system is far from ready for the structural change in employment that would be brought about by WTO accession," concluded a recent report by the China International Capital Corp., an investment bank in Beijing that is a joint venture of the Chinese government and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. China has only begun to create Western-style unemployment, welfare, pension and health insurance systems -- all vital to smoothing the transition from the old government-run economy to a modern market one. "It's inevitable that older state enterprises and economic sectors here are going to lose out," said Hu Angang, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "I think it's crucial that government aid should not go to the losing enterprises to prop them up. "Instead, the aid should go directly to the laid-off workers. That's the key to a successful transition." The government has been acutely aware of the problem in the last two years as laid-off workers and retirees in dozens of cities have held protests when promised subsistence allowances were not paid. In the past, state enterprises had lifelong obligations to their workers, including living allowances and medical care for those laid off. But in the 1990s many ailing or moribund enterprises have simply had no money to give out. To stave off spreading unrest, last year the government mandated the creation of thousands of "re-employment centers" in every city and required local governments to share the costs of living stipends with laid-off workers' former companies. Workers enrolled at the centers are supposed to get training and job referrals, and in the meantime are supposed to receive monthly subsistence payments of about $20 to $35, depending on the location. But the coverage is spotty, and many failing companies still pay little or nothing to their former employees, leaving them to fend for themselves. And under current policy, the re-employment centers are supposed to be phased out at the end of 2001. The No. 2 textile mill on the east side of Beijing, where Wu and Tang work, employed about 7,000 wo
