Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama Says He Will Seek Overhaul of Retiree Spending

[CeJ]

>>What's going to happen when it all comes tumbling down?

For example, his speech this morning painted an ambitious picture of
decisive action to be taken, as if Obama were the new FDR.  But as
usual, he's trying to reconcile everyone and save the system as it is,
while purportedly clamping down on unregulated corruption.  Yet what
is to become of militarism, which drains the economy dry, or the
fundamental operations of corporate America, that will continue to
bleed the world dry while being allegedly slightly more regulated?

The ideological problem of American society at large can first be
divided into the people who believe in Obama and the people who don't
believe in him. Both position are highly dangerous: the deluded older
liberals and the delusional yuppie liberals on one side, the
neo-fascists on the other, and a bewildered and passive population in
between. All this Internet activism--i.e. the yuppie-buppie base--is
not going to solve the problem or make the system transparent as Obama
claims.  It will simply be another engine of social cleavage.

Everybody want to make the system work, except perhaps the fascists,
and the people at large will buy into it as long as they can.  But
when it fails, where is that frustration going to turn?  Are those who
organized for Obama really going to organize for anything else, and
will they expand their base once they are caught with their pants
down?<<

---

Ralph hits the nail so thoroughly on the head, it's several inches
beneath the surface now, and yet not a single scratch or dent is
visible on the wood surface. Could one see a change in the
two-party-one-system politics, with the main part of the Democrats
joining up with the social liberals and 'moderate' Republican? Would
this party then be friendly to white fascists or libertarian types?
Could a real left political entity emerge from the wreckage (say
around a Dennis Kucinich), starting very small but coherently and
cohesively in order to evolve and take on a political agenda? I see
American politics as so inherently regressive that I doubt it. But
allow me to wish out loud.

CJ

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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Revolution and the Role of New Ideas

[Waistline2]

The main opposition to the emancipation of the slaves was from the working  
class. Emancipation could have come about fairly easily, but the workers didn't 
 want it. They felt that four million blacks were going to be dumped on the 
labor  market and they would lose their jobs, or at least it was going to lead 
to a  lowering of their wages. They were told it was better to keep slavery 
and the  workers would accept whatever wages the capitalists wanted to give 
them. 
 
So the problem that the abolitionist and emancipation groups within  
Lincoln's cabinet faced was how do you change the ideas of the American worker  
on 
this. There was a spontaneous motion on the part of the workers to defend  
their 
jobs even to the extent of preserving slavery, and on the other hand,  there 
was this militant defense of the Union. How do you show them that one was  
absolutely entangled with the other  you couldn't have Union without  
destroying 
slavery, and you couldn't destroy slavery without maintaining the  Union. This 
is what politics of that moment was all about. 
 
So you need to grab the actual existing social motion and figure out the  
factors that will allow you to turn this thing, to change the minds of people.  
What took place between the 1863 Draft Riots and a year or two later when  
literally hundreds of thousand of workers enlisted into the Union, singing "As  
He 
died to make men holy, we now die to set men free"? What happened during  
those years? They moved from attacking the government for suggesting  
emancipation to being ready to die to end slavery. What happened?
 
It was the skillful activity of the abolitionists right, left and center,  
all of them put together that slowly changed peoples' minds as conditions  
changed. So the objective and the subjective were united  the changing  
conditions 
provided the foundation for a change in the minds of the people. This  is what 
we're talking about when we talk about politics. 
_http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed6art4.html_ 
(http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v18ed6art4.html)  
 
The above is not to suggest that Obama is a modern Lincoln. The point was  
the social movement. 
 
To a degree - a large degree I think, an opening for the left depends on  us. 
Unless reaction and political oppression denies us opportunity. 
 
American communists, as a general rule of our history, have steadfast  
opposed defending the bottom of the social ladder, although they scream they 
are  
misunderstood when this is point out. Until we can champion the cause of the  
real proletarian masses, the poorest workers, American communism will remain a  
middle class movement in fact, no matter how much we quote Marx. 
 
We have our hands full. And have to fight with our own working class. 
 
WL 
 

In a message dated 1/8/2009 1:04:29 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 
_rdum...@autodidactproject.org_ (mailto:rdum...@autodidactproject.org)   
writes: 
 
That's fine, but I see little prospect for these new ideas gaining any  
influence in the USA, which has the power to take down the rest of the world  
with 
it. Once the Obama illusion is shattered, what's left? Will there be an  
opening to the left? I don't see it.
 
This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from 
_http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ 
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[Marxism-Thaxis] Scattering of the means of production, and no cooperation

[Charles Brown]

Scattering of the means of production, and no cooperation
Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org 
Thu Jul 19 15:11:28 MDT 2007 

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I thought I had come up with the use of "scattering" to refer to dispersal
of the means of production ( today with "globalization"). But Marx used that
term, AND IN THE SAME SENTENCE WITH REFERENCE TO THE UNDERMINING OF
COOPERATION !

Charles


This mode of production pre-supposes  
parcelling of the soil and scattering of the other means of  
production. As it excludes the concentration of these means of  
production, so also it excludes co-operation, division of labor  
within each separate process of production, the control over, and the  
productive application of the forces of Nature by society, and the  
free development of the social productive powers. 



?The private property of the laborer in his means of production is  
the foundation of petty industry, whether agricultural,  
manufacturing, or both; petty industry, again, is an essential  
condition for the development of social production and of the free  
individuality of the laborer himself. Of course, this petty mode of  
production exists also under slavery, serfdom, and other states of  
dependence. But it flourishes, it lets loose its whole energy, it  
attains its adequate classical form, only where the laborer is the  
private owner of his own means of labor set in action by himself: the  
peasant of the land which he cultivates, the artisan of the tool  
which he handles as a virtuoso. This mode of production pre-supposes  
parcelling of the soil and scattering of the other means of  
production. As it excludes the concentration of these means of  
production, so also it excludes co-operation, division of labor  
within each separate process of production, the control over, and the  
productive application of the forces of Nature by society, and the  
free development of the social productive powers. It is compatible  
only with a system of production, and a society, moving within narrow  
and more or less primitive bounds. To perpetuate it would be, as  
Pecqueur rightly says, ?to decree universal mediocrity". At a certain  
stage of development, it brings forth the material agencies for its  
own dissolution. From that moment new forces and new passions spring  
up in the bosom of society; but the old social organization fetters  
them and keeps them down. It must be annihilated; it is annihilated.  
Its annihilation, the transformation of the individualized and  
scattered means of production into socially concentrated ones, of the  
pigmy property of the many into the huge property of the few, the  
expropriation of the great mass of the people from the soil, from the  
means of subsistence, and from the means of labor, this fearful and  
painful expropriation of the mass of the people forms the prelude to  
the history of capital. It comprises a series of forcible methods, of  
which we have passed in review only those that have been epoch-making  
as methods of the primitive accumulation of capital. The  
expropriation of the immediate producers was accomplished with  
merciless Vandalism, and under the stimulus of passions the most  
infamous, the most sordid, the pettiest, the most meanly odious. Self- 
earned private property, that is based, so to say, on the fusing  
together of the isolated, independent laboring-individual with the  
conditions of his labor, is supplanted by capitalistic private  
property, which rests on exploitation of the nominally free labor of  
others, i.e., on wage-labor. [1]
?As soon as this process of transformation has sufficiently  
decomposed the old society from top to bottom, as soon as the  
laborers are turned into proletarians, their means of labor into  
capital, as soon as the capitalist mode of production stands on its  
own feet, then the further socialization of labor and further  
transformation of the land and other means of production into  
socially exploited and, therefore, common means of production, as  
well as the further expropriation of private proprietors, takes a new  
form. That which is now to be expropriated is no longer the laborer  
working for himself, but the capitalist exploiting many laborers.  
This expropriation is accomplished by the action of the immanent laws  
of capitalistic production itself, by the centralization of capital.  
One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this  
centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalists by few,  
develop, on an ever-extending scale, the co-operative form of the  
labor-process, the conscious technical application of science, the  
methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the  
instruments

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Revolution and the Role of New Ideas

[Ralph Dumain]

That's fine, but I see little prospect for these 
new ideas gaining any influence in the USA, which 
has the power to take down the rest of the world 
with it. Once the Obama illusion is shattered, 
what's left? Will there be an opening to the left? I don't see it.

At 02:19 AM 1/8/2009, waistli...@aol.com wrote:
>Revolution and the Role of New Ideas The history 
>of revolution shows that fundamental change in 
>society does not  occur without the introduction 
>of new ideas. What we have in our favor 
>today,  over any other historical period, is 
>that the conditions are favorable 
>for  abolishing private property forever. 
>Millions are being propelled into 
>motion  against the capitalist system, but 
>revolutionary transformation cannot take  place 
>unless there is an understanding of the root of 
>the problem and the  solution. Poverty and 
>oppression, or even the energy of a global 
>movement  against today’s horrendous 
>conditions – only create the opportunity for 
>change.  They have never on their own created 
>revolution. Only a vision of what’s  possible 
>can do that. That’s what we mean when we talk 
>about introducing new  ideas. What’s new today 
>is that a society that nourishes the 
>material,  intellectual, spiritual and cultural 
>needs of all its people is possible. The  role 
>of revolutionaries is to help align the 
>people’s thinking with the  possibilities of 
>today. How revolution comes about Once the 
>objective conditions for revolution are in 
>place, the intellectual  development of the 
>people is key to revolution. By objective, we 
>mean those  processes that exist independent of 
>thought ­ the qualitative changes in the  means 
>of produuction that disrupt the economic and 
>social order. In this era  automation and 
>globalization have created an explosion of 
>destitute people who  are living in urban slums. 
>Revolution comes about as a result of conscious 
>revolutionaries utilizing  the objective changes 
>to develop the subjective side of the 
>revolution. By  subjective, we mean the 
>ideological expressions in peoples’ minds 
>about the  objective processes ­ their beliefs, 
>hopes, annd visions, their religious 
>and  spiritual life. This ideological process ­ 
>that is, what people think and  beliieve ­ is 
>currently dominated by the ruling class. 
>Revoolutionaries focus  their activity here.


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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama Says He Will Seek Overhaul of Retiree Spending

[Ralph Dumain]

Obama asserted some weeks ago, when the "issue" of his Blackberry was 
in the news, that he didn't want to become isolated in the White 
House. But there is a sense in which people in his position are 
isolated from the beginning, or rather, how they live out their niche 
of alienated society. The combination of an idealist front and naked 
opportunism is hardly new--JFK was far worse, and it's in the fabric 
of the ideology of Americanism for ages--but it is configured in a 
somewhat novel and perhaps even more dangerous form. Obama seems to 
believe his own rhetoric, which indicates his psychological 
self-isolation from the brutal reality underlying the facade.

What's going to happen when it all comes tumbling down?

For example, his speech this morning painted an ambitious picture of 
decisive action to be taken, as if Obama were the new FDR.  But as 
usual, he's trying to reconcile everyone and save the system as it 
is, while purportedly clamping down on unregulated corruption.  Yet 
what is to become of militarism, which drains the economy dry, or the 
fundamental operations of corporate America, that will continue to 
bleed the world dry while being allegedly slightly more regulated?

The ideological problem of American society at large can first be 
divided into the people who believe in Obama and the people who don't 
believe in him. Both position are highly dangerous: the deluded older 
liberals and the delusional yuppie liberals on one side, the 
neo-fascists on the other, and a bewildered and passive population in 
between. All this Internet activism--i.e. the yuppie-buppie base--is 
not going to solve the problem or make the system transparent as 
Obama claims.  It will simply be another engine of social cleavage. 
Everybody want to make the system work, except perhaps the fascists, 
and the people at large will buy into it as long as they can.  But 
when it fails, where is that frustration going to turn?  Are those 
who organized for Obama really going to organize for anything else, 
and will they expand their base once they are caught with their pants down?

At 06:35 AM 1/8/2009, CeJ wrote:
> >>I read the article below and it sent a  chill down my spine. CJ 
> stated Obama
>would not last six months. <<
>
>1. I think you said something like, Give it six months.
>2. I think I said something like, It won't even take one month before
>the markets/people/media/awestruck Obama supporters/etc. lose
>confidence in his -ability to change things and -his ability to
>respond to the crisis of capitalism.
>3. I think I also said I would refrain from commenting on him until he
>actually took office and that even then I would wait some, like 6
>months, before I said something like: I'm not going to say I told you
>so, I'm just going to say there was no potential there to begin with
>(I sense an empty brain pan now that I've seen him dither over
>Palestine and ignore military spending while talking about social
>spending being the problem to fiscal deficits).
>The man is clearly a contradiction awaiting dialectic (wants ME peace,
>but Israeli interests are sacrosanct, says trillion dollar deficits
>are on for years, but says he must do something about the debt; says
>he is against the Iraq war, but wants to expand the war in S. Asia, as
>if there was no connection in the first place, etc.).
>
>OTOH, I say things like this hoping to be proven wrong. Is that
>something like real hope?
>
>CJ


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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Death of Identity Politics

[Ralph Dumain]

Seems to me that this is just the ascendancy of the new buppie 
politics, exemplified in such disgusting individuals as Harold 
Ford.  Obama's black (not mixed race, interestingly, or real 
African-American) identity still matters to the naive people who fawn 
over him, whether white or black middle class liberals, or black 
working class people happy to see a black man achieve such 
heights.  Jeremiah Wright's identity politics have not disappeared, 
nor will they as an ideological force.

As Obama's facade crumbles, the ensuing reaction will take a number 
of forms.  Whites will become even more dangerous, and there's no 
telling where black politics will go. Will it continue to divide 
between Democratic Party establishment types and nationalist sociopaths?

At 06:26 AM 1/8/2009, waistli...@aol.com wrote:
>The Obama Campaign - in the course of a year and a half, did what we
>collectively could not do, although everyone contributed on one 
>level or  another:
>destroyed identity politics as a social form. This does not means  identity
>politics has disappeared and no longer exist. Identity politics 
>no  longer exist
>as a leading social form.
>
>May they rest in peace.
>
>WL
>
>(PS. Now what will I write for Black History Month? Death of a Sales . .  . I
>mean the Black leader, as Black Leader?)


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[Marxism-Thaxis] A Lie You weren't supposed to believe

[farmela...@juno.com]

>From Richard Seymour's (aka "Lenin") blog.
---
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/01/lie-you-werent-supposed-to-bel...

Let's be clear about this. On 6 January, three UN-run schools in Gaza were
attacked by Israeli forces, not just one. What is more, the previous day an
Israeli bombing of a UN school had killed three members of the same family.
This sort of killing can usually be dealth with in a perfunctory fashion
('we regret all loss of innocent life, but the responsibility belongs to
those who use terror and hide among civilians...'). However, the massacre of
43 people in a UN school bearing flags and insignia and housing some 350
refugees from the fighting (many of whom had fled on orders from IDF
leaflets dropped on the towns and cities), demanded a more considered
explanation and justification. I just want to take a quick look at the
explanations offered by Israeli spokespeople and its military.

The IDF's initial justification for the attack on the Al-Fakhura school was
that Hamas had used the building to fire mortars from, and its tanks had
responded. Implicit in this was an admission that they had targeted the
school on purpose. The tank shells, presumably shot from quite nearby, were
fired by soldiers operating under orders from command centres equipped with
detailed targeting intelligence. As is now known, the Israeli military had
the GPS coordinates not only of this UN school but of the other UN schools
that it attacked. And the first thing the IDF let us know is that it was
done on purpose. Their excuse was barbaric, of course. The idea that an
invading force may attack a building filled with hundreds of terrorised
civilians just in order to kill two of those resisting the invasion is
nothing short of grotesque. But the fact that it was barbaric was part of
the point: rather than bluntly condemning a war crime, you were invited to
focus on whether Hamas would be so evil as to attack Israel's brave boys
from within a civilian building. Because it is so frequently repeated you
might be predisposed to assume that Hamas did indeed position its
'infrastructure of terror' among unsuspecting citizens but, whether you are
so predisposed or not, you are already drawn into the macabre calculus of
the murderer if you even get involved in that argument. You have tacitly
accepted the logic in which war crimes are not merely acceptable, but
actually appropriate, if the enemy really is as evil as Israel says. The
usual suspects, of course, immediately embraced Israel's excuse: Israel's
killing, they expostulated, merely demonstrates the ruthless, diabolical
genius of Hamas. If anything, they added, the IDF was admirably restrained
in its action. But it is doubtful that many others were taken in.

The second thing that the IDF claimed was that there were Hamas troops
hiding inside the building, nestling among the refugees, thereby forcing the
Israelis to slaughter the innocent. This is quite a different claim, and the
first thing that would occur to any reasonable observer would be that the
sudden embellishment reflected some sort of dishonesty ('the elaborations of
a bad liar', as Hannibal Lecter would put it). Or perhaps there had been a
failure by everyone to get their stories straight and stick to them. At any
rate, the logic of the astounding claim that Israel acted in self-defense
remained as tortuous as it had been. But Israel claimed to have identified
the bodies of Hamas members, and even fed two names to the media, (so once
again you were invited to get bogged down in the merits of Israel's claim
rather than decide on an appropriate response to the slaughter).

The next part of the story is the most interesting. In order to get around
the absurd idea that Hamas military operatives had sneaked into the building
and launched mortars without anyone in the school noticing, Israel's
spokespeople claimed that Hamas gunmen had taken over the UN building, taken
the civilians hostage and used the base to fire mortars at Israeli soldiers.
Mark Regev said it was a "very extreme example of how Hamas operates". Such
a claim was obviously checkable in a matter of minutes. Any UN personnel
present in the school at the time could easily say whether in fact they had
all been suffering under Hamas captivity until Israel 'liberated' the
building. The UN produced an emphatic denial, based on its own
investigations, that there was ever any Hamas fighter in the building. By
now, the fact that Israel has never provided any real evidence for its
claims, which continue to shapeshift, comes into sharp focus. Moreover,
since Israeli troops didn't visit the building or have access to the records
of the deceased, it would be highly improbable that they would be able to
not only name two of the dead, but also gather intelligence that proved they
were members of Hamas' military wing, within such a short space of time.

So, the Israeli government topped that brazenness with a stroke of
effrontery that is somehow not ad

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama Says He Will Seek Overhaul of Retiree Spending

[CeJ]

>>I read the article below and it sent a  chill down my spine. CJ stated Obama
would not last six months. <<

1. I think you said something like, Give it six months.
2. I think I said something like, It won't even take one month before
the markets/people/media/awestruck Obama supporters/etc. lose
confidence in his -ability to change things and -his ability to
respond to the crisis of capitalism.
3. I think I also said I would refrain from commenting on him until he
actually took office and that even then I would wait some, like 6
months, before I said something like: I'm not going to say I told you
so, I'm just going to say there was no potential there to begin with
(I sense an empty brain pan now that I've seen him dither over
Palestine and ignore military spending while talking about social
spending being the problem to fiscal deficits).
The man is clearly a contradiction awaiting dialectic (wants ME peace,
but Israeli interests are sacrosanct, says trillion dollar deficits
are on for years, but says he must do something about the debt; says
he is against the Iraq war, but wants to expand the war in S. Asia, as
if there was no connection in the first place, etc.).

OTOH, I say things like this hoping to be proven wrong. Is that
something like real hope?

CJ

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[Marxism-Thaxis] The Death of Identity Politics

[Waistline2]

The Obama Campaign - in the course of a year and a half, did what we  
collectively could not do, although everyone contributed on one level or  
another: 
destroyed identity politics as a social form. This does not means  identity 
politics has disappeared and no longer exist. Identity politics no  longer 
exist 
as a leading social form. 
 
May they rest in peace. 
 
WL 
 
(PS. Now what will I write for Black History Month? Death of a Sales . .  . I 
mean the Black leader, as Black Leader?) 
**New year...new news.  Be the first to know what is making 
headlines. (http://www.aol.com/?ncid=emlcntaolcom0026)

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[Marxism-Thaxis] Obama Says He Will Seek Overhaul of Retiree Spending

[Waistline2]

(I read the article below and it sent a  chill down my spine. CJ stated Obama 
would not last six months. If overhauling  Social Security means anything 
other than expanding its programs or taking  unemployment and medical out and 
establishing independent expanded agencies,  with expanded benefits, I'm ready 
to 
march. And so are the American people. For  30 years every politicians that 
has attempted to "change" social security has  had to back up.

Perhaps something good was in fact achieved by the Obama  campaign. It got 
millions of people to come out of their homes and America is  never going back 
inside to suffer behind closed door. Hands Off Social Security  - unless its to 
expand its programs.)   

WL




January  8, 2009
Obama Says He Will Seek Overhaul of Retiree Spending
By JEFF  ZELENY and JOHN HARWOOD

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama said  Wednesday that
overhauling Social Security and Medicare would be "a central  part" of
his administration's efforts to contain federal spending,  signaling
for the first time that he would wade into the thorny politics  of
entitlement programs.

As the Congressional Budget Office projected  a record $1.2 trillion
budget deficit for this year even before the costs of  the nearly $800
billion economic stimulus package being taken up by the House  and the
Senate, Mr. Obama stepped up his effort to reassure lawmakers and  the
financial markets that he plans a vigorous effort to keep  the
government's finances from deteriorating further.  

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Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Evidence please. Productive &. Industrial capital

[CeJ]

I think this piece was published on 11 Sep 2001! I remember reading it
a few years ago but it is worth reading again. I have only pasted an
excerpt below, a part that seemed relevant to our current discussion
on MT.

CJ

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/sep2001/att-s11.shtml

Excerpt:

>>However, further examination reveals that one of the underlying reasons for 
>>the growth of financial speculation has been the ever-present downward 
>>pressure on profit rates over the past 20 years. Financial speculation has 
>>assumed increasing importance under conditions where overcapacity has emerged 
>>throughout the capitalist economy, meaning that capital finds it increasingly 
>>difficult to accumulate profits through productive investment and turns to 
>>other means.

One recent study of this process has noted that "an increasing
proportion of the total return on investments since the start of the
1980s has resulted from capital gains (an appreciation in the market
value of the securities concerned) rather than earnings (dividends or
interest plus reinvested profits), with the former accounting for as
much as 75 percent of total returns in the USA and Britain—compared
with well under 50 percent (on average) in the 1900-1979 period as a
whole" [Harry Shutt, The Trouble with Capitalism, page 124].

The pressure on the rate of profit is manifested not only in increased
speculation but in more fundamental processes as well. Under the
pressure of finance capital, demanding increasing returns on
shareholder value, on pain of being denied access to additional funds,
productive capital directly engaged in the extraction of surplus value
from the working class has been forced to carry out a vast
re-organisation of the production process.

The globalisation of production, the merger movement not only within
countries but, above all, on a global scale, the continuous
introduction of new technologies, the relentless downsizing in major
corporations and the consequent increasing intensity of the labour
process (both physical and intellectual) are all expressions of this
drive by finance capital for the increased extraction of surplus
value.

But it would be completely wrong to see this pressure as emanating
from finance capital as such. Rather, the dictates of the financial
markets represent the drive of capital as a whole to overcome the
tendency of the rate of profit to fall, a tendency, which as Marx
demonstrated, is rooted in the very foundations of the capitalist mode
of production itself.

Throughout its history, the capitalist mode of production has
continuously revolutionised the processes of production, resulting in
an increase in the productivity of labour.

However, this affects the rate of profit—the essential determinant of
the rate of capital accumulation—in two contradictory ways. On the one
hand, to the extent that rising labour productivity reduces the
proportion of living labour—the ultimate source of all surplus value
and profit—in the production process, it tends to lower the rate of
profit. On the other hand, to the extent that increased labour
productivity increases the surplus value extracted from each worker,
it tends to increase the rate of profit.

The history of postwar capitalism can only be grasped on the basis of
these two tendencies. The restablisation and expansion of capitalism
in the postwar period was based on the extension, to Europe and the
rest of the world, of the vastly more productive assembly-line methods
of production developed in the US in the 1920s and 1930s. This induced
an increase in the rate of profit as a whole, giving rise to a "golden
age"—the period from 1945 to 1970—to which Attac and the other
proponents of regulatory policies look back so longingly.

But the postwar expansion did not do away with the contradictions of
the capitalist system. The pressure on the rate of profit began to
reappear from the late 1960s, and for the past 25 years capital has
been engaged in a drive to once again increase labour productivity.

This has not led to a return, however, of the conditions of the
postwar expansion. On the contrary, as a result of the entire
antecedent development in the productivity of labour, stretching back
over 200 years, the point has now been reached where further increases
in the productivity of labour are unable to counter the tendency of
the rate of profit to fall. In fact, further increases in labour
productivity, which capitalist firms are compelled to try and develop
under the pressure of competition in the market, rather than lessen
the pressure on profit rates, tend to increase it.

This is what lies behind the frantic struggle by capital, not only to
drive down wages and conditions, but to claw back the social welfare
and other concessions it was forced to make in an earlier period, in a
desperate bid to increase the mass of surplus value available to it.
Herein lies the source of the relentless attack on the living
standards and social conditions of wo

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Evidence please. Productive &. Industrial capital U hav...

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Addition 
 
(Couldn't sleep) 
 
I reflected a tad bit more on the material below and consulted Capital Vol.  
3. The basis of the discussion of the different sectors (without quotes) of  
capital was not from the standpoint of circulation or circuit, but rather from  
the standpoint of it's personification, i.e. politics. This is not to suggest 
a  direct relations between capital, regardless of sector and the 
superstructure,  but however, capital must be expressed in the superstructure 
and state 
or  rather, historical form of the superstructure and state.  
 
For instance prior to the Civil War or the period before the Civil War is  
quite appropriate to speak of Slave capital, to the degree that it embody a  
materially existing social relations of production. It is true that at the 
point  
the product of the slave enters the world market as a commodities all  
distinction disappear and there is only commodity capital. What does not and  
cannot 
disappear is the fact of the slave and slave owners, collectively  
constituting, personifying slave capital. The existence of this real capitalist 
 - 
person, is predicated upon the existence of other bodily capitalist, like  
finance 
for instance. This financier is not merely an appearance form of capital  but 
a function. That is to say his function calls forth his form as financier. 
 
The reason communist attach labels as distinctive sectors of capital is  
because politics express interest. And capital is also a political regime. If  
there was no reality difference between Slave capital and Northern capital, 
then  
the twenty five years leading up the Civil War makes no sense, at least from 
the  Marxist standpoint. 
 
Marx of course speaks of capital personified and as a historically evolved  
social relations of production. From the stand point of capital, or rather the  
capitalist, the workers are so much capital. But relations of  production 
evolved and this evolution is also capital in evolution.  
 
Who writes the political agenda for capital has always been important to  
communist in understanding the historically specific conditions under which we  
fight and labor.  
 
For instance globalization - a broad term, denotes something different in  
world politics. The world of Lenin was in fact ruled from the standpoint of a  
historically special form of capital. On what basis is the destruction of the  
direct colonial system to be explained, in not the political transitions that  
took place from "the export of commodities" as "distinct from the export of  
finance?" This is not the whole explanation or meant to deny the role of 
thought  and ideas. 
 
Today, in basically every newspaper in the country speculation is being  
discuss and layperson and specialist alike, in simple and complex ways. Why?  
Circumstances are compelling our working class and intellectuals to think  
different and ask the "what and why" of economic conditions. 
 
I believe the question of sector of capital as manifestation of reality was  
not ignored by Marx or Engels as program and politics. Although I can no 
longer  remember off the top of my head to reference, it was Engels or Marx who 
coined  the political concept "sector that write the agenda." (Civil War in  
France  . . .  perhaps?) 
 
Further, in the history and development of capital real people are driving  
history, with real ideas and perception. The merchant capital is not simply the 
 appearance form of capital but also a social function. The function calls 
forth  his appearance form. Yes? That is say, he does not merely appear as 
merchant but  merchant is he. Is this to deny that from the standpoint of 
circulation of  capital has no distinction? 
 
Hardly. 
 
Industrial capital as a sector is also a historical designation, as it  users 
capital and merchant capital. Sector denotes form, function and point of  
origin. . 
 
Today, no student of Marx speaks of merchant capital to describe capital in  
the modern word of commerce. Historical forms of capital are not just  
appearance form. Or rather form itself expresses a material function in the  
world of 
politics as government. When Marx writes government is the executive  
committee of/for capital it is not a play of world but to express a concept of  
function. 
 
The major task of government is to create the structural programs and  
policies that allow the economy to function. For example, when the government  
was 
the instrument of the farmers, that government did the things necessary to  
protect and expand the farm. The Indians were annihilated and cleared from the  
fertile lands, slavery was protected and extended, shipping lanes for export  
were cleared and frontiers expanded. 

As the farm gave way to  industry, the government transformed itself into a 
committee to take care of the  new needs of industry. At that point, government 
began to grow. Industry needed  literate workers, so the school system 
expanded under a Secre

[Marxism-Thaxis] The Practical Movement for Communism

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The Practical Movement for Communism 
 
By Sandra Reid 
 
From the beginning of class society centuries ago, humanity has been  
yearning and striving for a just and better world. 
 
In primitive societies, people could only survive through cooperation. The  
land and tools were owned in common. Hunting and gathering were the primary  
means of survival.  People consumed everything that they produced.   There was 
no surplus.  In such societies, there was no need for a state to  enforce the 
exploitation of one group over another.  These primitive  cooperative societies 
were overthrown as new tools, and especially animal  husbandry, developed. 
Organizing production around use of these new tools humans  produced a surplus 
beyond their immediate needs, making it possible for one  group to seize the 
surplus and force another group to work for them. A new epoch  in human history 
evolved with the formation of class society, private property  and human 
exploitation. 
 
From that moment on, revolutionaries have struggled for a vision of a world  
where people would live in harmony.  Spartacus led a rebellion for death to  
the slaveholders and freedom for the enslaved. Babeuf, the first communist of  
modern times, was executed for fighting for a society where all would share in 
 the products of the economy. Robert Fourier, in early industrial society,  
exposed the moral misery of the bourgeois world, bringing a vision of universal 
 happiness. Robert Owen built cooperative communities where workers would be  
treated equally. Walt Whitman, after the American Civil War envisioned a 
world  with “the most beautiful race the sun has ever shown upon.” 
 
As revolutionaries, we stand on the contributions of the visionaries who  
gave their lives to the struggle for humanity.  We understand that these  
movements failed because the material conditions did not yet exist to make them 
 
possible. History shows that it is not enough to have an ideal. There has to be 
 a 
reason rooted in the economy. Up to now, the means of production were not  
developed enough to create a world of abundance and a practical movement that  
could forever end private property. 
 
We are entering a new epoch of world history.  For the first time a  
practical movement for communism is coming into existence. It is composed of a  
growing section of humanity that doesn’t have the money to pay for the  
necessities 
of life. It is being created by the new means of production – the  computers 
and robots -- that are eliminating human labor permanently.  Of  necessity, the 
goal of this movement is a new society organized around  distribution by 
need.  This goal cannot be achieved under a social system  based on private 
property. 
 
Revolution occurs when antagonism between production and distribution  
develops. Antagonism develops in the economy as economic revolution disrupts 
the  
unity between the mode of production and the mode of distribution. As the  
economic revolution destroys the existing society, a spontaneous movement for  
reform begins. With the help of conscious revolutionaries working within it 
with  
a vision of what is possible, the spontaneous movement becomes a conscious  
struggle for the political power necessary to construct a new society. 
 
The practical movement for communism is in antagonism to a capitalist  system 
based on the buying and selling of labor power. This antagonism is  expressed 
in the inability of the workers to sell their labor power while at the  same 
time they are unable to live without selling their labor power.  This  movement
’s demand is for a change in the mode of distribution – a change in the  way 
society distributes its food, clothing, shelter, education, healthcare,  
utilities and a cultured life. Its demands strike at the political heart of the 
 
capitalist system. 
 
No one started this objective process and no one can stop it. It is  
communist because it has no way to achieve its goal for a decent life outside 
of  the 
reorganization of society cooperatively. 
 
Karl Marx, one of the great social scientists and visionaries of the 19th  
century, called the communist movement a movement of the vast majority in the  
interests of that majority. Today we have the possibility of ensuring the  
success of the communist movement by uniting this practical movement for  
communism with the age-old vision of a peaceful, orderly world. 
 
For the first time, with the creation of a practical movement, communism  can 
be put on a solid foundation. There is no way to solve the problem of the  
inability of the system to provide the necessities of life to people who cannot 
 
work, except by creating an economy based on distribution according to need. 
In  a new society, the scarcity of necessities that was once the material 
foundation  for oppression will no longer exist. Today the new means of 
production 
are  creating a world of abundance. Once the means of production are owne