date:20130410

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Zirin provides some ofhte best explanationand defence of the celebrations
out I have read.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/53791

Never have I witnessed a gap between the mainstream media and public
opinion quite like the first 24 hours since the death of Margaret Thatcher.

While both the press and President Barack Obama were uttering tearful
remembrances, thousands took to the streets of the UK and beyond to
celebrate. Immediately, there were strong
condemnations
of
what were called "death parties," described as "tasteless", "horrible," and
"beneath all human decency""

Yet if the same media praising Thatcher and appalled by the popular
response would bother to ask one of the people celebrating, they might get
a story that doesn't fit into their narrative -- which is probably why they
aren't asking at all.
-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker

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Re: [Marxism] North Korea in perspective

2013-04-10 Thread Steffan Wyn-Jones

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Bruce Cumings' books on the war are classics, especially his two-volume Origins 
of the Korean War. Also, see this link for an interview with Tim Beal, author 
of a couple of books through Pluto Press on Korea and its wider geopolitical 
situation.http://plutopress.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-korean-crisis-in-12-minutes/
 
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> Can any comrades recommend some worthwhile books dealing with the Korean
> War, the Korean Revolution, or Kim Il Sung?
> 
> Much appreciated,
> 
> Rob
> 

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[Marxism] Response to Magdoff-Foster by Andrew Kliman


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http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economic-crisis/more-misused-wage-data-from-monthly-review-the-overaccumulation-of-a-surplus-of-errors.html



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[Marxism] Guardian article: 'In this nuclear standoff, it's the US that's the rogue state'


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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/09/nuclear-us-rogue-state-iran-north-korea

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[Marxism] This is why we are celebrating

2013-04-10 Thread En Passant with John Passant

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Nation columnist Dave Zirin counters the media's finger-wagging at those 
celebrating Margaret Thatcher's death with the terrible facts about her brutal 
reign. In the words, of David Wearing, "People praising Thatcher's legacy 
should show some respect for her victims." 

That would be nice, wouldn't it? Let's please show some respect for Margaret 
Thatcher's victims. Let's respect those who mourn every day because of her 
policies, but choose this one day to wipe away the tears. Then let's organize 
to make sure that the history she authored does not repeat itself. 

http://enpassant.com.au/2013/this-is-why-we-are-celebrating/ 

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[Marxism] Need some schooling

2013-04-10 Thread Rob Parker

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Greetings,

I apologize for popping up only to make inquiries and not really
contributing to discussion, but I consider myself a sort of amateur
lay-Marxist and I feel that I benefit more from watching the veterans hash
things out until I am able to form some decent analysis myself. That post
Louis made a few weeks back about introductory reading was very helpful, by
the way, as were the additions made by others. The point is, I trust the
people on this list, most of them anyway, to steer me in the right
direction.

I wanted some recommendations on literature, articles, and whatnot that
would help me form an argument against someone advocating a kind of small
business utopia. That is, corporations are banned and genuine progressive
competition can flourish amongst various small scale producers which will
lead to true fairness, equality, and liberty. A corporations, not
capitalism, are the problem line.  I would categorize this as some sort of
nostalgic libertarian fantasy, but liberals also seem to go for this sort
of thing, allowing for some state regulation of excesses.

Much appreciated,

Rob

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Re: [Marxism] Chris Hani

2013-04-10 Thread Ambrose Andrews

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http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/11972

  -AA.


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[Marxism] Guatemala: Support needed against wave of violence

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In recent weeks, there has been a dramatic wave of violence and repression
in Guatemala that has led to the deaths of many human rights activists.
Among them are peasant leaders, trade unionists, journalists and indigenous
peoples.

In light of this, the Guatemala Peace and Development Network (RPDG) has
sent out an urgent request for support and solidarity from around the world
to bring pressure to bear on the Guatemalan government to halt this
repression.

In Sydney, the Latin America Social Forum and Commitee for Human Rights in
Guatemala have called for support for an international open letter to
Guatemalan President Otto Perez in protest at this wave of violence.

You can read the full letter and the current list if signatories,
here.
If you wish to add your name, emailfred.fuen...@gmail.com and
vichug...@hotmail.com so that we can pass on the information to the GPDN.


http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/53787

-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker

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[Marxism] North Korea in perspective

2013-04-10 Thread Rob Parker

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Greetings,

Can any comrades recommend some worthwhile books dealing with the Korean
War, the Korean Revolution, or Kim Il Sung?

Much appreciated,

Rob

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[Marxism] Emma Thompson, other actors oppose Israeli theatre's involvement in British festival

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http://www.timesofisrael.com/oscar-winner-emma-thompson-calls-for-israeli-theaters-ban-at-festival/
-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker

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[Marxism] Celebration of death

2013-04-10 Thread Marla Vijaya kumar

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Some comrades have expressed their disagreement about celebrating somebody's 
death. 

But here in India, the most important Hindu festival, the festival of lights, 
Diwali is a celebration to mark the death of the epic demon, Narak. It seems he 
was so cruel and caused so much suffering to the people that they went and 
appealed to Lord Vishnu. He was killed in a battle with Vishnu. Narak was so 
cruel, he had not allowed anybody to even light their homes. They lived in 
darkness as long as he ruled.
On hearing the news of his death, people danced with joy and lit lights all 
over the place. Thus Diwali had become a celebration of joy and lights.
Connect to our times. A demon had died and what is wrong with celebrating the 
joyous event?
Vijaya Kumar Marla

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[Marxism] Chile: BHP saclks striking workers; unionist shot dead

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Chile: BHP sacks striking workers 

In a move that shows how little has changed since Ernesto “Che” Guevara
famously observed the maltreatment of Chile’s copper miners by foreign
capitalists in *The Motorcycle Diaries*, more than 500 mineworkers have
been summarily sacked by the Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton.

Their offence was to participate in strike action for improved pay and
conditions at Escondida, an open-cut mine located in the arid Antofagasta
region of northern Chile.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/53785


Chile: Union leader shot dead, family accuses
bosses

Chile may have dispensed with military dictatorship, but agitating for
workers’ rights can still get you assassinated.

Juan Pablo Jimenez, 35, was the president of the union representing workers
at Azeta, one of Chile’s largest electrical engineering companies. On
February 21, he was found dead in a pool of blood at his workplace, minutes
after finishing a shift, a bullet lodged in his cranium.

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/53786


-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker

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[Marxism] New at the irish revolution

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http://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/eirigis-easter-promise-two-views/

The above features two views of the Dublin Easter Rising commemoration
organised recently by the fairly new socialist-republican party, eirigi.

One is by Raynor Lysaght, a veteran Irish Trotskyist, and the other is by
me.  Interestingly, the article has provoked a bit of debate on the
abortion issue in Ireland.  See the comments section.

A friend of mine recently completed a PhD on political murals in Belfast
and Berlin.  There are several pieces by him on the blog now about Belfast
murals and what's happening in relation to them under the 'peace process'.

One is on the Miriam Daly mural:
http://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/the-miriam-daly-mural/
The other is on The Re-imaging Programme in the six counties:
http://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/the-re-imaging-programme-in-the-north-of-ireland/

Phil

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[Marxism] New at Redline

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There's a report on Marxism 2013, held in Melbourne, and attended by about
1,150 people.  The report is by Tom O'Lincoln:
http://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/marxism-2013-an-inspiring-event/

An appeal from imprisoned workers in India:
http://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/jailed-indian-workers-appeal/

Argo: art or propaganda, by Karim Pourhamzavi:
http://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/argo-art-or-propaganda/

and much, much more. . .

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[Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

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Jamie wrote:
"Engels historicised Marx's value theory, which was specific to a fully
ripened
capitalist society. The logical corollary of that, if one follows Engels,
is that the capitalist exploitation occurs because of expropriation of the
surplus product - which leaves absolutely no need for value theory at all
(abstract labour; fetishism; money etc. etc.) - you wash up on the shores
of Ricardian socialism or German social democracy."

'Capital', including vol 3, emphasises the historical nature of capitalism
- that it is a historically specific socio-economic system, that it had a
start, a development and it has an end.  So the logical corollary of
Engels' work in putting together vols 2 and 3 has nothing to do with
suggesting a surplus product.  It's very clear that the function of
exploitation is to produce surplus-value and that surplus-product is a
category prior to capitalism, although still to be found in some parts of
the world as, indeed, is subsistence agriculture where there is neither
surplus-product (to any appreciable extent) or surplus-value.

Since Shane Mage is here, I'd like to say how much I enjoyed reading his
old thesis on the falling rate of profit in the US.  It was written nigh on
40 years ago and it was about ten years ago when I read it.  I'd highly
recommend it.

Today, it is certainly harder to calculate the rate of profit.  For
instance, there is now a global rate of profit.  An acquaintance of mine,
Tony Norfield, has written a little bit about this although he's still in
relatively early stages of research.  His blog is called Economics of
Imperialism and well worth a look.  Michael Roberts, whose blog is
thenextrecession, has also written on it and is well worth perusing.

Phil

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[Marxism] Marx's crisis theory and the Third World

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Louis wrote:
>Just to repeat a point I once made about all this. How does the
over-accumulation of capital relate to places like Nepal, Bolivia,
Congo--for that matter where probably more than 60 percent of the
world's population lives?


Marx's crisis theory presupposes developed capitalism, so it doesn't relate
to impoverished, super-exploited Third World countries.

That's not a criticism of it.  It does what it's supposed to do, no more,
no less.

However, it does have *some* relevance to those types of countries, because
a major factor in capital from the imperialist centres going to those
countries is the falling rate of profit at home.

Indeed, the LTRPF is important for understanding imperialism.

Marx identified capital itself as the chief obstacle to its own development
and pointed out that at a certain stage it has to attempt to escape from
its own laws of motion.  Marx died at a very early stage of this
development.  But by the end of the 1800s/start of the 1900s it was clear
that capitalism had entered a new stage - the epoch of imperialism.  And,
of course, it was Lenin who analysed this.  Pretty much all the key
features of imperialism that Lenin identified are capital trying to find
its way out of its own limitations.

The country outside the imperialist world that I am most familiar with is
Ireland.  You can't understand the Irish meltdown without understanding
LTRPF, because it's that law which drove imperialist investment in Ireland
which created the Celtic Tiger phenomenon and it's that law which underlies
investment in fields that are non-productive of new surplus-value.  In
other words, it's the crumbling of both the productive and
unproductive/speculative elements of the Celtic Tiger which caused the
meltdown in Ireland, but both those things were *driven by LTRPF in the
first place*.

As I said before, attempts to come up with some other theory of capitalist
crisis that I've ever seen typically don't amount to much more than trying
to approximate Marx to some form of radical bourgeois economic theory and
the 'solutions' that result from that, from what I have seen, usually
involve great lashings of reformism.

One of the most important things about LTRPF is that it shows that
'solutions' within the confines of capitalism are always at the expense of
workers and capitalism can't be patched up.  It is a permanently
crisis-bound system, when it's not in crisis it's heading towards one.
Moreover, when capital is in crisis, LTRPF allows us to pretty accurately
predict what policies will be followed by the capitalists - and it's not
always slash and burn - and what the limitations are to different sets of
capitalist policies, whether 'neo-liberal' or 'Keynesian' or whatever.

LTRPF has explanatory power that no other attempts at crisis theory have.

Phil

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[Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

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I wrote:

>> There is a *50-page section* on the law of the tendency of the rate of
>> profit to fall in vol 3. Hardly a "fragmentary reference".

Angelus responded:
>Phil, with all due respect, I can tell you haven't read the article,
because one of the thing that Heinrich addresses is how Engels turned a
mass of fragmentary notes and digressions into a section of the book, and
then added titles.

It was the MR introduction to the article I was responding to (because of
the way you posted it here, it looked as if it was Heinrich writing but, as
I noted in my very next post, it wasn't; it was MR).  And the introduction
didn't refer to fragmentary references throughout Marx's writings, it
referred *specifically* to *fragmentary references in the three volume of
Capital*.  So the MR introduction was wrong.  There are not fragmentary
references in the three volumes of Capital.  Offhand, I can't recall any
references to LTRPF in the first two volumes at all, but there is a 50-page
treatment of it in vol 3.

I'm aware Engels put together vol 3 after Marx's death; indeed, didn't he
put together vol 2 as well.  But no-one says, Oh ignore vol 2, because
that's Engels.

In any case, Engels presents a very systematic outline of what Marx had
already described (in the Grundrisse) as "the single most important law of
modern political economy".  And I think we can trust that Engels, as Marx's
chief collaborator for 40 years, didn't just make up the idea and trawl
through Marx for the occasional tidbit on the subject.  He would have been
very well aware of Marx's thinking on crisis theory.

Marx never wrote anything that suggested he didn't think the LTRPF was of
lesser importance than what he stated in the Grundrisse and no-one that
I've ever seen has improved upon the LTRPF.  As a law it certainly makes
more sense to me than the law of averages, which has about zero power to
predict anything.

Phil

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[Marxism] The Economic Story of the Year: The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market - Derek Thompson - The Atlantic


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http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-economic-story-of-the-year-the-stock-market-vs-the-labor-market/274698/


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[Marxism] An Obituary from Below | Jacobin


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By Richard Seymour

http://jacobinmag.com/2013/04/margaret-thatcher-an-obituary-from-below/


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[Marxism] Attila the Stockbroker's Thatcher Song

2013-04-10 Thread Paul Flewers

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List members may enjoy Attila the Stockbroker's song on the passing of Mrs
Thatcher.

Paul F

+

A HELLISH ENCOUNTER

The furnaces were roaring
With a foul and sulphurous smell
The damned were being tortured --
Just another day in Hell.
The air was full of ghastly screams
And soul-destroying moans
When above the dreadful clamour
Rose some shrill suburban tones...

'So messy! And so smelly!
And so awfully, awfully hot!
And all you do is torture –
That puts nothing in the pot!
I'll close down all your furnaces
Your unproductive ways
And build a brand new call-centre --
A Purgatory that pays!'

The Devil dropped his pitchfork
And put on his coat and hat.
'I don't mind facing Jesus
But I can’t compete with that!'
But the damned and all the goblins
Pleaded 'Lucifer, don’t go!
Stay and help us in our fight --
Better the Devil that we know!'

So they voted him shop steward
And he led a demonstration
While Thatcher glared and tutted
In mad, impotent frustration.
Then they made some massive banners
In huge letters: 'COAL NOT DOLE!'
'NOT ONE SINGLE FURNACE CLOSURE!'
'GO TO HEAVEN, TORY TROLL!'

Now Tomas de Torquemada
Held a centuries-old position
As editor of Hell's newspaper
The Daily Inquisition.
So Thatcher went to him and said
'I need some press support.
It always does my bidding.
Here's some text for your report!'

But Tomas said 'Can't help you --
'Cos, Satan, he's my mate!
You know I've served him faithfully
Since 1468...'
So she yelled upstairs to Murdoch:
'Rupert, time for you to die!
I need you down here urgently!'
But there was no reply.

Then the Devil came in glory
Brian Clough at his right hand
And in tones to shatter marble
He roared: 'Margaret, you are banned!
Hell's a worker-run collective
Self-sufficient, closely-knit.
We don’t need your poxy meddling.
I condemn you to the pit!

But, first, I’ll reunite you
With the one you love the most.
He was hiding in the coal-hole.
He was dressed up as a ghost.
Said he DIDN'T WANT to see you!
Said to PLEASE keep him away!
But you're here now, aren't you, Denis?
Bid your lady wife good day...

They were loaded in the lift shaft
And soon they were gone from sight
And heading for an awful place
Of pain and endless night
And you're not going to believe this
'Twas such awful, rotten luck --
But half way down the endless pit
The Thatchers' lift got stuck...

So fight for social justice
And build a better world
And bury her foul legacy
With red banners unfurled
And heed the final message
Of this cautionary verse
Or you could end up like Denis.
I can think of nothing worse.

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Re: [Marxism] Ed Miliband Thatcher tribute in full (retch, puke)

2013-04-10 Thread Les Schaffer


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On 04/10/2013 03:36 PM, Einde O'Callaghan wrote:


Glenda Jackson, who may be more familiar to some members of the list 
in other roles.




e.g.  Hopscotch 

i don't think any member of liberal Hollywood -- particularly one 
graduated to Congress --  would ever speak in the same terms about a 
Democratic OR Republican hack not in such a public venue, anyway.


Les


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Re: [Marxism] Ed Miliband Thatcher tribute in full (retch, puke)

2013-04-10 Thread Einde O'Callaghan


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On 10.04.2013 17:30, Louis Proyect wrote:


http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/04/10/ed-miliband-thatcher-tribute-in-full

At least one Labour MP managed to express the loathing large numbers of 
people felt for Thatcher:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDtClJYJBj8

Glenda Jackson, who may be more familiar to some members of the list in 
other roles.


Einde O'Callaghan



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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

2013-04-10 Thread Thomas Bias

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Actually, if you consider the Portuguese rape of the African continent, it
begins before 1492. But that's a quibble. The point is, it begins during the
period of "primitive accumulation of capital." ~Tom

-Original Message-
From: marxism-bounces+tgbias=verizon@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
[mailto:marxism-bounces+tgbias=verizon@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu] On
Behalf Of Louis Proyect
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:23 PM
To: Tom Bias
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

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On 4/10/13 12:20 PM, Shane Mage wrote:
>
> When did "time immemorial" begin?

1492

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n.net

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Re: [Marxism] Chris Hani

2013-04-10 Thread Andrew Pollack

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What a predictably awful article.

Don't get me wrong, Hani (unlike Thatcher) was on our side, and deserves to
be mourned.

But the fact is that he -- like Mandela -- sold out the revolution, and
left the ruling class in charge of the country -- a betrayal Hani (and the
author, Valley) tried to cover up with all that bilge about "service."

Ironically (given the Thatcher bucket-kicking debate), I've been wondering
about how to address Mandela's death when it comes. The last couple times
he was rushed to hospital, I had images of hundreds of Facebook tributes to
him -- and me wondering how to even broach the subject of his bankrupt
strategy.

Perhaps in the course of a discussion about BRICS it can come up in a
diplomatic way...

On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 1:27 PM, Alan Wieder  wrote:

> ==
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> ==
>
>
> 20 years have passed since Chris Hani was murdered by right extremists just
> before South Africa's first democratic election.  Hard to believe that
> Oliver Tambo and Chris were both dead before the election and that Joe
> Slovo died shortly thereafter.  Below is today's article by Jay Naidoo
>
>
> http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2013-04-10-a-culture-of-service-and-tolerance-lessons-from-chris-hani/#.UWVM_uhAGkE
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
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>

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[Marxism] Last of Warsaw Ghetto Survivors Calls for Rebellion Against Israeli Occupation

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On Yom Ha-Shoah, one of the few remaining living survivors of the Warsaw 
Ghetto, Chavka Fulman-Raban, delivered a fierce denunciation of evil and 
injustice, including the Israeli Occupation.  Her speech was offered to guests 
at the ceremony of Beit Lohamey Ha-Getaot (the Ghetto-Fighters House).

Full: 
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/04/09/last-of-warsaw-ghetto-survivors-calls-for-rebellion-against-israeli-occupation/




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[Marxism] Chris Hani

2013-04-10 Thread Alan Wieder

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20 years have passed since Chris Hani was murdered by right extremists just
before South Africa's first democratic election.  Hard to believe that
Oliver Tambo and Chris were both dead before the election and that Joe
Slovo died shortly thereafter.  Below is today's article by Jay Naidoo

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2013-04-10-a-culture-of-service-and-tolerance-lessons-from-chris-hani/#.UWVM_uhAGkE

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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory


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On 4/10/13 1:14 PM, Shane Mage wrote:

In 1963, in my dissertation, I performed a deep analysis on all the
available data and demonstrated a marked (though scarcely uninterrupted)
tendency of the US profit rate as defined by Marx (aggregate surplus
value divided by aggregate private capital stock), measured both in
hours of socially necessary labor time and likewise in current-dollars,
to fall over the period 1900-1960.




http://archive.org/details/MagesDissertation


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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

2013-04-10 Thread Shane Mage


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On Apr 10, 2013, at 12:39 PM, Angelus Novus wrote:


Ralph Johansen wrote:


I certainly don't know how this is all going to settle out, but what
convinced me in reading Kliman's The Failure of Capitalist Production
was that he seemed there to have established empirically the fall  
in the > rate of profit


The thing is, "the rate of profit" is not a statistical category  
that any government measures.  You can't just go look up "the rate  
of profit" in the Statistical Abstract of the United States or the  
Economic Report of the President.


So instead, you need a method for calculating "the rate of profit"  
on the basis of the available statistical material, and as Doug  
Henwood has pointed out repeatedly, guys like Kliman arrange their  
calculations in such a way so that the results end up "proving" the  
doctrinal shibboleth they aim to defend.


In 1963, in my dissertation, I performed a deep analysis on all the  
available data and demonstrated a marked (though scarcely  
uninterrupted) tendency of the US profit rate as defined by Marx  
(aggregate surplus value divided by aggregate private capital stock),  
measured both in hours of socially necessary labor time and likewise  
in current-dollars, to fall over the period 1900-1960. The old saws  
that Heinrich raises as arguments against the Law were taken up and  
disposed of in that book (and will again be disposed of in my reply to  
his MR article).  My dissertation has always been readily available  
but Heinrich, Henwood, Angelus et. al remain in willful ignorance of  
it. Which enables them to go on sneering at Marx's Law on the basis of  
superficial statistics or long-discredited criticisms.



Shane Mage

"All things are an equal exchange for fire and fire for all things,
as goods are for gold and gold for goods."

Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr, 90


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Re: [Marxism] Thatcher and "House of Cards"

2013-04-10 Thread Daniel Lindvall

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I thought I was the only one thinking The Iron Lady was quite critical of 
Thatcher. At the press screening here in Stockholm, Sweden, early on a weekday 
morning, young left socialists handed out leaflets branding it "propaganda", a 
first for me! Didn't happen when they screened Captain America or Zero Dark 
Thirty.

There's a key scene early in the film that sums up how her values where shaped. 
During a WW2 bombing raid that has interrupted a family meal young Maggie 
suddenly dashes out of the shelter risking her life because she realizes she 
has forgotten to cover the butter (or was it cheese?). When she comes back her 
shopkeeper dad smiles fondly and compliments her on her action. This borders on 
satire really, doesn't it? 


> 
> Interesting to  see Daniel have good words to say about "The Iron Lady". I 
> thought I was the only person on the left that appreciated this film.
> 


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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

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Ralph Johansen wrote:

> I certainly don't know how this is all going to settle out, but what 
> convinced me in reading Kliman's The Failure of Capitalist Production 
> was that he seemed there to have established empirically the fall in the > 
> rate of profit

The thing is, "the rate of profit" is not a statistical category that any 
government measures.  You can't just go look up "the rate of profit" in the 
Statistical Abstract of the United States or the Economic Report of the 
President.

So instead, you need a method for calculating "the rate of profit" on the basis 
of the available statistical material, and as Doug Henwood has pointed out 
repeatedly, guys like Kliman arrange their calculations in such a way so that 
the results end up "proving" the doctrinal shibboleth they aim to defend.

Here is an article by Doug that I think uses a sensible approach of dividing 
profits of nonfinancial corporations according to the National Income and 
Product Accounts from the Department of Commerce by the value of capital stock 
from the Fed's flow of funds accounts.  As you can see, he comes to quite 
different conclusions from those who see an inexorable fall in the rate of 
profit:

http://lbo-news.com/2012/06/26/profitability-high-and-maybe-past-its-peak/

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Re: [Marxism] Thatcher and "House of Cards"


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On 4/10/13 12:24 PM, Daniel Lindvall wrote:

I think that many traditional, upper class tories resented her for
being a lower middle class woman in a job they thought belonged to a
man from their own background. But simultaneously they knew this was
just the voice they needed to sell politics for the upper class to
35-40 percent of the lower classes (and knowing this made them resent
her even more). This, I think, is one of the things that is rather
well captured in the Meryl Streep film (which was better than its
reputation). Sure, she was also an arsehole of a human being, but
that she probably had in common with every other tory leader and most
labour ones as well.


Interesting to  see Daniel have good words to say about "The Iron Lady". 
I thought I was the only person on the left that appreciated this film.


http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/there-will-always-be-an-england/

Scheduled for general theatrical release sometime in December (I 
reviewed a screener submitted by a publicist for the 2011 NYFCO awards 
meeting), “The Iron Lady” has all the trappings of your typical fawning 
biopic of the rich and the powerful in line with “The King’s Speech”. 
Indeed, in one scene her consultants advise her in her first run for 
Prime Minister that she has to work on her voice–it is not authoritative 
enough. She then goes to speech lessons in a scene definitely evoking 
“The King’s Speech”. With Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher, I had 
additional trepidations since I expected a performance in line with her 
stilted portrayal of Julia Child.


What a pleasant surprise it was to discover that the film is a venomous 
attack on the “iron lady”. Admittedly, the politics are a bit 
unfocused—this after all is not a documentary—but the general impression 
you are left with is that the financial disaster of today is very much 
related to the policies that she and her fellow monster Ronald Reagan 
pushed through.


In one key scene, Thatcher is meeting with her cabinet to discuss a new 
tax that will be seen as favoring the rich. When her Tory advisers warn 
her that it will undermine her legitimacy, she scolds them as lacking 
backbone. The film is replete with archival footage of Britons fighting 
the cops during the period, leaving no question as to her legacy.


The film also has an almost sadistic streak as it shows Thatcher as 
entering the early stages of Alzheimer’s, with symptoms fairly obvious 
during the last year or so when she was in office, just as was the case 
with Reagan.


From foreign policy, especially the war for control of the Malvinas, to 
domestic policy with her determination to destroy trade unions and the 
social legislation won by their party, Thatcher is seen in the light of 
the “one percenters” of today. In some ways, the film is vaguely 
reminiscent of “Citizen Kane” with Thatcher becoming more and more 
malevolent and deranged the more power she attains.


Finally, Streep is terrific. As indicated above, I am not one of her 
biggest fans but her characterization of Thatcher is not just based on 
imitating her speaking voice and hairdo. She really got inside her head 
and figured out what made her tick. It is not very pretty.



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Re: [Marxism] Thatcher and "House of Cards"

2013-04-10 Thread Daniel Lindvall

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I think that many traditional, upper class tories resented her for being a 
lower middle class woman in a job they thought belonged to a man from their own 
background. But simultaneously they knew this was just the voice they needed to 
sell politics for the upper class to 35-40 percent of the lower classes (and 
knowing this made them resent her even more). This, I think, is one of the 
things that is rather well captured in the Meryl Streep film (which was better 
than its reputation). Sure, she was also an arsehole of a human being, but that 
she probably had in common with every other tory leader and most labour ones as 
well.

Website: http://filmint.nu/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FilmInt
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/FilmInt



10 apr 2013 kl. 17:44 skrev DW:

> ==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==
> 
> 
> Andy's question is interesting and points to the reality of Thatcher
> herself *as a politician* and person: no one liked her. Not really. Not
> those who had to work with her. The British House of Cards main character
> of *course* agreed with Thatcherism. Most Tories did. It was the way she
> carried it out that most distanced themselves from, at least privately,
> later more open about it after she was out and became a Tory back bencher.
> 
> But the plot of show is all about power, specifically, Francis Urguhard
> desire to rule during the period of Thatchers last days and after her
> resignation. She stood in his way for 11 years, after all, and there was no
> getting rid of her until events in the class struggle, the Poll Tax, among
> other issues, forced her out. You never identify with the looser in
> bourgeois politics, least of all among the Conservatives in the UK.
> 
> As with the Underwood character played by Kevin Spacey in the updated U.S.
> version, who is a *Democrat* from S. Carolina (how delicious is that!) it's
> not about policy, it is about *power*, specifically the desire of Francis
> Underwood and his wife (the best roll EVER by Robin Whright) to become the
> First Couple. Of course we all know it's about politics in the real world,
> but this wonderful expose of capitalist politics in this show is simply too
> good not to suspend one's sense of disbelief...a bit.
> 
> David
> 
> Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu
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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory


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On 4/10/13 12:20 PM, Shane Mage wrote:


When did "time immemorial" begin?



1492


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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory


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Angelus Novus wrote

Shane Mage wrote:

> Even Heinrich recognizes that the sections on the Law were from a 
coherent > manuscript.


Say what?!

From the article:

"The first two chapters on the "law as such" and the "counteracting 
factors" closely follow Marx's argumentation, but the manuscript then 
flows out into a sea of notes and constantly interrupted thoughts."


And remember, the "two chapters" that Heinrich is referring to here are 
the chapter divisions that Engels 
 made within the large chapters 
in the unfinished manuscript (which Engels retitled as "sections" in the 
book published as "Capital Vol. III").


I'm amazed by how much of an emotional stake a lot of folks seem to have 
in defending the finality and alleged cohesion of manuscripts that Marx 
himself regarded as unfinished. It's one thing when you have nothing to 
go by other than the official doctrines of the Second and Third 
Internationals and the handful of published texts available at the time. 
It's another thing entirely to refuse to acknowledge the evidence that 
Marx himself regarded his work as incomplete and insufficient.


Imagine if other sciences functioned this way. Can you imagine 
biologists arguing for the completeness and comprehensiveness of 
Darwin's Origin of Species?


I certainly don't know how this is all going to settle out, but what 
convinced me in reading Kliman's The Failure of Capitalist Production 
was that he seemed there to have established empirically the fall in the 
rate of profit, tendentially and I suppose absolutely, from the 1970s 
on. Although, as far as I know, the MEGA project hasn't yet come out in 
English, so that the actual notes compiled by Marx in the period after, 
say, 1868 can be relied upon by those who read and write in that 
language, I am looking for reponses to what Heinrich writes, from 
Kliman, Alan Freeman, Michael Roberts, Sam Williams, or from Gerald Levy 
and others who hold forth on his OPE-l. Nothing so far, that I've seen.


And I think it's quite understandable that there is a lot of feeling 
over this latest attack on what Marx, at least at one time in his 
process of working out the laws and trajectory of capital, I think in 
Cap 3, said that the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall 
was the underpinning of the workings of capital, or words to that 
effect. And how many time during and since the time of Marx have grand 
attacks been launched against Marx's theory of the functioning of 
capital, only to be repeatedly beat back by others who have read more 
broadly or more closely, or with a more comprehensive understanding and 
interpretation? In this case, that may be Heinrich or it may be Kliman. 
For me, and without any stake in one interpretation or the other, Kliman 
has still made the most sense.


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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

2013-04-10 Thread Shane Mage


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On Apr 10, 2013, at 12:03 PM, Louis Proyect wrote:




As far as I know, the industrialized nations have been taking it out  
of the hides of third world nations since time immemorial.


When did "time immemorial" begin?

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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory


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On 4/10/13 11:54 AM, Ralph Johansen wrote:

Just to repeat a point I once made about all this. How does the
over-accumulation of capital relate to places like Nepal, Bolivia,
Congo--for that matter where probably more than 60 percent of the
world's population lives?

Certainly, it does relate, Lou. If the objective is to describe how the
global economy functions, it might be summed up for so-called third
world countries in the old expression, "When Uncle Sam sneezes, Mexico
gets plural pneumonia." When profitability slumps as it has recently, or
for that matter whenever, in the countries which host the major banks,
European Central Bank, IMF, the World Bank and BIS, don't they take it
out of the hides of places like Greece, Cyprus or any poorer country
(Michael Roberts forecasts that Slovenia may be next)?


As far as I know, the industrialized nations have been taking it out of 
the hides of third world nations since time immemorial.






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[Marxism] The State (was re: Marx's crisis theory)

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Louis wrote:

> How does the over-accumulation of capital relate to places like Nepal, 
> Bolivia, Congo--for that matter where probably more than 60 percent of the > 
> world's population lives? 

Heinrich mentions that Marx regarded his account as fundamentally incomplete 
without a theoretical account of the world market and the state.  I think the 
international dimension you mention would have to be dealt with within such a 
framework.

IMHO, doctrinaire "Marxists" commit two unpardonable errors that Marx himself 
would have never countenanced:

1) thinking that one can speak of the economy in terms of goods production, 
while regarded money and finance as epiphenomena of secondary importance 
(which, ironically, is a cornerstone of neoclassical economics as well!)

2) thinking that the forms of movement of capital analyzed by Marx have some 
sort of independence from the existence of the state (also another curious 
replication of neoclassical orthodoxy, which regards "the market" as a force of 
nature)

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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory


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Louis Proyect wrote

Just to repeat a point I once made about all this. How does the 
over-accumulation of capital relate to places like Nepal, Bolivia, 
Congo--for that matter where probably more than 60 percent of the 
world's population lives?


Certainly, it does relate, Lou. If the objective is to describe how the 
global economy functions, it might be summed up for so-called third 
world countries in the old expression, "When Uncle Sam sneezes, Mexico 
gets plural pneumonia." When profitability slumps as it has recently, or 
for that matter whenever, in the countries which host the major banks, 
European Central Bank, IMF, the World Bank and BIS, don't they take it 
out of the hides of places like Greece, Cyprus or any poorer country 
(Michael Roberts forecasts that Slovenia may be next)? And as Joan 
Robinson is supposed to have said, in effect, "There's only one thing 
worse for a poor country than being in the clutches of the IMF - NOT 
being etc." As to whether the peasant in the countries you mention is 
affected, that may depend on the extent to which that country is within 
the ambit of capital and to what extent it is still predominantly a non- 
or pre-capitalist peasant economy. And incidentally, in about 2010, for 
the first time in history more people were said to be living in urban 
areas, presumably where capital predominates, than were living in the 
rural countryside. Just in the current literature on all this, there's 
not only Harvey but also Panitch and Gindin's The Making of Global 
Capital as well as Prashad's The Poorer Nations.


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[Marxism] Thatcher and "House of Cards"

2013-04-10 Thread DW

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Andy's question is interesting and points to the reality of Thatcher
herself *as a politician* and person: no one liked her. Not really. Not
those who had to work with her. The British House of Cards main character
of *course* agreed with Thatcherism. Most Tories did. It was the way she
carried it out that most distanced themselves from, at least privately,
later more open about it after she was out and became a Tory back bencher.

But the plot of show is all about power, specifically, Francis Urguhard
desire to rule during the period of Thatchers last days and after her
resignation. She stood in his way for 11 years, after all, and there was no
getting rid of her until events in the class struggle, the Poll Tax, among
other issues, forced her out. You never identify with the looser in
bourgeois politics, least of all among the Conservatives in the UK.

As with the Underwood character played by Kevin Spacey in the updated U.S.
version, who is a *Democrat* from S. Carolina (how delicious is that!) it's
not about policy, it is about *power*, specifically the desire of Francis
Underwood and his wife (the best roll EVER by Robin Whright) to become the
First Couple. Of course we all know it's about politics in the real world,
but this wonderful expose of capitalist politics in this show is simply too
good not to suspend one's sense of disbelief...a bit.

David

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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

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Shane Mage wrote:

> Even Heinrich recognizes that the sections on the Law were from a coherent > 
> manuscript. 

Say what?!

From the article:

"The first two chapters on the “law as such” and the “counteracting factors” 
closely follow Marx’s argumentation, but the manuscript then flows out into a 
sea of notes and constantly interrupted thoughts."

And remember, the "two chapters" that Heinrich is referring to here are the 
chapter divisions that Engels made within the large chapters in the unfinished 
manuscript (which Engels retitled as "sections" in the book published as 
"Capital Vol. III").

I'm amazed by how much of an emotional stake a lot of folks seem to have in 
defending the finality and alleged cohesion of manuscripts that Marx himself 
regarded as unfinished.  It's one thing when you have nothing to go by other 
than the official doctrines of the Second and Third Internationals and the 
handful of published texts available at the time.  It's another thing entirely 
to refuse to acknowledge the evidence that Marx himself regarded his work as 
incomplete and insufficient.

Imagine if other sciences functioned this way.  Can you imagine biologists 
arguing for the completeness and comprehensiveness of Darwin's Origin of 
Species?

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[Marxism] Ed Miliband Thatcher tribute in full (retch, puke)


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http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2013/04/10/ed-miliband-thatcher-tribute-in-full


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Re: [Marxism] Thatcher and "House of Cards"

2013-04-10 Thread Mark Lause

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You should also catch the documentary on Machiavelli Ian Richardson did
around the time of the BBC series.

It's an hour of interviewing apolitical Tory shits.  A kind of
intellectualizing of frathouse politics.

For the record, Machiavelli would have been horrified.

ML



On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 9:36 AM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> ==**==**==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==**==**==
>
>
> On 4/10/13 9:23 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote:
>
>> After watching the US version I went back to view the Brit original. Each
>> wonderfully frightening and intriguing in their own way.
>>
>> Here's my question: The main character, a Tory himself and totally onboard
>> with Thatcherism, has an intense hatred for her.
>>
>> Why? The series doesn't make it clear, unless I missed it.
>>
>
> Since I'm going to be writing a comparison of the two series, I started
> watching the original myself. I have not gotten to the point where the main
> character has anything to say about Thatcher but I doubt it has to do with
> politics. As the young female reporter who he has been leaking information
> to says to a colleague in the last episode I watched: he is a politician
> without politics.
>
>
>
> __**__
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[Marxism] Spiked Online peeved at Thatcher death celebrations


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==


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100211120/anti-thatcher-animus-speaks-volumes-about-the-isolation-and-insignificance-of-the-modern-left/


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[Marxism] North Korea’s Justifiable Anger » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names


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http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/10/north-koreas-justifiable-anger/


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[Marxism] It's No Good: Poems/Essays/Actions by Kirill Medvedev


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http://www.bookforum.com/review/11396
Apr 9 2013
It's No Good: Poems/Essays/Actions by Kirill Medvedev
Greg Afinogenov
web exclusive

Since the Cold War, there have only been two reliable ways for a Russian 
intellectual to get noticed in the United States. One is being a 
dissident with charisma and sufficiently nonthreatening political views. 
The other is writing poetry or literature of such austere depth that it 
makes American literary culture seem shallow and comfortable. (Even 
better would be, like Brodsky or Solzhenitsyn, having a little bit of 
both.) The two are not, despite appearances, at odds. The arcane poets 
and political misfits both draw on and contribute to a deep-seated set 
of stereotypes about Russian literary culture: the mystical Russian 
soul, the perennially menacing government, the censor's leaden hand 
always strangling free artistic expression. It's not hard to imagine the 
Russian intelligentsia as a heroically anachronistic blend of Les Mis 
and La Bohème, slaving away in garrets to bring down the system without 
betraying the purity of art.


So what are we to make of a Russian poet and intellectual whose 
inspiration is less Dostoevsky than Bukowski, whose enemy is less Big 
Brother than the free market, and who isn't ashamed to call a poem "Big 
Rubber Cock"? If nothing else, Kirill Medvedev is a refreshingly 
idiosyncratic figure. He began as a translator from English, and the 
influence of American poetry is noticeable in his work—something quite 
rare for his colleagues, who are unaccustomed to taking it seriously. He 
has also made himself an enemy of the literary establishment in other 
ways. In 2003, he declared that he would no longer participate in 
"literary projects organized or financed by government or cultural 
bureaucrats," publishing on his website a blistering communiqué that 
denounced the literary world as a "nasty and primitive battle for 
cultural influence." Soon, he announced that his work could be published 
only as a pirate edition without his consent or permission. (In 2005, 
the prominent NLO publishing house did just that.)


This withdrawal from literary society was not motivated by peevishness 
or professional failure, but a growing sense of alarm about the Putinist 
literary intelligentsia's refusal to examine its own political function. 
In treating literature as a thing apart, separate from the increasingly 
hopeless and degrading world of politics, the descendants of Brodsky 
were gradually becoming complacent "cultural bureaucrats." Medvedev has 
accordingly rededicated himself to the creation of a theoretically 
up-to-date Marxist publishing house and an activist poetic community in 
Russia, even if it is hard to believe that reading Terry Eagleton will 
avail likeminded poets much in their struggle against the Putinist 
state-oligarchy.


Medvedev's poems—many of which have been translated and published in 
It's No Good, edited by Keith Gessen—marry a self-consciously democratic 
observational pluralism, in which encounters with fellow poets share 
space with reflections on sausage and Hollywood movies, with a strong 
sense of political and personal mission:


If I were to cry at Amelie, I'd cry because
goodness
if it exists,
exists only in some forms
that are impossible for me to reach,
that are suspicious, skittish, awkward,
unreachable …
it exists, if it exists,
in diseased idiots,
plagued outcasts,
foolish ideas,
other people's annoying children…

These are not the stately, rhyming edifices of Mandelstam or the other 
Silver Age poets. Neither are they the gnomic unpunctuated fragments of 
Sergei Sviridov or the other poets of the post-Soviet avant-garde, who 
have barely made it into English translation but whose influence is 
pervasive in contemporary Russian poetry. Instead, Medvedev's verse 
feels scribbled: notes on napkins, jottings from European bus voyages, 
snatches of odd stories heard or experienced. It is hard to believe that 
Marxism, even in its updated '60s-vintage Marcuse version, could sound 
compelling and new in a poem instead of tediously preachy. Yet the sense 
that there is something the poet is fighting for gives substance and 
heft to the style, which can otherwise lend itself to bohemian 
self-indulgence. The result is a collection of serious poems that take 
the reader seriously, no less so for their frequent lightheartedness.


Still, it is the essays, not the poems, that form the heart of the 
volume. "My Fascism," the most urgent and driven of them, is an attempt 
to pick up the cultural pieces after the 1990s. During that decade, as 
Russia was collapsing into an orgy of violence and state-backed 
capitalist rapine, postmodernism became the dominant literary movement. 
(The novelist Viktor P

[Marxism] Obama administration lied about drone targets - Salon.com


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http://www.salon.com/2013/04/10/obama_administration_lied_about_drone_targets/


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Re: [Marxism] Thatcher and "House of Cards"


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On 4/10/13 9:23 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote:

After watching the US version I went back to view the Brit original. Each
wonderfully frightening and intriguing in their own way.

Here's my question: The main character, a Tory himself and totally onboard
with Thatcherism, has an intense hatred for her.

Why? The series doesn't make it clear, unless I missed it.


Since I'm going to be writing a comparison of the two series, I started 
watching the original myself. I have not gotten to the point where the 
main character has anything to say about Thatcher but I doubt it has to 
do with politics. As the young female reporter who he has been leaking 
information to says to a colleague in the last episode I watched: he is 
a politician without politics.




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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

2013-04-10 Thread james pitman

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Shane wrote:
Except that over a span of forty years, including the 1843 "Outlines of a
Critique of Political Economy," Engels was intimately involved with all
Marx's theoretical work (and Marx with his).  Nobody, but nobody, has any
right to denigrate Engels' work in editing manuscripts that he was familiar
with from their very inception.

~ This is sanctifying, canonising nonsense. The two, at least on some
aspects of Marx's work, had different intellectual trajectories. Engels
historicised Marx's value theory, which was specific to a fully ripened
capitalist society. The logical corollary of that, if one follows Engels,
is that the capitalist exploitation occurs because of expropriation of the
surplus product - which leaves absolutely no need for value theory at all
(abstract labour; fetishism; money etc. etc.) - you wash up on the shores
of Ricardian socialism or German social democracy.

Jamie.

On 10 April 2013 14:08, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> ==**==**==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==**==**==
>
>
> On 4/10/13 8:49 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote:
>
>> If you want to understand how and why, and when and where, capital is
>> fucking up the countries Louis names (and others, such as China and Egypt,
>> which I follow more closely), you need a theory of imperialism. And for
>> that you have to choose among variants (Harvey, Lenin, Luxemburg, Amin,
>> etc.).
>>
>
> Or maybe it is best to theorize capitalism as a *world* system, something
> that was obviously not on Marx's agenda since he was much more focused on
> showing how it developed specifically in Britain. That is why he told
> Zasulich that not every nation had to proceed through capitalism to reach
> socialism. That is also a key to understanding what is wrong with Robert
> Brenner's theory of the origins of capitalism. It does not take into
> account the reliance on both forced as well as free market labor.
>
>
> __**__
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>

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Re: [Marxism] Vay iz mir!

2013-04-10 Thread Andrew Pollack

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Possibilities:
1. She was actually signaling to Loren Maazel, who was waiting in the
wings, that he was on next.
2. Since mazel by itself means "destiny," she thought she was making a
profound philosophical statement.
3. She's just an idiot like all her colleagues.

On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 8:59 PM, Jesse Lemisch wrote:

> ==**==**==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==**==**==
>
>
> Today on ABC Katie Couric congratulated somebody by saying, "Mazel." No
> "tov," just "mazel."
> 1. What does it say about the state of the culture that Katie says this?
> 2. What does Mazel, without the tov, mean?
> Jesse Lemisch
>
> __**__
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[Marxism] In Syria, some brace for the next war


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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-syria-some-brace-for-the-next-war/2013/04/09/284fa018-a11d-11e2-82bc-511538ae90a4_story.html

In Syria, some brace for the next war
By Liz Sly, Published: April 9 | Updated: Wednesday, April 10, 7:28 AM

RAQQAH, Syria — As this remote corner of northeastern Syria fast slides 
out of government control, many Syrians are bracing for what they fear 
will be another war, between the relatively moderate fighters who first 
took up arms against the government and the Islamist extremists who 
emerged more recently with the muscle and firepower to drive the rebel 
advance.


The capture last month of the city of Raqqah, Syria’s first provincial 
capital to fall under opposition control, consolidated the gains of an 
assortment of mostly Islamist-inclined groups across three northeastern 
provinces. Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad cling to just a 
tiny number of scattered bases and could be ejected anytime.


Yet even as the regime continues to hold out, schisms are emerging among 
rebel groups over ideology, the shape of a future Syrian state and 
control of the significant resources concentrated in this long-neglected 
but crucial corner of the country.


“Fighting is unavoidable,” said Abu Mansour, a commander with the rebel 
Free Syrian Army’s Farouq Brigades, whose men clashed last month with 
those of the extremist Jabhat al-Nusra movement in the border town of 
Tal Abiyad, one of several instances in which the tensions have erupted 
into violence. “If it doesn’t happen today, it will happen tomorrow.”


Jabhat al-Nusra, the group designated a terrorist organization by the 
United States because of its suspected ties to al-Qaeda, is among 
several groups advancing in the region, but it is emerging as the most 
divisive and the strongest.


The al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq announced Tuesday that it 
had formally merged with Jabhat al-Nusra, with the two groups to be 
known jointly as the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.”


On Wednesday, Jabhat al-Nusra called the announcement of the alliance 
“premature,” and said it would continue to use its own name, hinting at 
tensions between the two groups. Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, Jabhat 
al-Nusra’s leader, confirmed that he had a close relationship with the 
Islamic State of Iraq and had fought alongside them in Iraq before 
relocating to Syria in July 2011 to participate in the Syrian rebellion.


But Jolani said he had not been consulted about a merger, according to 
the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online jihadi activity. Though 
Jabhat al-Nusra already shares a flag with the Iraqi al-Qaeda affiliate, 
its members have in the past sought to portray their group as Syrian and 
to downplay its al-Qaeda ties.


The possible merger underscored the potentially profound implications 
for Syria’s future of the fall of this long-overlooked northeastern 
region to the extremists. The provinces of Raqqah, Deir al-Zour and 
Hasakah — collectively known by the ancient name of al-Jazeera, or the 
island, for their location between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers — are 
home to the bulk of Syria’s economic wealth, including all of its oil 
fields, as well as its gas reserves, and most of its agriculture, 
notably wheat and cotton.


The Jazeera region also reaches into the western Iraqi provinces of 
Nineveh and Anbar, where the Iraqi al-Qaeda affiliate has its roots. 
Tribal and family ties span the border, and there are echoes of the 
complexity of the conflict that raged in Iraq in the past decade, when 
many Sunni tribesmen who initially joined the insurgency against U.S. 
troops switched sides and fought against al-Qaeda.


Last week, a Saudi and two Tunisian fighters were killed when tribal 
leaders sought to prevent Jabhat al-Nusra fighters from entering the 
village of Misrib in Deir al-Zour. In Shahadi, an oil town in Hasakah 
province, Jabhat al-Nusra fighters opened fire on demonstrators 
protesting the group’s presence in the town on two occasions in the past 
month, a local activist said.


It is no accident, say more-moderate rebel leaders, that Jabhat al-Nusra 
has chosen to concentrate its efforts in this region. The group has 
seized control of nearly 90 percent of Syria’s oil wells, its granaries 
and its stores of cotton, and it has set about selling the stocks to 
raise money, according to Nawaf al-Bashir, a tribal leader. Bashir is a 
longtime regime opponent whose son was injured this month in a clash 
between the battalion he commands and Jabhat al-Nusra fighters in 
another Deir al-Zour village.


“They have the Syrian economy in their hands, and they are very strong. 
You can see their black flags everywhere you go,” he said in an 
interview in the Turkish

[Marxism] Essay on Russ Castronovo, "State Secrets: Ben Franklin and WikiLeaks" | Inside Higher Ed


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http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/04/10/essay-russ-castronovo-state-secrets-ben-franklin-and-wikileaks


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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory


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On 4/10/13 8:49 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote:

If you want to understand how and why, and when and where, capital is
fucking up the countries Louis names (and others, such as China and Egypt,
which I follow more closely), you need a theory of imperialism. And for
that you have to choose among variants (Harvey, Lenin, Luxemburg, Amin,
etc.).


Or maybe it is best to theorize capitalism as a *world* system, 
something that was obviously not on Marx's agenda since he was much more 
focused on showing how it developed specifically in Britain. That is why 
he told Zasulich that not every nation had to proceed through capitalism 
to reach socialism. That is also a key to understanding what is wrong 
with Robert Brenner's theory of the origins of capitalism. It does not 
take into account the reliance on both forced as well as free market labor.



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[Marxism] On that Jabhat al-Nusra "merger" with al-Qaeda in Iraq

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http://www.enduringamerica.com/home/2013/4/10/syria-live-islamist-insurgents-merging-with-al-qaeda-in-iraq.html

0949 GMT: The Insurgents and the "Islamic State of Iraq!. Reports are
circulating of a 7-minute audio response by Abu Mohammad al-Golani, a
leading figure in the Islamist insurgency Jabhat al-Nusra, to the
declaration of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi --- head of the Islamic State of
Iraq --- that JAN is now part of his organisation.

Al-Golani, saying that he had no idea about the announcement of the
merger, emphasised that Jabhat al-Nusra would continue to act
independently of any foreign group --- the insurgents will work towards
an Islamic state, "but through the actions of the people and by the
advice of the scholars".

While he said he would follow the ideals of Al Qa'eda's Ayman
al-Zawahiri, al-Golani said his forces "will continue to operate under
than JAN banner, not under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant".

0945 GMT: US Aid. American officials says President Obama has authorised
a new package of nonlethal aid for insurgents.

Officials said the White House approved the package at a meeting of the
National Security Council last week. Details will be announced later
this; however, the sources said the aid will likely include equipment
such as body armor and night vision goggles and other material which
"could be used to aid...combat" byt insurgency.

Last month US Secretary of State John Kerry announced $60 million in
"non-lethal aid", the first publicly-annnounced direct US support for
the armed opposition.

0635 GMT: Islamist Insurgents. An initial reading from Joanna Paraszczuk
and me on the alleged "merger" between Al Qa'eda in Iraq and the
Islamist insurgency Jabhat Al Nusra

It is true that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Al Qa'eda in Iraq
has declared that merger.

It is far from established that the leadership of Jabhat al-Nusra has
welcomed this.

1. The entry on the site al-Muhajir al-Islami, supposedly linked to
Jabhat al-Nusra, does not refer to a "merger", although it discusses
relations with Al Qa'eda in Iraq.

2. There is no further evidence that influential figures in Jabhat
al-Nusra have responded to al-Baghdadi's declaration.

What is significant, instead, is why Al Qa'eda in Iraq chose this moment
to declare a merger. Our reading is that this is attempt to assert the
Iraqi group's relevance because of two dimensions:

1. The growing attempts by foreign backers of the opposition to promote
and support a "moderate" insurgency, isolating Jabhat al-Nusra;

2. Al Qa'eda in Iraq's worries that groups within Jabhat al-Nusra do not
want its assistance.

Joanna Paraszczuk summarises, "This is an attempt to impose an
international dimension on a local group --- which is a good story to
spin for the West and for Arab states too."

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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

2013-04-10 Thread Shane Mage


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On Apr 10, 2013, at 6:16 AM, james pitman wrote:

Aside from Engels's editing, and that is fairly obvious Engels didn't
understand Marx's value theory,


Except that over a span of forty years, including the 1843 "Outlines  
of a Critique of Political Economy," Engels was intimately involved  
with all Marx's theoretical work (and Marx with his).  Nobody, but  
nobody, has any right to denigrate Engels' work in editing manuscripts  
that he was familiar with from their very inception.



there's plenty of evidence from Marx that
he was less than happy with his own crisis theory.


There is and can be no such thing as a "crisis theory"  The word  
"crisis" refers to but but one of the recurrent moments of the "trade  
cycle." All the elements of the cyclical movement of the capitalist  
mode of production are specified in the categories of marxian theory,  
at least (and often more than) to the extent that they were observable  
from the primitive data of the first few decades of the first  
capitalist economy, the British. This was much less than the time  
required for even the first of the long-range ("Kondratiev") cycles  
that have marked this mode of production. How can anybody (except  
types who are happy to treat Engels as a "dead dog") criticize Marx  
and Engels for not fully working out all the mechanisms exhibited in  
trade cycles as they have existed over two centuries now?


On 10 April 2013 09:22, Angelus Novus   
wrote:


Phil Ferguson:
There is a *50-page section* on the law of the tendency of the  
rate of

profit to fall in vol 3. Hardly a "fragmentary reference".

Phil, with all due respect, I can tell you haven't read the article,
because one of the thing that Heinrich addresses is how Engels  
turned a
mass of fragmentary notes and digressions into a section of the  
book, and

then added titles.


Even Heinrich recognizes that the sections on the Law were from a  
coherent manuscript.
As I pointed out above, to criticize Engels's editing of material with  
which he was familiar from its very inception is to talk nonsense.




Shane Mage

"All things are an equal exchange for fire and fire for all things,
as goods are for gold and gold for goods."

Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr, 90



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[Marxism] Market socialism??RE: Marx's crisis theory

2013-04-10 Thread Dan Weiner

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Help me understand something:
You mentioned Egypt and China...well as far s China, is it a socialist
country?
I've always been a little weary of these ideas of "market socialism" and it
seems like china is experimenting with so-called market mechanisms along
with, say Vietnam and some others.

I'm not trying to push you in to making any sweeping statements  or
generalizations but the concept always bothered me
The idea of socialism at least from my reading and gut understanding of it
implies a planned economy based on the socialist ownership of the means of
production and worker's control, a market smacks to me of the anarchy of
production which Marx and Engel's so  astutely uncovered, an inevitable
trait of capitalist accumulation.

Yours,

Dan W.




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[Marxism] How the 40-Year "Long Recession" Led to the Great Recession


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Down Is a Dangerous Direction
How the 40-Year "Long Recession" Led to the Great Recession
By Barbara Garson

If you had to date the Great Recession, you might say it started in 
September 2008 when Lehman Brothers vaporized over a weekend and a 
massive mortgage-based Ponzi scheme began to go down.  By 2008, however, 
the majority of American workers had already endured a 40-year decline 
in wages, security, and hope -- a Long Recession of their own.


full: 
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175685/tomgram%3A_barbara_garson%2C_going_underwater_in_the_long_recession/#more



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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

2013-04-10 Thread Andrew Pollack

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If you want to understand how and why, and when and where, capital is
fucking up the countries Louis names (and others, such as China and Egypt,
which I follow more closely), you need a theory of imperialism. And for
that you have to choose among variants (Harvey, Lenin, Luxemburg, Amin,
etc.).

To help choose, you need as a base a theory of crisis.

Will it make a difference in revolutionary organizing which theories of
imperialism and crisis you choose? Not generally.

Will choosing one of the above theories help you fend off nonmaterialist
concepts such as Graeber's debt obsession (see latest Baffler), or the
SACP's "national democratic revolution" schema, etc.? Without a doubt.

On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 8:39 AM, Louis Proyect  wrote:

> ==**==**==
> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
> ==**==**==
>
>
> On 4/10/13 6:16 AM, james pitman wrote:
>
>> Aside from Engels's editing, and that is fairly obvious Engels didn't
>> understand Marx's value theory, there's plenty of evidence from Marx that
>> he was less than happy with his own crisis theory. His mathematical
>> manuscripts have lots of correspondence from his last few years that
>> testify to this.
>>
>>
> Just to repeat a point I once made about all this. How does the
> over-accumulation of capital relate to places like Nepal, Bolivia,
> Congo--for that matter where probably more than 60 percent of the world's
> population lives?
>
>
>
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[Marxism] Remi Brulin on State Secrecy and Targeted Assassinations, from Operation Condor to the Obama Administration | The Drone Fallacy


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http://dronefallacy.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/remi-brulin-on-state-secrecy-and-targeted-assassinations-from-operation-condor-to-the-obama-administration/


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[Marxism] In landmark case on Israel and Jewish identity, British tribunal says anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism | Mondoweiss


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http://mondoweiss.net/2013/04/landmark-identity-semitism.html


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[Marxism] Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher: 'I always felt sorry for her children'


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http://m.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher


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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory


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==


On 4/10/13 6:16 AM, james pitman wrote:

Aside from Engels's editing, and that is fairly obvious Engels didn't
understand Marx's value theory, there's plenty of evidence from Marx that
he was less than happy with his own crisis theory. His mathematical
manuscripts have lots of correspondence from his last few years that
testify to this.



Just to repeat a point I once made about all this. How does the 
over-accumulation of capital relate to places like Nepal, Bolivia, 
Congo--for that matter where probably more than 60 percent of the 
world's population lives?




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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory

2013-04-10 Thread james pitman

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Aside from Engels's editing, and that is fairly obvious Engels didn't
understand Marx's value theory, there's plenty of evidence from Marx that
he was less than happy with his own crisis theory. His mathematical
manuscripts have lots of correspondence from his last few years that
testify to this.

Jamie.


On 10 April 2013 09:22, Angelus Novus  wrote:

> ==
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>
>
>
> Phil Ferguson:
>
> > There is a *50-page section* on the law of the tendency of the rate of
> > profit to fall in vol 3. Hardly a "fragmentary reference".
>
> Phil, with all due respect, I can tell you haven't read the article,
> because one of the thing that Heinrich addresses is how Engels turned a
> mass of fragmentary notes and digressions into a section of the book, and
> then added titles.
>
>
>
> 
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[Marxism] One of last Warsaw Ghetto rising survivors speaks for Palestine

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On Yom Ha-Shoah, one of the few remaining living survivors of the Warsaw
Ghetto, Chavka Fulman-Raban, delivered a fierce denunciation of evil and
injustice, including the Israeli Occupation.  Her speech was offered to
guests at the ceremony of Beit Lohamey Ha-Getaot (the Ghetto-Fighters
House).

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2013/04/09/last-of-warsaw-ghetto-survivors-calls-for-rebellion-against-israeli-occupation/

-- 
“Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity’s
original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made,
through disobedience and through rebellion.” — Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man
Under Socialism

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker

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Re: [Marxism] Marx's crisis theory