Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rick Kuhn on the economic crisis
There are two views out there about private equity and the better-positioned hedge funds. One view says they are loaded with cash and are out there lurking sitting on it, waiting to buy up 'distressed assets' of all sorts, all over Europe, UK, US, and even (now yet again) Asia. The other view though is they are the next overleveraged dominoes to fall. Perhaps they are both. It seems sitting on cash often means sitting on some cash with tens of billions of dollars of debt coming due the next quarter. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Lenin's discussion of monopoly and speculation
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch01.htm “Even in the purely economic sphere,” writes Kestner, “a certain change is taking place from commercial activity in the old sense of the word towards organisational-speculative activity. The greatest success no longer goes to the merchant whose technical and commercial experience enables him best of all to estimate the needs of the buyer, and who is able to discover and, so to speak, ‘awaken’ a latent demand; it goes to the speculative genius [?!] who knows how to estimate, or even only to sense in advance, the organisational development and the possibilities of certain connections between individual enterprises and the banks. . . .” Translated into ordinary human language this means that the development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still “reigns” and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the “geniuses” of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialised production; but the immense progress of mankind, which achieved this socialisation, goes to benefit . . . the speculators. We shall see later how “on these grounds” reactionary, petty-bourgeois critics of capitalist imperialism dream of going back to “free”, “peaceful”, and “honest” competition. Half a century ago, when Marx was writing Capital, free competition appeared to the overwhelming majority of economists to be a “natural law”. Official science tried, by a conspiracy of silence, to kill the works of Marx, who by a theoretical and historical analysis of capitalism had proved that free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly. Today, monopoly has become a fact. Economists are writing mountains of books in which they describe the diverse manifestations of monopoly, and continue to declare in chorus that “Marxism is refuted”. But facts are stubborn things, as the English proverb says, and they have to be reckoned with, whether we like it or not. The facts show that differences between capitalist countries, e.g., in the matter of protection or free trade, only give rise to insignificant variations in the form of monopolies or in the moment of their appearance; and that the rise of monopolies, as the result of the concentration of production, is a general and fundamental law of the present stage of development of capitalism. -clip- Thus, the principal stages in the history of monopolies are the following: (1) 1860-70, the highest stage, the apex of development of free competition; monopoly is in the barely discernible, embryonic stage. (2) After the crisis of 1873, a lengthy period of development of cartels; but they are still the exception. They are not yet durable. They are still a transitory phenomenon. (3) The boom at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-03. Cartels become one of the foundations of the whole of economic life. Capitalism This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] 1978 to 2008
Subjec [Pen-l] Rick Kuhn on the economic crisis From: Doyle Saylor Greetings Economists, On Oct 20, 2008, at 3:59 PM, Jim wrote: as it always is. We shouldn't consider socialism only in crisis times. Doyle; We can consider socialism anytime, but no mass movement limits the speculation. Or at least that is how I interpret 1978 to 2008. It was simply impossible to get a major mass movement going in the U.S. no matter how good socialist analysis was. And I think that analysis can only be so so when there is no major movement to support it. Contrary I have thought it important to do something from 1978 to now. And others have acted throughout this period. I think looking back and understanding why that period was bleak in the U.S. might be good scholarship and help us in the future. That sort of thinking is not so freighted with impossibles as doing something during a conservative period. thanks, Doyle Saylor This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Dialectics of revolutionary organization and spontaneity
Carrol Cox is a Thaxis alumnus. ^^^ [Pen-l] Newsweek: Blame the libertarians [Pen-l] Newsweek: Blame the libertarians From: Carrol Cox raghu wrote: That's a fair point. Being unproven is, of course, a big problem for socialists and especially communists. No. Socialist struggles are never, actually, struggle for socialism to begin with - that enters only at a very late stage, and almost by accident as it were. They begin with struggles against (almost always, I think, a saying No) some particular horror of the capitalist society (Jim Crow in the South), and as they develop more and more within them see that more is at issue than the particular aims of the struggle. It branches out. The struggle becomes against capitalism (with only an active minority thinking specifically in terms of an alternative). By the time Socialism becomes the order of the day there is _still_ no need to prove or even argue for socialism: it has simply become the only alternative available. And it is within that struggle that the specific features of the particular socialism in question get hammered out, with any formula for socialism we might excogitate now being pretty irrelevant. It is even more problematic for anyone who believes a socialist revolution has to be worldwide or not at all. This is probably true, but it still poses no problem of prooving anything in advance. A popular mass movement within a given country does not start all over the place at once. Sometimes it simply starts at one lunch counter or someone getting ticked off in the streets of Watts. (The riots were every bit as important as the more formal pats of the civil-rights movement.) Similarly, a woeld-wide revolution (or a widely spread revolution in several major areas to be more realistic) can't be planned in advance. If a really massive struggle happens in one nation, and if the conditions sparking it are widely spread, it may may trigger struggles elsewhere. One can't write recipes for the cookshops of the future. There is no hard-and-fast-theory of what a revolution is. It is a mass struggle that sudenly becomes more than itself, and the people in it have to start using their fucking brains as best as they can. The world can, perhaps, rightly be skeptical of the wisdom of any such large scale experiment. Experiment is a really bad, even disgusting, word to use here. There are no controlled laboratory conditions in human history. Carrol This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Workers of the World, just read and watch the news
Here's another main media frontpage headline story that could be in a socialist newspaper. Workers of the World, just read and watch the news . The revolution is being televised Charles http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20081021/1a_lede21_dom.art.htm Cities see 'alarming' homeless numbers More families seek aid in face of financial crisis By Wendy Koch USA TODAY More families with children are becoming homeless as they face mounting economic pressures, including mortgage foreclosures, according to a USA TODAY survey of a dozen of the largest cities in the nation. Local authorities say the number of families seeking help has risen in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Washington. Everywhere I go, I hear there is an increase in the need for housing aid, especially for families, says Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates federal programs. He says the main causes are job losses and foreclosures. Other factors have been higher food and fuel prices hitting families with no cushion, says Nan Roman of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Many mayors have 10-year plans to end homelessness and had reported progress until this year. The most recent official count, in January 2007, found 671,888 people living on U.S. streets or in shelters, down 12% from January 2005. We saw family homelessness began to increase last winter, says Sally Erickson, Portland's homeless program manager. There's definitely a spike in the last six months. The number of requests for emergency shelter doubled from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal 2008, which ended in June. Darlene Newsom, who runs United Methodist Outreach Ministries' New Day Centers, which provide shelter programs for families in Phoenix, says the number of requests is alarming. She says families who never sought help before are calling. Los Angeles says it has no 2008 data. Miami reports no major change. Chicago has not had a surge in requests, but more come from renters evicted because of landlords' foreclosure, says Nancy Radner of the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness. USA TODAY found: ●In New York City, 2,747 families applied for shelter in September 2008, up from 2,087 in September 2007. ●In Hennepin County, including Minneapolis, 880 families were in shelters from January through August 2008, up from 698 in that period last year. At least 10% this year came from foreclosed properties where most had been renters, says Cathy ten Broeke, county coordinator to end homelessness. Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor of social policy, expects foreclosures to cause a big increase in homeless families. Mangano says a new federal law gives communities $3.9 billion to buy foreclosed properties or provide services to the homeless. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
