[Marxism] More on Thomas Piketty
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Apologies if this is duplicate information. The Nation sponsored a forum on April 16 with Thomas Piketty speaking first, followed by Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and Steven Durlauf (University of Wisconsin–Madison). The forum was broadcast live over the internet and it will soon be posted on The Nation's website. An interview of Thomas Piketty is published in the latest edition of the New Left Review 85 (Jan Feb 2014). This is the closing remark by Piketty in the interview: I am not particularly optimistic about the future. Lessons from the past suggest that violent disturbances often play a major role, and that formal democratic institutions do not always respond to rising inequality, in particular because they can be captured by financial elites. But I want to believe that we can learn from past catastrophes and find more peaceful, sustainable ways to regulate capitalist dynamics. The last sentence needs no comment on this listserv. I recommend listening to the forum and reading the interview (it will take some patience, I know), in order to understand the current liberal capitalist apologist position. I think Durlauf expressed the most insight when he said that what Piketty's work really called for was a new human being with a philosophical outlook that sees economic equity as desirable, I am paraphrasing and may be making him sound better than he did. Nevertheless, this is indeed the conundrum facing liberal capitalists and socialists alike. Only the socialist course can create that equity but the masses must adopt this philosophy for economic equity to become a reality. Red Arnie Bay Area, CA 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] • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On April 25, 2014 at 7:56 PM michael yates mikedjya...@msn.com wrote: Can comrades explain to me what is so outrageous about the publisher's defense of its actions? I really would like to know. I don't know much about Lawrence and Wishart. They did a copublication with Monthly Review Press of John Tully's fine book on the Silverton (in London) strike in which Eleanor Marx played a prominent role. we appreciated their agreement to do this, and the support they have given to John in his London promotion of the book. Hopefully Billy Bragg won't find out about L and W's nefarious nature and refuse to endorse the book. He's met Tully and we sent him a copy of the book. He agreed to hype the book a bit after I asked him if he would be willing to do so. What is so outrageous is that LW was built, like other old CPGB outlier organisations and the Daily Worker (later renamed Morning Star), on the efforts of selfless party members and sympathisers in the British working class movement. Just as the party premises and the Morning Star were stolen by Eurocommunists and Stalinists respectively, LW was spirited away - effectively privatised - and out of the control of the working class movement. Marxists do not respect copyright - it is anathema - and only hold to it when we are forced to under pain of massive fines or imprisonment - sometimes not even then! The Eurocommunist heirs who run LW are scum who need to feel the full ire of the world's working class for their class treachery, especially for this latest anti-communist attack. Jim 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] Lawrence Wishart: despicable bourgeois profiteers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/25/2014 8:56 PM, michael yates wrote: Can comrades explain to me what is so outrageous about the publisher's defense of its actions? Sure. Lawrence and Wishart have just proved themselves to be opportunist bourgeois profiteers pimping of the workers movement by denying people access to works from a century and a half ago so they can extort money from, in the last analysis, college students or taxpayers. Michael Yates hints that he might be OK with it because they co-published some book about a strike a hundred years ago. Oh! I almost forgot. Eleanor Marx was involved. In the strike, not the book, but --perhaps-- that makes LW A-OK. Unbelievable. Maybe Michael Yates should post to a Tea Party list, where bourgeois property has more respect, instead of this one, where I hope bourgeois intellectual property doesn't have quite the same standing. Information wants to be free, especially if it can help working people understand the nature of the system so we can smash it. David Walters and the MIA have NO CHOICE but to respect this bourgeois intellectual property, or the MIA would be shut down. So I totally understand and support them in their stance of respecting bourgeois intellectual property, including making nice-sounding diplomatic noises about copyrights, the DMCA, and so on. But the rest of us are not under those constraints. People should download the material to be censored and share it as widely as possible, especially through torrents, which are a very efficient means of distribution, and through darknet sites, though that is quite a bit more complicated. * * * I'm not just being ornery or ultraleft. This is the right policy, the right response, to a bourgeois publisher who PRETENDS to be an ally to the socialist movement, but instead seeks to EXPLOIT working people when the opportunity arises. The argument is that the translations are new, even if the works are old, and copyright fees are just because the people who made these new translations have to be paid royalties is 1,000% bogus. Find me the translator who says they're getting royalties from sales of Marx and Engels translations and I'll show you a liar. Or any translator of ANY work. Apart from Gregory Rabassa, the translator of Gabo's One Hundred Years of Solitude, and one or two others, any translator who claims he or she has received one cent from royalties AFTER the initial fee is lying. I've been translating professionally (i.e., for money) for more than four decades, and Rabassa is the only one of our tribe that I've ever met who got post-publication royalties. And as someone who has been and continues to be a content creator, I totally support writers, actors, and everyone else like that who is involved in actually creating works of authorship getting paid. But PUBLISHERS (whether known by that name or others, like Hollywood studios, record labels, TV networks, web sites, content aggregators, or whatever), are parasites. They are the ENEMIES of content creators (authors, translators, editors, film makers, etc.). In the real world, the monopoly that copyright law grants benefits THEM much much more than it does US, and is even a weapon used against us. The media monopoly mafia use their hoards of copyrights to tell us we either sell to them cheap, or we won't sell at all. They have tons of content that they already own and they don't needs ours. And because they own the distribution channels, the threat is quite credible. In practice, this works out to the overwhelming majority of content creators being forced to work under conditions where their EMPLOYER, a corporation, is the author, and the actual creative human beings have no rights, none whatsoever, under copyright law. This corporate monopoly has been based on the capitalist's control of the means of producing and reproducing works and distributing them. What gave rise to this sort of copyright law is the printing press. You need to be a capitalist to have one. We journalists know that freedom of the press belongs to those that own one, but the same is true of copyright. Copyright belongs to the capitalists, to the bourgeoisie. Digital technology and especially the Internet has given regular people --us-- tools to begin shattering that monopoly. David Walters and his friends in the MIA deserve credit for using those tools to give untold millions of people access to something that belongs to everyone. Now, some will say that a publisher, even in this day and age, needs to recoup their investment in these new translations, otherwise there will be no more. But in the REAL world, a publisher pays for a translation on the basis of the expected sales of a book over at
Re: [Marxism] • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/26/2014 6:25 AM, jim wrote: The Eurocommunist heirs who run LW are scum who need to feel the full ire of the world's working class for their class treachery, especially for this latest anti-communist attack. Amen. They are pigs. And they should rember that today's pigs are tomorrow's bacon. 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] •Re: • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for all the useful information on this. Even Bustelo's caustic remarks are appreciated. 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] Lawrence Wishart: despicable bourgeois profiteers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/26/14 6:36 AM, Joaquín Bustelo wrote: Let's pirate, not just the ME collected works, but EVERYTHING under the imprint of these profiteering scumbags. There's another reason to hate Lawrence and Wishart, btw. The MIA is a tremendous research tool. I doubt that a week goes by without me accessing it for some article I am working on, most recently doing a search on Lenin and Ukraine. If you put a bunch of Marx and Engels on Pirate's Bay, they can obviously be downloaded but you will then have to figure out how to develop your own search capabilities. I spent many hours proofreading Marx's writings on France for MIA so I am particularly irked. Can you imagine what this means for workers in South Africa who are getting involved with NUMSA's efforts to build a revolutionary party? A miner might be able to afford an internet connection but how is he going to get a hold of The 18th Brumaire? There are no bookstores in the boondocks and you can't order it from Amazon.com. This is really an assault on the working class movement. 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] Lawrence and Wishart miscellany
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/lawrence-wishart-no-copyright-for-marx-engels-collected-works Commentary: http://inagist.com/all/459523156986691584/ (Aggregated links to commentaries) http://boingboing.net/2014/04/24/radical-press-demands-copyrigh.html http://uncomfortablescience.org/2014/04/26/lawrence-wishart-the-marxist-internet-archive/ http://blog.historyisaweapon.com/post/83833076895/a-response-to-lawrence-and-wishart http://www.salon.com/2014/04/25/dont_you_dare_try_to_liberate_karl_marxs_private_intellectual_property/ http://crookedtimber.org/2014/04/24/karlo-marx-and-fredrich-engels-came-to-the-checkout-at-the-7-11/ http://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2014/04/making-money-out-of-marx.html http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/copyright-and-the-marxists-archive/ http://kasamaproject.org/threads/entry/preserve-online-access-to-marx-engels http://class-snuggle.tumblr.com/post/83733603160/copyright-holders-demand-takedown-of-the-marx-and http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/25/radical-publisher-tries-to-take-down-free-online-karl-marx-archive-with-copyright-claim/ (Libertarian take) There's probably more on the way... 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] The Disturbing Tally of Activists and Journalists Tortured or Killed in Ukraine - The Wire
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/04/the-disturbing-tally-of-activists-and-journalists-tortured-or-killed-in-ukraine/361246/ Below is a just partial list of some of those who have disappeared or been injured or killed since the crisis began. Taken together, they paint a rather frightening picture of the situation on the ground. Yevgeny Polozhy Polozhy, editor-in-chief of the independent news site Panorama, was reportedly beaten outside his home by two assailants earlier this month. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported on April 17 that he had been hospitalized following the attack, Panorama catalogued his injuries, noting that he had suffered a broken skull, concussion, dislocated elbow and multiple facial bruises. Andrei Schekun and Anatoly Kovalsky The two political activists were taken by armed men in Crimea in March, and released after 11 days. Schekun told Human Rights Watch (HRW) that he had been tortured, according to the rights organization: A group of men in camouflage detained them at the Simferopol train station. The men held them for 11 days, interrogated and beat them, and on March 20 handed them over to Ukrainian military officers at the Chongar checkpoint, on Crimea’s northern administrative border. Kovalsky and Schekun said their captors claimed they were members of Crimea’s “self-defense” units. Ukraine-based news site Podrobnosti (translation via the Institute for War and Peace Reporting) reported further on the incident, adding that Schekun and Kovalsky weren't the only ones held: Two of those released, Andrey Schekun and Yury Shevchenko, were taken to hospital. As part of the torture, they were shot with non-lethal firearms and the bullets are lodged in their torsos and legs. Schekun, Kovalsky, Shevchenko and the other captives were held in a basement of the military commandant’s office in Simferopol. Vasiliy Lyutiy The well-known Ukrainian musician was beaten and tied to a tree after participating in pro-Ukraine rally earlier this week, according to witnesses. The assault was captured on video and uploaded to YouTube, as his assailants emptied his pocket and displayed his possession to the camera, before turn them over to plainclothes policemen. He is still in custody. According to the site Maidantranslations.com, the Ukrainian Kobzar (bard) community issued a statement on the attack, saying: The Kobzar community of Ukraine is deeply worried about the fate of one of their brothers, the Kobzar and community activist Vasyl Liutyi. He was the emcee/leader of the rally for united Ukraine in the town of Rubizhne in Luhansk oblast, in eastern Ukraine. We have learned that on April 21, during a rally in support of a united Ukraine in the town of Rubizhne, Liutyi was severely beaten and then arrested. During his arrest, he was tortured. The association added that theycondemn the excesses of Russian chauvinists and protest against the inaction of the law enforcement authorities, and are demanding their fellow musician's release. Volodymyr Rybak The local Ukrainian politician, along with another unidentified man, was found dead after disappearing in April. It appeared that he been tortured before being thrown into a river, alive, to drown. According to video footage, he was assaulted by a pro-Russian crowd before he disappeared, per Reuters: The footage from April 17 on local news site gorlovka.ua shows angry scenes outside the town hall of Horlivka, between the separatist flashpoint cities of Donetsk and Slaviansk, as Rybak is manhandled by several men, among them a masked man in camouflage, while other people hurl abuse. Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said Rybak and the other man were brutally tortured by pro-Russian militants. Reshat Ametov The 39-year-old father of three disappeared after participating in a peaceful protest against pro-Russia separatists in Crimea in March, and was later found dead. Ametov identified as a Crimean Tatar, a Sunni Muslim minority that has been historically discriminated against by Russia, and was not in favor of the annexation. According to local media, Ametov's body showed signs that he had been killed violently. The Huffington Post UK reported at the time that the marks on his body indicate Ametov may have been tortured before his death, with transparent tape wrapped around his head and hands. 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] The Militant - May 5, 2014 -- Ukraine opposition spreads to provocations by Moscow
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == More than 5,000 miners, students and other workers rallied April 17 in Donetsk, Ukraine, in a show of growing opposition in eastern Ukraine to provocations by Moscow-backed forces. Similar actions took place in Luhansk, Kramatorsk and other eastern cities. Starting April 6, small bands led by armed troops in uniforms without insignia began seizing government administrative buildings and police stations, proclaiming themselves partisans of an independent Donetsk People’s Republic and calling for Russian military intervention. Some 40,000 Russian troops have been deployed along the Ukrainian border since March. Among the Russian government-organized forces are local “titushkis” — hired lumpen thugs — and small groups of backers of the Russian government of President Vladimir Putin. They’ve been building barricades, stealing arms from government offices, intimidating residents and assaulting supporters of a united Ukraine. Some workers, particularly members of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, the country’s largest union, have organized self-defense units to counter the assaults on Ukraine’s sovereignty. In Dnepropetrovsk, for example, some 15 units comprising about 100 volunteer combatants control nine checkpoints at entrances to the city, reported Dmitry Tymchuk, who established the Center of Military and Political Research in Kiev in February to counter Russian government propaganda about Moscow’s invasion of Crimea. He previously served in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry. “The people here are saying ‘Enough,’” Mykola Volynko, president of the 12,000-member Independent Miners Union in the eastern Donbass region, told Russia’s opposition TV Rain April 9. “We will build a new Ukraine. … We are defending ourselves, our families, and we want to live in a normal state.” full: http://www.themilitant.com/2014/7817/781701.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
[Marxism] Clippers Owner Donald Sterling to GF -- Don't Bring Black People to My Games ... Including Magic Johnson | TMZ.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.tmz.com/2014/04/26/donald-sterling-clippers-owner-black-people-racist-audio-magic-johnson/ 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] Lawrence and Wishart miscellany
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 26.04.2014 15:49, Louis Proyect wrote: There's probably more on the way... Here's MIA's reaction to LW's statement: http://www.marxists.org/admin/legal/lw-response.html 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
[Marxism] A Walmart Fortune, Spreading Charter Schools
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == NY Times, April 26 2014 A Walmart Fortune, Spreading Charter Schools By MOTOKO RICH WASHINGTON — DC Prep operates four charter schools here with 1,200 students in preschool through eighth grade. The schools, whose students are mostly poor and black, are among the highest performing in Washington. Last year, DC Prep’s flagship middle school earned the best test scores among local charter schools, far outperforming the average of the city’s traditional neighborhood schools as well. Another, less trumpeted, distinction for DC Prep is the extent to which it — as well as many other charter schools in the city — relies on the Walton Family Foundation, a philanthropic group governed by the family that founded Walmart. Since 2002, the charter network has received close to $1.2 million from Walton in direct grants. A Walton-funded nonprofit helped DC Prep find building space when it moved its first two schools from a chapel basement into former warehouses that now have large classrooms and wide, art-filled hallways. One-third of DC Prep’s teachers are alumni of Teach for America, whose largest private donor is Walton. A Walton-funded advocacy group fights for more public funding and autonomy for charter schools in the city. Even the local board that regulates charter schools receives funding from the Walton Family Foundation. In effect, Walton has subsidized an entire charter school system in the nation’s capital, helping to fuel enrollment growth so that close to half of all public school students in the city now attend charters, which receive taxpayer dollars but are privately operated. Walton’s investments here are a microcosm of its spending across the country. The foundation has awarded more than $1 billion in grants nationally to educational efforts since 2000, making it one of the largest private contributors to education in the country. It is one of a handful of foundations with strong interests in education, including those belonging to Bill and Melinda Gates of Microsoft; Eli Broad, a Los Angeles insurance billionaire; and Susan and Michael Dell, who made their money in computers. The groups have many overlapping interests, but analysts often describe Walton as following a distinct ideological path. In addition to giving grants to right-leaning think tanks like the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, the Walton foundation hired an education program officer who had worked at the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative business-backed group. Walton has also given to centrist organizations such as New Leaders for New Schools, a group co-founded by Jon Schnur, a former senior adviser to President Obama’s transition team and to Arne Duncan, the secretary of education. In 2013, the Walton foundation spent more than $164 million across the country. According to Marc Sternberg, who was appointed director of K-12 education reform at the Walton Family Foundation last September, Walton has given grants to one in every four charter start-ups in the country, for a total of $335 million. “The Walton Family Foundation has been deeply committed to a theory of change, which is that we have a moral obligation to provide families with high quality choices,” said Mr. Sternberg. “We believe that in providing choices we are also compelling the other schools in an ecosystem to raise their game.” The supporters and critics of charter schools, many of them fierce, cannot be easily divided into political camps. Supporters include both Republicans and Democrats, although critics tend to come more from the left. In Washington, where the charter system has strong backing in City Hall, supporters have been more successful than in New York, where opposition from teachers unions and others has kept charter school enrollment to about 6 percent, despite growth in the past decade. The size of the Walton foundation’s wallet allows it to exert an outsize influence on education policy as well as on which schools flourish and which are forced to fold. With its many tentacles, it has helped fuel some of the fastest growing, and most divisive, trends in public education — including teacher evaluations based on student test scores and publicly funded vouchers for students to attend private schools. “The influence of philanthropy in terms of the bang for the buck they get is just really kind of shocking,” said Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. A separate Walton foundation that supports higher education bankrolls an academic department at the University of Arkansas in which faculty, several of whom were recruited
[Marxism] ZCommunications » South Africa’s “Very Good Story” Of Social Democracy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == South Africa’s “Very Good Story” Of Social Democracy By Patrick Bond April 26, 2014 Two decades ago, liberation was won in South Africa. In two weeks, the May 7 election will confirm the popularity of the African National Congress (ANC) with a landslide victory. But times are changing: a serious leftist party – the Economic Freedom Fighters founded by ousted ANC youth leader Julius Malema – has appeared on the landscape and the largest union, the 340,000-strong metalworkers, has refused the to support the ANC on grounds it has sold out, especially in the wake of the August 2012 Marikana massacre of mineworkers by police on behalf of the platinum mining corporation Lonmin. What kind of patronage system now exists, to help explain why the ANC gets votes in spite of disastrous pro-business economic policies that worsened already world-leading inequality and unemployment after 1994? Post-apartheid social policy – especially 15 million new grants, mainly for the mothers of poor children – is the main plot within what president Jacob Zuma calls the ANC’s “very good story.” In reality, it’s a tall tale of tokenism, once we get to know the devil in the details. But hyperbole rules in this election year. Government has adopted “a northern European approach to social development”, according to Alan Hirsch in Season of Hope, the main insider survey of post-apartheid policy to date. Aside from welfare grants, the provision of Free Basic Water and roll-out of essential services are also the stuff of wild claims by the government and its backers, including the SA Institute of Race Relations. The claim we have an operative social democracy is contradicted by the relatively small amount spent on grants: R118 billion (US$10.9bn) in 2013/14 against an expected R2.1 trillion (US$194bn) GDP. If we were really Northern European in approach, that spending would rise by a factor of nearly five. full: http://zcomm.org/znetarticle/south-africas-very-good-story-of-social-democracy/ 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] • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers (and reply to LW statement from the MIA)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis asked about what % of the Marx Engels Internet Archive directory will be coming down. I have to ask Andy Blunden this but I suspect it's about 30% as everything else, as LW noted in their statement, is in the public domain. But I will find out. A few other things to now: I drafted a statement for the MIA that has now gone up on the MIA in reply the LW statement here: http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/collected_works_statement.html. Our reply is here: http://marxists.org/admin/legal/lw-response.html We do this not because we believe we can necessarily change the minds of the staff of LW but because we feel dialogue about this is important. Joaquín is correct about what we forced to do legally. Keep in mind...at the end of the day they can go after our domain name. That would be a very bad thing. And we honestly don't believe LW wants that. As we made clear, both in this statement I linked to and in previous statements by MIAers on our FB page, we are not behind the huge upsurge of revulsion by the broader socialist and Marxist community...it's had an effect, obviously. Whether LW turns into breakfast meat because of this is wholly in their control. But regardless...we've always taken the high road...and our position on this is no different than previous encounters with other lefty publishers: we hope to work together in the future should conditions change. While our statement is a *polemic* by any definition, we believe it is a respectful one. Thanks for everyone's solidarity on this. I've never seen people come together around an issue like this before. It's great to see. David 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] Lawrence Wishart: despicable bourgeois profiteers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well said, Joaquin! On Apr 26, 2014, at 6:36 AM, Joaquín Bustelo wrote: On 4/25/2014 8:56 PM, michael yates wrote: Can comrades explain to me what is so outrageous about the publisher's defense of its actions? Sure. Lawrence and Wishart have just proved themselves to be opportunist bourgeois profiteers pimping of the workers movement by denying people access to works from a century and a half ago so they can extort money from, in the last analysis, college students or taxpayers. Michael Yates hints that he might be OK with it because they co- published some book about a strike a hundred years ago. Oh! I almost forgot. Eleanor Marx was involved. In the strike, not the book, but --perhaps-- that makes LW A-OK. Unbelievable. Maybe Michael Yates should post to a Tea Party list, where bourgeois property has more respect, instead of this one, where I hope bourgeois intellectual property doesn't have quite the same standing. Information wants to be free, especially if it can help working people understand the nature of the system so we can smash it. David Walters and the MIA have NO CHOICE but to respect this bourgeois intellectual property, or the MIA would be shut down. So I totally understand and support them in their stance of respecting bourgeois intellectual property, including making nice-sounding diplomatic noises about copyrights, the DMCA, and so on. But the rest of us are not under those constraints. People should download the material to be censored and share it as widely as possible, especially through torrents, which are a very efficient means of distribution, and through darknet sites, though that is quite a bit more complicated. * * * I'm not just being ornery or ultraleft. This is the right policy, the right response, to a bourgeois publisher who PRETENDS to be an ally to the socialist movement, but instead seeks to EXPLOIT working people when the opportunity arises. The argument is that the translations are new, even if the works are old, and copyright fees are just because the people who made these new translations have to be paid royalties is 1,000% bogus. Find me the translator who says they're getting royalties from sales of Marx and Engels translations and I'll show you a liar. Or any translator of ANY work. Apart from Gregory Rabassa, the translator of Gabo's One Hundred Years of Solitude, and one or two others, any translator who claims he or she has received one cent from royalties AFTER the initial fee is lying. I've been translating professionally (i.e., for money) for more than four decades, and Rabassa is the only one of our tribe that I've ever met who got post-publication royalties. And as someone who has been and continues to be a content creator, I totally support writers, actors, and everyone else like that who is involved in actually creating works of authorship getting paid. But PUBLISHERS (whether known by that name or others, like Hollywood studios, record labels, TV networks, web sites, content aggregators, or whatever), are parasites. They are the ENEMIES of content creators (authors, translators, editors, film makers, etc.). In the real world, the monopoly that copyright law grants benefits THEM much much more than it does US, and is even a weapon used against us. The media monopoly mafia use their hoards of copyrights to tell us we either sell to them cheap, or we won't sell at all. They have tons of content that they already own and they don't needs ours. And because they own the distribution channels, the threat is quite credible. In practice, this works out to the overwhelming majority of content creators being forced to work under conditions where their EMPLOYER, a corporation, is the author, and the actual creative human beings have no rights, none whatsoever, under copyright law. This corporate monopoly has been based on the capitalist's control of the means of producing and reproducing works and distributing them. What gave rise to this sort of copyright law is the printing press. You need to be a capitalist to have one. We journalists know that freedom of the press belongs to those that own one, but the same is true of copyright. Copyright belongs to the capitalists, to the bourgeoisie. Digital technology and especially the Internet has given regular people --us-- tools to begin shattering that monopoly. David Walters and his friends in the MIA deserve credit for using those tools to give untold millions of people access to something that belongs to everyone. Now, some will say that a publisher, even in this day and age, needs to recoup their investment in these new translations, otherwise
Re: [Marxism] Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Proyect wrote: Well, the CPGB put a heading on it that stated the Tea Party was threatening the interests of capitalism itself. This, of course, is absurd. If you understand that it is absurd, I have no beef. For people like you, John Rees, the Marcyites, Boris Kagarlitsky, et al, there is no national question. Lenin compared the Ukraine to Ireland. It was a colony of the Czars and afterwards of the USSR during the heroic days of the Comintern. The great Bolshevik Christian Rakovsky said that there was no such thing as a Ukrainian nation. That territory was simply destined to be part of the Great Russian experiment in building socialism. Donetsk was always a Russian enclave. As I pointed out in one of my articles, the men who worked the mines and those who managed them were ethnic Russians. Plus, as Putin pointed out--and he was correct--it was not part of the historic Ukraine. It became part when the Bolsheviks decided that it made no difference since the Ukraine was effectively being absorbed by the USSR. It is pointless to debate these issues with you since you have absolutely no awareness of the national question. You are one of those advocates of imperial economism who Lenin denounced in 1920. After his death, of course, Stalin was free to push ahead with the national domination that continues today under Putin's firm hand. *** The Weekly Worker editors did in fact write this headline. For the record, I don't think the Tea Party poses any systemic threat to capitalism. But some of their threatened actions, especially their initial refusal to raise the ceilng on government borrowing last fall, could seriously gum up the works for international finance capital. This is why the Republican establishment is turning against them. A personal note. My father's uncle was an IRA captain in what is now Northern Ireland during the war of independence and civil war in the 20's. Another of his uncles was murdered by Protestnant militiamen. My own uncle (before he became Communist) ran guns for the IRA in Scotland during the same period, and my father (before he became a Communist) was briefly an IRA volunteer in the north. My mother also belonged to what was until recently another nationally oppressed group: the Jews. Family background certainly doesn't dictate my politics, but it does condition my political and social sensitivities. So I don't think it quite fair to say that I have absolutely no awareness of the national question. It is true, though, that I think the current Ukrainian crisis is much more complex than a simple case of resistance by an oppressed nation to an imperial power's bullying. Ukraine was oppressed in the past, and anti-Russian attitudes are still very much alive as a result. But, due in part to its geographical position, Soviet domination drove some prominent and currently celebrated Ukrainian nationalists into the arms of other imperialist powers which the Russian people have certain historical reasons to dislike. Ukraine has also been independent since 1991, and I don't think its economic difficulties are mainly the resullt of Russian domination. Nor do I think that the reaction of Russian speakers to events in Kiev is primarily a case of a nationally privileged group reacting against a threat to its superior position. The current situation, IMO, is best understood as the resultof great powers exploiting historically rooted enmities to expand (US, EU) or defend (Russia) their respective spheres of influence. I don't deny that these enmities would exist without the meddling of the great powers. But it is the latter that makes Ukrainian events an international crisis, as opposed to a merely local one, and I don't think either of the opposing national groups at this point has the ability or the will to chart a course independent of great-power politics. And, in conflics among imperialist powers, Marxists (if they wish to avoid the fate of the Second International) should avoid taking sides. Jim Jim 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] the indigenous people's struggle against leftist governments in South America
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2014/04/bolivia-fires-hundreds-protesting-soldiers-201442543930468579.html http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/25/the-politics-of-pachamama/ 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] Lawrence Wishart: despicable bourgeois profiteers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I signed one petition, with this comment: As a publisher, I don't think Lawrence and Wishart should demand removal of these invaluable archives from MIA or any other entity. These are the works of Marx and Engels, published a long time ago and now part, as they should be, of the public domain and, more importantly, the struggle for socialism. To demand that MIA take these works down after it has been distributing them free for years is pretty outrageous. If this is the only way the company can stay in business, it ought to think about closing shop. And to argue that translators have to be paid out of the money from copyright is disingenuous. My family's future in terms of health care is tied to a radical publisher's survival, but I would never argue that radical presses in India or China or any poor nation should pay us a copyright fee to publish our books. We make the books available so that they can be sold at very low prices in these places. If we go out of business as a consequence of necessary comradely actions, then th at is what will be. Perhaps the analogy isn't perfect but this action of yours seems similar to those of the Martin Luther King family and the current leaders of the United Farm Workers peddling the copyrighted images of Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez for money. I am sure these heirs would say they are doing God's work with the money, but we all know that isn't true. I hope you reconsider your decision and rescind it immediately. 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] On Palestinian reconciliation and the prisoners' movement
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It's rare for me to recommend a Daily Beast article on Palestine, but this is one of the better ones I've read anywhere in a while. Hamas and Fatah leaders have announced they're going to work together after years of animosity, but their rank and file have been cooperating for a long time—in Israeli prisons. http://thebea.st/1ffU28X -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. 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] Lakers News: Magic Johnson Responds To Donald Sterling's Comments | Lakers Nation
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.lakersnation.com/lakers-news-magic-johnson-responds-to-donald-sterlings-comments/2014/04/26/ 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] Marxism in Mono | lives; running
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == We inherit from the wreckage of the British left a single approach towards the question of organisation. It says that although the revolutionary party has no interests other than those of the working class, the class is divided, with some parts showing greater degrees of class consciousness. While the recognition that most workers are not yet revolutionaries sounds at first like a dispiriting insight, all is not lost. The distinctive Communist solution to the problem of uneven class consciousness is said to have been to form a revolutionary party, composed only of the most class conscious people. And, such a party will be more effective than any other party, because its members say and do the same things. In the last year we were told repeatedly that this model of a small party, able to have an effect out of all proportion to its size only because of its members’ constant unanimity of thought and action, explains the success of the Bolsheviks in 1917. But Lenin did not advocate the virtues of ideologically homogeneous parties between 1889 and 1903, when he worked in diverse groups and then a party (the “RSDLP”) with other socialists (Martov, Plekhanov, Bogdanov) who were at every point of the future social democratic “left”, “right” and “centre”. Nor was he a “Leninist” between 1903 and 1914, when the RSDLP was split at times into three, four and then five distinct blocs, just two of which were the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, and Lenin called for a re-unification of the party, under the influence of a Socialist International dominated by the “centrist” leadership of the German SPD. Between 1914 and 1918, when Lenin worked with pacifists and “centrists” in the Zimmerwald International, he did not make a festish of political homogeneity. About the only credible moment when you could plausibly say that Lenin and the Bolsheviks argued for a party with no more than one view in it, came in 1920, when the Communist International announced that it would accept membership applications only from parties that signed up to “twenty-one conditions”. The conditions excluded parties led by those who had supported the recent war. “Left” and “centrist” Marxist parties (eg the Italian Socialist Party) were allowed to join the International while, generally, parties of the “Right” were excluded. But seeing this as the moment when “Leninism” was born, securing the victory of 1917, is far-fetched for two reasons. full: http://livesrunning.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/marxism-in-mono/ 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] Epigram For Wall Street
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == thanks louis! pretty funny. the poe society of baltimore has a note that the poem originated in england and is not by poe. but it's still worth sharing. - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2014 9:27:35 AM Subject: [Marxism] Epigram For Wall Street == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Epigram For Wall Street by Edgar Allen Poe I'll tell you a plan for gaining wealth, Better than banking, trade or leases — Take a bank note and fold it up, And then you will find your money in creases! This wonderful plan, without danger or loss, Keeps your cash in your hands, where nothing can trouble it; And every time that you fold it across, 'Tis as plain as the light of the day that you double it! Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/lacenaire%40comcast.net 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] More on Palestinian reconciliation: Six Questions for Mouin Rabbani
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == There's lots of interest here for anyone following the news, but this particularly caught my eye: And, of course, we should ask what this prospective deal might mean for the majority of the Palestinian people, who live outside the areas administered by either wing of the PA. For them, the deal is potentially significant, to the extent that it leads to rejuvenation of the PLO as the national representative of the Palestinian people rather than a secondary department of the PA. In this respect, the agreement also specifies that elections will be held for the Palestinian National Council, as well. That could be an important step toward the revival of the Palestinian national movement as an inclusive and representative body. http://www.merip.org/six-questions-mouin-rabbani -- Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað. 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] Lawrence Wishart: despicable bourgeois profiteers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Michael Yates wrote: To demand that MIA take these works down after it has been distributing them free for years is pretty outrageous. You identify something that probably caused much of the controversy. They granted MIA a no-fee right to post years ago. What changed? Apparently, they discovered a revenue stream. At best, they regard their current offerings as more important than wide access to a classic resource - a reversal of the choice they made decades ago when they put resources into the MECW project. 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] Lakers News: Magic Johnson Responds To Donald Sterling's Comments | Lakers Nation
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == glad to find the persistent social racism that has been denied for decades being exposed in such a flagrant, pathetic and deliciously funny way. it's almost as good as lenny bruce's routine, how to relax your colored friends at parties (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua0TT87KNwo). but there is also a part of me that is uneasy. who recorded this? miss stiviano? i must say that the conversation sounds like she's setting him up. that tactic can work against the righteous as well as the repulsive. i don't want to applaud this too much. we already knew that sterling/tokowitz was an enemy of the working class. - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2014 12:49:01 PM Subject: [Marxism] Lakers News: Magic Johnson Responds To Donald Sterling's Comments | Lakers Nation == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.lakersnation.com/lakers-news-magic-johnson-responds-to-donald-sterlings-comments/2014/04/26/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/lacenaire%40comcast.net 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: • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I am entirely opposed to the LW resort to the law and to their claims to exclusive control over the output of Marx and Engels--as I am to Pathfinder's claims over the writings of Trotsky. That said, the temptation they faced on this has to be very strong. Opening these to library subscriptions will provide a whopping amount of money and an ongoing source of income. It's easy to see how institutional thinkers could go for this. I raise this point because periodically the idea that institutional interest in radicalism generally and Marxism in particular is a sign that our idea are getting a hearing. Rather, I'd suggest that institutions like universities exist to establish a kind of hegemony over such discussions and define them into rather harmless dead ends. This current problem simply represents another aspect of this. 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] Donald Sterling to pay $2.725 million to settle housing discrimination lawsuit [Updated] - latimes.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is the scumbag who told his girlfriend to stop bringing Blacks to watch his basketball team play. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/11/donald-sterling-to-pay-2725-million-to-settle-housing-discrimination-lawsuit.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] •Re: • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/26/14 5:45 PM, Mark Lause wrote: I raise this point because periodically the idea that institutional interest in radicalism generally and Marxism in particular is a sign that our idea are getting a hearing. Rather, I'd suggest that institutions like universities exist to establish a kind of hegemony over such discussions and define them into rather harmless dead ends. This current problem simply represents another aspect of this. Yeah, it's the same mindset that exists at HM, Socialist Register and Verso. There's the paywall, print-oriented world for the enlightened tenured radicals and their dissertation students angling to be the next generation to take the place of Robert Brenner and Leo Panitch. They are like Plato's philosopher-kings. And then there is us. The sans-culottes, the unwashed, the rabble who rely on the Internet and don't feel that the disappearance of a journal is a blow to the working class, especially when it is hardly aware of the existence of HM or NLR. That being said, I give a lot of credit to Monthly Review for making their articles available on-line in a reasonable amount of time and not charging $125 for their books. I am no fan of the captain of that ship, one John Foster Bellamy, but they are keeping the popular roots of MR alive. 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] Permanent revolutions and counter-revolutions at the beginning of the 21st century – our tasks - International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == From the Mandelistas. http://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3381 - There is the revolutionary process in the Arab region: after the fall of the dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, we see the continuation of the mass movements up until the fall of the succeeding governments and in particular the Islamist governments, and the crisis of the Muslim Brotherhood has reached Turkey. The mass revolts have subsided in some countries (Morocco, Jordan and so on) but continue or emerge elsewhere (Sudan and even Saudi Arabia, for example). However as the Syrian people experienced in a heroic but terrible fashion, the counter-offensive of the state apparatuses and the fascistic religious currents broadens. And the weakness of socialist perspectives is increasingly problematic. Gilbert Achcar provides us with essential tools for understanding the process in its complexity and its probable continuation over a long period, with advances and partial retreats, and to help it to develop. - In the ex-USSR, the opposition to the “democratures” as specific regimes of the security services, oligarchs and corruption manifested itself strongly in Russia in 2012-2013. In early 2014 the impressive movement around “Maïdan » in Ukraine overthrew the ruling clan through mass activity. This is the approach that is needed: despite a very high level of repression, beyond the manoeuvres of Western imperialism, and with an extreme political confusion, the popular movements seek their path! Yeah! 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: * Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is a basic problem with intellectual property in general. Academic journals are a form of inexcusable hostagetaking. Vital medicines made possible through public universities or government research have become unaffordable for most people.at the same time, people like David and the others that MIA do valuable work for nothing. Lawrence Wishart are doing the world a great favor by their behavior, educating people about the urgent need for socialism. On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 2:59 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/26/14 5:45 PM, Mark Lause wrote: I raise this point because periodically the idea that institutional interest in radicalism generally and Marxism in particular is a sign that our idea are getting a hearing. Rather, I'd suggest that institutions like universities exist to establish a kind of hegemony over such discussions and define them into rather harmless dead ends. This current problem simply represents another aspect of this. Yeah, it's the same mindset that exists at HM, Socialist Register and Verso. There's the paywall, print-oriented world for the enlightened tenured radicals and their dissertation students angling to be the next generation to take the place of Robert Brenner and Leo Panitch. They are like Plato's philosopher-kings. And then there is us. The sans-culottes, the unwashed, the rabble who rely on the Internet and don't feel that the disappearance of a journal is a blow to the working class, especially when it is hardly aware of the existence of HM or NLR. That being said, I give a lot of credit to Monthly Review for making their articles available on-line in a reasonable amount of time and not charging $125 for their books. I am no fan of the captain of that ship, one John Foster Bellamy, but they are keeping the popular roots of MR alive. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/ marxism/michael.perelman3%40gmail.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com 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] Lawrence Wishart: despicable bourgeois profiteers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Shinjiru International Inc. www.shinjiru.com located overseas, is reported to be beyond the reach of efforts by entities like Lawrence Wishart to command the removal of material from a website they host. There are no doubt many others, also overseas. T - Original Message - From: h0ost To: Thomas F Barton Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2014 11:43 AM Subject: Re: [Marxism] Lawrence Wishart: despicable bourgeois profiteers == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 04/26/2014 09:22 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: A miner might be able to afford an internet connection but how is he going to get a hold of The 18th Brumaire? There are no bookstores in the boondocks and you can't order it from Amazon.com. This is really an assault on the working class movement. There's got to be something that can be done, to continue having these works accessible for all and any working class movements. Have these idiots considered leaving MIA alone, and still sell their paper copies and ecopies to university libraries? Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/thomasfbarton%40earthlink.net 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] Center for a Stateless Society » With “Socialists” Like Lawrence and Wishart, Who Needs Capitalists?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Aside from the rather contemptible display of self-pity and entitlement, the statement reflects more than anything else an utter lack of business sense. “Ultimately, in asking LW to surrender copyrights in this particular edition of the works of Marx Engels, [Marxist Internet Archive] and their supporters are asking that LW, one of the few remaining independent radical publishers in the UK, should commit institutional suicide.” This is nonsense on stilts. The hard copy set of the Collected Works, if bought as a complete set instead of one volume at a time, sells for 1500 British Pounds, which is somewhere well north of $2000. If Lawrence and Wishart can show one person, anywhere in the world, who put off shelling out over two thousand bucks for a set of the dead tree edition of Marx and Engels’ Collected Works because a digital online edition was available, I will eat my own left hand – raw, and without salt. The Marxist Internet Archive’s online edition of the Collected Works is not costing Lawrence and Wishart a single solitary sale. The only thing the online edition is competing against is a trip to a university library. If anything, the online edition is free advertising for the dead tree edition. In other words, Lawrence and Wishart is governed by the same abject stupidity as the music and movie industries – the dying music and movie industries. full: http://c4ss.org/content/26699?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed%3A+c4ss+(Center+for+a+Stateless+Society) 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] Center for a Stateless Society » With “Socialists” Like Lawrence and Wishart, Who Needs Capitalists?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com Sent: Apr 26, 2014 7:42 PM To: Thomas F Barton thomasfbar...@earthlink.net Subject: [Marxism] Center for a Stateless Society » With “Socialists” Like Lawrence and Wishart, Who Needs Capitalists? == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Aside from the rather contemptible display of self-pity and entitlement, the statement reflects more than anything else an utter lack of business sense. “Ultimately, in asking LW to surrender copyrights in this particular edition of the works of Marx Engels, [Marxist Internet Archive] and their supporters are asking that LW, one of the few remaining independent radical publishers in the UK, should commit institutional suicide.” This is nonsense on stilts. The hard copy set of the Collected Works, if bought as a complete set instead of one volume at a time, sells for 1500 British Pounds, which is somewhere well north of $2000. If Lawrence and Wishart can show one person, anywhere in the world, who put off shelling out over two thousand bucks for a set of the dead tree edition of Marx and Engels’ Collected Works because a digital online edition was available, I will eat my own left hand – raw, and without salt. The Marxist Internet Archive’s online edition of the Collected Works is not costing Lawrence and Wishart a single solitary sale. The only thing the online edition is competing against is a trip to a university library. If anything, the online edition is free advertising for the dead tree edition. In other words, Lawrence and Wishart is governed by the same abject stupidity as the music and movie industries – the dying music and movie industries. full: http://c4ss.org/content/26699?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed%3A+c4ss+(Center+for+a+Stateless+Society) Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/thomasfbarton%40earthlink.net 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] Center for a Stateless Society » With “Socialists” Like Lawrence and Wishart, Who Needs Capitalists?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Let us inscribe upon our banners: Expropriate the expropriators T -Original Message- From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com Sent: Apr 26, 2014 7:42 PM To: Thomas F Barton thomasfbar...@earthlink.net Subject: [Marxism] Center for a Stateless Society » With “Socialists” Like Lawrence and Wishart, Who Needs Capitalists? The only thing the online edition is competing against is a trip to a university library. If anything, the online edition is free advertising for the dead tree edition. In other words, Lawrence and Wishart is governed by the same abject stupidity as the music and movie industries – the dying music and movie industries. 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: • Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect gives Monthly Review a lot of credit. I might add that, as I said on the petition site, we don't charge copyright fees for our books to publishers in poor countries, so that they are able to sell our books for rock bottom prices, even much less than one dollar. We have no objection to taking payment for publication rights when a Press can obviously afford to pay us. But our overall goal is to publish in the interest of socialism. And my own policy has always been to pay for books myself when someone cannot afford them, or have the Press just donate them, as when prisoners ask for books.We're not perfect, but we do the best we can in this shitty world. 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: * Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don't know about MR in general, but I chose to publish my last 2 books with them because of their low prices and Michael Yates' editing. I am very happy with the experience. On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 5:00 PM, michael yates mikedjya...@msn.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect gives Monthly Review a lot of credit. I might add that, as I said on the petition site, we don't charge copyright fees for our books to publishers in poor countries, so that they are able to sell our books for rock bottom prices, even much less than one dollar. We have no objection to taking payment for publication rights when a Press can obviously afford to pay us. But our overall goal is to publish in the interest of socialism. And my own policy has always been to pay for books myself when someone cannot afford them, or have the Press just donate them, as when prisoners ask for books.We're not perfect, but we do the best we can in this shitty world. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/michael.perelman3%40gmail.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com 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] Center for a Stateless Society » With “Socialists” Like Lawrence and Wishart, Who Needs Capitalists?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == funny how many universities, including stanford, list mia as their source for marx. i did find this source, http://www.nlx.com/collections/84, which makes the complete 47 volumes available in mrc files. i can't seem to open them but maybe someone can get use out of it. but be careful. i tried to download the complete marx/engels via a link provided on this email distribution and had some particularly nasty adware loaded on my laptop, technically not a virus since i asked for it i guess, that commandeered my home page and search engine until i zapped it with malwarebytes. it's still not 100%. - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com To: Charles Faulkner lacena...@comcast.net Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2014 4:42:11 PM Subject: [Marxism] Center for a Stateless Society » With “Socialists” Like Lawrence and Wishart, Who Needs Capitalists? == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Aside from the rather contemptible display of self-pity and entitlement, the statement reflects more than anything else an utter lack of business sense. “Ultimately, in asking LW to surrender copyrights in this particular edition of the works of Marx Engels, [Marxist Internet Archive] and their supporters are asking that LW, one of the few remaining independent radical publishers in the UK, should commit institutional suicide.” This is nonsense on stilts. The hard copy set of the Collected Works, if bought as a complete set instead of one volume at a time, sells for 1500 British Pounds, which is somewhere well north of $2000. If Lawrence and Wishart can show one person, anywhere in the world, who put off shelling out over two thousand bucks for a set of the dead tree edition of Marx and Engels’ Collected Works because a digital online edition was available, I will eat my own left hand – raw, and without salt. The Marxist Internet Archive’s online edition of the Collected Works is not costing Lawrence and Wishart a single solitary sale. The only thing the online edition is competing against is a trip to a university library. If anything, the online edition is free advertising for the dead tree edition. In other words, Lawrence and Wishart is governed by the same abject stupidity as the music and movie industries – the dying music and movie industries. full: http://c4ss.org/content/26699?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed%3A+c4ss+(Center+for+a+Stateless+Society) Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/lacenaire%40comcast.net 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: * Lawrence Wishart: independent radical publishers,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Again, I think you all for the solidarity from all of us at the MIA. My own thoughts on this. As I noted, the MIA is *for* publishers getting a return on their publishing efforts to pay for the original costs of whatever it is they are publishing. We praised LW (and IP/Progress) for stating this initiative back in 1972 or so (first volume came out I think in 1975). We continue to praise them. But the works of M/E are not, with all due respect, the works of Noam Chomsky or Naomi Klein. The former play a very power political/historical role almost without comparison. They do, ethically, belong to everyone. And we are for them, LW recovering all their costs. I can only assume they likely did this decades ago, at least for the volumes in question. MR had us remove Albert Einstein's Why Socialism?. The reason...was quaint...it was the first article they ran for their very first edition back in the 1950s. They felt very attached to it. Of course we complied. They have subsequently granted us permission for other works we asked for. And this is true for other publishers as well: sometimes yes, sometimes no. LW in their statement alludes to a potential revenue stream selling to the Academy. I'm not so sure Mark L is correct they are going to make a lot of money. As most universities already have access to the printed version for all 50 Volumes (either in stock or through inter-library loans) paying for and getting a lot of money for a server based digital version (I assume it's a server based one), at best brings them to the rather rude form of this like the Haithi Trust (http://www.hathitrust.org/) which runs one of the worlds largest digital libraries. It's almost impossible to download full documents from them, you have to become a member, but only if you are from a big name institution or academic and so on. Otherwise you get truncated screen-viewing only versions. This is what, I can only assume, LW means when they say this will still allow for a 'public viewing' of the MECW. I think this is a bad business model and they got some bad advice. Among the advice is that somehow allowing the first 1/5 of the MECW to be on the MIA is going to prompt them, to use their words, commit institutional suicide. We hope LW will see clarity in this down the road. We've developed a good relationship with International Publishers where they are even asking us to digitize and put on the web some documents on Black Liberation in the U.S. (and no they haven't given us permission to use their version of the MECW). We do, as archivists, take the long road. David PS...has any one found any defense of the actions of LW on the Internet? Anywhere? Just curious. 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] reviewer wanted
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == . Socialism and Democracy is looking for someone to review THE POLITICS OF EMPIRE by James Petris. if you would like to write this review, please contact me at george.snede...@verizon.net. You will find some sample reviews we have published at: www.sdonline.org. If you click on back issues you will find sample reviews as well as articles we have published. We are always interested in considering articles for publication. Feel free to contact me if you have an article you would like us to consider for publication.Socialism and Democracy is a Marxist journal of political and cultural analysis. George Snedeker Book Review Editor 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] MECW and intellectual property
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Coincidentally, the most recent issue of Socialism and Democracy #64, March 2014 (Taylor Francis), features articles on radical critiques of intellectual property. Reinforcing Louis' critique of academic journals, the articles are only available online to subscribers at least for the first year. I find that most writers are kindly willing to email copies of their articles to you if you can manage to contact them. In Solidarity, Red Arnie 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
