[Marxism] Report on events at Garfield High School yesterday

[Manuel Barrera]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Sorry, but I thought our deliberations on Marxist thought and revolutionary 
struggle could be uplifted by this cool report from Garfield High:

Found at "Scrap the Map" website: 
http://scrapthemap.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/report-on-events-at-garfield-high-school-yesterday/

The report below ends with a photo (didn't think it would fly in the post) of a 
flyer students put out for the day of testing that said: 

"Freshmen: You can Opt Out of the MAP
"Stay in your seat and tell your teacher you do not want to take the test"There 
will be no disciplinary action! Students have rights you do not have to take 
the test
"Do some homework, study for a make-up final
"ANYTHING WILL BE A BETTER USE OF YOUR TIME

Report on events at Garfield High School yesterday


We received a report about what happened when administrators attempted to 
administer the MAP test yesterday.  Here it is:
“Here’s what happened at Garfield today: Admins came into classrooms and tried 
to pull students out to take the MAP test in the library. Students stared 
straight ahead, and wouldn’t budge. 

In a library with about 60 computers stations set up for the MAP, there were 
single digit numbers of students sitting at computers. Of those, many sat at 
the computers and refused to press even a single button.
That’s how that went.
Lots of local news was covering….”

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Ed George's Question

[Shane Mage]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==



On Feb 6, 2013, at 2:34 PM, Ralph Johansen wrote:


Shane Mage wrote

On Feb 6, 2013, at 6:47 AM, Ed George wrote:


"Me: Capitalists introduce technical change because it allows them  
(the innovators) to realise an above average rate of profit (at  
least for a period of time). Other capitalists are forced to adopt  
new techniques (through competition) to avoid being priced out of  
the market. My question is: why are capitalists *necessarily* driven  
to pursue surplus-profits? That they are is an observable fact; but  
why are they?"



The answer is insecurity. In the competitive-capitalism model used  
by Marx (well reflecting the institutional framework of that epoch's  
capitalism) productivity-raising technological change allows its  
adopter to undersell the others and drive the weaker ones out of the  
market.




I looked quickly at this exchange. I sense that the point ignored  
which causes this circular discussion may be that the origins, as v  
the operative functions and mechanisms, of the system called  
capitalism are not front and center.


It is a profound methodological mistake to  believe that the  
historical origins of a system automatically help to explain current  
behavior within the system. The origins are  (in the case of  
capitalism) thousands of years old and--more important--totally  
outside the consciousness of the actors whose behavior is to be  
explained (an originating event can remain within the active  
collective unconscious of a people for a long time--as in the  
historical cosmic catastrophes whose cultural echoes among the meso- 
American peoples survived for millennia in the religious practice of  
mass human sacrifice--but explanation of current religious practices  
among the descendants of the Olmec, Maya, Toltec and Aztec peoples can  
scarcely be helped by invocation of those catastrophes).  There must  
be some clear way in which the origins of a practice survive in the  
collective unconscious of a people (as in the ritualistic words with  
which Jews unconsciously reinforce the memory of such a catastrophe as  
experienced in the time of Moses) before they can explain anything at  
all about people's current behavior.




Shane Mage


"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64






Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] question re Mary Leakey

[Mark Lause]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


My recollection is that the Leakey's provided most of the fossil
evidence that argues for the African origins of the human race in its
various qualitative leaps along the evolutionary line.  This is
accepted (outside Australia and China) as the best explanation for
what we have, included the DNA.  Yet, it remains one of those things
that can still get a rise out of many of those who just can't imagine
any personal connection to the continent at all.

Behind this, of course, is the scientific underpinnings of the
cultural nature and social construction of "race."

ML


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Bloomberg Defends College’s Right to Sponsor Israel-Boycott Talk

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


NY Times February 6, 2013
Bloomberg Defends College’s Right to Sponsor Israel-Boycott Talk
By KATE TAYLOR

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Wednesday forcefully defended the right of 
Brooklyn College to co-sponsor an event with an international group that 
advocates Israel’s withdrawal from Palestinian territories, weighing in 
for the first time in a debate that has pitted New York City and state 
legislators, the Anti-Defamation League and prominent alumni like Alan 
Dershowitz against the school.


Describing himself as a “big supporter of Israel,” Mr. Bloomberg said he 
“couldn’t disagree more violently” with the movement behind the event, 
known as B.D.S., for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. But Mr. 
Bloomberg said a university should be free to sponsor a forum on any 
topic, “including ideas that people find repugnant.”


“If you want to go to a university where the government decides what 
kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school 
in North Korea,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a news conference at City Hall.


“The last thing we need is for members of our City Council or State 
Legislature to be micromanaging the kinds of programs that our public 
universities run and base funding decisions on the political views of 
professors,” he continued. “I can’t think of anything that would be more 
destructive to a university and its students.”


The Brooklyn College event, which is scheduled to take place on 
Thursday, is being co-sponsored by the college’s political science 
department, as well as several student and nonstudent groups, and will 
feature two speakers from the B.D.S. movement, Judith Butler, a 
philosopher, and Omar Barghouti.


On Jan. 29, 10 members of the City Council, led by Lewis A. Fidler of 
Brooklyn, signed a letter to Brooklyn College’s president, Karen Gould, 
demanding either that the event be canceled or that the university 
revoke its sponsorship. The letter also suggested that, if the 
university went ahead with the event, the Council might withhold funding 
to the school in the future.


Mr. Bloomberg said New York City was a city defined by its commitment to 
personal liberty.


“This is a city that loves and protects freedom -- academic freedom, 
religious freedom, sexual freedom, cultural freedom, political freedom,” 
the mayor said. “We are the freest city in the world and that’s why 
we’re the greatest city in the world.”


He said politicians had a right to protest the event, but he said their 
fulminations were counterproductive.


“What the protesters have done is given a lot of attention to the very 
idea they keep saying they don’t want people to talk about,” Mr. 
Bloomberg said. “They just don’t think before they open their mouths.”



Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Ed George's Question

[Ralph Johansen]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==



Shane Mage wrote

On Feb 6, 2013, at 6:47 AM, Ed George wrote:


Me: Capitalists introduce technical change because it allows them (the 
innovators) to realise an above average rate of profit (at least for a 
period of time). Other capitalists are forced to adopt new techniques 
(through competition) to avoid being priced out of the market. My 
question is: why are capitalists *necessarily* driven to pursue 
surplus-profits? That they are is an observable fact; but why are they?



The answer is insecurity. In the competitive-capitalism model used by 
Marx (well reflecting the institutional framework of that epoch's 
capitalism) productivity-raising technological change allows its adopter 
to undersell the others and drive the weaker ones out of the market.




I looked quickly at this exchange. I sense that the point ignored which 
causes this circular discussion may be that the origins, as v the 
operative functions and mechanisms, of the system called capitalism are 
not front and center. So I dug out this exchange with Lou from several 
years back, in which we discussed the views of Jim Blaut as opposed to 
or complemented by those of Robert Brenner and Ellen Wood. If there is 
subsequent elaboration I haven't followed it:


* To: PEN-L@
* Subject: Re: New territories for original accumulation: extending the 
boundaries of the exploitable

* From: Ralph Johansen 
* Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 08:36:07 -1000
* Comments: To: pe...@galaxy.csuchico.edu 



Re: New territories for original accumulation: extending the boundaries 
of the exploitable by Carrol Cox

30 August 2003 15:51 UTC < < < Thread Index

Carrol wrote:




I second that: whether one agrees or disagrees, Ellen Wood's succinct 
account of how and why the unique phenomenon of capital accumulation 
occurred from a base point of the transformation from extra-economic to 
economic coercion, agrarian capitalism to industrial capitalism, 
surplus, rent and dispossession of landed tenants from their means of 
production, enforced sale of labor power in exchange for a wage, 
dominance of the commodity form produced for the market, competition, 
the dominance of the City of London, accumulation and 
profit-maximization, the ethic of "improvement", especially of property 
and as the justification for "dispossession" in the colonies, as 
enunciated by John Locke, and so forth, goes a long way in accounting 
for England's leg up.


It is also thoroughly consistent, by the way, with the painstaking 
documentation laid out by E.P. Thompson in The Making of the English 
Working Class.


The argument centers about her assertion that "England, a society in 
which wealth still derived predominantly from agricultural production, 
the self-reproduction of both major economic actors in the agrarian 
sector - direct producers and the appropriators of their surpluses - 
was, at least from the sixteenth century, increasingly dependent on what 
amounted to capitalist practices: the maximization of exchange value by 
means of cost-cutting and improving productivity, by specialization, 
accumulation, and innovation".


The main shortcoming asserted by her critics is that she treats of 
colonial accumulation in a summary way or not at all - aside from this 
at the end of her MR article in 1998: "without its growing wealth, 
together with wholly new motivations for colonial expansion - 
motivations different from the old forms of territorial acquisition - 
British imperialism would have been a very different thing than the 
engine of industrial capitalism it was to become" - there is nothing 
said about the wealth derived from colonial plunder: it is treated by 
her as coming AFTER the basic elements of a capitalist mode were already 
in place [or contemporaneous with them as well], and therefore not 
germane to her main thesis about "origins".


She adds: "And (this is no doubt a more contentious point) without 
English capitalism there would probably have been no capitalist system 
of any kind: it was competitive pressures emanating from England, 
especially an industrialized England, that compelled other countries to 
promote their own economic development in capitalist directions".


I don't know whether she felt it necessary to correct for that short 
shrift for external sources of accumulation in her writings subsequent 
to The Origins of Capitalism, which I haven't read since it came out. 
But nothing in her explanation seems to be inconsistent with sources of 
accumulation in its many external forms, whether generalized absolute 
surplus, slavery, the perdurance of merchant capital, financing of 
development elsewhere, or other coloni

[Marxism] They All Fall Down: “Progressives” Back off From Their Demands to Poli Sci « Corey Robin

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://coreyrobin.com/2013/02/06/they-all-fall-down-progressives-back-off-from-their-demands-to-poli-sci/


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Directory of Open Access Journals

[Richard Menec]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


The latest request for the article on political economy reminded me of the 
Open Access Directory.  Apologies if this has been posted here before:


Directory of Open Access Journals

"The aim of the Directory of Open Access Journals is to increase the 
visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals 
thereby promoting their increased usage and impact. The Directory aims to be 
comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals 
that use a quality control system to guarantee the content. In short a one 
stop shop for users to Open Access Journals."


http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=browse&uiLanguage=en 




Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Article Request

[Ed George]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Got it.


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Article request

[Ed George]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


I'm interested in Anwar Shaikh,'Political Economy and Capitalism:
Notes on Dobb's Theory of Crisis', Cambridge Journal of Economics
1978, vol. 2, issue 2, pages 233-51; if anyone could help me out I'd
be jolly grateful.


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] question re Mary Leakey

[Einde O'Callaghan]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On 06.02.2013 19:25, Brandon Frey wrote:


"As far as I know, the label "reactionary" applied to them as
anthropologists is a bit puzzling because most of their work is as
archaeologists rather than anthropologists. Studying bones hardly strikes
me as the sort of thing that might led to reactionary conclusions."

Louis, I've heard that archaeology is considered a branch of anthropology.
Wikipedia says this is the case in the US, but not Europe...


Leakey has written a number of very good books on human evolution - 
books I would describe as anything but reactionary, even if L. isn't a 
Marxist.


Einde O'Callaghan



Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] question re Mary Leakey

[Brandon Frey]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


"As far as I know, the label "reactionary" applied to them as
anthropologists is a bit puzzling because most of their work is as
archaeologists rather than anthropologists. Studying bones hardly strikes
me as the sort of thing that might led to reactionary conclusions."

Louis, I've heard that archaeology is considered a branch of anthropology.
Wikipedia says this is the case in the US, but not Europe...

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Interview with Paul Cockshott on econophysics and socialism

[Andrew Pollack]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


lots of great stuff here, thanks!

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 12:18 PM, David P Á  wrote:
>


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Interview with Paul Cockshott on econophysics and socialism

[David P Á]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Paul Cockshott, author of Towards a New Socialism and not unknown to 
this list, was kind enough to do an interview for Spirit of 
Contradiction, a collaborative blog where I participate.


I think it's an interesting interview. I'd appreciate if you read it and 
spread it around to those who may be interested:


URL: 
http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/rowan-duffy/2013/02/06/interview-paul-cockshott-on-econophysics-and-socialism


Or if that one's too long: http://is.gd/aQ26hw

Comradely greetings.
--
--David.
Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum 
habetur quomodo habenda est.



Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Bloomberg to City Council: Back the F*ck Off! « Corey Robin

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


http://coreyrobin.com/2013/02/06/bloomberg-to-city-council-back-the-fck-off/


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Ed George's Question

[Shane Mage]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==



On Feb 6, 2013, at 6:47 AM, Ed George wrote:



Me: Capitalists introduce technical change because it allows them  
(the innovators) to realise an above average rate of profit (at  
least for a period of time). Other capitalists are forced to adopt  
new techniques (through competition) to avoid being priced out of  
the market. My question is: why are capitalists *necessarily* driven  
to pursue surplus-profits? That they are is an observable fact; but  
why are they?


The answer is insecurity.  In the competitive-capitalism model used by  
Marx (well reflecting the institutional framework of that epoch's  
capitalism) productivity-raising technological change allows its  
adopter to undersell the others and drive the weaker ones out of the  
market.
In those conditions failure to "seek excess profits" is a death  
sentence--"one capitalist kills many."  That process of "creative  
destruction", over a century-and-a-half, has now reached the point of  
market domination by concentrated, globalized, financialized  
oligopolies; an institutional structure best described as a  
combination of state-monopoly-capitalism (the US/EU model) and  
monopoly-state-capitalism (the East Asia model). In its initial  
stages, the main driving insecurity was military: the US Civil War and  
every subsequent conflict demonstrating that the price of  
technological retardation was defeat or conquest by the advanced  
power.  That pressure obviously remains today, but over the course of  
development since Marx's day the driving force has been ever- 
increasing indebtedness, "financialization." In Marx's competitive- 
capitalist model the direction of production is determined by the  
owners of the capital at stake.  But in "monopoly [shared-oligopoly]  
capitalism" every institution large enough to implement technological  
progress is financed by *borrowed* capital, whether in the form of  
'loans" or "shares."  On which dividends or interest must be paid out  
of realized surplus-value on pain of bankruptcy.  The last competitive  
capitalist was Henry Ford. The modern corporation has production  
determined by managerial personnel who depend on realized surplus- 
value for their colossal salaries (what Marx in his day called "a new  
swindle') and the colossal valuation of the "incentive" shares that  
they allocate to themselves. What became crucial was no longer market  
presence, and now no longer even market share--it has become access to  
capital markets.  Moreover, generalization of oligopoly pricing means  
that trying to raise sales by lowering prices means lower, not higher,  
profits. Under pressure of the law of the falling tendency of the rate  
of profit, impelled by an organic composition of capital steadily  
rising not merely on account of the normal and traditional capital- 
using innovation but at least equally by the institutional requirement  
of a steadily increasing  diversion of constant capital into the  
spheres of circulation and the state apparatus, multiplying the  
quantity of unproductive fixed capital and unproductive labor  
(unproductive circulating capital), the return on investment cannot be  
maintained out of the stagnating or even falling *net* productivity of  
labor but only out of the rents procured from ever-increasing  
environmental destruction (cf. fracking, tar sands, rare earths,  
dragnet fishing, atmospheric CO2, etc.).  What Marx demonstrated to be  
the central contradiction of capitalism as a market (political  
economy) system remains central to the overall crisis, the fatal  
crisis, of capitalism as a material (ie., natural) socio-economico- 
politico system.



Shane Mage


This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
 always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
 kindling in measures and going out in measures.

 Herakleitos of Ephesos






Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Ed George's Question

[Shane Mage]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==



On Feb 6, 2013, at 6:47 AM, Ed George wrote:



Me: Capitalists introduce technical change because it allows them  
(the innovators) to realise an above average rate of profit (at  
least for a period of time). Other capitalists are forced to adopt  
new techniques (through competition) to avoid being priced out of  
the market. My question is: why are capitalists *necessarily* driven  
to pursue surplus-profits? That they are is an observable fact; but  
why are they?


The answer is insecurity.  In the competitive-capitalism model used by  
Marx (well reflecting the institutional framework of that epoch's  
capitalism) productivity-raising technological change allows its  
adopter to undersell the others and drive the weaker ones out of the  
market.
In those conditions failure to "seek excess profits" is a death  
sentence--"one capitalist kills many."  That process of "creative  
destruction", over a century-and-a-half, has now reached the point of  
market domination by concentrated, globalized, financialized  
oligopolies; an institutional structure best described as a  
combination of state-monopoly-capitalism (the US/EU model) and  
monopoly-state-capitalism (the East Asia model). In its initial  
stages, the main driving insecurity was military: the US Civil War and  
every subsequent conflict demonstrating that the price of  
technological retardation was defeat or conquest by the advanced  
power.  That pressure obviously remains today, but over the course of  
development since Marx's day the driving force has been ever- 
increasing indebtedness, "financialization." In Marx's competitive- 
capitalist model the direction of production is determined by the  
owners of the capital at stake.  But in "monopoly [shared-oligopoly]  
capitalism" every institution large enough to implement technological  
progress is financed by *borrowed* capital, whether in the form of  
'loans" or "shares."  On which dividends or interest must be paid out  
of realized surplus-value on pain of bankruptcy.  The last competitive  
capitalist was Henry Ford. The modern corporation has production  
determined by managerial personnel who depend on realized surplus- 
value for their colossal salaries (what Marx in his day called "a new  
swindle') and the colossal valuation of the "incentive" shares that  
they allocate to themselves. What became crucial was no longer market  
presence, and now no longer even market share--it has become access to  
capital markets.  Moreover, generalization of oligopoly pricing means  
that trying to raise sales by lowering prices means lower, not higher,  
profits. Under pressure of the law of the falling tendency of the rate  
of profit, impelled by an organic composition of capital steadily  
rising not merely on account of the normal and traditional capital- 
using innovation but at least equally by the institutional requirement  
of a steadily increasing  diversion of constant capital into the  
spheres of circulation and the state apparatus, multiplying the  
quantity of unproductive fixed capital and unproductive labor  
(unproductive circulating capital), the return on investment cannot be  
maintained out of the stagnating or even falling *net* productivity of  
labor but only out of the rents procured from ever-increasing  
environmental destruction (cf. fracking, tar sands, rare earths,  
dragnet fishing, atmospheric CO2, etc.).  What Marx demonstrated to be  
the central contradiction of capitalism as a market (political  
economy) system remains central to the overall crisis, the fatal  
crisis, of capitalism as a material (ie., natural) socio-economico- 
politico system.



Shane Mage


This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
 always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
 kindling in measures and going out in measures.

 Herakleitos of Ephesos






Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Food imperialism

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


NY Times Op-Ed February 5, 2013
The Global Farmland Rush
By MICHAEL KUGELMAN

WASHINGTON

OVER the last decade, as populations have grown, capital has flowed 
across borders and crop yields have leveled off, food-importing nations 
and private investors have been securing land abroad to use for 
agriculture. Poor governments have embraced these deals, but their 
people are in danger of losing their patrimony, not to mention their 
sources of food.


According to Oxfam, land equivalent to eight times the size of Britain 
was sold or leased worldwide in the last 10 years. In northern 
Mozambique, a Brazilian-Japanese venture plans to farm more than 54,000 
square miles — an area comparable to Pennsylvania and New Jersey 
combined — for food exports. In 2009, a Libyan firm leased 386 square 
miles of land from Mali without consulting local communities that had 
long used it. In the Philippines, the government is so enthusiastic to 
promote agribusiness that it lets foreigners register partnerships with 
local investors as domestic corporations.


The commoditization of global agriculture has aggravated the 
destabilizing effects of these large-scale land grabs. Investors 
typically promise to create local jobs and say that better farming 
technologies will produce higher crop yields and improve food security.


However, few of these benefits materialize. For example, as The 
Economist reported, a Swiss company promised local farmers 2,000 new 
jobs when it acquired a 50-year lease to grow biofuel crops on 154 
square miles in Makeni, Sierra Leone; in the first three years, it 
produced only 50.


Many investors, in fact, use their own labor force, not local workers, 
and few share their technology and expertise. Moreover, about two-thirds 
of foreign investors in developing countries expect to sell their 
harvests elsewhere. These exports may not even be for human consumption. 
In 2008 in Sudan, the United Arab Emirates was growing sorghum, a staple 
of the Sudanese diet, to feed camels back home.


Much of the land being acquired is in conflict-prone countries. One of 
the largest deals — the acquisition by investors led by the Saudi 
Binladin Group of some 4,600 square miles in Indonesia — was put on hold 
because the area, in Papua, was torn by strife.


The prospects for conflict are heightened by legal uncertainties. Often, 
an absence of authoritative land registration and titles makes it easy 
for foreign investors, with the connivance of host governments, to 
secure land that local communities have long depended upon, even if they 
cannot demonstrate formal ownership. About 500 million sub-Saharan 
Africans rely on such communally held land, and land sales can be 
devastating, as in Mali. Access to food is often cut off, livelihoods 
are shattered and communities are uprooted.


Not surprisingly, the land sales provoke protests and then repression. 
Last year, in Cambodia, where 55 percent of arable land has been 
acquired by domestic and foreign agribusiness interests, the authorities 
killed an activist, a journalist and a teenage girl facing eviction; 
jailed other activists, and harassed politically active Buddhist monks.


To be sure, financiers have invested in farmland for centuries: Ancient 
Romans acquired assets in North Africa, just as American fruit companies 
secured plantations in Central America a century ago. But today’s 
transactions are far bigger. Nearly 200 private equity firms are 
expected to have almost $30 billion in private capital invested by 2015.


Some speculators just sit on high-value land they have acquired without 
cultivating it. In many traditional communities, this feels like a 
desecration, a violation of land’s purpose and meaning. That kind of 
capitalist disregard can set the stage for pitched battles over land 
that investors see as uninhabited, but that local communities cherish as 
a source of food, water and medicine, or venerate as ancestral burial 
grounds.


The chief drivers of the global farmland race — population growth, food 
and energy demand, volatile commodity prices, land and water shortages — 
won’t slow anytime soon. Neither will extreme weather events and other 
effects of climate change on natural resources.


In theory, host countries could limit how much land can be acquired by 
foreigners, or require that a minimum portion of harvests be sold in 
local markets. Argentina and Brazil have announced measures to limit or 
ban new land concessions. But investors use their wealth and their own 
governments’ power to impede regulation. Host governments should 
establish better land registration practices and enact safeguards 
against the displacement of their citizens. The World Bank and other 
international entities must ensure that t

Re: [Marxism] Cairo Activist Fighting Tear Gas With Tear Gas

[Andrew Pollack]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Thanks for this, Louis. (And for the Leakey email as well.)

A crucial thing to note about this brave comrade and his friends: He
is clearly one of the tens of thousands of shabab who come into the
street consistently to fight the regime, unafraid to die -- and not
hiding behind a "Black Bloc" mask.

While Western liberals are falling all over themselves to praise the
mysterious/romantic BB, the latter are in fact childish and
UNACCOUNTABLE TO ANYONE except their self-appointed selves. They are
obstacles to organizing in the squares, the factories, the schools.
They are furthermore a slap in the face not only to those profiled in
the Times article, but even more so to the millions all over the
country who have organized themselves to do security, rape prevention,
food and healthcare provision, etc., without the condescending saviors
of the BB.

Andy
On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 9:43 AM, Louis Proyect  wrote:
>
> NY Times February 5, 2013
> Cairo Activist Fighting Tear Gas With Tear Gas
> By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Tunisian opposition leader shot to death provoking anti-government riots across the country

[Andrew Pollack]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


An email on the topic I sent to some lists this morning:

Comrades have no doubt heard or will very soon of the assassination of
prominent Tunisian leftist Chokri Belaid. Naturally the regime is the
prime suspect.

A recent article by Comrade Belaid is at:
http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article2878

He mentions the assassinations which had already begun, assassinations
occurring in a context very similar to that in Egypt, i.e. workers,
peasants, youth and women moving into action against a regime still
tied to imperialism and fulfilling none of the revolution's goals.

(At the bottom of his article are links to other important recent
analyses of the political terrain there.

Right now there are masses in the street protesting this murder. Let's
all stay in touch about developments.

In New York there happens to be a fundraiser for a Tunisian charity
this weekend:
http://www.facebook.com/events/128790957288086/

... and while the announcement says the sponsoring group is not
political, this is likely to be an opportunity to reconnect with our
Tunisian comrades here, offer support and find out what type of
solidarity can be provided.

I have to say that solidarity with the Tunisian movement is
particularly crucial given its highly-developed class politics; i.e.,
the long and diverse history of labor and socialist organizing and
politics there has lent the Tunisian revolution a particularly
precious potential.

Andy


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Cairo Activist Fighting Tear Gas With Tear Gas

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


NY Times February 5, 2013
Cairo Activist Fighting Tear Gas With Tear Gas
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

CAIRO — As hundreds fled the advancing armored cars of riot police 
officers, Mohamed Mokbel ran forward.


A veteran of two years of violent street protests, he pulled on his gas 
mask and charred protective gloves for another long night at his current 
vocation: throwing tear-gas canisters back at the riot police.


“Whenever people lose hope, the clashes grow worse,” Mr. Mokbel, 30, 
said on a break from the fighting on Friday night outside the 
presidential palace. “But the people in power are still acting like 
there is no crisis, still firing more gas,” he said, “so I am going back 
in.”


Two years after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, waves of 
increasingly violent street protests have decimated tourism, slashed 
foreign investment, increased poverty and dashed hopes of a return to 
stability. In the last two weeks, more than 50 people have died in the 
clashes. Egypt’s top general raised the specter of a “collapse of the 
state” if civilian leaders failed to restore order. And the interior 
minister warned that armed militias could take over if his forces gave way.


But behind the mayhem bedeviling the new government are street activists 
like Mr. Mokbel, who first burst into politics around the time of the 
Arab Spring revolt against Mr. Mubarak and say they are still fighting 
for its democratic goals. Alienated from Egypt’s new Islamist leaders or 
their rivals in the opposition, street protesters have risen up again 
and again to check perceived grabs for power, whether by the interim 
military rulers, the elected president or his Islamist allies.


Now, while elite politicians tussle over matters of ideology or 
provisions of the Constitution, street protesters like Mr. Mokbel say 
they are carrying on the fight that kindled the original revolt, a 
battle against Mr. Mubarak’s abusive and unaccountable security 
services. Two years later, they note, the security forces are still 
largely intact, and reports of torture, extortion and excessive force 
continue.


The street war between protesters and the police presents a double-edged 
challenge to President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim 
Brotherhood who had been jailed without trial under Mr. Mubarak. 
Brotherhood leaders close to Mr. Morsi say he does not yet fully control 
the Interior Ministry. Its officers make no secret of their hostility to 
the Islamists, and Brotherhood leaders say that the new president is 
struggling to win the ministry’s trust in order to tame it.


But many in the street have turned against Mr. Morsi in part because 
they believe that he has sided with the security forces. Activists like 
Mr. Mokbel say they fear that like the region’s secular dictators, Mr. 
Morsi may use the security police against his opponents as a tool of 
political power.


“They are trying to build a new regime exactly like the old one, with 
all its disadvantages,” said Mr. Mokbel, an artist with a small and 
slender frame who, between battles, studies painting in a graduate 
program in one of Egypt’s top art schools.


The protesters, Mr. Mokbel argued, are the ones defending the rule of 
law, standing up for their right to peaceful expression. With no 
personal gain, he said, they risk their lives for their cause, for one 
another, and for their many friends who have fallen. “We owe them 
something,” he said. “Not just a better economic situation, a government 
that deals with the people, that is not authoritarian or repressive.”


Mr. Mokbel may be among the more articulate protesters. In the on-again, 
off-again battles with the riot police near Tahrir Square, the 
combatants are usually teenagers or even children who appear to live 
much of the time in the streets. Many seem animated by the sport of it, 
and ill-informed about the politics.


But Mr. Mokbel, part of an older network of activists that is the 
backbone of the protests, praised the street children for their energy.


“The street kids are the ones who have suffered the most at the hands of 
the police, and their demands are much lower — some dignity, respect 
from the police, a little better life economically,” he said. “They are 
just releasing their anger.”


Although he acknowledged that some among the demonstrators inevitably 
provoke the riot police with stones or gas bombs, he nonetheless argued 
that police aggression caused all the fighting. “Police attacking 
protesters is what causes the chaos,” he said.


Though a few police officers in other cities have been killed by 
gunfire, the protesters in Cairo have never been armed. Unlike the 
bullets and batons of the riot police, Mr. Mokbel argued, the 
protesters’ rock-throwing was mos

[Marxism] Tunisian opposition leader shot to death provoking anti-government riots across the country

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Tunisian opposition leader shot to death provoking anti-government riots 
across the country


By Associated Press

TUNIS, Tunisia — A Tunisian opposition leader critical of both the 
Islamist-led government and of violence by radical Muslims was gunned 
down as he left home Wednesday — the first assassination in 
post-revolutionary Tunisia.


The killing of Chokri Belaid, a 47-year-old lawyer, is likely to 
heighten tensions in the North African nation whose path from 
dictatorship to democracy has been seen as a model for the Arab world so 
far.


Police used tear gas to disperse the thousands of protesters that 
gathered in front of the Interior Ministry in the center of Tunis 
accusing the government of allowing the assassination to happen.


They were gathered on the same broad, tree-lined boulevard where weeks 
of anti-government protests two years ago ousted Tunisia’s long-time 
dictator — and the crowds Wednesday even chanted the same slogan: “The 
people want the fall of the regime!”


Like two years ago, police soon resorted to tear gas, sending people 
running for the shelter of nearby buildings yelling “No to Ennahda” and 
“Ghannouchi assassin,” referring to the moderate Islamist party and its 
leader that dominate the elected government.


Belaid had been a fierce critic of Ennahda, claiming that it turns a 
blind eye to violence perpetrated by extremists against other parties. 
His family said Belaid regularly received death threats — the most 
recent on Tuesday — but had refused to limit his high-profile activities.


Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Tarrouch called the assassination a 
“terrorist act” and said the politician had been shot point-blank 
several times.


Elsewhere around the country, police responded to an assassination 
protest in the coastal city of Sousse with tear gas and Ennahda offices 
were attacked in several towns, according to Radio Mosaique and Radio 
Shems FM.


Belaid, a leading member of a leftist alliance of parties known as the 
Popular Front, was shot as he left his house in the capital, Tunis. He 
was taken to a nearby medical clinic, where he died, the state news 
agency TAP reported.


Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, a member of a secular party in the 
governing coalition, called the assassination a threat against all 
Tunisians.


“Chokri Belaid was murdered this very day knowing I was going to be 
speaking to you,” he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. 
“This is a letter being sent to us that we will refuse to open. We 
reject that message and we will continue to unmask the enemies of the 
revolution.”


Afterwards in a news conference, Marzouki said the assassination would 
not derail the country’s transition to democracy.


“All these destabilization attempts — and there will be others because 
for some the Tunisian model should not succeed — I can tell you that we 
will face the challenge and defeat it,” he said.


EU Parliament members held a moment of silence for Belaid.

Marzouki headed straight back to Tunis after speaking, having canceled a 
trip to Cairo to attend the Organization of the Islamic Conference.


Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi told The Associated Press the slaying 
was an “ignoble crime” and urged authorities to bring the perpetrators 
to justice. He also offered his condolences to Belaid’s family and 
followers and called for a day of mourning.


Ghannouchi said those behind the slaying are “parties whose interests 
are threatened by the revolution and the democratic transition.”


Belaid was a high-profile opposition leader, yet the motive behind his 
killing is unclear. It comes as Tunisia is struggling to maintain 
stability and revive its economy after its longtime dictator was 
overthrown two years ago. That revolution set off revolts across the 
Arab world and unleashed new social and religious tensions in this 
Mediterranean nation of 10 million.


Tunisia’s Islamist-led government is also in negotiations with 
opposition parties to reshuffle the Cabinet and possibly expand the 
ruling coalition. Weeks of talks have yielded nothing, however, as the 
parties seem unable to reach an agreement over redistributing power.


Over the weekend, radicals disrupted a rally led by Belaid in northern 
Tunisia, part of a string of political meetings that were disrupted by 
gangs.


Belaid had been particularly outspoken against the so-called “Committees 
to Protect the Revolution,” which many accuse of being behind the 
violence. These groups are believed to be affiliated with the Ennahda 
Party and say it is their mission to seek out remnants of the old regime.


“There are groups inside Ennahda inciting violence,” Belaid told the 
Nessma TV channel the night before he was shot. “Rachid Ghannouchi 
co

[Marxism] Ed Koch

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Fred Mazelis is an idiot but this is useful:

http://wsws.org/en/articles/2013/02/06/koch-f06.html


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] question re Mary Leakey

[Louis Proyect]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On 2/6/13 8:46 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote:


Today's Google doodle says it's the centenary of Mary Leakey's birth.

I don't know much at all about her  and when I mentioned it to a
friend she said the Leakeys are part of a backward anthropological
tradition.

Anyone know details?



I guess that this is a reference to Louis Leakey's opposition to the Mau 
Mau. His son Richard ran for office in Kenya against the entrenched 
corrupt party in power. As far as I know, the label "reactionary" 
applied to them as anthropologists is a bit puzzling because most of 
their work is as archaeologists rather than anthropologists. Studying 
bones hardly strikes me as the sort of thing that might led to 
reactionary conclusions.


I do have a copy of Richard Leakey's "Sixth Extinction". Here's the sort 
of thing that he argues:


http://www.mysterium.com/sixthextinction.html

Homo sapiens is not the first living creature to have a dramatic impact 
on Earth's biota, of course. The advent of photosynthetic microorganisms 
some three billion years ago began to transform the atmosphere from one 
of low oxygen content to one of relatively high levels, reaching close 
to modern levels within the last billion years. With the change, very 
different life forms were possible, including multicellular organisms, 
and previously abundant forms that thrived in a low oxygen environment 
were consigned to marginal habitats of the Earth. But that change was 
wrought not by a single, sentient species consciously pursuing its own 
material goals, but by countless, non-sentient species, collectively and 
unconsciously operating new metabolic pathways. The reason and insight 
that emerged during our evolutionary history bestowed a behavioral 
flexibility on our species that allows us to multiply bounteously in 
virtually every environment on Earth. The evolution of human 
intelligence therefore opened a vast potential for population expansion 
and growth, so that collectively the almost six billion humans alive 
today represent the greatest proportion of protoplasm on our planet.


We suck our sustenance from the rest of nature in a way never before 
seen in the world, reducing its bounty as ours grows. We are, as Edward 
Wilson has put it, "an environmental abnormality." Abnormalities cannot 
persist forever; they eventually disappear. "It is possible that 
intelligence in the wrong kind of species was foreordained to be a fatal 
combination for the biosphere," ventures Wilson. "Perhaps a law of 
evolution is that intelligence usually extinguishes itself"' If not a 
"law," then perhaps a common consequence. Our concern is: Can such a 
fate be avoided?


When I talk about reducing nature's bounty, I'm referring to the 
extinction of species that is currently occurring as a result of human 
activities of various kinds. In chapter 10 I described the trail of 
biotic destruction humans left in their wake as they swept into new 
environments in the prehistoric and historic past: settlers of new lands 
extirpated huge numbers of species, through hunting and clearing of 
habitats. Some modern scholars argue that this was but a passing episode 
in the human career and that, despite massive population expansion 
today, talk of continued species extinction is fallacious. It should be 
obvious from the tone of the preceding few paragraphs that I am not 
among their number. I believe that human-driven extinction is continuing 
today, and accelerating to alarming levels.


In the remainder of the chapter I will develop the argument for my 
concern. In the final chapter I will ask whether or not it matters to us 
and our children that as much as 50 percent of the Earth's species may 
disappear by the end of the next century. I will also address the 
longer-term future, which puts our species in a larger geological 
context with the rest of the world's inhabitants. And I will suggest 
that the insights we have gained from the current intellectual 
revolution I formulated in the previous chapter demand that we adopt a 
certain ethical position on the impact of Homo sapiens on the 
biodiversity of which we are a part.


Humans endanger the existence of species in three principal ways. The 
first is through direct exploitation, such as hunting. From butterflies, 
to song birds, to elephants, the human appetite for collecting or eating 
parts of wild creatures puts many species at risk of extinction. Second 
is the biological havoc that is occasionally wreaked following the 
introduction of alien species to new ecosystems, whether deliberately or 
accidentally. I talked earlier about the biological convulsion 
experienced by the Hawaiian archipelago through countless species of 
birds and plants taken there by the early Polynesians and later by 
Eu

[Marxism] question re Mary Leakey

[Andrew Pollack]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Today's Google doodle says it's the centenary of Mary Leakey's birth.

I don't know much at all about her  and when I mentioned it to a
friend she said the Leakeys are part of a backward anthropological
tradition.

Anyone know details?


Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Superannuation for the rich?

[En Passant with John Passant]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


A universal benefits scheme such as the age pension for all people over 65 and 
steeply progressive income tax rates and wealth and wealth transfer taxes are 
traditional left wing approaches to make the rich support the poor and less 
well off in society.  It is time to tax the rich and that means also getting 
rid of their tax rorts like superannuation tax concessions.

http://enpassant.com.au/2013/02/06/superannuation-for-the-rich/

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Ed George's Question

[Ed George]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


To answer S.Artesian.

SA: ‘Yes, it is competition—remember the law of value is mediated 
through the markets.’


Me: In a regime of production of commodities the market brings private 
labours into relation with each other, which means that, as value is 
determined by labour-time, value finds a necessary extrinsic form on the 
market as exchange-value (i.e. price). But competition itself doesn’t 
explain accumulation: ‘Competition executes the inner laws of capital; 
makes them into compulsory laws towards the individual capital, but it 
does not invent them. It realizes them.’ (Grundrisse)


SA: ‘The capitalist thinks he or she is obtaining the “profit” 
engendered in his or her individual production. In reality, the 
capitalist claims a portion of the total social profit, the total 
surplus value thrown into the markets for realization and reproduction.


‘The commodities exchange at their values, only be exchanging at their 
prices of production. Thus increases in the productivity lower the value 
of the product, increase the surplus value pushed into the markets, but 
reduce the rate of profit for both the individual producers, deploying 
more technically valuable, expensive means of production. By producing 
at less than the socially necessary labor time, or the time of current 
reproduction, the capitalist can claim a portion of the total surplus 
value that can offset that reduced rate of profit and allow him or her 
to approach, achieve an average rate of profit.’


Me: Capitalists introduce technical change because it allows them (the 
innovators) to realise an above average rate of profit (at least for a 
period of time). Other capitalists are forced to adopt new techniques 
(through competition) to avoid being priced out of the market. My 
question is: why are capitalists *necessarily* driven to pursue 
surplus-profits? That they are is an observable fact; but why are they?



Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] Re. Question

[Ed George]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


To answer Andrew Pollack.

First. To say that ‘the ruling classes of each successive mode of 
production had an ongoing desire and need to get richer and richer and 
get more and more power repeat ad nauseum’ poses the question of why 
they would want to do so (get richer and richer, etc.). It doesn’t 
explain anything, other than suggesting something about human nature 
which I wouldn’t accept.


Second. If ‘the first capitalists were not just competing with each 
other, but ... also ... taking over the markets and workforces of the 
old ruling  class...’, then that is not capitalist competition in the 
sense we’re talking about it here, competition between *capitals*, 
within which accumulation of surplus-value and technical change occurs, 
but *primitive accumulation*, which Marx specifically demarcates as 
‘accumulation which is not the result of the capitalist mode of 
production but its point of departure.’


This still doesn’t explain the imperative on the part of capitalists to 
accumulate within a regime of competion amng capitals. Competition 
itself doesn’t explain it. This from the Grundrisse: ‘A. Smith explained 
the fall of the rate of profit, as capital grows, by the competition 
among capitals. [...] A. Smith’s phrase is correct to the extent that 
only in competition—the action of capital upon capital—are the inherent 
laws of capital, its tendencies, realized. But it is false in the sense 
in which he understands it, as if competition imposed laws on capital 
from the outside, laws not its own. Competition can permanently depress 
the rate of profit in all branches of industry, i.e. the average rate of 
profit, only if and in so far as a general and permanent fall of the 
rate of profit, having the force of a law, is conceivable prior to 
competition and regardless of competition. Competition executes the 
inner laws of capital; makes them into compulsory laws towards the 
individual capital, but it does not invent them. It realizes them.’


***

Of course, you're right, "it can't be simply competition between
 capitals that *in itself*
 provides the imperative to accumulation."

 That's why I conjured up the imaginary aristocrat (or whomever, my
 grasp on the transition is shaky).

 Once class society was established, the ruling classes of each
 successive mode of production had an ongoing desire and need to get
 richer and richer and get more and more power repeat ad nauseum. How
 they did so differed by mode of production. But in addition, within
 each one were new embryonic ruling classes whose wealth was made
 possible by new productive forces (technical change) which, to be
 realized, required new relations of production. So the first
 capitalists were not just competing with each other, but were also
 wiping out or taking over the markets and workforces of the old ruling
 class, and destroying social, political and cultural forces in their
 way.

 That's why it's not turtles.

 Isn't this just ABC Marxism, however poorly and inaccurately I've 
expressed it?



Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] My Last Post

[Ismail Lagardien]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==




apologies for all the typos in the previous post (on accents) i just read it 
again 
 

Ismail Lagardien

Nihil humani a me alienum puto

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

[Marxism] Acquisition on Accents

[Ismail Lagardien]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


Hi Everyone

Does anyone know of a good paper or source - I have search online and will 
continue to do so - that helps explain how we acquire foreign accents during 
adulthood?

Very brief background and an observation that I think people might enjoy. Since 
all my university education was abroad, in the UK, and because I spent many 
years in North America, I have a "strange" accent. I want to write a blog post 
related to this.  During the 1980s, when I listened to Radio Moscow, I always 
found it amusing that most of the radio hosts and newscasters spoke English 
with a North American accent.

Anyway, please let me know if there are any sociological or anthropological 
explanations for this. I know that one picks up languages earlier in life, but 
not necessarily accepts. In my case, the first formal English I learned was 
North American and British... So
 
Thanks

Ismail


Ismail Lagardien

Nihil humani a me alienum puto

Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com

Re: [Marxism] unity on the left in Australia

[Nick Fredman]

==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==


On 6/02/13 2:02 PM, "Michael Fisher"  wrote:

> The case against state cap is straightforward and conclusive. So doing
> it again wouldn't take much time.
> 
> And it would help put the theory to rest at long last.

Well good luck with that.

Knock yourselves out if you want and you're allowed to, but I wouldn't be
into a chest-beating keyboard shouting match that that can't lead to
anything, as such a discussion would be here (I don't mean all discussion
here are like that, just this would be). I'd be more interested in a written
or real life discussion in the context of a unity process in which there's
no expectation that there has to be an agreed line. This could serve some
educational purpose.

A few years ago we had a very good discussion in the Lismore branch of
Socialist Alliance in which I presented what I think were fair and objective
accounts of the different socialist theories of the USSR, and in which DSP
members, several people with a background in the old CPA, new people and
even a Workers Liberty member we happened to have up there debated the
issues seriously without any pressure of having to indoctrinate anyone into
a particular line.

More importantly though anyway is working out a platform statement that says
what it would be good to be clear on about Stalinism, more generally the
pressures any revolution is under, and socialist democracy, without having
to adhere to a specific theory. Socialist Alternative has adopted a new
platform which is in this regard an unhappy amalgam that doesn't really
explain anything. It seems to result from surgically reforming references to
state capitalism and inserting a bit from the Transitional Program via the
DSP/RSP program about Stalinism being politically pretty much like fascism,
from 


> Stalinism is not socialism. We agree with Trotsky¹s characterisation of Stalin
> as the ³gravedigger² of the Russian Revolution. The political character of the
> regime established by the Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia most closely
> resembled that placed in power in capitalist countries by victorious fascist
> movements ­ an atomised population ruled over by a ruthless bureaucratic
> dictatorship masquerading behind social demagogy.

I'd submit that much better at being explanatory and being what we should be
able to agree on is what's in the Socialist Alliance platform, at


(note other parts of this platform were changed significantly from what's
still online, at our recent conference)

> The Problem of Bureaucracy

> Apologists for capitalism have long devoted enormous efforts to arguing
> against socialism. They argue that it is a completely utopian exercise that
> flies in the face of human nature. They say that it will never work or that it
> will always lead to bureaucratic dictatorship.
> 
> It is true that some revolutionary governments have degenerated into
> bureaucratic regimes, leading eventually to the restoration of capitalism.
> This highlights the importance of the struggle for democracy as a part of the
> struggle to build a new society.
> 
> But it is also necessary to understand the objective conditions that
> contributed to such degenerations. Most revolutions in the twentieth century
> took place in poor countries devastated by war. They faced constant attacks
> from the imperialist powers that used war, terrorism and economic sabotage to
> undermine them. This created conditions favourable to the growth of
> bureaucracy.
> 
> If these countries had received support and aid from richer countries, rather
> than hostility and aggression, things may have turned out completely
> differently. Thus, socialist revolutions in rich countries are important, not
> only for their own people but also for those of the poorer countries.




Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
Set your options at: 
http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com