Re: China and socialism
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The first rule of politics for political leaders on the side of the proletariat in the American Union is that if the New York Times or Washington Post run a story on China . . . position yourself in opposition to it and you will be on the right side of the polarity . . . 90% of the time . . . always. A 10% loss rate is acceptable for any political leader. -- For the NYT or WP, everything bad that happens in China or Russia is the result of a nefarious plot hatched in Beijing or Moscow. For the life of me I can't understand why people who would be hypersceptical over these papers' coverage of, say, Venezuela cite them as impeachable sources on other parts of the world. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Speaking Up about Our Abortions in Public
Speaking Up about Our Abortions in Public: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/speaking-up-about-our-abortions-in.html -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: http://montages.blogspot.com/ * Greens for Nader: http://greensfornader.net/ * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: China and socialism
There are also reports of college students who jumped from high-rise dormitory buildings in protest of the governments timid "peaceful" policy over Taiwan independence. The suicide-protestors wanted the government to take Taiwan for force right now and stand up to US bullying. The report that an 18-year-old killed himself over lack of money to pay college fees proves only that 18-year-olds need better counseling. The fact of the matter is that 18-year-olds all over the world flirt with suicide for all kind of reasons, much of which tragically irrational and childish. As for whether China would be a good model for the rest of the Third World, let the people of the Third World decide for themselves. We don't need self-righteous academics in the West to pronounce what is an ideologically correct model for the Third World. The sad fact is that the Western left have done little for the Third World beyond destructive talk. Until members of the Western Left can control their own imperialists governments and improve the lot of the poor in their own societies, they had better be a bit more humble about what is correct. There is a lot about China that is not perfect and a lot of people within China are trying very hard to correct these problems. But believe me, poverty for all is a bad trade-off for ideological purity. The NY Times also printed other articles on China recently: The advent of the vacation is a relatively new phenomenon in China that coincides with the emergence of a new middle class with disposable income. Wealthy Chinese are now flocking to destinations around Southeast Asia and beyond. Others are exploring domestic sites like Qingdao, a popular getaway for people from Beijing. http://nytimes.com/2004/07/30/international/asia/30qing.html?adxnnl=1adxnnlx=1091444128-2e9057b7RGa7p+S9Pv+yyg New Boomtowns Change Path of China's Growth http://nytimes.com/2004/07/28/international/asia/28china.html South China Morning Post (HK) 7/30/04 More are becoming upwardly mobile, but birth still counts Mainlanders' chances of social advancement through merit have improved in the past two decades, but birth still matters for those aiming for political careers. A report on social mobility by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released yesterday shows it is getting easier for mainlanders to upgrade their status within one generation. Before 1980, only 32 per cent of the workforce was able to find a job better than their fathers'. More than 60 per cent had no choice but to accept their parents' station. Since then, however, 40 per cent of working people have managed to advance professionally. Mainlanders are also changing between jobs more frequently that before. Before 1980, 86 per cent of the labour force never changed jobs throughout their working life. But from 1990 to 2000, 54 per cent took their chances and ventured out to seek new jobs. "The rapid development of the economy has created more occupational professions, and many of them are of high level," the report said. "The economic reform policy provides an institutional environment where people can improve their social class on their capabilities and merit. "As a result, Chinese society is becoming more open and mobile." But the report noted it was unlikely that a Bill Clinton or John Edwards - who were born into working-class families but rose to political prominence - would appear in China. To enter the "government official" occupational category, family background remains the determining factor. For every 100 people whose fathers are cadres, seven become government officials themselves. For workers, the ratio is one in 100; for farmers, even less than one. The work mainlanders covet the most is in "government and social administration", based on decades of polling by the academy. People tend to think this public service position will bring them power, the report says: "Without any doubts, cadres are the most powerful people in the country." But for those whose aspirations lie outside the political scope, their fates seem more in their own hands. Educational credentials rank as the No1 factor for a good career, the report says. College graduates have three times more opportunities in the job market than those who only have high school diplomas, even though the latter might come from better family backgrounds. But for well-educated rural people, prospects are less rosy. The urban registration system, which works to prevent rural people from moving freely into urban areas, still limits their work prospects. Three years ago, the academy caused an uproar when it published a study on how the composition of Chinese society had changed over the decades. It was seen by analysts as an effort by the leadership to embrace the rising private sector. But the study confirmed that the social status of farmers and workers had declined significantly
Re: China and socialism
Chris Doss wrote: For the NYT or WP, everything bad that happens in China or Russia is the result of a nefarious plot hatched in Beijing or Moscow. For the life of me I can't understand why people who would be hypersceptical over these papers' coverage of, say, Venezuela cite them as impeachable sources on other parts of the world. This comes as no surprise. You have stated publicly on LBO-Talk that censorship was not a problem in the USSR and that people could read whatever they want. You also quote liberally from the Putinite press, which fails to meet Rupert Murdoch's standards by all accounts. In fact, the Monthly Review article I was reviewing includes a bunch of tables in the appendix that confirms the NY Times report. Those tables are from reliable sources. Finally, it does not surprise me that you would take the side of the Chinese government against an investigative piece that ran in the NY Times. This appears to be part of a pattern of defending whatever Russia, India and China deem necessary in their scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
A Question for the Moderator
The Soviet Union was defeated, as was the Ottoman Empire before it and Yugoslavia after it -- first economically, later politically (mainly from inside the the Soviet Union, its multinational elites acting against its multinational masses) or with a combined political, economic, and military warfare (Yugoslavia). Russia and Serbia today cannot be expected to play the same roles that the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia used to be able to play. -- Yoshie ^^ In what sense do you mean that the Soviet Union was defeated economically ? Charles
The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
It is difficult to understand Putin's organization without understanding its reliance on oil. In the 1980's, the Soviet Union was the world's largest producer of crude, ahead of Saudi Arabia. The bulk of the 12 million barrels produced each day fueled the Soviet economy and its anemic satellites in Eastern Europe, Cuba and North Korea. Yet there was enough left over -- about two million barrels a day -- for customers outside the Soviet bloc who would pay hard currency. This was an Achilles' heel for the Soviets. According to ''Reagan's War,'' a book by Peter Schweizer, ''C.I.A. analysts had concluded that for every one-dollar drop in the price of a barrel of oil, Moscow would lose between $500million and $1 billion per year in critical hard currency.'' The Soviet empire was not extortionary, in the sense of providing a bounty of riches to the imperial center, as India and other colonial holdings had done for Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries; instead, it was a drain on Moscow. Without oil, the heirs of Lenin would have had great difficulty subsidizing their needy allies, their globe-spanning navy, their 45,000 nuclear weapons, their four-million-man army, their record-setting Olympians and their space stations. Oil was, in many ways, more crucial to the Kremlin than ideology. Russian production dropped by nearly half following the Soviet collapse in 1991. The industry's recovery has been a key goal of Putin's government; just as the Soviet Union needed oil to finance its empire, Putin needs oil for his more modest task, to get Russia back on its feet. Since 1999, production has risen by 50 percent, thanks to an influx of investment and the incentive of rising oil prices. Russia is now the second-largest exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia. According to a World Bank report this year, energy revenues account for 20 percent of Russia's economy and the bulk of its exports. In other words, Russia has become something of an oil state. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/magazine/01RUSSIAN.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Control Room Marine in trouble...
THE NATION Marine Lands in Film, Collides With Superiors A military spokesman is silenced after candid comments in a movie on Al Jazeera and Iraq war. By Mark Mazzetti Times Staff Writer August 2, 2004/L.A. TIMES WASHINGTON - For most of the central figures in the documentary film Control Room, the grisly images that emerged from last year's U.S. invasion of Iraq were no cause for a change of opinion. Over the length of the film, director Jehane Noujaim's inside look at the war through the eyes and lenses of Al Jazeera's journalists based at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Doha, Qatar, the chasm only widens between the U.S. military officials who speak about the liberation of Iraq and the Al Jazeera reporters skeptical of the invasion. The exception is a young Marine lieutenant named Josh Rushing. Rushing, a Central Command spokesman assigned to escort the documentary makers during their time in Qatar, is among the film's most sympathetic characters, portrayed as a thoughtful young man moved over time by the grim reality of war. At no point is he shown doubting the justness of the U.S. effort in Iraq, yet the film documents a budding friendship between Rushing and Al Jazeera reporter Hassan Ibrahim, and moments on camera when Rushing is wrestling with the film's central themes: war, bias and the Arab world's most powerful media outlet. The Marine's role in the film turned him into a minor celebrity among the art-house-cinema crowd. But the candid comments he made in the documentary and in interviews after its release ran afoul of his superiors in the Marine Corps, which he now plans to leave. On camera midway through the film, Rushing spoke of being disturbed that footage Al Jazeera, an Arabic-language satellite television channel, broadcast of civilian Iraqi casualties had not affected him as much as images shown the following night of dead American soldiers. It upset me on a profound level that I wasn't bothered as much the night before, Rushing said. It makes me hate war. But it doesn't make me believe we can live in a world without war yet. Rushing, now a captain assigned to the Marine Corps Motion Picture and Television Liaison office in Los Angeles, has been prohibited from giving any more interviews about his part in the film. Marine officials at the Pentagon have even asked Rushing to keep his wife, Paige, from giving interviews after she made comments critical of how the military handled her husband's situation. Because of this, several of Rushing's friends say the 31-year-old Marine plans to leave the military in October. Rushing declined to be interviewed for this article. His situation has angered many in the military public affairs community who say Rushing has been a passionate spokesman for the U.S. armed forces and is being punished for appearing in a film that portrays Al Jazeera - a bete noire of the Bush administration since the Sept. 11 attacks - in a positive light. Here's a guy who represents the very best of public affairs in the Marines, says a senior military official who worked with Rushing at Central Command, speaking on condition of anonymity. For whatever reason, it didn't play well with some of the senior brass in the Marine Corps at Pentagon. They're losing one of their finest. A 14-year veteran, Rushing enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1990. After serving nine years, he entered the University of Texas on an ROTC scholarship and earned a dual degree in classics and ancient history. This background, Rushing's friends said, gave him a more nuanced view of the Arab world and its attitudes about the West. It benefits Al Jazeera to play to Arab nationalism because that's their audience, just like [the Fox News Channel] plays to American patriotism, for the exact same reason - American nationalism - because that's their demographic audience and that's what they want to see, Rushing says at one point during the documentary. For their part, Marine officials said their problem was not with what Rushing said in the film, but with comments he made after the film was released and received international attention. Some suggested he did not understand his role as an officer. He did a few interviews that indicated he might not know what his lane is, said Lt. Col. Stephen Kay, deputy director of Marine Corps public affairs at the Pentagon. He was way too far in the opinion realm. One of the articles Kay cited appeared in the Village Voice in May. People don't understand what a complex organization Al Jazeera is, the article quotes Rushing as saying. They say it's all Islamists, or Baathists, or Arab nationalists. You have all that, but you have really progressive voices too. Al Jazeera shows it all. It turns your stomach, and you remember there's something wrong with war. This is a far different picture of Al Jazeera from the one normally described by top U.S. officials. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Defense
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
The Soviet empire was not extortionary, in the sense of providing a bounty of riches to the imperial center, as India and other colonial holdings had done for Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries; instead, it was a drain on Moscow. Without oil, the heirs of Lenin would have had great difficulty subsidizing their needy allies, their globe-spanning navy, their 45,000 nuclear weapons, their four-million-man army, their record-setting Olympians and their space stations. Oil was, in many ways, more crucial to the Kremlin than ideology. Some scholars (sorry, I don't have the reference here) argue that even the British empire wasn't profitable for Britain as a whole. But it clearly benefited the upper classes, who were more important in decision-making. Jim Devine
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Some scholars (sorry, I don't have the reference here) argue that even the British empire wasn't profitable for Britain as a whole. But it clearly benefited the upper classes, who were more important in decision-making. Jim Devine The British Empire operated on a capitalist basis, whether or not workers got some crumbs from the table (which they surely did.) The USSR did not. It subsidized its colonies, as the NY Times article points out. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Devine, James wrote: The Soviet empire was not extortionary, in the sense of providing a bounty of riches to the imperial center, as India and other colonial holdings had done for Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries; instead, it was a drain on Moscow. Without oil, the heirs of Lenin would have had great difficulty subsidizing their needy allies, their globe-spanning navy, their 45,000 nuclear weapons, their four-million-man army, their record-setting Olympians and their space stations. Oil was, in many ways, more crucial to the Kremlin than ideology. Some scholars (sorry, I don't have the reference here) argue that even the British empire wasn't profitable for Britain as a whole. But it clearly benefited the upper classes, who were more important in decision-making. If you consider the conditions of English workers in the 1840s 1850s as described by Marx Engels, and if in addition you consider the _change_ for the worse of that condition between (say) 1750 and 1840, also as described by Marx Engels, and if, finally, you consider that the engine of that change had been the textile industry (fueled by exploitation of the u.s. south, India, China), then it becomes fairly obvious that the Empire was an utter disaster for English workers. In fact, the Empire could be regarded as a huge, terroristic machine designed primarily to pump surplus labor out of English workers. Carrol Jim Devine
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Carrol Cox wrote: If you consider the conditions of English workers in the 1840s 1850s as described by Marx Engels, and if in addition you consider the _change_ for the worse of that condition between (say) 1750 and 1840, also as described by Marx Engels, and if, finally, you consider that the engine of that change had been the textile industry (fueled by exploitation of the u.s. south, India, China), then it becomes fairly obvious that the Empire was an utter disaster for English workers. In fact, the Empire could be regarded as a huge, terroristic machine designed primarily to pump surplus labor out of English workers. I know we've covered this territory before, but at a certain point the Empire begins to benefit English and other western European workers. This is the material explanation for Bernsteinism, after all. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: China and socialism
The problem, unfortunately, is there has never been anything other than a scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations --anywhere, ever. Therefore, the issue becomes: is such a march historically progressive, despite the human toll? Marx, of course, answered in the affirmative in relation to pre-existing modes of development. You know all this. Marx wasn't around to witness the failed experiments to leap over the capitalist stage in both China and the USSR in the 20th century. I now think he may well have repudiated these efforts, especially on seeing the outcome, and interpreted the reversion to capitalism in each instance as consistent with his theory. He was not ammoral and would have condemned the massive social cost, but the moral dimension would have been subordinate to his analysis, and I expect also that he would have seen the Stalinist interlude as an effect rather than cause of these historical developments. Marv Gandall - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 9:17 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] China and socialism Chris Doss wrote: For the NYT or WP, everything bad that happens in China or Russia is the result of a nefarious plot hatched in Beijing or Moscow. For the life of me I can't understand why people who would be hypersceptical over these papers' coverage of, say, Venezuela cite them as impeachable sources on other parts of the world. This comes as no surprise. You have stated publicly on LBO-Talk that censorship was not a problem in the USSR and that people could read whatever they want. You also quote liberally from the Putinite press, which fails to meet Rupert Murdoch's standards by all accounts. In fact, the Monthly Review article I was reviewing includes a bunch of tables in the appendix that confirms the NY Times report. Those tables are from reliable sources. Finally, it does not surprise me that you would take the side of the Chinese government against an investigative piece that ran in the NY Times. This appears to be part of a pattern of defending whatever Russia, India and China deem necessary in their scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Some scholars (sorry, I don't have the reference here) argue that even the British empire wasn't profitable for Britain as a whole. But it clearly benefited the upper classes, who were more important in decision-making. Jim Devine LP: The British Empire operated on a capitalist basis, whether or not workers got some crumbs from the table (which they surely did.) The USSR did not. It subsidized its colonies, as the NY Times article points out. so the USSR didn't have classes? what principles did it follow? was Stalin a benevolent despot? it's clear that the USSR subsidized its satellites, but that doesn't make it any less of an empire, since the USSR didn't grant its allies independence until the USSR itself was falling apart. All it says is that you can't generalize from US-dominated capitalist imperialism to apply abstract theories to the USSR-dominated empire, just as you can't generalize from the classical Roman empire to apply abstract theories to the US- or USSR-dominated empires. (Similarly, just because the USSR was a class society doesn't mean that we can generalize from our understanding of capitalsm to apply abstract theories to it.) jd
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Jim Devine: so the USSR didn't have classes? what principles did it follow? was Stalin a benevolent despot? reply: Jim, it is totally exhausting to reformat your email. Why can't you get somebody to configure your MS Outlook, or do it yourself. Here's how to do it: 1. Select tools/option 2. Select tab mail/format 3. Select Internet format 4. In 'automatically wrap text at -- characters', enter 76. Turning to the substance, there were no classes in the USSR. A bureaucrat and a capitalist have nothing in common in Marxist terms. Jim Devine: it's clear that the USSR subsidized its satellites, but that doesn't make it any less of an empire, since the USSR didn't grant its allies independence until the USSR itself was falling apart. reply: The USSR certainly did control Poland, Hungary et al. The record is quite clear on that. What it did not do is extract value. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: China and socialism
Marvin Gandall wrote: The problem, unfortunately, is there has never been anything other than a scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations --anywhere, ever. Therefore, the issue becomes: is such a march historically progressive, despite the human toll? Marx, of course, answered in the affirmative in relation to pre-existing modes of development. You know all this. I recommend that you read Theodor Shanin's Late Marx, which makes a convincing case that Marx rejected the notion of universal models of development. Kautsky, of course, ignored the late Marx and reimposed this schema on Marxism. Lenin returned to the late Marx when he drafted the April Theses, which rejected the notion of a capitalist stage for Russia. Marx wasn't around to witness the failed experiments to leap over the capitalist stage in both China and the USSR in the 20th century. I now think he may well have repudiated these efforts, especially on seeing the outcome, and interpreted the reversion to capitalism in each instance as consistent with his theory. He was not ammoral and would have condemned the massive social cost, but the moral dimension would have been subordinate to his analysis, and I expect also that he would have seen the Stalinist interlude as an effect rather than cause of these historical developments. I see that you omit Cuba in this 2 sentence panorama of the last 100 years. Highly revealing. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Devine, James wrote: it's clear that the USSR subsidized its satellites, but that doesn't make it any less of an empire, since the USSR didn't grant its allies independence until the USSR itself was falling apart. I'm not sure what to call the USSR dominance of its allies, but I think it is misleading to call it an empire. As we ordinarily use the word (leaving aside the oddity of the Hardt/Negri empire), whether in reference to the present or even the distant past, the word carries a more complex intension than just dominance, and part of that intension is, precisely, exploitation. We speak of the ancient Athenian Empire not merely (or at all) just because it dominated its allies, but because it compelled those allies to contribute to the treasury of the alliance, and used that treasury for its own purposes, domestic and foreign. I think calling the USSR an empire interferes with understanding the actual material relations of the alliance, and even points away from a full understanding of what was wrong with it. Put another way, to label the U.S. and the USSR with the same label, empire -- and hence to suggest that there is some analogy between the relationship USSR/Cuba and US/Puerto Rico -- is just too violent an abstraction, it leaves too little material content to what we mean when we speak of empire. Carrol
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: it's clear that the USSR subsidized its satellites, but that doesn't make it any less of an empire, since the USSR didn't grant its allies independence until the USSR itself was falling apart. All it says is that you can't generalize from US-dominated capitalist imperialism to apply abstract theories to the USSR-dominated empire, just as you can't generalize from the classical Roman empire to apply abstract theories to the US- or USSR-dominated empires. (Similarly, just because the USSR was a class society doesn't mean that we can generalize from our understanding of capitalsm to apply abstract theories to it.) jd --- Russians lived more poorly than people in any other of the republics or in the Eastern Bloc (except maybe Albania?). Moscow may have been a possible exception. It's one of the reasons why Russia junked them. Ironically, those losses of subsidies have resulted in the wealthiest of the republics -- like Georgia and Moldova -- into the poorest. Russians now live better than people anywhere else in the fSU, except maybe the Baltics, which is why you have so much illegal immigration from them into Russia. There are lots of Soviet jokes depicting Castro as sucking at Brezhnev's teat. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 8/2/2004 11:16:33 AM Put another way, to label the U.S. and the USSR with the same label, empire -- and hence to suggest that there is some analogy between the relationship USSR/Cuba and US/Puerto Rico -- is just too violent an abstraction, it leaves too little material content to what we mean when we speak of empire. Carrol paraphrase of what i wrote in 'secolas annals' (journal of southeastern council on latin american studies) twenty years ago: much was made of cuba's 'dependency' on soviet union...[but]... cuban-soviet relations did not resemble typical dominance-dependence arrangements, soviet aid strengthened rather than weakened cuba's national control of its economy, further, soviets protected cuba from fluctuations in world market prices of sugar and nickel, insured cuba continual oil supplies, and generally stayed out of cuban political affairs... michael hoover -- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Chris Doss wrote: There are lots of Soviet jokes depicting Castro as sucking at Brezhnev's teat. I used to work with Russian émigrés at Goldman-Sachs. This was in the late 1980s, when the USSR was still functioning. One of their biggest complaints was that Moscow was wasting money on the niggers, as they put it. This was their rather infelicitous way of expressing resentment at expenditures on the ANC and the frontline states. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Bailout Feared if Airlines Shed Their Pensions
Bailout Feared if Airlines Shed Their Pensions By Mary Williams Walsh New York Times Sunday 01 August 2004 In an echo of the savings and loan industry collapse of the 1980's, the federal agency that insures company pensions is facing a possible cascade of bankruptcies and pension defaults in the airline industry that some experts fear could lead to another multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout. The similarities are incredible, said George J. Benston, a finance professor at Emory University in Atlanta who has written extensively on the regulatory failures that led to the costly savings and loan bailout. Deposits in savings institutions are, like pensions, guaranteed by a federal insurance program. The savings industry first sickened because changes in market conditions made the traditional way savings and loans operated unprofitable, but government delays and policy missteps then made the situation much worse. In the end taxpayers bailed out the industry - at a cost, according to various estimates, of $150 billion to $200 billion. Now experts say they see similar forces gathering in the pension sector, with United Airlines perhaps the first to go down the path. Operating in bankruptcy, United is striving to attract the lenders and investors it needs to survive. It said last month that it would no longer contribute to its pension plans; United also seems intent on shedding some or all of its $13 billion in pension obligations as the only way to succeed in emerging from bankruptcy proceedings. If United manages to cut itself loose from the costly burden of its pension plans, it might force others determined to keep their costs similarly under control to emulate its move. Rivals may feel they are at a competitive disadvantage and follow suit, raising the specter of a domino effect in the industry, said Bradley D. Belt, the executive director of the government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which insures pensions. If every airline with a traditional pension plan were ultimately to default, the government would be on the hook for an estimated $31 billion. Its insurance coverage is limited, so some employees would have their benefits reduced. The pension insurance program is there to protect workers' benefits, said Mr. Belt, who took over the agency in April. It shouldn't be used as a piggy bank to help companies restructure. Already, some airline employees are taking steps to protect themselves against future pension losses. Each month, for example, about 30 pilots normally retire from Delta Air Lines. But in June, almost 300 did. Andrew Dean, one of the new retirees, said he and his colleagues watched in dismay as the financial debacle unfolded at United. He said that he and many of his fellow pilots decided they had better grab their pensions right away while the money was still there. These are very scary times right now for someone in my position, said Mr. Dean, who at 58 walked away from his job just as he was reaching the peak earning period of his career. His pension was also reduced because he retired early. But his decision now looks prescient. On Friday, Delta asked its pilots for a 35 percent pay cut and proposed a smaller pension plan. Foremost on the minds of the departing pilots, Mr. Dean said, were arcane pension rules that can offer advantages to workers who quit before a pension plan fails. At Delta, for example, as long as the pension plan stays afloat, pilots are allowed to take half of their benefit in a single check when they retire. But if the plan fails, the pilots lose their chance to take a big payout. What I've managed to do is secure half of my retirement, Mr. Dean said. He may still lose the rest if the government takes over the program and limits future payouts. I really lose sleep over that, he said. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is already hobbled by debt, having picked up the pieces of more than 3,200 failed pension plans in its 30-year life. The scale of the failures has risen sharply in the last three years, but the agency has few tools at its disposal to prevent the situation from becoming worse. Now it faces a possible $5 billion default by United which would be a record and the possibility of more big airline defaults after that. The agency can't take a lot of $5 billion hits, multiple times per year, year after year, and survive, said Steven A. Kandarian, the pension agency's immediate past director. Eventually, you'll run out of money. It is impossible to predict the exact size of any pension bailout, although economic projections by the agency suggest that in the worst case, a bailout within the next decade involving failures beyond the airlines could cost taxpayers up to $110 billion. But because pension obligations, unlike bank deposits, do not have to be paid off all at once, it is difficult to raise alarms about the threat. The
Ralph Nader on the DP convention
The Democratic Party-Party Is Over by Ralph Nader, votenader.org The Democratic Party-Party Convention is over, and its singular memory will be its predictable banality and the commercialism that mostly financed it. Historically, conventions were newsworthy because there was a struggle over who would receive the nomination and what the Parties would stand for in their platforms. Today, there is a coronation for the nominee and inquiries about what would be on the menus of the 250 parties that corporations and their smooth-tongued lobbyists were throwing for their favorably-positioned congressional bigwigs. Inside the festooned Convention Center there were dozens of speeches - all pre-viewed, sanitized and edited down to the last minute on teleprompters by the standby Kerry censors. When Al Sharpton departed from the script for a couple of minutes, you would have thought their wedding cake was burning. Fifteen thousand reporters spent five days looking for stories - any stories - that qualified as news or soft features from the Party, its 4,000-plus delegates, and the swarm of corporate backslappers. It was not difficult to describe the wine, whiskey, music, and obvious temptations - in return for the implicit political favors - that the drug, insurance, banking, chemical, oil, media, and computer companies presented to the attending politicians. For this business bacchanalia the taxpayers were required to pay the Democratic party thirteen million dollars (and later the same amount for the Republican Party Convention). A few years ago, Congress - namely the two Parties - decided that these political Conventions were educational in nature and worthy of your tax dollars. Around, over, and under the Convention premises hovered a security army of police, detectives, troops, and armed, airborne, and land-based technology worthy of a Marine division. Thwarting a possible terrorist attack was one reason for over tens of millions of dollars spent - the other objective was to keep the people from protesting anywhere near the Fleet Center Convention. The people - voters, taxpayers, workers - were detained in a free speech zone (catch the irony) that looked like an ad hoc concentration camp encirclement. The intimidating zone was distant enough not to be convenient to the electronic media placements. In a phrase, the Democratic Party did what it does so regularly in Washington - it shut out the people, who resigned themselves to social justice gatherings elsewhere in Boston. But the people should have been smarter. They should have had contrasting parties held by dispossessed workers, defrauded consumers, medical malpractice victims, fleeced taxpayers, small farmers, and polluted communities with open invitations for the politicians to attend. The media likes contrasts, especially when very few of these Congressional delegates would have left their lavish business bashes to greet the Americans they court and flatter only at election time - from distant stages and 30 second television ads. The Democratic Convention did have its amusing moments. Bill Clinton didnt charge his $200,000 per-speech fee for his speech to the convention and the viewing public. The National Association of Broadcasters - representing those television stations who use your public airwaves free and decide 24 hours a day what is allowed to air on our property - held a huge party for Congressman Ed Markey. Mr. Markey started his Congressional career as a major outspoken critic of the broadcasting industry. He has been much quieter in recent years. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Schumpeter made that argument in his essay, Imperialism. On Mon, Aug 02, 2004 at 06:57:20AM -0700, Devine, James wrote: Some scholars (sorry, I don't have the reference here) argue that even the British empire wasn't profitable for Britain as a whole. But it clearly benefited the upper classes, who were more important in decision-making. Jim Devine -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Dems work against Nader in SC
I'm a long time lurker on marxmail, reading just about every day for over a year. I was moved to forward this Charlotte Observer article (now in the registrant-only archives) on Democratic Party efforts to keep Nader off the ballot in my home state of South Carolina. Kerry has no shot of winning SC of course, no way. Bush will carry that state by 20%. Nader got almost 2% of the SC vote in 2000. Obviously, the mere idea of Nader/Camejo campaign can't be suffered. The Dems are out to limit choice first, and save themselves the trouble of responding to a leftist/populist campaign, even in deepest Bush country. Interestingly, Cobb and Socialist Party nominee Walt Brown will be on the ballot since the Greens and the local United Citizens Party (which independently nominated Brown) have automatic ballot access. They can't be kicked off prior to the election. I'd bet the Dems will ignore them in the safe assumption that no one will know who Cobb and Brown are. Neither are mentioned on the article below. Yours, Scott W. - Posted on Fri, Jul. 30, 2004 Groups in S.C. attack petitions favoring Nader Signatures questioned; effort could keep the hopeful off state's ballot http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/9278787.htm?1c HEATHER VOGELL Staff Writer Planning to look for Ralph Nader on the S.C. ballot in this November's presidential election? You may not find him. Groups of S.C. residents and attorneys are questioning pro-Nader petitions in various counties -- including York, election workers confirmed Thursday. If the groups convince officials to toss out more than 1,000 of the 11,000 signatures supporting Nader statewide, he could be booted from the ballot. Simon Demory, Nader's S.C. coordinator, said it's alarming that state Democrats are working to suppress Nader's candidacy. Personally, I think it's a very, very scary thing, he said. That's a pretty dangerous precedent to set. Organizers said they are trying only to make sure the signatures are legally valid, because they could affect the election. If he doesn't have 10,000, he shouldn't be on the ballot, said Charleston attorney Peter Wilborn, who is challenging Nader's petition in Charleston County. Similar efforts are also taking place in Michigan and Arizona. Nader supporters filed a federal lawsuit in Michigan this week to secure a spot on the ballot. Democratic leaders nationwide are trying to avoid a repeat of the 2000 election, when Al Gore supporters complained Nader siphoned off votes that could have vaulted the Democrat into the White House. This time around, Nader is refusing to step aside despite intense pressure from the party. Joe Erwin, S.C. Democratic Party chairman, said the S.C. groups are working independently of the state party, which is forbidden from seeking to keep a candidate off the ballot. Last week, a request for volunteers to keep Ralph Nader off the South Carolina ballot ran in the newsletter of the S.C. Democratic Leadership Council, a Democratic think tank. But its director, Phil Noble, said Thursday that his group didn't sponsor the item. Wilborn and another organizer said they are both Democrats but aren't party officers and aren't mounting challenges on the party's behalf. Wilborn said his group found problems in Charleston that included illegible signatures and signatures from people not on the county's voter rolls. Columbia Attorney Jeff Bloom said his group has filed challenges in 10 to 12 counties that received pro-Nader petitions. He said that after combing through samples of signatures, volunteers found 25 to 50 percent were invalid. Nader received about 1 1/2 percent of the S.C. vote in the 2000 election, amounting to 20,200 ballots. President Bush beat Gore by 220,376 votes statewide. On July 15, Nader's supporters submitted a roughly 11,000-signature petition to the S.C. Election Commission. Bloom said rumors are circulating that Republicans are behind some of the signature-collection drives. But S.C. GOP Executive Director Luke Byars said he hasn't heard anything about Republicans organizing for Nader. Republicans don't have to rely on Ralph Nader for a win in South Carolina, he said. I think we can handle that all by ourselves. -30- -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
I wrote:so the USSR didn't have classes? what principles did it follow? was Stalin a benevolent despot? LP: reply: Jim, it is totally exhausting to reformat your email. Why can't you get somebody to configure your MS Outlook, or do it yourself. Here's how to do it: 1. Select tools/option 2. Select tab mail/format 3. Select Internet format 4. In 'automatically wrap text at -- characters', enter 76. I've tried all this before (those specific instructions don't work with my MS Outlook 2000: SR-1, 9.0.0.3821) - and I've complained to the IT folks (and people on pen-l). So I'm trying to see how MS Word (2000, 9.0.3821 SR-1) works as my e-mail editor. Of course, the on-line version of MS Word that I used this morning to send the message that LP responds to doesn't have this option. Turning to the substance, there were no classes in the USSR. A bureaucrat and a capitalist have nothing in common in Marxist terms. If (1) the bureaucrat belongs to a social stratum that controls the state in a despotic way - enough to kill or imprison those who oppose their rule - and (2) the state owns the most important means of production, then doesn't that bureaucrat have a social power akin to other ruling classes? me:it's clear that the USSR subsidized its satellites, but that doesn't make it any less of an empire, since the USSR didn't grant its allies independence until the USSR itself was falling apart. LP: reply: The USSR certainly did control Poland, Hungary et al. The record is quite clear on that. What it did not do is extract value. they may not have extracted value in the capitalist sense (exchange value), but the old USSR worked according to non-commodity-producing standards. As did several pre-capitalist empires. Jim Devine
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
I wrote: it's clear that the USSR subsidized its satellites, but that doesn't make it any less of an empire, since the USSR didn't grant its allies independence until the USSR itself was falling apart. CC wrote: I'm not sure what to call the USSR dominance of its allies, but I think it is misleading to call it an empire. As we ordinarily use the word (leaving aside the oddity of the Hardt/Negri empire), whether in reference to the present or even the distant past, the word carries a more complex intension than just dominance, and part of that intension is, precisely, exploitation. ... the USSR could have exploited the CMEA (COMECON) countries in a military/diplomatic way, while over-all totals of net flow of value into the CMEA can easily hide positive net flows of important benefits going the other way... Put another way, to label the U.S. and the USSR with the same label, empire -- and hence to suggest that there is some analogy between the relationship USSR/Cuba and US/Puerto Rico -- is just too violent an abstraction, it leaves too little material content to what we mean when we speak of empire. I would say that USSR/Hungary or USSR/Czechoslovakia would be more like US/Puerto Rico, whereas USSR/Cuba might be more like US/England. Of course, no analogies are perfect. jim devine
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Chris Doss writes: Russians lived more poorly than people in any other of the republics or in the Eastern Bloc (except maybe Albania?). Moscow may have been a possible exception. It's one of the reasons why Russia junked them. Ironically, those losses of subsidies have resulted in the wealthiest of the republics -- like Georgia and Moldova -- into the poorest. Russians now live better than people anywhere else in the fSU, except maybe the Baltics, which is why you have so much illegal immigration from them into Russia. There are lots of Soviet jokes depicting Castro as sucking at Brezhnev's teat. this part is what's generally accepted as valid in this thread. Jim Devine
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Devine, James wrote: I've tried all this before (those specific instructions don't work with my MS Outlook 2000: SR-1, 9.0.0.3821) - and I've complained to the IT folks (and people on pen-l). So I'm trying to see how MS Word (2000, 9.0.3821 SR-1) works as my e-mail editor. Of course, the on-line version of MS Word that I used this morning to send the message that LP responds to doesn't have this option. Reply: Why don't you set up an account on yahoo? JD: If (1) the bureaucrat belongs to a social stratum that controls the state in a despotic way - enough to kill or imprison those who oppose their rule - and (2) the state owns the most important means of production, then doesn't that bureaucrat have a social power akin to other ruling classes? Reply: Yes, they had lots of power over people. What they lacked was the power to fire workers, bequeath property to their sons or daughters, sell/strip assets, etc. Looking at China today, with 18 year olds committing suicide because they can't afford college, we can certainly say that a return to the status quo ante--with all the bureaucratic deformations--would be progress. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
I would say that USSR/Hungary or USSR/Czechoslovakia would be more like US/Puerto Rico, whereas USSR/Cuba might be more like US/England. Of course, no analogies are perfect. jim devine Although it is impossible precisely to evaluate the gains and losses in intra-Comecon trade it is generally agreed that the USSR was subsidizing Eastern Europe and that over time this subsidy was rising largely because of the growing opportunity costs involved in supplying the group with 'hard' commodities such as oil. Up to the mid-1970s the Soviet Union was apparently willing to pay this price in return for politically stable and loyal allies; up to the 1973 oil-price explosion the only way in which the subsidy was reduced was the Soviet insistence that East European countries contribute to the development of its resources. During the 1970s, however, it became clear that the terms of trade of 'hard' goods would continue to rise and that East European countries would not be able to reduce the subsidy for the following two reasons: first, because they incurred, in some cases considerable, convertible currency debts so their ability to buy oil in non-Comecon markets was severely restricted, and secondly, the imports of Western technology initially undertaken in the hope that the 'softness' of East European manufactures would be reduced did not result in a direct improvement (and could, as in the case of Poland, lead to severe strain and eventual collapse). On the other hand, the USSR is in no position to continue to subsidize Eastern Europe indefinitely. There are several reasons for this. First, the Soviet economic growth has declined to unprecedently low rates; secondly, the oil industry is experiencing difficulties in securing adequate supplies for the 1980s; thirdly, the Soviet Union is forced to continue to spend substantial hard currency outlays on the import of grain; and fourthly, it undertook to subsidize the developing members of Comecon--Cuba, Mongolia and most recently Vietnam. (Vladimir Sobell, The Red Market : Industrial Co-operation and Specialisation in Comecon (Aldershot, 1984 -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: China and socialism
South China Morning Post, Aug. 2 Police shoot villagers in land dispute, report says by: Staff Reporter Dozens of people in Shijiahe village in Zhengzhou, Henan province, were reportedly injured yesterday when police arrested troublemakers who had organised protests over land deals approved by village leaders. Chinesenewsnet.com, an overseas-based Chinese affairs website, carried a message posted by a family member saying about 600 policemen surrounded the village in the early hours yesterday to arrest villagers who were identified as troublemakers. The villagers had complained that village leaders had pocketed the proceeds from the land deals. Armed with tear gas, shotguns, dogs and electric batons, the police confronted unarmed villagers who tried to stop them from taking the troublemakers away, the message said. As a result, more than 30 people suffered gunshot wounds and six were seriously hurt. The message did not say how many villagers or troublemakers had been arrested but said the injured villagers were being treated in a hospital in Zhengzhou. The report said the villagers opposed the land sale, which involved investment of as much as 40 million yuan.
US/Tony Blair cries wolf again?
The mask of altruism disguising a colonial war Oil will be the driving factor for military intervention in Sudan John Laughland Monday August 2, 2004 The Guardian If proof were needed that Tony Blair is off the hook over Iraq, it came not during the Commons debate on the Butler report on July 21, but rather at his monthly press conference the following morning. Asked about the crisis in Sudan, Mr Blair replied: I believe we have a moral responsibility to deal with this and to deal with it by any means that we can. This last phrase means that troops might be sent - as General Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the general staff, immediately confirmed - and yet the reaction from the usual anti-war campaigners was silence. Mr Blair has invoked moral necessity for every one of the five wars he has fought in this, surely one of the most bellicose premierships in history. The bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998, the 74-day bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999, the intervention in Sierra Leone in the spring of 2000, the attack on Afghanistan in October 2001, and the Iraq war last March were all justified with the bright certainties which shone from the prime minister's eyes. Blair even defended Bill Clinton's attack on the al-Shifa pharmaceuticals factory in Sudan in August 1998, on the entirely bogus grounds that it was really manufacturing anthrax instead of aspirin. Although in each case the pretext for war has been proved false or the war aims have been unfulfilled, a stubborn belief persists in the morality and the effectiveness of attacking other countries. The Milosevic trial has shown that genocide never occurred in Kosovo - although Blair told us that the events there were worse than anything that had happened since the second world war, even the political activists who staff the prosecutor's office at the international criminal tribunal in The Hague never included genocide in their Kosovo indictment. And two years of prosecution have failed to produce one single witness to testify that the former Yugoslav president ordered any attacks on Albanian civilians in the province. Indeed, army documents produced from Belgrade show the contrary. Like the Kosovo genocide, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, as we now know, existed only in the fevered imaginings of spooks and politicians in London and Washington. But Downing Street was also recently forced to admit that even Blair's claims about mass graves in Iraq were false. The prime minister has repeatedly said that 300,000 or 400,000 bodies have been found there, but the truth is that almost no bodies have been exhumed in Iraq, and consequently the total number of such bodies, still less the cause of their deaths, is simply unknown. In 2001, we attacked Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden and to prevent the Taliban from allegedly flooding the world with heroin. Yet Bin Laden remains free, while the heroin ban imposed by the Taliban has been replaced by its very opposite, a surge in opium production, fostered by the warlords who rule the country. As for Sierra Leone, the United Nations human development report for 2004, published on July 15, which measures overall living standards around the world, puts that beneficiary of western intervention in 177th place out of 177, an august position it has continued to occupy ever since our boys went in: Sierra Leone is literally the most miserable place on earth. So much for Blair's promise of a new era for Africa. The absence of anti-war scepticism about the prospect of sending troops into Sudan is especially odd in view of the fact that Darfur has oil. For two years, campaigners have chanted that there should be no blood for oil in Iraq, yet they seem not to have noticed that there are huge untapped reserves in both southern Sudan and southern Darfur. As oil pipelines continue to be blown up in Iraq, the west not only has a clear motive for establishing control over alternative sources of energy, it has also officially adopted the policy that our armies should be used to do precisely this. Oddly enough, the oil concession in southern Darfur is currently in the hands of the China National Petroleum Company. China is Sudan's biggest foreign investor. We ought, therefore, to treat with scepticism the US Congress declaration of genocide in the region. No one, not even the government of Sudan, questions that there is a civil war in Darfur, or that it has caused an immense number of refugees. Even the government admits that nearly a million people have left for camps outside Darfur's main towns to escape marauding paramilitary groups. The country is awash with guns, thanks to the various wars going on in Sudan's neighbouring countries. Tensions have risen between nomads and herders, as the former are forced south in search of new pastures by the expansion of the Sahara desert. Paramilitary groups have practised widespread highway robbery, and each tribe has its own private army. That is why the
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
I never disagreed with this. Jim Devine LP quotes: Although it is impossible precisely to evaluate the gains and losses in intra-Comecon trade it is generally agreed that the USSR was subsidizing Eastern Europe and that over time this subsidy was rising largely because of the growing opportunity costs involved in supplying the group with 'hard' commodities such as oil. Up to the mid-1970s the Soviet Union was apparently willing to pay this price in return for politically stable and loyal allies; up to the 1973 oil-price explosion the only way in which the subsidy was reduced was the Soviet insistence that East European countries contribute to the development of its resources. During the 1970s, however, it became clear that the terms of trade of 'hard' goods would continue to rise and that East European countries would not be able to reduce the subsidy for the following two reasons: first, because they incurred, in some cases considerable, convertible currency debts so their ability to buy oil in non-Comecon markets was severely restricted, and secondly, the imports of Western technology initially undertaken in the hope that the 'softness' of East European manufactures would be reduced did not result in a direct improvement (and could, as in the case of Poland, lead to severe strain and eventual collapse). On the other hand, the USSR is in no position to continue to subsidize Eastern Europe indefinitely. There are several reasons for this. First, the Soviet economic growth has declined to unprecedently low rates; secondly, the oil industry is experiencing difficulties in securing adequate supplies for the 1980s; thirdly, the Soviet Union is forced to continue to spend substantial hard currency outlays on the import of grain; and fourthly, it undertook to subsidize the developing members of Comecon--Cuba, Mongolia and most recently Vietnam. (Vladimir Sobell, The Red Market : Industrial Co-operation and Specialisation in Comecon (Aldershot, 1984
Re: China and socialism . . . yea . . . when it all fall down
The problem, unfortunately, is there has never been anything other than a "scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations" --anywhere, ever. Therefore, the issue becomes: is such a march historically progressive, despite the human toll? Marx, of course, answered in the affirmative in relation to pre-existing modes of development. You know all this. Marx wasn't around to witness the failed experiments to leap over the capitalist stage in both China and the USSR in the 20th century. Comment When it all falls down the ceiling crashes on everyone head without regard to the politics or ideology contained in each head. Without question industrial society and all its boundaries of development set the basis and stage for the communist society Marx spoke of. After many years of considering these questions . . . my own personal opinion is that the communists were more than less doomed by the constrain of the last boundary of history . . . especially so . . . in the absence of public property relations in the advanced industrial countries. Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao ZeDung, Uncle Ho and the paramount leader Fidel are not causes but effects and as such are banners or direction of a particular detachmentof communist leaders. Nor could social revolution be exported to the advance industrially developed countries. And we most certainly could not carry out insurrection in the absence of social revolution in America. To the same degree this is what the Soviets faced and also China. Yes, the Great October Revolution was socialist . . . meaning its leaders held a vision of communism but above all it was the acceleration of the industrial revolution with all its consequences for market exchange and the law of value. The goal of communism has never been public property but the abolish of property on the basis of its last historically evolved form . . . bourgeois property. One cannot have this as a practical task in a more than less agricultural society. I have arrived at the conclusion that the key to what happened in the Soviet Union and what is taking place in China resides in our own history. Not in the sense of us overthrowing the bourgeoisie but curve of development. No one beats the machine of history and overthrowing a bureaucratic order is impossible until history steps into the social arena and erode the basis upon which an "order" is established. China is more complex because it was a national democratic revolution led by communists. The National Democratic Revolution is bourgeois by definition. And the communist of China have carved themselves a noble page . . . chapter in history. The last time history placed social revolution on the agenda in the American Union was the Civil War. The Civil Rights Movement was not social revolution but a reform movement to allow the expansion of the industrial system and the mechanization of agriculture. There was no magical "workers uprising in Russian" but an economic and social collapse as the result of a catastrophic war time defeat during the passing from feudal economic and social relations to industrial relations. Today on a world scale we face the industrial bureaucracy in all its property forms and relations. The intersection is going to be complex and profound. The world has been more than less industrialized and we are at the beginning of this enormous leap to a post industrial world that may take a century of two. We have no way to chart this curve . . . yet. We cannot make anyone . . . especially our own working class do something it does not want to do or understand as rational. Nor could we even maintain our orientation during the past 30 years of assaulting the bourgeois order. Marx said that we hold the key and our actuality was the future of all the areas of the world . . . . economically drawn forward in our wake . . . industrial curve of development. I utterly reject as foolishness that we have failed in discharging our responsibility to our working class because some group was Trotskyists . . . or Stalinists or studied the Thought of Ma ZeDung or practiced Buddhism or "didn't really understand Marx." China is going to face and is facing the exact same social revolution we face in America. Their future resides with their proletariat and not her peasants. The people of China are deciding their fate . . . just as the people of America are deciding our fate. People fight for what they believe in and if no one believes in industrial socialism . . . then we need to understand its objective and subjective dimensions. We need to understand the lesson of the Soviet Union and Putin . . . or rather the counterrevolution that overthrew Reconstruction in America. If a ruling class can have the specific form of its economic base shattered and reemerge as a freaking ruling class . . . then we are in for a rough ride. Communist revolutionaries have not and
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
JD:If (1) the bureaucrat belongs to a social stratum that controls the state in a despotic way - enough to kill or imprison those who oppose their rule - and (2) the state owns the most important means of production, then doesn't that bureaucrat have a social power akin to other ruling classes? LP:Yes, they had lots of power over people. What they lacked was the power to fire workers, bequeath property to their sons or daughters, sell/strip assets, etc. Looking at China today, with 18 year olds committing suicide because they can't afford college, we can certainly say that a return to the status quo ante--with all the bureaucratic deformations--would be progress. If you think about the power to fire workers, bequeath property to their sons or daughters, sell/strip assets, etc., you're thinking about a specifically capitalist form of class power. (Did the Pharaoh have the ability to the power to fire workers, bequeath property to their sons or daughters, sell/strip assets, etc.?) There have been many other kinds of class power in the history of the world. In any event, Kim il Sung seems to have bequeathed North Korea to his son. Also, there's nothing in my original message in this thread about the issue of progress. A shift from a non-capitalist mode of production to a capitalist one usually involves primitive accumulation, which is extremely bloody (or only corrupt and violent). Maybe there have been some progressive shifts from the USSR-type mode of production to capitalism (Czechoslovakia?), but I doubt it. Jim Devine
Re: Try email stripper to end wrap around
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Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
Devine, James wrote: If you think about the power to fire workers, bequeath property to their sons or daughters, sell/strip assets, etc., you're thinking about a specifically capitalist form of class power. (Did the Pharaoh have the ability to the power to fire workers, bequeath property to their sons or daughters, sell/strip assets, etc.?) There have been many other kinds of class power in the history of the world. In any event, Kim il Sung seems to have bequeathed North Korea to his son. Reply: Well, we seem to have a different understanding of class. I consider ownership of the means of production to be crucial. Like a feudal lord owning land, or a Southern Bourbon owning slaves. I didn't consider Jimmy Hoffa to be a member of the ruling class in the USA despite the outward trappings of wealth and power. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
NY Times profile on Nader
NY Times, August 2, 2004 Convictions Intact, Nader Soldiers On By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE SANTA MONICA, Calif., Aug. 1 - To Ralph Nader, the Democratic convention in Boston was a hollow charade that made Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, seem more like President Bush than ever. He said it gave him no reason to drop out of the race, even if he costs Mr. Kerry the election in November, as many believe he cost Al Gore in 2000. This isn't unity, Mr. Nader scoffed in an interview here on Saturday, referring to the message from the Democratic convention. This is repressed conformity in order to create the show. He called the Democrats a decadent party and, in a reference to Mr. Gore's populist war cry in 2000, accused Mr. Gore of taking my language away from me and costing me more votes than I cost him. Mr. Kerry, he noted, voted for the war in Iraq, would not put a deadline on withdrawing American troops, voted for the Patriot Act and, he said, won't touch the bloated, corrupt military budget. So Mr. Nader, who does not concede that he has little chance of winning the presidency, is preparing for battles ahead - for ballot access in most states (he is on the ballot in six states so far, including Florida), for credentials to the Republican convention this month (he was denied credentials to the Democratic convention), and for a seat at the table in the fall debates, which requires a standing of at least 15 percent in national polls. Andrew Kohut, the director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, said that Mr. Nader, who won 2.7 percent of the vote in 2000, was polling at about 3 percent in most national polls now but could spell trouble for Mr. Kerry in some swing states. While Mr. Nader digs in his heels, the Democrats are trying to sideline him. The party has enlisted Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, who has declared an extraordinary emergency to stomp out Nader votes. And some former associates of Mr. Nader are organizing an extensive, well-financed national campaign against him. Organizers include Toby Moffett, a former congressman from Connecticut and onetime Nader Raider, who lost a close race for the Senate in 1982 after his former boss endorsed his opponent. Mr. Moffett, now a lobbyist in Washington, worked against Mr. Nader in six states in 2000, an informal effort that he now calls amateurish. With that experience under his belt, he said, we're vowing not to let it happen again. Mr. Moffett and others from labor and feminist organizations spent their time at the Democratic convention coordinating six or eight anti-Nader groups. Calling themselves United Progressives for Victory, they are raising money through an independent political committee known as a 527, named for the section of the I.R.S. code that governs it, and are working with other 527's that are already identifying sympathetic voters. (By law, such committees can raise unlimited amounts of money but cannot coordinate with the Kerry campaign.) The group is armed with a poll conducted by Stanley Greenberg, who was President Bill Clinton's pollster. The group includes Roy Neel, a former Gore associate who worked for Mr. Dean and is now preparing the computer model for finding the 2.8 million people who voted for Mr. Nader in 2000 and might vote for him again. Mr. Moffett said there was no chance that Mr. Nader would drop out, so the only way to stop him from throwing the election to Mr. Bush is to discourage his supporters. Mr. Nader's determination to stay in the contest was evident on Friday night in Los Angeles, when Michael Moore, the filmmaker, who backed Mr. Nader in 2000, appeared with him on the HBO program Real Time with Bill Maher. Mr. Moore and Mr. Maher dropped to their knees to beg Mr. Nader to drop out, with the audience cheering them on. Mr. Nader was unmoved, saying only, We're going to help defeat George W. Bush and dashing off the set at his first opportunity. Nader supporters, Mr. Greenberg's polling shows, are generally older and angrier [I guess that explains me!] than other voters. They are fiercely against globalization and corporate dominance, and they are largely indifferent to social issues like abortion and gay marriage. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/02/politics/campaign/02nader.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow
In a message dated 8/2/2004 10:28:39 AM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Russians lived more poorly than people in any other of the republics or in the Eastern Bloc (except maybe Albania?). Moscow may have been a possible exception. It's one of the reasons why Russia junked them. Ironically, those losses of subsidies have resulted in the wealthiest of the republics -- like Georgia and Moldova -- into the poorest. Russians now live better than people anywhere else in the fSU, except maybe the Baltics, which is why you have so much illegal immigration from them into Russia. There are lots of Soviet jokes depicting Castro as sucking at Brezhnev's teat. Comment This Great Russian Bully . . . seeking the restoration of an historially evolved privledge . . . was unshackled as the results of the era of Nitkia Khrushchev . . . although many may had thought they met the "bully boy." Being forced to try and recover what you had is a harsh school. Striving to receive what you think you have coming is the school of chauvinism. This Great Russian Bully . . . who was handcuffed and forced to serve the dictatorship of the proletariat is going to teach some harsh lessons. Lessons an enormous section of our proletariat learnt in a pervious era and during several junctures in the development of our industrial system. Wealth is measured against master's house and not your neighbors shack. Khruschev's betrayal of Lumumba and the Congo set the basis for the evolution of Soviet policy up to the collapse of Soviet Power and the overthrow of its property relations in the industrial infrastructure. The vassal states of the Soviet Union were not colonies or the meaning of colonies in the sense of bourgeois imperialism. The Soviet Union was an imperial power and its responsibility was to uplift the petty bourgeois countries and aid the world proletariat to the best of its ability. Any modern economy operating on the basis of the exchange of labor is going to manifest economic inequality. What Russia junked was socialism. The people of the Soviet Union understood that Brezhnev was not a Red. I remember their jokes from this period . . . concerning Brezhnev trying to impress his mother with his power and wealth and privileges. At the end of the story . . . Brezhnev's mother looks at him and says . . . "you have done well son . . . but what you gonna do when the Reds come back?" The real ideological basis of support of the counter revolution . . . outside the apparatus that intermingles with international capital and the characters able to exact tribute from Ivan Average on the basis of their station in the bureaucratic apparatus (something understood by every industrial worker having labored in a large factor or tenured Professor languishing under the heavy hand of the machine) . . . is the petty bourgeois intellectual that alter the ideological sphere on behalf of its prejudices. What wrecked the Soviet Union was democracy and I do not mean incarceration or the lack or social engineering . . . but the petty bourgeois concept of workers democracy and political rights. If you are fighting on an economic terrain that is hostile to you all you have is ideology as the social glue. Under the Stalin regime there could be no talk of the ANC being niggers at the trough of the Soviet Economy or Castro sucking a breast. None of us get a world like we envision it and workers in America are in the process of showing the world their conception of democracy. It is not going to be pretty and our greatest failing is the inability to understand how people actually think things out. It means we cannot reach our workers because subjective conception of democracy create the unbridgeable class barrier. Poland gets what it deserves. Those within the former Soviet Union are going to get what they deserve and they are going to pay more than under Sovietism. The world workers are going to get what they deserve and are paying more than under Sovietism. Then again . . . the damn bureaucracy flips . . . man. And the bureaucracy is not a class. In the Soviet Union the bureaucracy was an excretion of the state in practical terms due to its peculiar curve of development. In the historical sense it was part of the line of industrial development. Where in history has any society every overthrown the machine before its economic basis was eroded? The Bully Boy is back . . . the real bully boy and not that guy you freaking thought was a bully. A democratic slave master is still a slave master however . . . and there were some decent slave masters . . . according to some who never escaped the mental chains of slavery . . . or rather bourgeois democracy. Melvin P.
class in the USSR
[was: RE: [PEN-L] The Soviet empire was a drain on Moscow] LP: Well, we seem to have a different understanding of class. I consider ownership of the means of production to be crucial. Like a feudal lord owning land, or a Southern Bourbon owning slaves. There's more than one kind of class power. The examples are individualistic, but class power can be collective. (An analogy: the Jesuits officially take a vow of poverty as individuals - but some of their communities are rich, some are poor.) There can be group class power, as with the Pharaoh and the others at the top of the ancient Egyptian slave-state. Even under capitalism, feudalism, and modern Southern slavery involve more than the individualist dimension: an isolated would-be capitalist wouldn't get very far under feudalism (because there would be few true proletarians to exploit), just as an individual would-be slave-owner wouldn't get very far under capitalism in the richer countries (where capitalism is purer). Modes of production are social structures, not just a collection of powerful individuals. I didn't consider Jimmy Hoffa to be a member of the ruling class in the USA despite the outward trappings of wealth and power. Exactly. He was a favored pet of part of the ruling class, since he hadn't crossed the line into the ruling class (though I'm sure that he wanted to). His bureaucracy - the Teamsters' Union - wasn't part of capital. Jim Devine
Re: China and socialism- 50 years of the Western Left
Pieinsky wrote: Questions for Henry from an old Maoist: (1) Aren't you concerned at all about the evidence of increasing class disparities and the consequent rise of open class struggles (workers' strikes, farmers' protests, etc.) in "Red" China? What do these occurrences mean, in your opinion? Class is disparity by definition. I am vigorously against income disparity. The working class should enjoy the same income or even higher income than the bourgeoisie. Those members of the bourgeoisie who work to increase income of workers are performing a useful function. Excess profit is not only counterrevolutionary, it is even bad economics in an overcapacity economy. Strikes are not really class struggle activities, especially legal strikes in the context of a capitalist system. General strikes to shut down the economy are revolutionary, but there have not any general strikes for quite a few decades in the West. In a system such as China's, the way to protect worker and peasant interests is not through strikes but through intra party political struggles, to get the right people into the central committee and the polibureau. The private sector grows in China due to very complex political and geopolitical factors. No one can accuse China and the Communist Party of China for not giving Maoism a fair chance. But facts are that while the ideology is admirable, the results have been wanting. Wealth needs to be created before it can be shared. (2) Why does it have to be either poverty or "ideological purity"? Can't a Third World country's development take place, while at the same time preserving and extending more egalitarian social relations, as I think Mao hoped for China? The reasons are very complex. Purity of any kind, including religious purity, tends to require tradeoffs that reduce life to single dimensional results. What we need is to merge ideological aims with utilitarian implementations. Nothing the Western Left has voiced has impressed me as being useful for the situation in China. Noise of no practical value does not deserve attention. In fact, I cannot think of any achievement of significant by the Western left in the last five decades. Despite all the anti-China noise, China is still the most socialist economy in the world. Ask the Cubans who have visited China, including Castro, who has long since stopped criticizing China. Henry C.K. Liu This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm
FW: the drain of British imperialism
Forwarded from Jurriaan Bendien: See about this Patrick Karl O'Brien, Imperialism and the Rise and Decline of the British Economy, 1688-1989, New Left Review 238 (1999). I met O'Brien (LSE) in Amsterdam at a Mandel seminar. He's quite clued up about the historical data and some material is available on the web; he has some unconventional ideas but tries to base himself on fact rather than dogma. Michael Barratt Brown also wrote analyses on this theme - his books After Imperialism, The Economics of Imperialism, and Essays on imperialism. However, arguments that imperialism was a drain on Britain (or any other country) are suspect, in the sense that one ought to specify exactly who gained, and who lost from imperial conquest (which social classes). If imperialism has been a total business failure, obviously it would have disappeared quickly. The same applies to US imperialism today - much of the burdens fall on taxpayers and veterans, but the benefits go to private enterprise. Many imperialist ventures occurred not specifically for economic gain, but simply to block competing nations. My point of view is, is that capitalist imperialism is the natural concomitant of market expansion and intercapitalist competition internationally. Capital must expand or it dies. To expand means to compete. To compete requires increasing market-shares and improving international bargaining power. Thus, imperialism is the political expression of the forces of the world market. In that sense, imperialism was part of the very birth of industrial capitalism, and was already evident in the era of mercantile capitalism. A stated aim of the US federal government is to secure the conditions and expand the scope for private enterprise internationally, and this is an imperial objective which is taken to justify unilateral intervention in the political affairs of foreign states. The premiss that the US govt has the right to intervene unilaterally to defend American interests is accepted without question. Likewise, agencies such as the IMF have the explicit objective of working for the global integration of countries into the world market; but since there is a hierarchy of nations, this integration obviously benefits the richer, industrially advanced nations more, and often occurs at the expense of weaker nations, which cannot compete on an equal footing in terms of productivity, market power, military strength or technological expertise. From the mentioned imperative, of course no specific policy necessarily follows - particular plans and ambitions may be advanced or hindered depending on the world situation, and the initiatives of particular political groups or leading personalities; they may be framed in religious terms, or in terms of cultural superiority, or in terms of controversy over free trade or protectionism. Given competing business interests, the capacity for the most powerful strata of big business to operationalise their plans, given a complex struggle between different parties, lobying groups and associations may contingently be greater or lesser. However, even if imperialist interventions prove costly, and they often do, they would not be engaged in, if the imperial powers did not think they were necessary to maintain or advance their geostrategic position or longterm business interests. Kissinger and Brzezinski are quite explicit on this point. The real dispute is just about how this position and these interests are contingently best advanced, given a specific balance of power - who are the allies, and who are the enemies, what are the ultimate rewards, which depends on the current aligments of parties, classes and nations given a particular economic situation. In the force-field of international politics, however, if you don't go forward you go backward, and assertion of military strength may occur, simply to send a signal to competitors to back off, in the same way that investors might invest not because to do so is particularly profitable, but because they cannot afford not to invest, in order to safeguard their longterm position. Precisely because multinational corporations heavily rely on internationalised markets, states necessarily seek to enforce the whole social framework necessary for world trade. But whether this enforcement is benign or violent does not alter the fact that it is effectively imperialist, since a hierarchy of nations persists, allowing some to dominate and shortchange others. Best, Jurriaan
Re: China and socialism
As for whether China would be a good model for the rest of the Third World, let the people of the Third World decide for themselves. We don't need self-righteous academics in the West to pronounce what is an ideologically correct model for the Third World. The sad fact is that the Western left have done little for the Third World beyond destructive talk. Until members of the Western Left can control their own imperialists governments and improve the lot of the poor in their own societies, they had better be a bit more humble about what is correct. Lou's reply: What arrogance. Henry Liu had no problem lecturing Marxmail about Jews supporting Adolph Hitler, but he is neither Jewish nor German. When he stops writing about things that are not exclusively Chinese, I will stop writing about things that are not exclusively Jewish. Comment When it all fall down and the truth comes out. Ones Jewishness is not an issue because in the American Union . . . Jews are not oppressed and exploited as Jews. Who cares what Jews supported Hitler as a political context? Individuals always try and save their hide and protect their families and conditions under diverse conditions. What are you talking about . . . man? That is to say Chinese and the overseas Chinese appear to have a different relationship to China than Jews to America. This means their social and economic relations in history is different from the Jews to America. There is a difference because China is a geographic bound land mass with a long unbroken continuos history . . . like 2000 years. In the sense of Jews I think we talking about very early mercantilism and coinage. trade and what would a thousand years later be expressed as a form of merchant capital. The real issue is the anti-China lobby and its demand for Regime Change or the overthrow of the government and CPC in China and this political conclusion is embedded in ones economic and political approach to China. It would be a tragedy if Henry limited his writings to China and have lengthy . . . very lengthy writing on the banking system in America and Europe is excellent material . . . even if one disagrees. I happen to think his material is brilliant. It would be a tragedy if Lou did not learn where his individuality ends and others individually begins. On the world stage the revolutionaries in different countries are not and do not take the academic left serious in America because it is the hand maiden of the imperial bourgeoisie. We the Bully Boys on the block . . . Lou . . . you are more American than Jew and you need to ask the world people about this.Lingering in the corridors of ones mind will get them in trouble. It is not the economic data on China that is in question but your politics. You have called the leaders of China some bad things based on the interior of your mind and not the history of China. You know my feeling on this matter . . . rotten chauvinism. In terms of this Jewish thing you raise . . . I am African American and I am not cosmopolitan and at this stage of history the worlds people reject cosmopolitanism as ideology for a complex of reasons. What does you being Jewish mean in America for the social struggle? I can tell you in plain terms what Henry being Chinese mean to the social struggle in America and China. Don't thug . . . outsideof your class league and narrow conceptions. Or rather understand the boundary and limits. Now if you were not anti-China and anti-Soviet and anti-Russian and had the answer for everything on earth . . . but have no credentials . . . wait a minute. Is it because Leon Trotsky was a Jew that you have affinity with him? You raised the Jewish Question. You . . . not me. I only raise the question of social revolution and African American Liberation because it is central to American history. There is no economic contradiction between African American and America as a social and political history and economic formation other than an intractable social position.Is this the case with Jews? What is this Jewish thing about? What . . . you talking about . . . man? What do you suggest for China? You're apparently the "Shell Answer Man." Henry's proposition are extremely clear covering the entire economy form sovereign credit to the relative inequality of equality . . . that is working families can receive more money than that of the bourgeoisie based on need . . . to monetary reform and why China should not devalue its money. Did you know Jefferson's attitude on the baking system and if you did why did you write a nonsensical history of the Civil War and Reconstruction and the property relations of the South? Leave China alone . . . or at any rate be careful. What . . . you have the right to say anything because you a Jew? You inserted this into the question of China for reasons known only to you. See . . . I have no tolerance for the bullshit.
Have You Forgotten?
Have You Forgotten? (A Small Victory, a blog on the right, created a visual reminder of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I doubt that such a reminder will do the right any good at this point. Anyhow, I've photoshopped the image created by A Small Victory -- the slogan Have You Forgotten? superimposed on photos of the burning World Trade Center -- by adding George W. Bush's My Pet Goat moment to it): http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/have-you-forgotten.html Yoshie
Re: China and socialism
Louis Proyect wrote: I recommend that you read Theodor Shanin's Late Marx, which makes a convincing case that Marx rejected the notion of universal models of development. I haven't read Shanin's book. But reinterpreting Marx has been the fashion ever since the socialist revolution he foresaw in the heavily proletarianized industrial West did not occur, but broke out instead in primarily peasant societies outside the advanced capitalist heartlands. The claim that Marx never developed a schema whereby societies necessarily progressed from feudalism to capitalism to socialism was invoked to lend his authority to the revolutions which were carried out in the name of socialism and the working class in Russia, China and other predominantly peasant societies. For Western Marxists like Louis who still see their societies as rotten ripe for socialism -- and predicate their political behaviour on that assumption -- it can be demoralizing to acknowedge that Marx may have been a good analyst of capitalism, but wrong about its staying power. I suspect Shanin's book may belong to this genre. Lenin returned to the late Marx when he drafted the April Theses, which rejected the notion of a capitalist stage for Russia. Contemporary Russia indicates Lenin was wrong to dismiss this possibility. In fact, he was more prescient about the long term movement of Russian history before the April theses. Prior to 1917, he foresaw an extended period of capitalist development in a parliamentary democracy dominated by the workers' and peasants' parties -- encapsulated in his formula of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. Kautsky, whom Lenin admired until the former became a renegade supporter of the German war effort and critic of the Bolshevik Revolution, held a similar view. In 1917, understandably excited by the prospects of a socialist revolution in Russia and the West, Lenin called for a government based on soviets of workers and peasants rather than on a multi-class parliament, and effectively embraced Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, which called on it to construct socialism. The 70 year experiment with public ownership and a planned economy followed. What would the classical Marxists say today with the power of hindsight? Even Trotsky admitted he would be forced to revise his views if WWII did not result in the long-delayed socialist revolution in the West and the overthrow of Stalinism in the USSR. Neither Marx nor Lenin nor Trotsky ever anticipated that post-capitalist societies would revert back to capitalism, the central political development of our time. I see that you omit Cuba in this...panorama of the last 100 years. Highly revealing. Revealing of what? I still regard the Cuban Revolution as one of the most heroic episodes of our lifetime and respect and admire Fidel as much as I ever did, but to suggest that the socialist characteristics of this small island are more significant to our understanding of historical trends and Marxism than the collapse of the USSR and China and the absence of socialist revolution in the West is ridiculous. Moreover, it doesn't take into account the increasing concessions which the Cubans have reluctantly had to make to markets, petty enterprise, and the dollar. I wouldn't exclude the possibility that the next generation of Cuban leaders may take the same measures with respect to the nationalized economy, the monopoly of foreign trade, the constraints on capital flows and labour mobility etc. that have been taken in the past 15 years by their former ideological allies. Such is the pressure of the ever-widening global capitalist economy. Might I suggest that instead of referring me to academic works by others and implying I am a Kautskyite enemy of Cuba, it would be better to identify the precise formulations of mine to which you object, and for what reasons. Marv Gandall
Re: China and socialism
Marvin Gandall wrote: societies. For Western Marxists like Louis who still see their societies as rotten ripe for socialism -- and predicate their political behaviour on that assumption -- it can be demoralizing to acknowedge that Marx may have been a good analyst of capitalism, but wrong about its staying power. I suspect Shanin's book may belong to this genre. The next time that somebody gets the impression that I see the USA as rotten ripe for socialism has permission to give me 50 lashes with a cat o'nine tails. Except for Jim Devine, that is. Contemporary Russia indicates Lenin was wrong to dismiss this possibility. No. Contemporary Russia demonstrates that only socialism can produce rational development. The NY Times Magazine article I cited earlier predicts that Russia will go the same way as other capitalist oil-centric countries, like Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, etc. In fact, he was more prescient about the long term movement of Russian history before the April theses. Prior to 1917, he foresaw an extended period of capitalist development in a parliamentary democracy dominated by the workers' and peasants' parties -- encapsulated in his formula of the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. Kautsky, whom Lenin admired until the former became a renegade supporter of the German war effort and critic of the Bolshevik Revolution, held a similar view. Lenin drafted the April Theses because it became obvious that the progressive bourgeoisie would continue with the senseless slaughter of WWI, refuse to divide up the rural estates and grant oppressed nations their freedom. In other words, socialism was necessary to complete the bourgeois-democratic revolution. say today with the power of hindsight? Even Trotsky admitted he would be forced to revise his views if WWII did not result in the long-delayed socialist revolution in the West and the overthrow of Stalinism in the USSR. Neither Marx nor Lenin nor Trotsky ever anticipated that post-capitalist societies would revert back to capitalism, the central political development of our time. Stalinism proved more intractable than anybody imagined. This is our woesome legacy, to have a hegemonic left that pushed for class alliances with the bourgeoisie. Even though the CP has been eclipsed, this kind of stinking reformism is very much alive unfortunately. markets, petty enterprise, and the dollar. I wouldn't exclude the possibility that the next generation of Cuban leaders may take the same measures with respect to the nationalized economy, the monopoly of foreign trade, the constraints on capital flows and labour mobility etc. that have been taken in the past 15 years by their former ideological allies. Such is the pressure of the ever-widening global capitalist economy. Perhaps. But that is not the same thing as championing capitalist property relations like the Mensheviks and their latter-day followers do. Might I suggest that instead of referring me to academic works by others and implying I am a Kautskyite enemy of Cuba, it would be better to identify the precise formulations of mine to which you object, and for what reasons. I myself am opposed to capitalism as a system and capitalist parties. You are free to make your own political choices. You live in Canada, a free country. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
No Bounce for Kerry
No Bounce for Kerry: http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/08/no-bounce-for-kerry.html.
Re: China and socialism
In a message dated 8/2/2004 4:55:52 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I have tried to get in touch with Michael and Sabri, but I think that the situation is so urgent that the obvious step has to be taken of terminating the thread which started with discussion of The Monthly Review article on China. It has become too personal and acrimonious. I ask those involved not to contribute any more posts on the subject, and the same applies to other list members, however good their motives or intentions. Urgently, James Daly Comment Why should I not pen/pin the chauvinist I have spent all of my life fighting under impossible conditions of social revolution and then some freaking jerk . . . that has an inclination . . . thinks their opinion about an abstraction is important and then proceed to lecture people about social revolution . . . and has not one single credential in the social struggle? I am ultra hot. I am talking basically about Lou and this garbage about being a Jew. I do not care cause you a Jew. What that supposed to me to me in America? Lou raise these issues and he can be confronted on the basis of the issues he raises. See . . . Lou raised this Jew thing about World War 2 and million Jews . . . and I said what about the 25 million in Russia and then the millions upon millions in China? Where did the Second imperial world war start? Me . . . I am African American and this just so happens to be the central question to revolution in America and the freaking world. Lou is a chauvinists and has always been one and anyone that takes me to task on this has nothing to do but produce his writing on the national question in America. Then we can talk about the working class movement . . . in which I got the fucking credentials. I ask no one for anything . . . but truth. No . . . I will not back down on this political panhandler. Like I give a fuck because some 18 year old jumped in front of a fucking train in China because he could not go to college. This is the stupidest shit I have every read in life . . . and it is written as if has meaning to our working class and intellectuals. Ask the American workers how they feel about not being able to send their kids to college. And this Jew thing you wrote on the A-List . . . are you sure you want to do this Lou? It aint like you Chinese and have China . . . right? Why do you want to go this way in the first place? What next . . . anal sex and homosexuality? This is outrageous. Melvin P. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm
Re: China and socialism
LP writes: The next time that somebody gets the impression that I see the USA as rotten ripe for socialism has permission to give me 50 lashes with a cat o'nine tails. Except for Jim Devine, that is. You didn't like it the last time? Jim Devine
Jim wants you to see this.
Jim thought you would like this site. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/080304W.shtml ApplyRefer v2.3
Jim wants you to see this.
Jim thought you would like this site. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/080304Y.shtml ApplyRefer v2.3
Re: No Bounce for Kerry
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 08/02/04 6:22 PM No Bounce for Kerry: bounce thing is extremely overrated, has had little relation to electoral winner, if memory serves, with exception of clinton in 92, candidates with biggest bounces have lost (and carter almost lost), most have been dems... in any event, room for bounce this year was negligible if poll numbers can be believed, bush, kerry, nader numbers leave few undecideds... kerry people appear to believe that they can beat bush (just barely) on issues except for 'security', poll numbers going into convention indicated solid bush lead in that area, dems seem to think that if they simply say things about 'making 'america stronger', 'protecting homeland', and 'destroying terrorists' enough times they will whittle away at bush in this area (all the while blathering on about kerry's wartime mettle, blah, blah, blah)... strategy suggests that kerry people hope to barely make it over hump in november, strategy also conveys that kerry campaign is absent any other appeals, has attractiveness of flagpole sitting in drawing attention to drab man... related point: tv media abandoned past convention coverage in giving reps so many opportunities to sprinkle on dem parade...michael hoover -- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.
Re: No Bounce for Kerry
I was struck by the same thing as Michael H. I doubt that they will reciprocate for the Dems. On Tue, Aug 03, 2004 at 12:24:33AM -0400, Michael Hoover wrote: related point: tv media abandoned past convention coverage in giving reps so many opportunities to sprinkle on dem parade...michael hoover Also, I have never heard of any competitive contest where you aim to just get over the hump. Sounds like a stupid strategy. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
First unionised walmart?
Associated Press Quebec Wal-Mart Could Become Unionized 08.02.2004, 07:41 PM A Wal-Mart store in Quebec may become the retail giant's first unionized outlet after the Quebec Labor Relations Board accredited a union there to represent the workers. The Quebec Federation of Labor announced the accreditation Monday. The store in Saguenay has about 180 employees. The union represents the large majority of the store's employees, said Marie-Josee Lemieux, president of the union local of the United Food and Commercial Workers. We hope that Wal-Mart will accept this decision and negotiate a labor contract with the union. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, has no unionized stores, although a handful of meat cutters at a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Texas had voted to join the United Food And Commercial Workers in 2000. The retailer appealed the decision, and last June, an administrative law judge ruled in favor of Wal-Mart, saying that the retailer had no obligation to negotiate an agreement with the union because the meat cutter function was being eliminated as the chain was moving toward prepackaged meat, according to Christi Gallagher, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart's U.S. division. Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., appears ready to battle the Canadian effort. We are reviewing the decision, said Andrew Pelletier, spokesman for Wal-Mart Canada. There was no vote held in the store. This appeared to be an automatic certification, and employees were not given the opportunity to vote on the issue on unionization in a democratically held election, which is of enormous concern. The Quebec labor board will hold a meeting Aug. 20 to rule on the job descriptions of those who can be covered by negotiations. Wal-Mart operates 231 discount department stores and five Sam's Clubs and employs more than 62,000 people across Canada. Wal-Mart entered Canada 10 years ago with the purchase of 122 Woolco stores. Wal-Mart has more than 1,300 stores in nine countries employing 300,000 people. Besides Canada, Wal-Mart operates in Argentina, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Great Britain. Several efforts to form unions in other provinces have so far been unsuccessful. Wal-Mart has cited the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in its legal challenge of the Saskatchewan Labor Relations Board's authority. The move halted hearings which began in May regarding the automatic union certification of a Wal-Mart store in Weyburn, Saskatchewan.
