Re: Marx on Native Americans
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes > Over here much more rigor is >necessary. and then >It is the genocidal exploitation of Native Americans and African >slaves that made US capitalism possible. I was unaware of the exploitation of Native Americans in the North. One might have thought that reservations and genocide made exploitation impossible, but perhaps in your scientific rigour you have discovered some new form of exploitation. >Surely your Oxford education can do better than this. Flattered as I am by the praise, I must admit I don't have an Oxford education. > >Meanwhile, there's nothing you wrote that I find worth commenting on except >one small item. You ask me how American landlords transformed themselves >into a bourgeoisie without a struggle?My suggestion is that you take a >look at Part 8 of Volume One of Capital, "The Secret of Primitive >Accumulation" for an answer. Might I suggest that you read Marx on the American Civil War (collected works, vol 19) for a full appreciation of the conflict between the plantocracy and the Northern Capitalists, and that the most useful chapter of part eight of Capital volume one would be ch 23, The Modern Theory of Colonisation, in which Marx explains the importance of a monopoly of land (ie means of subsistence) to the maintenance of Capitalist social relations): Citing Wakefield's complaint about the lack of subservience amongst US workers: "The labourers most distinctly decline to allow the capitalist to abstain from the payment of the greater part of their labour. It avails him nothing, if he is so cunning as to import from Europe, with his own Capital, his own wage-workers. They soon 'cease ... to be labourers for hire; they ... become independent landowners, if not competitors with their former masters in the labour-market.' Think of the horror! [Then citing Merivale] 'In ancient civilised countries the labourr, though free, is by a law of Nature dependent on capitalists; in colonies this dependence must be created by artificial means.'" How, then, to heal the anti-capitalist cancer of the colonies? ... Let the Government put upon virgin soil an artificial price, independent of the law of supply and demand, a price tht compels the immigrant to work for a long time for wages before he can earn enough to buy land and turn himself into an independent peasant.' p721-2. L&W ed. Here Marx captures one point of the conflict that took place throughout the Westward expansion of the US, between capital and a free peasantry who evaded subservience by moving West. The authorities ran to keep up with this expansion, first trying to monopolise land, and then giving in to pressure to make it cheap. >Oh yeah, one other thing. I am in favor of giving Florida back to the >Seminoles. And that's just a start. This is the kind of childish political posturing that one expects of somebody who is not used to taking responsibility for their actions. Is this meant to be rhetorical, or serious? Do you intend to forcibly remove the current inhabitants? Or just remove their citizenship? In what sense are they responsible for the wrong done to the Seminoles? Is land ownership a part of your socialist programme? Why not start at home and hand over your apartment to the Algonquin? Such emotionalism leads to a wholly rhetorical radicalism whose grand gestures are in inverse proportion to its seriousness. -- James Heartfield
Re: USA Today op-ed on Microsoft (fwd)
Below is the gist of USA Today's editorial rebuttal of the Nader/Love contentions. 4%, is that the right figure, someone, and is it relevant where the effective issue is control of the Web? And the Apple analogy, something beyond ironic in view of last summer's shock MS bailout of Apple: is it really appropriate to the situation, or has Gannett itself become an unnoticed after-dinner mint in the orgy of acquisitions? valis Justice vs. Microsoft: Silly and ridiculous [...] Meanwhile, if Microsoft wins, it won't do much to extend its "dominance," as its most vocal critics contend. Microsoft, with its operating-system monopoly, still has only 4% of the $250 billion annual software market. And the Internet, with millions of players, is too big for Microsoft to control. Indeed, if Microsoft gets too greedy, it could end up like Apple Computer, which plummeted in the 1980s by tying its computer and software sales together. [..] _
Computer Technology's Contribution to GDP; "The Best ofTimes"?; Gates' Conspiracy
http://www.businessweek.com/premium/02/b3560225.htm Economic Trends: Business Week 1/12/98 WHAT'S MOVING TODAY'S ECONOMY? Computer production explains a lot To a large extent, arguments that the U.S. has entered a new era of noninflationary robust growth have relied on the idea that the computer revolution is somehow transforming the economy the way earlier technological breakthroughs did. Economist L. Douglas Lee of HSBC Washington Analysis points out, however, that it is not the widespread use of computers, but rather the rising output of computer makers themselves that has produced much of the economy's recent spate of fast-paced inflation-free growth. The chart underscores the story. In recent years, computer production and consumption alone have added about 1 to 1.5 percentage points to economic growth. As Lee notes, though, that's not because spending on computers has outpaced other outlays. Rather, it's mainly because computers are being sold with more power and features, which statisticians measuring gross domestic product translate into falling prices and more computer output. The critical point, says Lee, is that the technological advances being embedded in computers add to GDP but place no extra strains on productive capacity. The same people, factories, and raw materials can be used to produce each new generation of computers. So those who want to calculate whether the economy is surpassing its inflationary speed limit would do well to separate the contribution of the computer sector from the rest of the economy. Such an exercise is revealing. Lee finds that much of the recent surge in industrial productivity is related to the technologically enhanced output of computer industry workers. More important, subtracting the impact of falling computer prices from national output, he finds that the economy has grown at a 2% to 2.5% annual pace in recent years--close to, but not above, its long-term trend. >From this perspective, the lesson for market observers and monetary policymakers is clear: As long as the economy's high growth rates are tied directly to the computer sector itself, says Lee, the Federal Reserve should temper any inclination to step down hard on the monetary brakes. BY GENE KORETZ Updated Dec. 30, 1997 by bwwebmaster Copyright 1998, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved. Chart: How Comuters Boosted U.S. Growth http://www.businessweek.com/premium/02/b3560226.htm http://www.businessweek.com/premium/02/b3560238.htm News: Analysis & Commentary, BusinessWeek 1/12/98 IT'S THE BEST OF TIMES--OR IS IT? Despite a robust economy, plenty of companies plan to downsize It seems incredible. The U.S. economy is chugging away vigorously in the seventh year of an economic expansion. U.S. stock markets are near all-time highs, corporate profits are strong, and the unemployment rate is the lowest in two decades. Yet the Christmas season--and the entire fourth quarter, for that matter--was marked by a wave of layoffs that will affect tens of thousands of workers. And many of the cuts are coming at companies that are still racking up strong earnings. What's going on? Global competition has made it impossible for companies to raise prices and forced some to cut them. A strong U.S. dollar only makes the situation more difficult. So if earnings are to be maintained and improved, corporations have one alternative: cut costs. And that usually means putting employees out of work--albeit in an extremely healthy job market. Consider General Electric Co. To get his sprawling company ready to compete in a deflationary economic environment, late last year Chairman and Chief Executive John F. Welch set in motion plans for a nearly $2 billion across-the-company restructuring, even though all GE's divisions were achieving double-digit returns. Where Welch goes, other CEOs follow. ''If GE is doing it, it's got to be a harbinger,'' says Gail D. Fosler, chief economist at the Conference Board. Although she remains bullish on the economy, Fosler predicts that there will be lots of downsizings and restructurings ahead. ''1998 is going to be like a day when it rains but the sun's out,'' she says. ''We are going to see layoffs and pretty good economic growth at the same time.'' ASIAN BACKLASH. With the crisis in Asian economies, forecasters are paring earlier predictions of U.S. economic growth by as much as half a percentage point. That only increases the prospects for more consolidations, more downsizings, and other cost-cutting moves. Companies are already falling short of earnings estimates--many citing the Asian meltdown and the effect of the strong dollar on overseas sales and profits. Overall, 1998 profits are expected to grow 5% at best--half of the 1997 growth rate and one-third of 1996 earnings growth. One Salomon Brothers Inc. analyst puts 1998 earnings growth at closer to 2%. ''It see
Re: Marx on Native Americans
Heartfield: >I was unaware of the exploitation of Native Americans in the North. One >might have thought that reservations and genocide made exploitation >impossible, but perhaps in your scientific rigour you have discovered >some new form of exploitation. I am referring to the general sense of exploitation, not the technical Marxist sense. For example, Israel exploited the Palestinian people when it stole their land. The word exploitation preceded Marx's use of the word. If you can find a better word to describe taking advantage of people, I'd be happy to use it. What we differ on is the substantial question of social justice. You side with the land thieves, I side with the victims. (quoting Marx) >How, then, to heal the anti-capitalist cancer of the colonies? ... Let >the Government put upon virgin soil an artificial price, independent of >the law of supply and demand, a price tht compels the immigrant to work >for a long time for wages before he can earn enough to buy land and turn >himself into an independent peasant.' p721-2. L&W ed. Virgin soil? Yes, I've heard this before. What was Zionism after all: A people without land looking for a land without people. It doesn't matter if Marx used the term "virgin soil." This does not make it right, for god's sake. It was a barbaric misrepresentation of American civilization. The Native Americans were living here minding their own business and colonial settlers stole their land. And you apologize for this by quoting the more unfortunate aspects of Marx and Engels. Engels said that the conquest of Algeria was an "important and fortunate fact for the progress of civilization." Does this excuse the French colonialism because Engels said it? Whoops, I forgot who I was talking to. I suppose in your eyes it does. > In >what sense are they responsible for the wrong done to the Seminoles? Is >land ownership a part of your socialist programme? Why not start at home >and hand over your apartment to the Algonquin? > These questions are popping up everywhere in the world today. The NY Times reported that Mugabe is threatening to finally expropriate the rich white settlers and give the land to the land-based Zimbabweans. The whites complain about the injustice that is about to be done to them. Poor dears, where will they go. Israelis have from the day of the birth of their nation constructed a wagon-circling ideology directed at the Palestinians who want to "drive them into the sea." Settler states have accounts to pay and that's that. The most blood-stained settler state in the world is the USA and the Seminoles et al, and African-Americans deserve restitution. It is really not an issue that can solved in the state of Florida by itself. It has to be settled on a national and global level. Socialism involves fair play. The Seminoles and other Indians have to be given top priority in their quest for justice. No Seminole has asked for the state of Florida to be returned, by the way. What they are asking for is respect for their land rights. Socialists should defend them today and in the future. This is from the Seminole Web Page and it should serve as a guideline for the sort of debt that is owed to them: Louis Proyect Survival In The Swamp The Seminoles began the 20th century where they had been left at the conclusion of the Seminole Wars - in abject poverty, hiding out in remote camps in the wet wilderness areas of South Florida. There, finally left at peace from U.S. government oppression, the last few Florida Indians managed to live off the land, maintaining minimal contact with the outside world. Hunting, trapping, fishing and trading with the white man at frontier outposts provided the Seminoles with their only significant economic enterprise of the era. By this time, development had reached the coastal rivers and plains of South Florida. Inland, a "drain-the-Everglades" mentality promoted by politicians and developers, forever altered the course of the "River of Grass." Even in the untamed wilderness of the Seminole, man's social and ecological pollution had dire effect. Poor crops, shrinking numbers of fish and game, droughts, serious hurricanes and other calamities once again heaped pressure on the Seminoles. The collapse of the frontier Seminole economy in the 1920s threatened the Florida Indians with assimilation and extinction. The wilderness no longer offered salvation; many lived as tenants on lands or farms where they worked or as spectacles in the many tiny tourist attractions sprouting up across tourist South Florida. By this time, however, the U.S. Congress had begun to take notice. By 1938, more than 80,000 acres of land had been set aside for the Seminoles in the Big Cypress, Hollywood and Brighton areas and the invitation to move in, to change from subsistence farming and hunting/trapping to an agriculture-based economy, was offered. Few Seminoles moved onto these Indian reservation lands, however, mistrusting the governme
Re: Marx on Native Americans
This is a bit of a mess, because Louis is angry about something that gets in the way of his thinking, but here goes: In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes > >Or was "ennobling" American Indians just a convenient fiction? Isn't that what I said? Fictitious. Property in land was an institution that was alien to native Americans. >The notion that there was any sort of class ties between the colonizers and >the Calibans of the New World is actually an obscene lie. Indeed it is is! Who is the dastardly character who dared say such a thing. I'll have him! >LM: >The early Colonists lived in peculiar subservience, often as indentured >servants to their English masters. The monopoly over the land held by a >handful of English lords guaranteed their servitude and their masters power. > >Louis Proyect: >So the early Colonists lived in subservience? This is a novel view, I must >say, in light of all the Marxist research into American society of the >1600-1800 period. What history book did you consult to come up with this >startling statement? I was under the impression that there was a landed >aristocracy in colonial America. How did they disappear in your account? Again, where is the controversy. The the estates were held by landlords of English Origin like William Penn (the name of a nearby School when I was a boy, we called them 'Billy Biro'.) These men were naturally closer to England than America in the emerging conflict, as English ships were the garantor of their power. They were also hostile to expansion Westwards because that undermined the monopoly power over the means of subsistence that their land ownership represented. >Louis Proyect: >Again, with the absence of an American landed aristocracy, LM's history >makes perfect sense. Whoever said it. The expansion westwards was driven by a desire to escape the social domination of landlords. > Marxists prefer to include >all major classes, however, when we evaluate history and not leave a single >one out. On the question of the tensions between Indians and frontiersmen, >it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to factor in the landed aristocracy, the class >LM relegates to Derridean "erasure." Bizarre. It was me who introduced the discussion of the monopoly over land into the equation. > It was not an "English governor" that >the poor whites were in struggle with, but the emerging American >bourgeoisie who were wealthy tobacco, cotton and livestock farmers. Of course there was that small matter of a War of Inependence, and indeed of Nathaniel Bacon's revolt. But why let historical facts interfere with myth-making. And now suddenly the landlords have transformed themselves into a bourgeoisie! Where was the struggle that facilitated that change? > >In the Bacon Rebellion of 1676 in Virginia, poor whites drifted westward >when they were left out of huge land grants awarded to plantation-owners. >On the frontier they collided with Indian tribes. Wealthy Virginians >playing Indians against poor whites is a familiar pattern in American >history. The goal was to punish Bacon's rebels and prevent the Indians from >uniting against them. I'm not sure that this accounts for Bacon's bloodcurdling demands for an aggressive Indian policy. If it was a matter of playing Indians of againsst poor whites in classical divide and rule mode, it didn't exactly work, issuing in the overthrow of the governor on that very issue. The point was that the frontiersmen were constantly tempted to press West to escape the heavy hand of the East coast ruling class. >After some skirmishes between frontiersmen and >Indians, the ruling class in Virginia DECLARED WAR on the Indians. Why do >you leave out this fact, Heartfield? Well, it was only a sketch. As to the declaration of war, I would see it as the attempt by the Virginia gentry to get back in the saddle and take hold of a situation that was running out of their control. >Isn't it of interest to note that such >an event took place? Doesn't the truth matter to you? Now you're just being rude. > >The fundamental class struggle in the New World was not between >"revolutionary" capitalists and precapitalist social formations in alliance >with the French or British Crown. It was rather between the emerging >American ruling class and an array of subclasses: landless whites, Indians, >and African slaves. This all seems a bit formulaic to me. Your 'emerging American ruling class' is a broad abstraction that ignores real historical developments. The conflict between the British and the French, between colonists and the British, between the East coast elites and the West, and between North and South in the Civil war are all subsumed into a ready-made moral schema of rich v poor. That might make you feel good, but it hardly describes the real conditions when the 'landless whites' were at the forefront of the seizure of Indian lands, or that the Northern Industrialists finally abolished slavery, (while the
Re: Marx on Native Americans
In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes >Heartfield: >> >>In Particular Marx and Engels both considered native American society >>backward technologically and morally, as the blood-ties of kinship >>groups (gens) stifled individual personality. >> > >I think at this point we understand what Heartfield means by "individual >personality". It has little to do with Marxism, ' However impressive the people of this epoch appear to us, they are completely undifferentiated from one another; as Marx says, they are still attached to the navel string of the primitive community' Engels, 'Origin of the Family...' > With >respect to technological backwardness, this is a truism and hardly worth >commenting on. On the contrary, it was a discussion on this list, which Louis P contributed to at length. > With respect to morality, I am not aware of Marx dwelling >much on this question outside of the context of the need to establish >communism. A common misreading of Marx. Because he eschewed a fixed moral order, it does not follow that Marx has no moral goal - on the contrary, the goal is human development, of yes, free individuals (quite how Marxism got counterposed to freedom is a mystery to me). Where Marx's morality differs from say Kant, or the medieval church, is that his is open- ended. > Now one could read into Heartfield's selective quotations and >possibly conclude that if the Aztecs et al were bellicose, why wring one's >hands over the rape and pillage wrought by the Spanish invaders? Well, I presume you did not want me to reproduce the whole thing. But what is it that you mean here? That Marx did not write these things? That the Aztecs did not engage in human sacrifice? That the Iroquois did not engage in bloody wars against other native Americans? Or that evidence of these atrocities should be supressed? Do we want to understand native American society, or idealise it? As to the rape and pillage wrought by the Spanish invaders five hundred years ago, I must say it leaves me wholly indifferent. None of the perpetrators lives. It is at most of historical interest. 'Let the dead bury their dead' I say. On the other hand, the social inequality created in that historical transition is with us today, and that we can do something about. >I plan to offer my own reading of the history of the genocide against >Native Americans and subject the standard Marxist interpretation to a fresh >re-evaluation. My sources will be scholarly histories of today, not >selective quotes from Marx. I look forward to reading it. -- James Heartfield
Re: Marx on Native Americans
Heartfield: >This is a bit of a mess, because Louis is angry about something that >gets in the way of his thinking, but here goes: James, it not a bit of a mess. Your post is a complete mess. You should be aware that PEN-L is not the Spoons Lists. Over on the Spoons Lists you can feel free to make all the messes you want. Over here much more rigor is necessary. Don't you realize that all of the most important left-wing thinkers in the world are lurking here. Every serious journal in the world has at least one of the editors perusing PEN-L. Ernest Mandel was a frequent contributor until his untimely demise. I had a brutal debate with him just before his death about the role of relative surplus value in the delicatessen business in 1948. I wonder to this day if I didn't give him heart failure. Now you should stop making messes here and strive for lucidity, you bad boy. Your post was filled with raw emotion, bad grammar and misspelling. Surely your Oxford education can do better than this. Meanwhile, there's nothing you wrote that I find worth commenting on except one small item. You ask me how American landlords transformed themselves into a bourgeoisie without a struggle? My suggestion is that you take a look at Part 8 of Volume One of Capital, "The Secret of Primitive Accumulation" for an answer. There is one proviso, however. There was a struggle in the US which was as bloody as the one Marx described. The struggle took place not against Scottish and Irish village-based subsistence farming, but against Native Americans, and the Africans who were enchained and brought to the US to help in the accumulation of capital. It is the genocidal exploitation of Native Americans and African slaves that made US capitalism possible. Oh yeah, one other thing. I am in favor of giving Florida back to the Seminoles. And that's just a start. Louis Proyect
Re: utopias
Pardon me for reposting. I should have mentioned in the subject line that my message "ride free or die!" was a reply to the thread on utopias. >Robin Hahnel wrote, > >>But these differences are not what is usually meant by people worried >>about the free rider problem in provision of public goods. They mean if >>we leave it to the market for people to buy as much pollution reduction >>or military defense as they want to, few if any will buy any at all >>since each enjoys such a tiny fraction of the benefit and all have an >>incentive to ride for free on the purchases of others. Hence the market >>bias against public good provision versus private good provision. > >In other words, the *problem* is not that some people get to ride for free, >the problem is that the free-rider calculus leads to a misallocation of >resources. An even more pernicious problem (a side effect of the side >effect) would be the administrative machinery set in place to capture the >unwarranted advantages resulting from this misallocation. > >Couldn't the parecon model suffer from excess literalism in its efforts to >"eradicate" the free-rider problem? > >Or, perhaps, my oblique point would be clearer if I came at it from another >angle: the greatest indignity inflicted on the poor is not their poverty; it >is the retroactive justification of that poverty (and the corresponding >wealth of the wealthy) as being "as of right". It's worth entertaining the >thought that *most* inequality results not from misfortune or personal >qualities but from the ideology erected *ex post facto* to explain, justify >and, ultimately, naturalize inequality. > >What I'm proposing, then, is a kind of multiplier effect for free-ridership >or inequality that makes the final impact much worse than any direct >effects. The best solution to such a problem is not always the most obvious, >direct or literal one. As a thought experiment, I'll pose an alternative to >parecon: "socialotto". Socialotto doesn't seek to eliminate inequality or >free-ridership, only to systematically randomize them. As an aside, I'd >reckon that, given a choice in the structure of rewards (but not in their >actual distribution), people would opt for much less inequality than now >exists but for substantially more than a ratio of 2:1. > > >Regards, > >Tom Walker >^^^ >Know Ware Communications >Vancouver, B.C., CANADA >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >(604) 688-8296 >^^^ >The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/ > > > > > Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Ride free or die!
Robin Hahnel wrote, >But these differences are not what is usually meant by people worried >about the free rider problem in provision of public goods. They mean if >we leave it to the market for people to buy as much pollution reduction >or military defense as they want to, few if any will buy any at all >since each enjoys such a tiny fraction of the benefit and all have an >incentive to ride for free on the purchases of others. Hence the market >bias against public good provision versus private good provision. In other words, the *problem* is not that some people get to ride for free, the problem is that the free-rider calculus leads to a misallocation of resources. An even more pernicious problem (a side effect of the side effect) would be the administrative machinery set in place to capture the unwarranted advantages resulting from this misallocation. Couldn't the parecon model suffer from excess literalism in its efforts to "eradicate" the free-rider problem? Or, perhaps, my oblique point would be clearer if I came at it from another angle: the greatest indignity inflicted on the poor is not their poverty; it is the retroactive justification of that poverty (and the corresponding wealth of the wealthy) as being "as of right". It's worth entertaining the thought that *most* inequality results not from misfortune or personal qualities but from the ideology erected *ex post facto* to explain, justify and, ultimately, naturalize inequality. What I'm proposing, then, is a kind of multiplier effect for free-ridership or inequality that makes the final impact much worse than any direct effects. The best solution to such a problem is not always the most obvious, direct or literal one. As a thought experiment, I'll pose an alternative to parecon: "socialotto". Socialotto doesn't seek to eliminate inequality or free-ridership, only to systematically randomize them. As an aside, I'd reckon that, given a choice in the structure of rewards (but not in their actual distribution), people would opt for much less inequality than now exists but for substantially more than a ratio of 2:1. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
USA Today op-ed on Microsoft (fwd)
> Date: Fri, 02 Jan 1998 09:57:46 -0500 > From: James Packard Love <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: USA Today op-ed on Microsoft > > The following is the text of Ralph Nader and James Love's 332 word op ed > in the January 2, 1998 issue of USA Today. The editorial board of > USATODAY took a contrary view, which is available on their web page > today. Jamie > > > http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/ncoppf.htm > > 01/01/98- Updated 11:32 PM ET > Microsoft denies choice > By Ralph Nader and James Love > > The problem with current antitrust enforcements isn't that the Justice > Department is asking too much, but rather that it has yet to seek > broader remedies for Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct. > > The current dispute concerns an important but narrow issue. Can > Microsoft force computer manufacturers to install Microsoft's Internet > Explorer software every time they want to license Windows 95? The > "tying" of a competitive product to a monopoly product has long been > considered illegal under antitrust laws, and for good reason. > Unfortunately, tying is only one of many anticompetitive strategies. > > Consider what Microsoft is doing to force consumers to "choose" its > Internet browser. It's redesigning the technology for help files to > require IE. Important operating files have "migrated" to IE, forcing > consumers to install IE to get updates. Third-party software developers > who license important operating files must distribute and install IE, > plus deploy technologies Microsoft owns on web pages that work only with > IE. Many new Microsoft software applications and tools won't work unless > IE is installed. And now Microsoft is rewriting Windows 98 so it will be > impossible to uninstall IE. > > Microsoft also wants to redefine Windows as the "Windows Experience," > with desktop links to partners and subsidiaries in electronic commerce. > > Microsoft constantly changes Windows operating files, adding > undocumented features. Microsoft's applications programmers see these > files long before everyone else, are permitted to distribute them first, > and are the only ones who know what the code does and how it will change > over time. It is no accident that Microsoft's competitors have trouble > offering products which are both compatible and good performers. > > In addition to tying disputes, policymakers should focus on problems > arising from the need for information technologies to interoperate with > each other. One model for this is the 1984 IBM agreement with the > European Commission to enhance competition in computer mainframe > networks. > > Software is no longer about spreadsheets and word processors only. It is > increasingly about content, commerce and communications. No one firm > should control the architecture for the information highway. > > Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and James Love is director of > Consumer Project on Technology (http://www.cptech.org) >
Black Gold (fwd)
>The Irish Times, Wednesday, December 31, 1997 >WORLD REVIEW > >Search for black gold >disturbs ancient gods > _ > >Michael McCaughan reports on the struggle of the Colombian U'wa people >to preserve their ancient way of life from the encroachment of >'civilisation' > > Oil and guns are the first signs of life in the countryside around >Saravena in north-east Colombia, where a small airforce plane dropped >a dozen passengers in the middle of a large army base. > >Just beyond the airport a row of oil drums and sandbags provide cover > for dozens of soldiers crouched in combat position, awaiting the >guerrilleros who strike from the hills beyond. > >Saravena is at the heart of Colombia's spectacular oil boom, which has > transformed the country from a crude importer to a selfsufficient > exporter, with annual revenues worth $3 billion. Reserves are low, > however, and pressure is on to exploit new deposits. > >Roberto Cobaria, president of the U'wa Council of tribal authorities, > was waiting inside U'wa reservation land, a further two-hour trek > across unpaved roads and rising rivers to the home of Colombia's >original inhabitants. The U'wa people have wandered the cloud forests > of the Colombian Andes for centuries, shifting home three times a >year, rotating subsistence crops between snowcapped peaks, lush jungle > forest and scorched, arid lands. > > Cobaria's people are standing on top of a billion-dollar fortune in > oil, but they couldn't care less. The black gold could bring health > clinics, VCRs and washing machines, catapulting the small U'wa tribe > into the modern age. > > Until recent times U'wa children were tied up and taken from their > families by Catholic nuns based in a nearby mission, where they were > beaten if they spoke their native language. As a result the > "civilised" U'was now live in Chuskal at the foot of the mountain, > estranged from their relatives above who reject all contact with the >hated blancos, wishing only to live by themselves in peace. Each year >the U'wa traditional authorities, called werjaya, sing the world into > existence, fasting for weeks on end as they seek guidance from gods > above and below the land. Los Angeles-based oil giant Occidental >Petroleum and Shell are pulling out all the stops to begin exploration > work in U'wa territory, where an estimated two billion barrels of > crude are waiting to be extracted. > >The U'wa conflict has been played out countless times in Latin >America, as Indian tribes from Oaxaca to the Amazon cave in to foreign > investors and local politicians who promise prosperity ahead. The > results have been catastrophic, as entire communities disappear, >swallowed up by the influx of nonIndian labourers, alcoholism and the > end of traditional hunting and fishing lifestyles. > >In Colombia the situation is aggravated by the presence of two >guerrilla armies, who have found in the oil conflict an ideal > battleground for their war on transnational gringo capital. In the > past decade, pipeline sabotage has spilled 1.5 million barrels of >crude oil into nearby forests and rivers, compared with 36,000 barrels > spilled by Exxon Valdez. The U'wa have paralysed OXY's latest oil >project without firing a single bullet and have declared their >intention to commit suicide should the drilling go ahead. "The oil is > working right where it is now, it is alive and cannot be extracted. > There is no possible compensation for this," Cobaria told the Irish > Times. The suicide threat dates back to the arrival of the Spanish, > when an entire U'wa community threw themselves off the "cliff of > glory" rather than bow to the invaders. > > "We do not want to engage in a project that means conflict," said >Robert Stewart, OXY's Corporate Affairs chief, interviewed inside the > company's bunker-like Bogota fortress. OXY has suspended drilling > until the issue is resolved. Colombia's revised 1991 constitution > contains some of the most progressive legislation concerning Indian >rights, upholding the prin
Re: Marx on Native Americans
LM: In fact the French courts and the English Parliament ennobled Native American leaders as Chieftans or Chiefs of their tribes or clans on the model of the fictitious recognition of the land rights of the Scottish lairds. Like that artificial nobility, the Native American chiefs were received in the Court of the Sun King Louis IV, and throughout European high society. Louis Proyect: What is the source for this? This garbled clot of prose conceals much more than it reveals. Are you stating that the land rights of the Scottish lairds was "fictitious"? Or are you saying that the American Indian's claims were fictitious? Or both? Are you saying that the European aristocracy "ennobled" Indians in the same way that they ennobled themselves? Does this mean that the Duke of Kent would consider marrying the daughter of a Seneca chief just as soon as he would a Hapsburg Princess? Or was "ennobling" American Indians just a convenient fiction? The notion that there was any sort of class ties between the colonizers and the Calibans of the New World is actually an obscene lie. And what right-wing garbage pail did you pick this stinking 3 day old red herring from? LM: The early Colonists lived in peculiar subservience, often as indentured servants to their English masters. The monopoly over the land held by a handful of English lords guaranteed their servitude and their masters power. Louis Proyect: So the early Colonists lived in subservience? This is a novel view, I must say, in light of all the Marxist research into American society of the 1600-1800 period. What history book did you consult to come up with this startling statement? I was under the impression that there was a landed aristocracy in colonial America. How did they disappear in your account? LM: On the opposite end of the equation, the Colonists had only one outlet for their aspiration to be free from European domination - to press the frontier Eastward. In 1676 Nathaniel Bacon led a revolt of black slaves and white indentured servants against the English governor, imprisoning him. Bacons rallying cry was an aggressive Indian policy, meaning an escape East - something which England had to send battalions across the Atlantic to prevent. The association of popular democracy and an aggressive Indian policy endured through the War of Independence, Jacksonism, right up to the closing of the frontier at the end of the nineteenth century. Louis Proyect: Again, with the absence of an American landed aristocracy, LM's history makes perfect sense. It is the same thing as writing about American history and omitting slavery. What's the absence of a social class here or there when you are trying to score propaganda points. Marxists prefer to include all major classes, however, when we evaluate history and not leave a single one out. On the question of the tensions between Indians and frontiersmen, it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to factor in the landed aristocracy, the class LM relegates to Derridean "erasure." It was not an "English governor" that the poor whites were in struggle with, but the emerging American bourgeoisie who were wealthy tobacco, cotton and livestock farmers. In the Bacon Rebellion of 1676 in Virginia, poor whites drifted westward when they were left out of huge land grants awarded to plantation-owners. On the frontier they collided with Indian tribes. Wealthy Virginians playing Indians against poor whites is a familiar pattern in American history. The goal was to punish Bacon's rebels and prevent the Indians from uniting against them. After some skirmishes between frontiersmen and Indians, the ruling class in Virginia DECLARED WAR on the Indians. Why do you leave out this fact, Heartfield? Isn't it of interest to note that such an event took place? Doesn't the truth matter to you? The fundamental class struggle in the New World was not between "revolutionary" capitalists and precapitalist social formations in alliance with the French or British Crown. It was rather between the emerging American ruling class and an array of subclasses: landless whites, Indians, and African slaves. Marxists in 1998 should identify with these subordinate classes and not try to create artificial identities between the oppressor and the oppressed as LM does. By the way, my source on Bacon's Rebellion is Howard Zinn's "People's History of the US". What is your source, Heartfield? And what was the war of 1812 all about? Aren't you aware that Andrew Jackson was a land speculator, merchant, slave trader and the most aggressive enemy of the American Indians in early American history? The war of 1812 was not just a war of survival for the US against the Crown, it was also a war of expansion into Florida, Canada and into Indian territory. What ruling-class history books do you consult for your version of the war of 1812. Henry Steele Commager? Arthur Schlesinger? Furthermore, aren't you aware that not all Indians were in favor of war with Washington? The Creeks were
Re: vanguards & substitutionism
At 03:53 PM 12/31/97 -0800, Jim Devine wrote: >I think that the whole issue of whether or not we need vanguards boils down >to how those vanguards act. > >Early on (1905?), old Leon T. launched a critique of Lenin for being >"substitutionist." (See, e.g., Deutscher, THE PROPHET ARMED.) The critique >was very abstract (and self-described Trotskyists have ignored it), but it's >relevant. The problem of a vanguard arises when it starts substituting >itself for the class it's supposed to lead. Rather than combining teaching >workers with learning from them, a substitutionist organization tries to ram >its "correct" line or program down workers' throats. It claims to speak in >the name of the workers -- or even worse, claims to act in the name of the >workers -- without being held responsible to that class. If such an >organization takes state power, the "dictatorship of the proletariat" can >become the dictatorship in the name of the proletariat or (worse) the >dictatorship over the proletariat. In such a situation, the central >committee is likely to substitute itself for the party rank and file, while >eventually the Leader subsitutes him or herself for the central committee. > >Note that an organization doesn't have to be "Leninist" or communist to be >substitutionist. A social democratic party typically substitutes the >parliamentary representatives and the party bureaucracy for the rank and >file. The careers of the leaders dominate the wishes of the members. I am >sure that a lot of pen-l people have been members of organizations where the >"national office" staff end up dominating the organization. etc. Jim makes a valid point that can be carried even further - every organisation 'representing' some larger constituency will inevitably, sooner or later, become 'substitutionist.' This is so, beacuse contrary to official statements and pronouncements, organizational behavior is driven, for the most part, by the situationist logic rather than abstract missions and goals. In other words, most of the decisions made by an organization's officers reflect the immediate experience and circumstances of the officers themselves -- but then those decisions are 'rationalised' or ex-post fact justified in terms of the official goals and missions (cf. the neo-Weberian school in organizational theory aka "the garbage can theory of organizations"). For example, a university department may hire candidate X because every other candidate is opposed by some of the departmental factions, or the dean, or the university president, etc. Of course, that opposition is a good reason for opting for X, because every other candidacy is likely to be derailed by the opposition. Yet, the official justification is that X had "the best qualifications for the job." Of course, when the organisation's goals are even more open-ended and defined even more ambiguously - as in the case of political parties or governments -- there are many competing views how to proceed, and all those views purport to be in the best interests of the constituents. Clearly, the internal power struggles will drive all or most of the decisions - and all of it in the name of the constituents' "best interest." To summarize: human behavior is driven by immediate experience rather than abstract principles, and the immediate experience of organization's officers is shaped by other organization's officers, rather than the organization's constituents. As long as it is so, the organization's behavior (decisions made by its officers) will be shaped by internal politics, and only ex post facto justified in terms of the organization's official mission. The only way out of this situation is such an organizational design that requires the organization's officers routinely interact with constituents in such as way that the officers' experience is shaped primarily by interaction with constituents rather than other officers. cheers, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233
Re: Vanguard of the vanguard, 1998
At 01:25 PM 12/31/97 -0800, Tom Walker wrote: >The thing that interests me about the idea of a revolutionary vanguard is >its shameless romanticism. Whatever else Leon Trotsky was, he cut a >strikingly romantic figure -- poet, prophet, soldier, exile, martyr. Think >of a transcendent persona and it was all in day's work for old Leon. > >I also can't help but note the homonymy of political vanguard and artistic >avant garde and the way that both terms fuse irreconcilable longings for >individuation and belonging. Isn't it all still about love and pain and >about how going out into the impersonal world of commerce and hierarchy >forces us to suppress our "inner soul"? You got it right, Tom. That is precisely how I felt visiting the Leon Trotsky Museum in Coyoacan (the "bohemian" part of Mexico City). The context of the visit: I cut some bullshit conference on public-private cooperation held in the corporate quarters of a large local bank (Bancomer), and as I passed the guarded gate I saw a sign pointing to the museum. The museum itself was a villa that belonged either to Frida Kahlo (herself one of the most original 20th century painter and a goddess of European artistic boheme) with whom Trotsky had a brief affair, or her husband Diego Rivera. The interior revealed an unmistakable conncetion between Trotsky as the man of revolutionary action, and at the same time the man of letters - complete with details like bookcases still filled with books and magazines he read, his den, desk, papers, tea (Earl Grey - quite popular among European boheme), austere living conditions (just bare necessities). A similar phenomenon of combining action and letters, or practice and theory if you will, was Hemingway - although he was somewhat out of focus, comparing to Trotsky: on the one hand Hemingway's action was focused on the struggles of real people, be it Spanish Civil war or fishermen struggling with nature (be it the elements or their own aging process) - but then he would venture into the actions that were the epitome of non-reality and bourgeois kitsch, like safari. There is hardly anything more loathsome and disgusting than killing expeditions organized for the sole purpose of noveau riche showing off (except, perhaps, cheap imitations of that experience for the working class consumption, aka deer hunting or fishing) . And that romantic longing indeed is a reaction to the kitschy kommercial kulture (kkk). Upon my return to the Bancomer's corporate offices after visiting the Trotsky Museum, I felt genuine nausea seeing the lavishly decorated with symbols of wealth, power and status interiors. That contrast enhanced the austere beauty of Casa de Leon Trotsky. PS. The transformation of corporate architecture, from austere functionalism of Mies Van der Rohe's 'international style' to the latter-day-roccocco of today's executive offices is indeed the epitome of the rising class power (or 'embourgeoisment') of corporate managers. PS.PS. The liaison between Trotsky and Frida Kahlo is yet another interesting metaphor for the male/female roles in the 20th century, and the Left, unfortunately, did not fall far away from the bourgeois model in that respect. Both Trotsky and Kahlo can be seen as intellectuals striving for the unity of theory and practice, that is, making their lives an integral part of their art and their art an outgrowth of their life experiences. Where they differ is the materila context of their actions, or real life experiences. For Trotsky, the male, that contaxxt was the public arena of a great nation, and later the world. For Kahlo, the female, that context was confined to her own body (much of her art reflects physical suffering she endured as a result of childhood injury). That is the division of 'expressive labor' in a boourgeois society: men express themselves through their action in the public sphere, women - through the actions confined to their own bodies. That is nicely summarised in a photograph of Leon Trotsky and his wife: he is reading a newspaper while she is serving him a cup of tea (must have been one of those Earl Greys still on display in the museum). cheers, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233
Re: vanguards & substitutionism
Michael Hoover: >Volume 13 of Lenin's *Collected Works* (in English, Moscow: Foreign >Languages Publishing House) includes a piece entitled "Preface to the >Collection 'Twelve Years'" written in 1907 in which L warns against >taking *What is To Be Done* out of context...he maintains that it was >intended as a brief on Iskra, that parts of it were unnecessarily >sharp and divisive, and that some of his "correctives" of Economist >positions were admittedly arguable...Michael > How did we end up with the organizational model called Marxism-Leninism, or alternately, democratic centralism? The tendency has been to assume that there is an unbroken line between the small, sectarian groups of today or Stalin's monoliths and the Bolshevik Party of the turn of the century. When organizational changes have been made, the assumption is that these are refinements to Lenin's party. For example, if Bukharin published ruthless criticisms of Lenin's position on the national question in the newspaper "The Star", an émigré Bolshevik paper, we might assume that this was an anomaly. The essence of Leninism is to defend a unitary political line in the official party newspaper and Bukharin's "indiscipline" was a sign of immature Bolshevism rather than a confirmation of its true spirit. Tracing the evolution of Lenin's organizational approach toward the rigid, monolithic models of today requires an examination of official Comintern documents of the early 1920s since these became the guidelines for organizing Communist Parties. Most "Marxist-Leninist" parties of today regard this period as a link in the chain between the historic Bolshevik Party and what passes for Leninism today. Rather than seeing these Comintern documents as a distortion of historic Bolshevism, we have tended to regard them as hagiography. Part of the problem is that Lenin gave his official blessing to these documents and this somehow gives them a hallowed status. It is time to examine them on their own merits. The first clear statement on organizational guidelines were contained in the July 12, 1921 Theses on the Structure of Communist Parties, submitted to the Third Congress of the Comintern. W. Koenen, a German delegate, confessed that they were hastily drafted and were referred without further discussion to a commission. Two days later, they were passed unanimously without discussion. The purpose of the theses was to impose a uniform model on Communist Parties worldwide. For example, they state that "to carry out daily party work every member should as a rule belong to a small working group, a committee, a commission, a fraction, or a cell. Only in this way can party work be distributed, conducted, and carried out in an orderly fashion." Of course, what this led to everywhere is the immediate creation of fractions or cells. Anybody who has been a member of a "Marxist-Leninist" group will be familiar with this approach to political work. Nobody has ever thought critically about what it means to have a "cell" or a "fraction" in a union or mass movement that speaks with the same voice on behalf of a single tactical orientation, but nevertheless the rule--hardly discussed at the Congress--became law. Poor Lenin was trying to sort out all sorts of problems that year and probably didn't have the minutiae of organizational resolutions upper-most in his mind, but there is some evidence that these sorts of rigid guidelines did not sit well with him. A year later, at the fourth congress, Lenin offered some critical comments on them: "At the third congress in 1921 we adopted a resolution on the structure of communist parties and the methods and content of their activities. It is an excellent resolution, but it is almost entirely Russian, that is to say, everything in it is taken from Russian conditions. That is its good side, but it is also its bad side, bad because scarcely a single foreigner--I am convinced of this, and I have just re-read it-can read it. Firstly, it is too long, fifty paragraphs or more. Foreigners cannot usually read items of that length. Secondly, if they do read it, they cannot understand it, precisely because it is too Russian...it is permeated and imbued with a Russian spirit. Thirdly, if there is by chance a foreigner who can understand it, he cannot apply it...My impression is that we have committed a gross error in passing that resolution, blocking our own road to further progress. As I said, the resolution is excellent, and I subscribe to every one of the fifty paragraphs. But I must say that we have not yet discovered the form in which to present our Russian experience to foreigners, and for that reason the resolution has remained a dead letter. If we do not discover it, we shall not go forward." This resolution, which was composed in haste and which Lenin described as "too Russian", was never subjected to the sort of critical evaluation that he proposed. The opposite process occurred. The rigid, schematic organizational forms we
Village idiot and individualism :)
Here is a village idiot story that, IMO, nicely summarizes the kind of thinking nowadays popular among libertarians, rat-choice sociologists and neo-classical economists. A village idiot saw a woman plucking geese. Nonplussed, he asked the woman "What are you doing?" "I'm plucking geese" the woman replied. "What for?" "I need their feathers to make a pillow." "What is a pillow?" Realizing that she is taking to an idiot, the woman explained patiently "A pillow is a bag filled with a lot of feathers. People put it under their heads so they can sleep more comfortably." "Hmmm" replied the idiot, still nonplussed. He waited for the moment the woman looked the other way, and quickly hid one feather in his pocket. Then, he run into the woods, put the feather on a piece of rock, placed his head on it and fell asleep. Several hours later he woke up with a stiff neck and a headache. "I can't believe how stupid those village people are" said the idiot to himself, "if I got so miserable from sleeping on just one feather, I cannot even imagine how they must be feeling after sleeping on a bag filled with a lot of them." Happy New Year. wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233
Re: Marx on Native Americans
Heartfield: > >In Particular Marx and Engels both considered native American society >backward technologically and morally, as the blood-ties of kinship >groups (gens) stifled individual personality. > I think at this point we understand what Heartfield means by "individual personality". It has little to do with Marxism, but the sort of libertarianism publicly embraced by his cult leader Frank Furedi. With respect to technological backwardness, this is a truism and hardly worth commenting on. With respect to morality, I am not aware of Marx dwelling much on this question outside of the context of the need to establish communism. Now one could read into Heartfield's selective quotations and possibly conclude that if the Aztecs et al were bellicose, why wring one's hands over the rape and pillage wrought by the Spanish invaders? This of course is the standard counter-attack of right-wingers in the face of the evidence of European genocide. It fits in perfectly with LM's overall pro-capitalist stance. I plan to offer my own reading of the history of the genocide against Native Americans and subject the standard Marxist interpretation to a fresh re-evaluation. My sources will be scholarly histories of today, not selective quotes from Marx. Speaking of citations, Heartfield, I demand that you furnish the bibliography for your hatchet job on Native Americans that you crossposted a while back. To refresh your memory, this was the piece that claimed that the Indians always sided with the French or the British. I plan to rub your nose in this lie, but I am interested to find out which right-wing source you picked this tidbit up from. Finally, on the subject of the Ethnological Notebooks. I don't plan to delve into them until the new edition is available since it will be of much more use to scholars and activists than the old edition. This is email I received from the author and it is a pretty convincing case for having the patience to wait for the new edition: * Dear Louis Proyect, Thanks for your query. There are two main differences between this version of the Ethnological Notebooks and the original Krader edition: (a) this edition is entirely in English (you'll recall that Krader's book was a transcription, not a translation, and that more than half of the text was in German, French, etc.); and (b) with Krader's help, this edition is much more completely annotated, to ensure that readers follow the twists and turns of Marx's argument. With any luck this book will finally appear mid-to-late next year -- and I'll send you a notice when it does. Thanks again, take care, David Smith
Re: vanguards & substitutionism
> There is only one place in Lenin's writings where he specifically describes > what a "vanguard" means. It is the section "The Working Class as Vanguard > Fighter for Democracy" in "What is To Be Done". The notion of a vanguard > emerges out of Lenin's struggle with the "Economists", *not* the > "Mensheviks". This is often neglected by those "Marxist-Leninists" who use > the pamphlet as some kind of organizing handbook. > Louis Proyect Volume 13 of Lenin's *Collected Works* (in English, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House) includes a piece entitled "Preface to the Collection 'Twelve Years'" written in 1907 in which L warns against taking *What is To Be Done* out of context...he maintains that it was intended as a brief on Iskra, that parts of it were unnecessarily sharp and divisive, and that some of his "correctives" of Economist positions were admittedly arguable...Michael
Marx on Native Americans
MARX ON NATIVE AMERICANS >From the Ethnological notebooks Ed. Lawrence Krader, Van Gorcum, Assen, Netherlands, 1972 Marx's notes on Lewis Morgan's Ancient Society were principally concerned with family organisation and became the basis of Engels 'Origin of the family, private property and the state'. Marx and Engels were great fans of Morgan and were particularly interested in his account of the communal property enjoyed by the Iroquois. Like Morgan they took this as disproof of the economists' dogma that private property was a natural institution. Equally the different family forms were used by Engels against the dogmatic assertion that the monogamic family was a natural institution. Marx was also interested in Morgan's comparative identification of Iroquois social institutions with those of early Europe, in particular the gens. Marx agreed that Morgan had shown that communal property was not a peculiarity of Slav communities, but was a common institution in the prehistory all human societies. Marx's interest in the communal property relations of the Iroquois in no sense led him to idealise their existence. Marx adopted the general model of humanity's progressive advance adopted by Morgan and common in his time, with the proviso that this advance was by no means given or linear, only that men inherited the past achievements of their ancestors, and so were in a position to improve upon them. As he shows, 'progress' takes a bloody and repressive form for the subject classes in society. But for all his qualifications upon the Victorian's idea of linear progression, Marx shared their negative assessment of many aspects of native American society. In Particular Marx and Engels both considered native American society backward technologically and morally, as the blood-ties of kinship groups (gens) stifled individual personality. WARLIKE "Die Iroquois pursued a war of extermination gegen [against] their kindred tribes, the Eries, Neutral Nation, the Hurons u.d.[and the] Susquehannocks." P160 "Confederation of Iroquois u. [and] that of the Aztecs were the most remarkable for aggressive purposes." P163 "Precarious subsistence u. [and] incessant warfare repressed numbers in all the original tribes, inclus. the Village Indians." P165 Quoting Morgan 'Military. "their [the Iroquois] career was simply terrific. They were the scourge of God upon the aborigines of the continent."' P145 - CANNIBALISTIC "der savages, had finally organised gentile society u. Developed small tribes with villages here and there ... ihre rude energies and ruder arts chiefly devoted to subsistence; nocht nicht the village stockade (Pfahlwerk) for defence, no farinaceous food, still cannibalism." P128 "In dieser Form ward Cannibalism gefunden in d. Principal tribes der U.St., Mexico u. Central America. Erwerbung v. Farinaceous food Haptmittel to extricate mankind von this savage custom." "D. Aztecs. Wie d. Northern Indians, neither exchanged released prisoners; the stake their doom bei the Northern Indians unless saved by adoption. Unter d. Estern ... offered as a sacrifice to the principal god worshipped. Unter d. American aborigines erscheint organised priesthood erst im Middle Status of Barbarism [ie Aztecs] , connectioon mit der invention of idols u. human sacrifices as a means of acquiring authority over mankind." P189 (I think it is right to say that contemporary anthropology is more sceptical about reports of cannibalism than Marx.) MORALLY RESTICTIVE "Marriage hier founded not upon "sentiment", but upon convenience and necessity. D. Mothers arranged the marriages of their children. ... Prior to the marriage, presents to the gentile relations of the bride, partaking in the nature of purchasing gifts, became feature of these matrimonial transactions." P 116 "The ancient practice of blood revenge ... had its birthplace in the gens. Tribunals for the trial of criminals prescribing their punishment, came late into existence in gentile society. Unter d. Iroquois and other Indian tribes generally, the obligation to avenge the murder of a kinsman universally recognised." P147 "In some Indian tribes the youth was required to go out on the war-path and earn his second name by some act of personal bravery." P148 -- GOVERNMENT Excerpting Morgan: "All the members of an Iroquois gens personally free, bound to defend each other's freedom; equal in privileges u. Personal rights. Sachem u. Chiefs claiming no superiority; a brotherhood bound together by ties of kin. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, though never formulated were cardinal principles..." At this point Marx departs from Morgan, adding "Zur zeit der europaischen Entdeckg waren d. [At the time of the European discovery] American Indian tribes [were] generally organised into gentes, with descent in the female line. in this early condition of society, individuality of persons was lost in the gens" p 150 In ot
