Re: [Marxism] Atocha
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/03/2014 13:35, Ed George wrote: > Given that today is the tenth anniversary of the Atocha bombings in > Madrid, and given the social-democratic mythology that still surrounds > these events, here's what I wrote shortly after. It seems to me this is a mythology of its own. > As, over the course of that Thursday morning [...], the scale of what > had happened began to become clear [...], shocked people began to ask > the obvious question. Who was behind this? Who had planted the bombs? Which is already indicative given ETA's modus operandi to warn about and claim such acts. > For the standard explanation of what happened, and what was just about > to happen, is this. As soon as the bombs went off, the PP, realising > that if it became public knowledge that the attack had been carried out > by an al-Qaeda type organisation – just days before the elections, > remember – and fearing that they would be held responsible for having > embroiled Spain in the western invasion of Iraq [...], and that they > would pay an expensive electoral price for their foreign policy > decisions, decided to insist, at least up until the elections, on > someone else – anyone else – being responsible. And that someone else > was ETA, who just happened to be the most convenient fall guys for this > operation. The government thus lied from the off, and when their > operation came unstuck, an appalled Spanish people, fired up by > righteous anger, voted Socialist in the elections held on the Sunday. This is also wrong, I think. You claim on your article that no-one doubted PP would win the elections, and that only the size of its majority was at issue. However there were surveys from CIS and other bodies which augured a PSOE victory in the elections. Over time my suspicion is the 11m events themselves had, relatively speaking, little impact in the electoral result beyond, perhaps, increasing participation rates. > This is the explanation held by the Socialists, the Communists and IU, > and even the revolutionary left (what there is of it these days in > Spain). Not so. PSOE has always claimed that the 11m events did not change the electoral outcome, in spite of the misbehaviour of the PP government at the time. I'm not certain if IU has ever made any statement on the issue, given that unlike the PSOE they haven't been accused of committing a coup and using the security forces to set up the attack for electoral gain. > Here it is where it is false. It is not true that the PP was the only > party publicly to attribute guilt to ETA; it is not even true that the > PP were the first to do so. I've tried to look for the declarations at issue. I will point out that what is definitely true, given the information that existed at the time and that was later on revealed, is that PP insisted on it the longest, and given its actual access to the data, with the least reason. For example, the government issued letters to its ambassadors abroad asking them to confirm it was ETA, it asked for a UN condemnation of ETA which it later had to apologise about, and so on, while at the same time the communication apparatus of the Basque insurrectionary movement denied ETA involvement. It is known that the police had, from the start, reasons to believe the operation hadn't been carried out by ETA, and while this took place and people resorted to foreign news services to be informed of it, Acebes and Aznar kept claiming that any other line of investigation was an "intoxication". Likewise the communication directly from Aznar to all the major newspapers insisting on ETA as the culprit. I have difficulties reading your PDF so I can't make further comments. --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] "For members only" ISO documents now available: when will they ever learn?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 14/02/2014 14:12, Louis Proyect wrote: > I can certainly understand why Mike would take this tack since it goes > hand in hand with the fetish his group (for the lack of a better word) > makes over security. I think there are two distinct aspects here that are being conflated. 1) Is it wise for the ISO to have internal documents of this nature? On this I mostly agree with you that, barring certain security sensitive topics (for example participation in illegal demonstrations or strikes, etc) there is little point to keeping information secret from the outside and perhaps it does do some harm, though one could argue that the organisation is freer to debate and decide without external pressure of non-members supporting one or another position. 2) Is it reasonable to leak the documents, considering these are the rules of operation of the organisation, democratically accepted by its members? To this I would have to say no. Whatever we may think about sectarian orgs and their needless façades of unity, this is an issue for the organisation to decide, and one where democratic centralism, in its broadest and best meaning, has a place: if an organisation has made the decision, however foolish, of keeping certain information restricted to the membership, it goes against unity in action to publish it. I would write something here about Platypus but that would be entirely another story. --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
[Marxism] Unproductive labour and falling rate of profit.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the impact that increased rates of unproductive labour (specifically, direct hire of domestic/personal service workers by the capitalist class) may have on the prevailing rate of profit. Looking at things from the standpoint of the social wage, it would seem that such outlays would increase aggregate demand and contribute to avoid overproduction/underconsumption issues, and, when looked at in the aggregate as a social cost of reproduction of capital, wouldn't it form a part of the aliquot share of labour to be added up in the production of commodities? So I'm wondering if such a device may stall or counterpoise the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. If I'm completely mistaken in this notion, I'd also appreciate to hear about it. -- --David. Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Quine and Hegel
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 13/01/2014 19:06, shaun may wrote: > For example, take Newton's Law, F = ma Sorry to be nitpicky here but Newton's law is f=dp/dt, force is the derivative of momentum against time, which resolves to m*a when mass is constant. A common special case. > This equation expresses an identity between distinct variables or a > distinction between variables in their identity as represented by the '=' > sign. Agree that it expresses an identity. I would say that it expresses an identity between the values of the variables rather than the variables themselves, but maybe this is pedantic too. > Force is identified as the product of mass and acceleration. But mass and/or > acceleration are not force. It is only in their relation that they constitute > force. The fact that different variables (representing real entities) appear > on opposite sides of the equal sign itself implies identification of distinct > variables. The magnitude of force is the product of the magnitude of mass and acceleration. (Incidentally this is a vector.) Mass and acceleration are not force, definitely, but their magnitudes determine that of force. > The very existence of the equation itself denotes the distinctions within the > identity and articulates dialectics in a formalised mathematical expression. > If there were no distinction and opposition in the identity, there would be > no need for the equation itself. Force is the product of mass and > acceleration and yet it is more than simply this product. I'm a bit lost here. Where is the distinction and opposition on the expression? I'm willing to entertain that force may have some ontologically distinct status from being a mere product of mass and acceleration (or the derivative of momentum against time). But the equation is only referring to values. If I say that the price of butter is determined by the year on the Gregorian calendar over the period of the moon's orbit (let's imagine this, coincidentally, were true) that's not to say that there's some kind of ontological relation here, but that these values happen to be the same. An equality doesn't need to be construed more strongly than to state the vvalues on both sides coincide. There is no presumed causal or ontological link. > To assert that Force is absolutely identical with mass times acceleration is > akin to asserting that the whole is absolutely identical to the sum and > product of its component parts without the distinction in which the whole is > also greater than the summation and product of its parts. In other words, for > practical purposes, the equation is only a formal approximation which does > not fully embrace the dialectics of the relation but, in spite of this, > remains a formalised expression of the dialectics of the variables > representing real entities. So are you saying the actual value of force, in newtons, for a constant mass object under classical mechanics, is different from m*a? If not, what is that saying? > The 'formal logician' sees all identity and no distinction or all distinction > and no identity. He/she always misses the distinction within the identity and > vice versa. In other words, the positivist, empiricist, pragmatist, etc, > would deny this latter principle (call it "illogical" or "contradictory of > logic", etc) but the dialectician would acknowledge its existence in thought > as an intrinsic part and expression of all forms of development and would > recognise it expressed in the workings and equations of Physics and > Mathematics. Christopher Zeeman's and Rene Thom's work on Catastrophe Theory, > for example, is a demonstration of dialectics in higher mathematics as > Darwin's work was in Biology. I would say formal logic and model theory have a pretty nuanced language to talk about things like this: x is necessarily y, x is y for all possible worlds where z is true, etc. For causality we have things like Pearl diagrams. > The equation presents an identification of different variables in a specific > relationship with each other which reflects the real, objective character of > their relationship in Nature. Accordingly, even in the mathematical formulae > of Physics, etc, the humble dialectic rears its ubiquitous head and haunts > the the enunciations of formal logic, regardless of its current forms or > lineage. They cannot escape its universality. Hence, formal logic as a > limiting case of dialectical logic. Repeat : Every mathematical equation is a > formalised statement of dialectics, however well disguised those relations > may be within the formula itself. So, I must ask here: is there something different that must be done at the computational level to find out the value of magnitudes? If not, what is the meaning of t
Re: [Marxism] Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Quine and Hegel
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This matter of dialectics and formal logic is pretty complex and I'm not an expert in either, so I'll just point one thing out. Logic, especially since work by Frege, has come a long way from the Aristotelian rules of inference. Many of the complaints I hear about formal logic (and hence in favour of dialectics) relate to logic being incapable of representing change, relations, etc. This is perhaps somewhat true of classical logics, but there have been formalisations of these things since. For example relational semantics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kripke_semantics Generally, I think there probably is something to dialectics at least as a heuristic. That said, I also think it gets overused to justify nonsense and to make claims without the required evidence. For example the notion that the universe must be infinite in time and space, because dialectics, seems rather overstated to me. --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] Frankenpolitics: The Left defence of GMOs
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 09/01/2014 10:51, Greg McDonald wrote: >> Concerns about industrial agriculture as a solution to world hunger are >> not new. As author and organic farmer Eliot Coleman points out in an >> article for Grist.org, in the 19th century when farming was shifting from >> small-scale to large, some agriculturists argued “the thinking behind >> industrial agriculture was based upon the mistaken premise that nature is >> inadequate and needs to be replaced with human systems…” That's because nature is inadequate and needs to be replaced with human systems. Inadequate for what? Human needs, of course. This is a key part of Marxism, I would have thought; that we use planning and engineering to serve human needs. As Louis quoted the manifesto's planks regarding the abolition of the differences between town and country regarding the metabolic rift, we can also aduce plank number 7: Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. >> Chappell and Lavalle point to research showing “small farms using >> alternative agricultural techniques may be two to four times more energy >> efficient than large conventional farms.” They also found studies >> demonstrating “small farms almost always produce higher output levels per >> unit area than larger farms.” One of the studies they looked at concluded >> “alternative methods could produce enough food on a global basis to sustain >> the current human population and potentially an even larger population, >> without increasing the agricultural land base.” I'd like more information on this, but in my view it ignores two key issues. First, energy is not an issue given the existence of nuclear fission. Fission can solve many other attendant problems through combine heat processes, such as water desalination and liquid fuel synthesis with nuclear "waste" heat. Second, it makes no reference to the required labour inputs for such methods of cultivation, which tend to be significantly higher. This means detracting socially necessary labour from industrial tasks, and, in a word, regressing to a world where most people are bound to the land, and to Marx's "idiocy of rural life". Who wants that for a future? >> This is in part because the global food shortage is a myth. The fact that >> we live in a world where hunger and obesity are epidemic shows that the >> problem is more of equity and distribution than shortage. With globalized >> food markets and large-scale farming, those with the most money get the >> most food. This part is definitely true, but there is not an infinite amount of slack. --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] Frankenpolitics: The Left defence of GMOs,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 09/01/2014 9:32, dave x wrote: [clipped stuff about more research needed that I mostly agree with] > The second reason to be cautious about Monsanto style GMOs is that it is > part of a whole model of crop production that essentially ignores > everything we know about evolution. Basically green revolution style > monocropping tends to be pretty destructive ecologically (lots of > clear-cutting of natural habitat, agricultural areas are turned into > ecological 'deserts' where only a few species can exist, patches of natural > habitat tend to become cut-off and isolated from each other leading to > population declines and extinctions, etc). This is in some sense true, but I'm afraid it's unavoidable. At this point natural selection isn't the only force out there. We practice artificial selection all the time. We change our environment in deliberate and planned ways. Given the population density of the world, there's not much of a way around it, and I'm not of the Malthusian bent that suggests the solution to this is for 95% of the people to die (others first, of course!). That said, there are two important aspects that make this not as much a problem as it could otherwise be. On one hand, yes, evolution is a powerful force; but it is a relatively slow one. As optimisation strategies go, I wouldn't consider it particularly strong. Planned outcomes are routinely better, hence why we bother with engineering, and, in a sense, why we are Marxists: we think a planned economy can work better than the anarchy of the market. On the other hand, while it's true that monoculture is problematic, the fact is, all agriculture is problematic. In that case, there's an argument for reducing the land, water and energy use that we need to dedicate to it, which entails increasing yields and this requires monoculture among other techniques. > Further the organization of agriculture as vast monocultures with very > little to no genetic diversity (something that genetic engineering has made > worse) makes them radically vulnerable to all sorts of environmental > threats. You could think of each one as a little like a bomb sitting in the > world's grain house waiting to go off. So of course to prevent that from > happening and to keep yields from continuing to decline (and recent > evidence does point to them declining) humans have to do all sorts of > things, in particular what we have done is pesticides, new pesticides and > more of it. But pesticides are just a temporary fix (one with heavy, heavy > costs to human health and to the natural environment). It may slow done the > evolutionary counter-attack but it doesn't stop it. Evolution is one of the > most powerful optimization techniques of which we are aware. Like > antibiotics, modern monocropped agriculture may have been (and still be) > miraculous in its capacities, but these capacities are degrading and will > eventually be severely degraded if not gone altogether. That's unlikely so long as we continue doing agronomy, but again, there's not much of an alternative. Perhaps agriculture was humanity's original sin, but once certain gates are crossed, there is no way back. While it is true that food distribution could and should be more equitable and efficient, and that there's a fair amount of slack regarding food that gets misallocated or destroyed for completely stupid reasons like fruit that doesn't look aesthetically perfect, it's nonetheless also true that given the resources (arable land, energy) and number of people, a step back towards reduced yields would result in a food catastrophe. The use and misuse of different techniques to avoid this outcome may be a bit too much like walking on the edge of an abyss, but what is the actual alternative? Localist low-yield solutions are completely unviable to take up the slack for commercial agriculture. Also, while it's true that evolution keeps finding ways around our safeguards, these workarounds are rarely metabolically free. The organisms (insects, etc) adapting to external threat must often spend resources on these adaptations that render them otherwise less fit. There may come a point when the fitness gradient we are able to create is too sharp and they can't climb it anymore. --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] Frankenpolitics: The Left defence of GMOs,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 08/01/2014 20:29, DW wrote: > Foxes...I don't give a shit one way or another. Are they endangered? I > doubt it. Maybe? Then it should be banned. Same with denying the *right* of > Native American's to hunt for whales. If they are not endangered, why care? Incidentally I believe the fox hunting controversy, in the UK at least, has a lot more to do with social and economic issues than some abstract matter of cruelty to animals. Specifically, fox hunts often tresspass on farmers' cultivated land, causing damage, and since it is regarded as accidental tresspass, as the dogs cannot recognised human property boundaries, it was only a civil matter. So having a rampaging bunch of rich riders chasing after horses and invading fields is what, as far as I know, caused a lot of people to oppose the hunt. On this issue it's really annoying how the EU has banned the import of seal products. Seals are not in danger of extinction, so the only reasons to forbid their import are completely irrational, nothing more than the reasons not to eat horse or the like. --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] Frankenpolitics: The Left defence of GMOs,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 08/01/2014 17:15, DW wrote: > If we start with the assumption (and I certainly do) that the corporate > progenitors of GM organism are the Evil Spawn and Forces of Darkness we > know them to be, then anything they do is subject, or should be subject to > severe criticisms and opposition. Sure, to a point. The whole issue with patenting of plant matter and genetically modified plant matter in particular opens up a whole set of problems. I would point out that genetic modification is not exactly relevant to this though, since there can exist intellectual property rights over plant matter that has not been genetically modified in the conventional sense. This is a pretty complex area of law, you can get an overview of all the ways IP can interact with plants on http://www.patentlens.net/daisy/bios/1234 for example. But in any event, these issues are political-economic, not technical. However it should be pointed out that capitalists aren't in some kind of competition to do the most evil. Now and then, while seeking profits, they have to do useful things. In that regard the corporations of the farming sector aren't any different from those in other areas of commodity production, except inasmuch as they may interfere with food security and affordability (more on this later). > What's clear is that the result of > corporate dominance over GMOs has resulted in many bad things. My > "opposition" to GMOs under corporate control is entirely political, because > of the results of this control, the development of suicide seeds, and, > after push back on that, the going after farmers who use their GMO crops as > feedstock for the next planting season. To me this is a more important > issue than a lot of what passes currently for opposition to GMOs. Two points on this: the "terminator seeds" or whatever they were called were an incredibly bad idea. Using them for plants that reproduce sexually is beyond stupid. Fortunately, this didn't get implemented, but certainly the mere attempt to do so should make us worried. But regarding keeping seeds, my understanding is that in contemporary agriculture farmers very rarely use their own seeds anyway, for reasons to do with loss of hybrid vigour and generally procure seeds from specialised breeders. IN that regard whether the seeds are transgenic or not is hardly relevant. > Louis pointed this out in his rush to search for counter arguments to > Leigh's endorsement of GMOs stayed away from the nonsense that eating GMOs > is somehow bad for humans and went to real concerns about bug resistance as > it developed in one particular strain.Of course this is *one* strain and > there are hundreds, literally, of GMOs that have not developed resistance > bacteria or insects. But I am cautious anyway. But that is a serious issue > and shouldn't be dismissed lightly by those who have less opposition to > GMOs like Leigh. Sure, but I think it's clear a general technique like genetic modification is going to have wise and unwise applications. It's like being anti-fire because forests burn. A particular genetic modification may be counterproductive, but this is not because of some essential nature of genetic modification. > Most of those opposed to GMO has focused on the, so far, non-existent > health threat, and bug resistance. Nevertheless, despite the paper Louis > posted, the development of bug resistance, and therefore, *not needing > pesticides*, seems to be an advance over crap like RoundUp which makes > plants pesticide resistance so that they can use more of it. This sort of > crap is bad and despite some obvious increased yield gains, the methodology > underlying RoundUP should be, IMHO, opposed. I would say part of the legitimate issue is that predicting effects on ecosystems is rather difficult. Determining in advance if there will appear more resistant plagues, and whether this justifies on the basis of yields to deploy the plant, is non-trivial, and living under capitalism as we are I'm certain it hasn't always been done wisely or on the basis of scientific grounds alone. However, we're modifying our environment all the time. Reducing land impact, increasing yields, these things also mean reducing environmental impact in other, very important ways, including energy and water intensity of crops, and so on. We're in a constant struggle against nature to obtain our means of subsistence, and unfortunately the only way for us not to harm nature is to stop existing. --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] Frankenpolitics: The Left defence of GMOs
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks for writing this article. It is clear that in certain areas the justifiable suspicion of capitalism and its institutions have brought people on the left to very bad places. Love for localism or smallism (this includes so-called appropriate technology), irrational opposition to the safest scalable energy generation regime (nuclear fission) and, of course, genetically modified food. Glad to see that there are more people on the left concerned about scientific accuracy and truth in regard to these issues. --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] More History & Thoughts on Open Source Software & Linux
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Unfortunately I am not new to the particular form of crazy that ESR is into. Most charming is his defence of patriarchy on spurius sociobiological grounds, on posts like "Reconsidering sexual repression" at http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3768 > If we give up family formation it’s game over; we’ll be outbred by cultures > that don’t. So that’s off the table. Following out the logic, the demographic > future will belong to cultures that give up either sexual liberty or sexual > equality, or both. > > But those options aren’t symmetrical. Because, remember, the problem with > today’s sexual economics is not symmetrical. It’s not women who are bailing > out > of the marriage market in droves, it’s men. Accordingly (as the author of the > NY Post recognizes) the odds of rolling back sexual liberty are close to > nil. Men don’t have to play on those terms for fundamental bioenergetic > reasons (release of semen is cheap), and women post-Pill are demonstrating an > unwillingness > to try to make them. Because, you know, more sex (see “miswiring”, above). > > I am led to a conclusion I don’t like. That is: Sexual equality is unstable. > If women can’t buy marriage with sex, they’ll have to bid submission instead. > This tactic also combines well with hypergamic desire – if the mean social > power of men is automatically higher than that of women, more potential > pairings > constitute marrying up. > > I don’t have a submissive wife and never wanted one. I like strong and > independent women. It therefore horrifies me to reach the conclusion that > sexually > repressive patriarchies may after all be a better deal for most womens’ > reproductive success than the relative equality they have now is. But that’s > where > the logic leads. This together with his obsessive gun nuttery don't exactly make me happy, though I'm fortunately geographically well away. How anyone on the left can get along with the reactionary shit is beyond me, and I've said as much as I intended to about it. --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] More History & Thoughts on Open Source Software & Linux
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I don't know what obsession people have with claiming RMS didn't want free software to succeed or wanted it to be kept in the lab, but apparently it's one of these myths that won't go away ever. Oh well. In the meantime ESR has been writing about how cultural Marxism has taken over the US, racism is not so bad, and sexual equality must be given up for the sake of higher birthrates lest Islam conquers the world. --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] I respond to an angry Counterpunch reader
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dear Louis, After sending something like this to the list, the next time you accuse someone of not writing substantive posts worth people's time it's going to ring rather hollow. I understand you think the arguments had no merit and you enjoy clowning about, but could it perhaps be left as a private avocation? --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] Query I was asked to forward to Marxmail
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 03/11/2013 1:23, Louis Proyect wrote: 3) and this is obviously less directly tied to issues of historical fact. Assuming 1917 had happened, and grown outwards from russia early on, what would the world be like today? i.e. i'm asking all you crusty old marxists to tap into a sphere of utopian imagination that maybe you forgot you had; it's an important part of marxism. A fun read on this line is Reality Rosa. It's a sort of story of what the world would have been like if RL had survived. http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?429756-Reality-Rosa-A-world-where-Communism-works-%28GURPS-Alt-Hist%29 --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] Between Marx, Marxism and Marxisms
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 25/10/2013 17:59, Angelus Novus wrote: Nice to see Joaquim maintain his usual high standards of discussion. Nice to see the value form groupies closing ranks. Yeah, why read Marx's economic writings at all, not to speak of trying to understand them properly, when everything worth knowing about "Marxism" was already layed out in pamphlets by Jack Barnes' sect in the 1970s? Right, obviously trying to understand them properly entails removing all empirical reading from them and transforming them into poetry. Or groaning in ecstasy about discredited exhaltations of irrationality like psychoanalysis. Or removing any scientific rigour from their content. Or traducing abstract value into a metaphysical category rather than a physical reality. --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] Request on info on USA and democracy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Thanks to Ralph and H0ost for the info, it was what I needed. I was sure I'd read something on these lines but I couldn't remember what or where, so many thanks for your help. Comradely, --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
[Marxism] Request on info on USA and democracy.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I remember having read an article a while ago on how the US elites decided, some time in the 1950s or 1960s, that democracy in the US was working too well, and that people were too influential on politics. Of course they phrased it in different terms, something like how uninformed people could make it difficult to make the correct difficult decisions etc. So they undertook some kind of programme of reforms in order to atenuate the weight of democracy and curb accountability of elected representatives. Does anyone have info on this? If not this exact thing, something similar? Comradely, -- --David. Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] NSA DOOMSDAY BOMB REVEALED
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It seems to me the only feasible response here is organising mesh networks, to avoid the data flowing where it should not; organising trust networks (though I understand why key signing "parties" are awkward as hell); and maybe preparing the infrastructure for secure data relays based on personal trust. We can't trust PKI because it's clear, and increasingly obvious, that the certifying authorities are either on the take or targets of hacks, and trusting the main cable infrastructure seems problematic as well. --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] The New Nuclear Craze,
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 26/08/2013 0:31, Louis Proyect wrote: It is one thing to connect an incident such as Chernobyl to deaths through radiation sickness but it will be virtually impossible to do so for long-term occurrences of cancer. How in the world will you be able to "prove" that radioactive waste in the water or air was related to an accident at a nuclear power plant? You can't prove a single exemplar, but you can use epidemiological techniques to calculate excess deaths. If epidemiological techniques aren't sensitive enough, then this pretty much shows it is a non-problem. That essentially was the ploy used by tobacco companies all those years when they paid for "scientists" to make the case that there was no link between smoking and cancer. I believe the tobacco companies went considerably further than that: they made data up, they hid data they had, they generally perverted science, insisted that correlation was insufficient to establish likelihood of harm, etc. Very different case. > This is also the basic talking point of Spiked online, an outfit whose views on atomic power David shares even though he is not that much into fox-hunting or the rest of their bullshit. Dear LP, with all my regard, as you have written things I've found very useful in the past and will doubtless do so again, why do you even have to bring Spiked into it? Just to discredit a position you dislike? It seems a really unproductive means of debating something to look for people you dislike who also support the position. Nazis grew food and used thermodynamics, which doesn't say anything about growing food or using thermodynamics nor about Nazis. (Not suggesting here that Spiked are equivalent to Nazis, but the argument will hopefully be seen.) --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] The New Nuclear Craze
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 25/08/2013 18:56, Louis Proyect wrote: For newcomers to the list, David Walters is one of those people like Neue Einheit in Germany, a Maoist sect that disappeared about a decade ago, that loves nuclear power so much so that he would have proposed marriage if polygamy was legal. Right after Fukushima, he was sending messages to Marxmail treating anti-nuclear activists like they were chicken little. About which he was entirely correct. Setting aside the controversy of the fraudulent zero threshold linear model of nuclear harm, the number of radiation-related deaths to be expected from the Fukushima incident is approximately zero. --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] substitutionism and philology-- a brief comment re the non-exchange between Kliman et al and Heinrich
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 27/07/2013 18:33, michael a. lebowitz wrote: It seems to generate interesting and fruitful results, and that is to be lauded. Nevertheless, as I commented here earlier (13 May 2013), 'for me, it is not consistent with Marx (however inventive its mathematical and empirical exercises may be). It seems Kliman &c can't win. Inasmuch as they are perceived as upholding Marx's theory, they're accused of being fanatically orthodox, and of affirming that Marx was right in every jot, as one can often read the value theorists claim. If, on the contrary, they're perceived as obtaining valuable and empirically relevant results that, for whatever reason, are interpreted as departing from Marx in any way, they're outside the project. In my view it is far more important that TSSI appears to describe significant parts of reality than whether it would have corresponded to the theory that a man named Karl Marx held in his mind (and at what particular time of his life?). In contrast, Heinrich does offer a reading of Marx far more sensitive to what Marx actually wrote--- what has now been labelled a 'philological' exercise. In my view, his recent Monthly Review Press introduction to Capital offers the best understanding of what Marx was doing, and I would assign it to my classes in Marxian economics (if I were still peddling my wares in classrooms). The problem with this, is that this reading is (and self-consciously so) unempirical. According to Heinrich the LTV is not subject to model-checking, value cannot be understood but as a theoretical artifact which has no economic agency. At which point, what is it good for? Myself, I'm partial to the position that Marx's critique of political economy was a scientific programme or the embryo of one, not literary criticism, and that all interpretations which lead to quantitative and empirical consequences are superior to those which do not. If value is only realised in exchange and abstract labour isn't measured with a clock but by the market, then we have a problem, and this problem is that value is of no explanatory or descriptive potence whatsoever. Such a reading of value should lead us to discard it as an unnecessary hypothesis, and go on on the basis of price. Which on the other hand would be turning our back on the existing empirical readings of value under which it does mean something. It is useful here to ponder what it means to be a Marxist. In my view it means to adhere to, and inasmuch as one can develop and continue, a given scientific programme as theory, and a given political praxis. Developing this scientific programme means inquiring and interpreting Marx's texts, but it also means model-checking them against reality and making the best possible inferences we can given the data. This includes standing by an empirically meaningful reading of value, inasmuch as it yields useful results, and standing aside those things which may not yield useful results, even if they are comprised by the initial texts. I am not an economist, and so perhaps I shouldn't even get mixed up in these debates. However, I do find it important that Marxism is useful to the class, and that for me entails having a theory that makes sense of the world, that has empirical consequences. Crisis theory and the LTRPF are important issues. It makes a difference if the LTRPF (as a *tendency*!) is true or not. And there we must be led by model-checking, data and careful thought. --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] Spain: Two-party system in trouble
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 26/05/2013 9:51, Stuart Munckton wrote: However, the other main trend is the continuing rise in distrust with party politics of any type. According to Metroscopia, 54.2% of those interviewed were either undecided (20.8%), would not bother to vote (25%) or would spoil their ballot or leave it blank (8.4%). First off, it's undeniable that the system is in a crisis of legitimacy. Institutions which were hitherto untouchable and which the press treated with veneration, like the monarchy, are now also increasingly contested. The notion of the "political class" has got a strong hold on the popular imaginary, as a set of parasites who do nothing and undeservedly leech from the country's finances. Still, people's inner convictions don't always manifest very clearly in surveys. This is especially true in Spain, where surveys routinely mispredicted election winners. So from those people who claim to be undecided, won't vote or will vote blank or null, chances are that a large subset is made up of voters for PP or PSOE which are, each for their own reasons, ashamed of supporting those parties. In particular, because of Spain's past with the dictatorship, many don't like to admit to voting for the right. Of course surveys take this into account and adjust direct intention to their forecasts. --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] 'What to do with the Labor Theory of Value'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/05/2013 18:44, Angelus Novus wrote: FWIW,I think TSSI is stuck in the paradigm of a Ricardian (i.e. pre-monetary) interpretation of Marx's value theory, according to which Marx just takes over the "labor theory of value" of classical political economy and gives his own political spin. That would not be so bad. At least it is empirically useful unlike the so-called monetary interpretations. Closer to the truth, IMHO, is the interpretation offered by the Soviet economist I.I. Rubin and subsequently picked up by German theorists like Hans-Georg Backhaus and Michael Heinrich, that Marx's value theory is distinct from that of classical political economy, because Marx is the first economic thinker to explicitly theorize the role played by money in a capitalist economy. Closer to making the LTV irrelevant, given that all operational notion of value is dissolved into the sphere of exchange and prices. Given the enthusiastic reception to Michael Heinrich's Introduction to Capital, recently published by Monthly Review Press, this is an interpretation that seems to be picking up steam. Unfortunately, I believe you are correct. --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] Feminism and the Socialist Workers Party
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 04/03/2013 15:44, james pitman wrote: This is stupid. My point is the original description of the swp's position is wrong and misleading. And it is. Whether the swp's position is right or wrong, it was more nuanced than merely saying Assange should be extradited. Any inaccuracies in my statement emanate from the fact I took 2 mins out to point this out, it wasn't meant to be controversial. The point still stands: Having read the articles you linked (thanks for that) I'd say the position is, as you say, not as simple as extradition must happen, but it does include extradition must happen, which seems premature when it comes to questioning a suspect. Thanks for linking to the articles, though; it makes it much easier to discuss having some references. There are more articles. Read them, instead of looking for strawmen. It was not my intention to look for strawmen, but to confront what I perceived as inaccurate and misguided positions. David, thanks for taking time out to be so patronising. Your last point answers itself, yes I meant the details of the accusations. My apologies if that is how it came across. I was merely trying to pin the language down. Having studied CS and law, I've been known to take things too literally. --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] Feminism and the Socialist Workers Party
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 04/03/2013 14:36, james pitman wrote: The point I'm making is merely objective, I have no opinion on Assange's guilt or otherwise, contra your suggestion I've ignored Assange's right to a presumption of innocence; my only contention would be that Wikileaks doesn't absolve him from facing these other allegations. Inasmuch as this is the case, I agree; but I'm hard pressed to think of anyone who doesn't. Given the lack of accuracy in some other statements, I'd require more than a generic reference to the articles to believe it. I also think that the presumption of innocence in rape cases is in itself problematic, but I have no intention of getting into a back-and-forth argument about that either. My only point is that the original argument is being misrepresented; read the original articles and you'll see. The position one takes on the matter of presumption of innocence (in rape cases or otherwise) is unlikely to be orthogonal on the position one takes to Assange's case and treatment. Since you're not interested in discussing the matter of presumption of innocence, though, I won't either. I inevitably have to refer to your previous statement though: > This line was further tested by the SWP students who argued it wasn't > right to 'no-platform' George Galloway or Tony Benn, who both asserted > that the details of the Assange case, which are quite well known, > didn't amount to rape. Unfortunately, they do, both legalistically and > morally. You state that "I have no opinion on Assange's guilt or otherwise, contra your suggestion I've ignored Assange's right to a presumption of innocence". Perhaps this is poor reading on my part, but it appears to me that saying the details of the Assange case are quite well known and amount to rape is stating that Assange is guilty of rape. If you meant that he would be guilty if the alleged facts were true, that's an entirely different claim then. --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] Feminism and the Socialist Workers Party
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 04/03/2013 12:58, james pitman wrote: Just because Wiki-leaks managed to embarrass and dent some of the imperialist narratives etc, shouldn't have a bearing on whether Assange should be brought to account on the question of rape in his home-country. He should face those charges, whilst his deportation to the US be resisted at all costs. This is nonsense on several levels: 1) Sweden isn't Assange's home country. 2) No-one (that I know) is making the case that anti-imperialist work makes one immune from justice. 3) The points that he should be extradited to Sweden and his deportation to the US should be resisted at all costs are in contradiction. There exist conditions under which this would make sense (such as Sweden publicly committing to not extradite him, which Sweden has refused to commit to and some activists have falsely claimed would not be possible under Swedish law). Absent these conditions, pretending the left has the capability to avoid a further extradition to the US is irresponsible. Extradition to Sweden would leave the matter of a further extradition to the US outside the reach of British courts, for whatever they're worth, for instance. This line was further tested by the SWP students who argued it wasn't right to 'no-platform' George Galloway or Tony Benn, who both asserted that the details of the Assange case, which are quite well known, didn't amount to rape. Unfortunately, they do, both legalistically and morally. Legalistically, if we're going that route, Assange has a presumption of innocence you have just chosen to disregard. I've read about the case before, and not being versed at Swedish law, I'm not going to pretend I know the right legal framing for the fact pattern assuming it happened (though I'm aware Swedish law, like most continental legal systems, has some fine gradations that are only questionably translatable all as "rape"). It is definitely the case that rape is framed differently under different legal systems, though; which of course doesn't make sexual abuse/assault any better. The name is really not that relevant. The idea that Assange could face the same questions in the Ecuadorean, misses the point that he should be standing trial, rather than answering questions. Why hasn't Assange been charged then? Obviously, the Swedish authorities don't believe that the procedural stage has come to try him yet. Which brings to the front the issue of the use of the European arrest warrant, which has of itself several important problems, which seem to have been largely ignored by those calling for its execution. The EAW framework is very problematic in terms of assuring justice. --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] Spain: Housing rights win as Popular Party buckles
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'll be the first to admit I'm surprised that the popular initiative on datio in solutum (I really don't know how to express this well in English) passed the first stage of debate in the Parliament. That said, I don't think it likely that it will ultimately be adopted, but I've been wrong before. The party system in Spain has effectively perfect discipline. One can simply count the sitters for each particular party and determine the voting results, for practically all votes. So with PP having far more than an absolute majority, I don't see how it will pass. One thing is to admit debating it, another thing is to adopt the initiative. The most problematic (from their viewpoint) part of the initiative lies in the issue of retroactivity. There are many mortgages that have been entered to that are going to end up in the hands of nationalised or semi-nationalised banks. Even those which don't, will be backed, in some measure, by the banking bailout package passed by the EU, which passes through state hands first as to constitute part of public debt. This means that, for (almost) every case where a mortgage is unpaid, the state will incur liabilities. The PP has also been complaining that this could cause a so-called "incentive effect", whereby debtors wilfully refuse to pay in order to get the social rent provisions. I find this somewhat fantastic myself: a person or family who are still capable of paying are going to try to keep doing so to avoid losing all their previous investment. --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
[Marxism] A critical article by Cockshott on Heinrich and the value form school.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Paul Cockshott wrote an article reviewing and criticising Heinrich's interpretation of the LTV and Capital. Check it at http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/paul-cockshott/2013/02/15/new-age-marxism - or if that link is too long, http://is.gd/O3a4SO In my view the most interesting aspect in this debate is how some people are essentially accepting the neoclassical criticisms on the LTV and retreating towards a virtually empty version of it, which is unnecessary given the recent empirical support for it! Like with the calculation debate, it makes no sense to keep a constant fear of Marxism being wrong, incoherent, or impossible; if it were, we should be the first ones to find out, but, more to the point, it clearly isn't, as research keeps showing. -- --David. Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Interview with Paul Cockshott on econophysics and socialism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Paul Cockshott, author of Towards a New Socialism and not unknown to this list, was kind enough to do an interview for Spirit of Contradiction, a collaborative blog where I participate. I think it's an interesting interview. I'd appreciate if you read it and spread it around to those who may be interested: URL: http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/rowan-duffy/2013/02/06/interview-paul-cockshott-on-econophysics-and-socialism Or if that one's too long: http://is.gd/aQ26hw Comradely greetings. -- --David. Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Increasing use of decrees and edicts in EU periphery countries
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Interesting analysis. It is doubtless relevant that there's so much substantive primary legislation passed as a decree, as opposed to (as pointed out in the article) secondary legislation. That said, I think the article overstates the case for Spain, which is the case I can speak of with certain confidence. While decrees are being used to push for unpopular laws, this is sadly nothing new in the Spanish context. I would say it has become a bad habit for the legislator to resort to decree-laws (primary legislation passed by decree). While the power of the parliament is much more limited in these instances, there exist certain relatively well defined limits to this technique: the parliament must convalidate the decree into a law by a vote over the whole text without the power to amend, the decree must refer to a matter of extraordinary and urgent need, they can't affect the basic state institutions, the basic rights and duties of citizens, the rights of autonomous regions or the general electoral regime. The way to exercise control over decree-laws is through the constitutional court, which is admitedly very, very slow, and in some instances has previously found that a given decree-law was unconstitutional, but that being infeasible to undo its effects, they would have force (this referred to economic matters, in the late 90s). There's been quite a big tendency to make excess use of this. Some interesting cases would include decree-law 2/1985, on measures of economic policy, which liberalised foreign investment, and modified the law on housing rent removing protections for tennants, or decree-law 5/2002, which was a labour market reform that led to a 24-hour general strike forcing the government to draft a new law essentially anulling the decree. 5 years later, the constitutional court found that there hadn't been extraordinary and urgent need to pass it, though the harm had been unmade by class struggle. It's perhaps true that more legislation is being fast-tracked as decree-laws these days, though the appeal to urgency isn't entirely hollow (while the adequacy of the laws to solve that urgency is rather more questionable). That said, with a huge majority in parliament, the effects of this aren't likely to be significant. --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
[Marxism] My critique of the Telekommunist Manifesto
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Telekommunist Manifesto is a pamhplhet written by a German communist computer programmer called Dmytri Kleiner. The title is a bit of a joke on Deutsch Telekom and how it used to be called, pejoratively, Telekommunisten, but the attempt is to reclaim this word. I did find it an interesting text, centring on issues like intellectual property regimes as information enclosures, free commons and free software and their limitations, and ideas on how to attempt to build capacities for the struggle through new modes of organisation (though I suppose some people may see it as unredeemably autonomist). You can get the original at http://telekommunisten.net/the-telekommunist-manifesto/ My review/critique of it is at http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/modulus/2013/01/17/telekommunist-manifesto-a-useful-but-faulty-map (If that link breaks up into several lines, try http://is.gd/yB4AL8 instead). Hope it's of interest. I'm never quite sure if the list would be annoyed at me sending articles... I have no intention to become disturbing. Regards, -- --David. Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Richard Seymour on the SWP crisis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == When one of the most developed class formations in the world proves as faulty as that, what hope is there? I am really disappointed and disheartened by all this. It seems that even class conscious comrades will end up repeating the same antagonisms and forms of oppression inside class organs. --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] Is there a Jewish gene?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 18/11/2012 15:42, Louis Proyect wrote: http://www.nybooks.com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/articles/archives/2012/dec/06/is-there-a-jewish-gene/ It presents a credential login thing. No idea if that's what's meant to happen. --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] Diaspora, a cautionary tale
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This is an interesting attempt to correct some of that problem at an infrastructural level: http://unhosted.org/ Basically, the idea is that since Ecmascript is becoming quite a serious language now, it should be possible to decouple applications from datasets, and to control where the data are stored. As with many things, though, a technical solution isn't enough. There's still lots of ongoing work on the Freedom Box, and with an increasing availability of tiny cheap computers like the Raspberry Pi and similar, it may come to something at some point: http://freedomboxfoundation.org/ It's interesting that a lot of what social networks do was doable, to a greater or lesser extent, with old protocols like finger, .plan files etc. Of course it makes sense to move these things to the web, for UI reasons if nothing else, but IMO it makes a lot less sense to move it to centralised datastores which also tend to have some scalability issues like Twitter. --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] Study finds strong GM corn-cancer link
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 23/09/2012 22:39, Shane Mage wrote: I'd expect this sort of thing in Sp!ked. Going by one news-service article to condemn a peer-reviewed study, the only study ever done that covered an average lifespan, not a grossly inadequate time period! Spiked Online also agrees that water is wet. I guess that should make us wary of all wetists. SO prints a great deal of nonsense, but they can't do so inerrantly. Their position on nuclear power is sane, for instance. As to the study itself, concluding anything from such small sample sizes is pretty iffy. Given the fact that the author of the study gave it to the press under NDA on condition they wouldn't consult other experts during a certain period, and the wildly exagerated claims people are making on such a flimsy basis, the responsible thing is to follow the data and point out it doesn't actually tell us very much. The Official Agencies in Europe and America accept short-term studies paid for by Monsanto et. al. Bad studies in one direction don't justify bad studies in the other. Adding up noise does not produce signal. How about trying to study the issue without starting out from a preconceived outcome? Given the many experimental designs sins committed, I wouldn't be much surprised if the study had also done statistical cherry-picking. But you see, I don't know whether that took place, so I'm not going to claim that it happened. At a moment when the most important issue to be decided in this November's election is the California Initiative calling for mandatory consumer labeling of GMO-contaminated ingredients, such jumping to support the Monsanto line is worse than calling for a vote for Romney. Sorry for living outside the centre of the universe. This is the first I hear of such a proposal, but I suppose the regional referenda in the US aren't well covered in Europe. I'm not against labelling GM products, though I'd stay short of referring to their use as contamination. I'll be more explicit, in case people attempt to claim my position isn't clear: I think GM products should be labelled, that good evidence should be collected before they are deployed, and that the legal ownership of gene patents should be abolished. But this study isn't good evidence for the position, and if it is offered as such to any careful voter who looks things up, the result may be counterproductive when they find out the way it was conducted and the limits of what it tells us (not much of anything). --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] Study finds strong GM corn-cancer link
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 23/09/2012 20:15, Jeff wrote: Thus, for instance, suppose the actual rate of tumors for non-treated animals was 60% (why it would be that high I have no idea, but 30% of healthy animals developing cancer already sounds high unless there were some other problem in their lab!). With the control group of 10 thus expecting a mean of 6 cancers (under this assumption) there is already over a 5% a priori probability of no more than 3 of them having developed cancer. And if the actual rate of cancer really had been 60%, then the results for ALL of the test groups (with each having 5 to 8 out of 10 getting cancer) would evaporate. In other words, there would have been a 5% chance a priori of obtaining such results just by chance (without any toxicity from the agents they were fed). Put another way, not only was the control group tiny, but because of that the results of all the various test groups became rather correlated, a result of their poor experimental design which should have placed a much larger proportion of the animals in the control group. Sorry to quote such a big chunk of text, but I mostly agree with this analysis. The experimental setup was awful. From what I've read the reason the incidence of cancer was so great even in the control was due to the fact the animals had themselves been genetically manipulated for susceptibility to cancer, so the study speaks even less to actual conditions in deployment with animals which haven't been, including humans. I think the fundamental issue with GM plants is legal, patents and so on, but I'm perfectly willing to believe there are also improper protocols, insufficient concern for safety, etc. But this sort of sloppy study only makes it easier for advocates of GM to defend deployment and tar all its opponents with the brush of scientific illiteracy. --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] Catalonia the latest flashpoint in the Euro crisis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 22/09/2012 17:40, Shane Mage wrote: [Snipped quoted declarations of some reactionary elements in the military of no significant import] "The ferocity proven over centuries"--truer words never were spoken. Of course, a European state that wouldn't have proven ferocity over centuries would likely not exist today. That's the nature of European history: repression of peasant uprisings, civil wars, succession wars, inter-imperialist wars, etc. Nothing exceptional in the Spanish state. The Italian coastal cities knew the same ferocity exerted by Catalan forces under the Aragonese flag. Let me add that the Spanish claim to sovereignty over Catalonia is explicitly "by right of conquest." Which is illegal under current international law and therefore null and void. An independent Catalonia therefore cannot legally be expelled from the EU, however much the Francoists gnash their teeth. This is incorrect on 3 grounds: The claim the Spanish state makes over Cataluña is grounded on the personal union of Aragon and Castile, which began the creation of a unified state over the two crowns. Later on this matter was put to the test of arms during the war of succession, ended by the victory of Philip V, and the treaty of Utrecht, signed by many of the states which successors form now the EU, recognising his sovereignty over the whole Spanish state not by right of conquest, but by right of succession. The decrees of nueva planta abolished many of the ancient privileges and prerrogatives of the territories under the crown of Aragon on the grounds that it had rebelled, not that it was conquered territory, thus Navarre and the Basqque lands kept theirs, as supporters of the Bourbon. The second incorrect claim refers to the right of conquest under international law, and its status as an invalid title. While contemporary international law regards territorial acquisition by conquest as null, this is a result of the UN Charter, and the prohibition of the use of force therein contained. More specifically, article 2.4 of the charter forbids the use or threat of force. That prohibition, however, lacks a retroactive character, and the same article 2.4 proclaims the territorial integrity of member states. More evidence of this is the principle of uti possidetis iuris, referring to territories under military or colonial domination, which preserve the administrative borders drawn by the conquerers. Such a principle invalidating conquest as a title has, therefore, no application to the Spanish state at present. The third incorrect claim refers to the legal responses to be undertaken by the European Union. The Union has accepted Spain as one of its member states, and regards its accession as including the territory at issue. The constituting treaties of the Union declare matters concerning the security and integrity of member states as their exclusive competence, hence and by the principle which states parties are bound to their own acts, the Union is obliged to take Spain's word regarding the legality of a unilateral secession. In any event, legal analysis of the question may be interesting, and I won't deny that, since law is my field, I have pondered the issue. However, it's unlikely that in such matters we can expect decisions entirely determined by law, as academics would read and interpret it. Law, as they say, is crystalized force, and I'm afraid it tends to cede to the real thing, whether it's actual military force, or more subtle economic pressure. --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] Catalonia the latest flashpoint in the Euro crisis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 21/09/2012 23:13, Marv Gandall wrote: It didn't have this effect in Argentina, which broke its peg to the dollar and defaulted on its external debt in 2001 after a long period of IMF-imposed austerity, so it can't be taken for granted that leaving the euro will be worse for the Greek masses than the misery they're currently experiencing. I think there are reasons why the situations are not equivalent. Some of it you've pointed at yourself: Argentinian exports and so on. Some of it is that Greece doesn't have a euro peg, it has the euro. Creating a new currency is a different sort of thing from unpegging. Furthermore, if we postulate that the European monetary authorities would be willing to agree to a saner debt restructuring under the threat of a disorderly default and exit, why not under threat of a disorderly default without exit? Greece can't be pushed out of the EZ by the treaties, and the decision to default still belongs to it, so I see no benefit in exiting, especially since one hears Greece is in primary public surplus at this time. I'm guided by this analysis, mostly: http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/05/16/weisbrot-and-krugman-are-wrong-greece-cannot-pull-off-an-argentina/ --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] Catalonia the latest flashpoint in the Euro crisis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 21/09/2012 16:23, Shane Mage wrote: Will someone please explain how weakening of a fascism-spawned capitalist state can "increase vulnerability to capital?" I will first point out how a state is spawned is secondary if not entirely irrelevant. Unless we're subscribing to some hitherto unknown doctrine of political/moral taint which is separate from material circumstances, the processes of state unification are not efficient forces today. As to how a capitalist state's weakening can result in a higher vulnearbility to capital, I'd expect that to depend on the political struggle. The state is not exactly a neutral element, but neither is it a consortium of capitalists ruling entirely in their own interest. The state, Lenin to the contrary, goes beyond special bodies of armed men, and comprises many more people and relations including the civil service and certain notions about the rule of law, which, limited as they are, are still terrain where labour can manoeuvre for advantage. After the break-up of a state, its constituent parts would be far less capable and their economies would suffer. This would result on capital, as represented by the bond markets, but also the national bourgeoisie at issue, having a greater bargaining power vis-a-vis labour within and without the state. The Yugoslavian case speaks, I think, for itself on these matters. --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] Catalonia the latest flashpoint in the Euro crisis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 21/09/2012 16:55, Marv Gandall wrote: There is a parallel with Syriza in Greece, which also promises its uneasy supporters it can lift the yoke of austerity without leaving the eurozone or EU. This may be a pipedream, but the logic of the Greek and Catalan anti-austerity struggles points in the direction of genuine independence, a key element being the adoption of a sovereign currency after an inevitable forced withdrawal from the eurozone. Whether this logic gets to play itself out is another question. I'm completely unconvinced of the feasibility and opportunity of withdrawing from the EZ. Syriza's point, which is true from what I've read of the treaties, is that the Union has no power to impose austerity on member states. From that to leaving the currency unit there's a significant difference, and one which I don't think would be wise to cross, because Greek public and private debt is for better or worse denominated in EUR, and there seems to be no way in which a sovereign currency could do anything but lead to hyperinflation. To be honest all this anti-european localism seems highly misguided to me. I'm aware this is not a common position on the left, but the EU has enough size to be worth trying to take political control of. Member states, even if we could rule, would be too small --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] Catalonia the latest flashpoint in the Euro crisis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Just for information's sake: the EU treaties make it explicit that a territory which unilaterally secedes ceases being part of the Union. In order to access the Union, the normal process would have to be carried out which requires unanimous approval, presumably lacking from the state where secession took place. Spanish constitutional provisions make it impossible to unilaterally secede. The territorial integrity of the state is explicitly guaranteed, and safeguarded by the army on article 8.1: The armed forces, comprising the army, the navy and the air force, have as their mission safeguarding the sovereignty and independence of Spain, defending its territorial integrity and the constitutional order. Art 155 could be invoked if a referendum is proposed. There was a previous Basque plan to call for a referendum which was declared illegal, and the central government threatened use of article 155 which reads: 1. If an autonomous region does not fulfil the obligations imposed on it by the constitution or other laws, or acts in such a way as to gravely undermine the general interest of Spain, the government, having previously warned the president of the autonomous region, and this warning not having been attended to, with approval by the majority of the Senate, will be empowered to adopt the necessary measures to oblige the region to the compulsory fulfilment of aforesaid obligations, or for the protection of aforesaid general interest. 2. In order to execute the measures described on the previous paragraph, the government shall be empowered to issue instructions to all the authorities of the autonomous regions. In short, if a referendum is called, the central government could oblige all functionaries not to let it run, and their non-compliance would be regarded as a crime of disobedience to authority. In short. The likelihood of a referendum being called for independence looks, right now, very low; but the increase in tensions and the ill-advised treatment of the peripherical regions as if they were internal colonies of a sort, makes independence more likely in the long run. The same as in Yugoslavia or many other cases, I think secession would be tragic for everyone concerned, as the weakening of the state would entail an increased vulnerability to capital. --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] The spiritual strength of Romanticism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hi, Coincidentally I have been thinking some about this issue. My current mental short-hand for it is "materialism considered harmful", as in, I have this suspicion that, correct though it is, materialism sometimes conflicts with very powerful irrational motivations humans have, such as you describe. I have heard young Neo-Nazis extol the merits of "Pagan Europe" where "a Man was a Man" and each "freeman held his own farm and was a free man". At the same time, a lot of this sort of stuff is idealisation of a past that never was. I wonder how many of these people imagine themselves as thralls working all day on a farm at near-starvation. I have heard young "pogressive-types" extoll the merits of "paleolithic Europe" where "you had your tipi, you had your bow and arrow, you would hunt reeindeers and mammouths, and you could live in harmony with the natural world and your fellow-humans (around 100 in a 100 km radius)." The reason why I'm sometimes alarmed at greens and deep ecology. > [...] And yet such nostalgia is powerful, and is actually the only way to furnish a strong spiritual commitment to transcending the ordinary, reactionary way of life. I don't know if the only way, but it definitely is one way, and one way which us materialists inevitably deprive themselves of. I wonder if a part of the problem is that utopian thought is no longer compelling: before the 20th century one could imagine indefinite progress towards an ever better society. Now, the experiences of the century together with things like environmental problems, make anchoring one's hopes in the future a little more difficult, to say the least. I've no idea if there's a solution to this at all. Maybe just talking about materialism a bit less and focusing on practical action. But it's something worth pondering. --David. Blogger at Spirit of Contradiction: http://spiritofcontradiction.eu 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] What's a good novel for 13-14 year olds?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 17/08/2012 2:03, johnedmund...@paradise.net.nz wrote: I read Ursula Le Guin's "The Dispossessed" and was really puzzled by the bit with the lead character going a bit berserk and sexually assaulting the woman with the naked breasts; given the society he came from, it seemed weirdly out of character and I wondered what Le Guin was trying to say, that ultimately the objectification of women was so deep rooted that it would never be fully overcome??? I don't think that was it. I may be misreading it, but in my view what UKL was trying to say is that people are shaped by society. Put someone who wouldn't dream of forcing himself on a woman in a society where everything, from the shape of furniture (I think this is mentioned specifically) to forms of dress, etc, speak of a repressed and coercive sexual order, give him a drug that effectively disinhibits him, and you'll get a totally different result. In a way it felt to me like a manifestation f historical materialism. circumstances make the man (or woman). --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] What's a good novel for 13-14 year olds?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 16/08/2012 20:29, Ken Hiebert wrote: Has anyone read Germinal by Zola? I confess that it was recommended to me in my 20's and i shied away from it as being heavy and depressing. So probably inappropriate. I found it quite good, not really depressing at all though a bit heavy, yes; the descriptive style can get a bit involved. That said, no, I wouldn't recommend it for the average 13--14-year-old either. --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] What's a good novel for 13-14 year olds?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It doesn't call it communism by name, but I'd suggest Voyage from Yesteryear, by James P. Hogan is a good SF novel that could interest a reader that age and far more sympathetic. Regards, --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
[Marxism] Spirit of Contradiction: yet another Marxist blog
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hi, all, Spirit of Contradiction - http://spiritofcontradiction.eu - is a blog a bunch of marxists which usually meet at the ##marxism IRC channel on Freenode decided to start. We're people from different tendencies, and have some anarchists writing posts as well. Our main focus seems to be in grappling with the difficulties of revolutionary politics in the advanced countries, and how the typical vanguard strategies aren't working out, though we write posts on other topics. A few examples of posts by sevearl contributors: Which way the economic revolution? A survey on different planning proposals: http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/rowan-duffy/2012/06/28/which-way-the-economic-revolution The revolution: a cherished failure. On the limits of the experience of 1917 and insurrectionary politics in general. http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/yeksmesh/2012/07/12/the-revolution-a-cherished-failure The rise of money. A survey on how the capitalist mode of production didn't directly displace aristocratic rule. http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/bronterre/2012/07/17/the-rise-of-money The crisis in Spain: a public-private partnership. On the peculiarities of Spanish industrialisation and how the crisis arose (this one written by me). http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/modulus/2012/07/01/the-crisis-in-spain-a-public-private-partnership We also host debate logs from times when the channel has formal debates at http://spiritofcontradiction.eu/marxism-debates It seems that, for me at least, writing about something can often clarify my thinking. So far, writing on the site as well as chatting on the ##marxism channel has made me aware of a lot of things I was unfamiliar with. For instance I'm re-evaluating Kautsky somewhat. So hopefully we'll keep discussing things, and maybe one day we'll be able to make things work better than they are now, given the frankly dismal success of explicitly Marxist political formations in the advanced countries. Greetings, -- --David. Omnis enim res quae dando non deficit, dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur quomodo habenda est. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Angry Socialists and Simple Marxism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I must say I was never convinced by Orwell's argument on politics and simple language. The ruling ideas of a given age are the ideas of the ruling class, so expressing them is going to have simpler short-hands than expressing alternatives. Furthermore, one could argue Orwell hardly followed his own advice, though this doesn't of course mean the advice is bad. I think the notion that we should seek for simple language is not bad in principle (no-one likes unnecessary jargon), but there are good reasons to use technical words, as well as long sentences, and so on. I was about to say that sentence period isn't necessarily a sign of obfuscation, and that other languages seem to handle long sentences fine, but perhaps English isn't suited to them; not sure. Incidentally this call to simple language seems isomorphic to calls for common sense or empiricism, narrowly understood, and is problematic for similar reasons, I think. --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] a question regarding spanish miners
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 14/07/2012 23:28, Craig Brozefsky wrote: I in no way mean this as a leading question, or a litmus test, but I'm wondering about the dynamic between a need to move off of coal and carbon based, and the struggle of spanish miners who are fighting bravely for what was promised them. I will admit I had thoughts about this myself. As I see it, though, things are a bit more complicated than coal being bad, which it is, no question about it. First off, yes, coal is bad, but what's going to happen is not that less coal will be burned, but that coal will be imported from abroad, where it is mined in worse labour conditions, with more hazard to life, and one must add the carbon transportation costs of the coal itself. Second, the miners were promised a programme of reindustrialisation in the mining districts which never materialised. They were told that, since the subsidies were not going to last forever, there would be state investment in retraining workers and starting up viable industrial concerns in their areas. Never happened. Third, I would think miners would be willing to reskill if the state offered any sort of actual plan that weren't built on dreams and illusions. While they do get relatively high wages, this is at a very high cost to their healths. On the other hand, we cannot demand that they simply do nothing and quietly starve. The districts in questions have, quite literally, nothing else. Last, it's clear that the demands of the miners are overwhelmingly supported by the class. On this light, refusing support would alienate us completely from those we want to establish solidarity with. It would be counterproductive, moralistic, and, perhaps, even hypocritical, while we keep using electricity derived from coal plants. So I think there's no other choice but to stand with the miners and demand a negotiated solution, which hopefully would take note of the grave environmental dangers of coal. Greetings, --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
[Marxism] Debate on the role of the party.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hi, The ##marxism IRC channel on the Freenode network seems to be growing some. We're often 30--40 users lately. Recently we've started holding some more or less formal debates on issues interesting to marxists, as, if anything, a good excuse to read on them. Today at 1800 UTC (so in about an hour and a quarter) we'll be having one on the role of the party. To join us, direct your IRC client to irc.freenode.net and join ##marxism, or use the webclient at https://webchat.freenode.net/?channels= We're also around at other times, of course. --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] Leaving Facebookistan
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 28/05/2012 19:19, Manuel Barrera wrote: [...] What, we should just walk away from every venue where masses of people are interacting and being outraged that we DON'T have the freedom of speech or rights to privacy that we all believe we should have? Because the bourgeoisie will use these same means to stifle democracy, we should go off and hide in our email? Oh, wait, that form of communication is just as subject to oversight too, huh? No, it isn't. Facebook introduces a single point of failure and gives privileged access to the social graph to private parties, with well-known links to the national security aparat in the US. Email, on the other hand, doesn't have to. It can, if one uses one of the big providers, but email is still (long may it remain) a descentralised protocol where everyone can play so long as one has a domain. Very, very different situation. Furthermore Facebook seems to me to be an unwinding of the web, in that people are no longer in control of their online pressence. A lot of what facebook does is perfectly doable with existing tech layers like webfinger, but the integration is a bit complicated so people would rather surrender their information. To each their own, but I don't find this a wise choice. There are plenty of tools that are useful for revolutionaries to organise. They're characterised by lacking central points of failure, resilience, and security based on cryptography, and not trust, at least as much as possible. Tools like Freenet, I2P, Syndie, TOR, etc. There probably are layers of activity that can and should be conducted in public, but there certainly are layers which shouldn't. The more people are impelled to taking control of information, and deciding how it is to be used, the better. Facebook is the perfect surveillance mechanism: private, hence unconstrained by many limits set on state power by the bourgeois constitutions; for-profit, you get productised as you are surveilled; and hiding under the seemingly harmless notion of strengthening social bonds. Facebook delenda est. --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] (no subject)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 11/03/2012 0:38, Robbie Mahood wrote: People are frightened of nuclear energy. Estimates of damage after an accident are very quickly politicised so their accuracy may be questioned. It's true people are afraid. In fact I've read some claims that suggest the harm caused by the fear is actually higher than the harm caused by the event. Fear has physiological effects which can lead to negative health outcomes. The solution to this problem isn't to take the fear as a natural and exogenous reality, but to educate people about the actual risks (which obviously exist) and their bounds. For instance, the faulty zero-threshold linear model of radiation harm must be dropped, both because it is empirically wrong (as studies demonstrating radiation hormesis make clear), and because it leads to added harm, by people getting scared of things they ought not be scared of. However, whatever the scale, Fukishima demonstrates the inherent risks of nuclear power even when abstracted from the current capitalist social and economic order. Popular fear may or may not accord with epidemiologic studies but this is not to say it is misplaced. Health effects of radiation are notoriously difficult to assess and the final verdict may take decades. In the meantime, the pre-cautionary principle (anathema under capitalism) should apply. It would be fine to apply the precautionary principle if there existed viable alternatives to nuclear power. As it happens, current opposition to nuclear power is, I'm afraid, objectively pro-coal. I won't dwell on the harms caused by coal extraction and burning, since I believe they're well-known. Likewise, the problem of global warming requires scalable solutions that can be deployed as soon as practical. I don't intend to start an argument about the inadequacy of weak ambient sources (so-called renewables) to fulfil baseload requirements, and the quantity of storage that it would take to deploy such sources in scale to replace coal and nuclear power. I'll just point out that such a deployment is, right now, infeasible. Perhaps the technologies will improve to the point at which this is no longer true, but that's not the state of play right now. Furthermore, I would point out that, even under admitedly mismanaged regimes of operation, nuclear power has the lowest rates of deaths per terawatt-hour of all available sources, including solar PV and wind. (Not sure if solar thermal is deployed in enough scale to compare yet.) So the precautionary principle should lead us to deploying mature, existing technology to solve a time-critical need with the least harm to people, and such a solution is nuclear fision. --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] (no subject)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 10/03/2012 2:20, Shane Mage wrote: But sooner than that the differential life insurance premia asked from Fukushima victims will give a clear picture. Just as the economic impossibility of insuring nuclear power plants at commercial rates already proves the unviability of nuclear power. The same way the economic impossibility of insuring everyone's health at commercial rates proves the unviability of universal healthcare? Since when do Marxists follow the dictates of the law of value when assessing if something is viable or not? It certainly wasn't the case for the 8-hour day, paid holidays, maternity protections, and so on. Nuclear power should be assessed on the light of the world's need for carbon-free energy, not on whether capitalists can make it produce profits. --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] Europe: A strategy to break with the Europe of Capital
==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==
On 14/11/2011 9:20, Angelus Novus wrote:
It should be noted that the proposed change to Spain's constitution to enshrine budgetary
stability, mentioned at the beginning of this piece, is already the case in Germany, where the
so-called "Schuldenbremse" ("debt brake") has been written into the
constitution.
It's not a proposed change. It passed on the 27th of September. There
was pretty much no debate in or outside Parliament. According to the PP,
Zapatero phoned Rajoy about the proposed change, and there was a
5-minute discussion after which it was agreed.
The change demands balanced budgets from councils, which is going to be
terribly interesting given how councils have historically been
underfinanced forever. Until the organic law to regulate the constraints
is passed, and even then until the crisis is over or 2020, whichever is
later, which I'm sometimes afraid may be the former, some bits of the
reform won't enter into effect. Perhaps it's a delayed action explosive
to dynamite social security in a few years, who knows...
--David.
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[Marxism] ETA dissolves. Nothing was achieved.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == After several decades of activity and a few hundreds of victims, some of them members of the state's special bodies of armed men or of the ruling class but many of them entirely outside those parameters, ETA dissolves. Riddled with infiltrations, it had been decapitated several times in recent years. Clearly they could not sustain the organisation required for armed struggle. Perhaps they may have been a progressive force during the dictatorship. After that, though, their actions seem rather futile in retrospect. A Basque country still divided, under the same statutes, and, granted, political representation in its councils and parliament. Was it worth it? --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] Class Dismissed
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 26/07/2011 22:15, Manuel Barrera wrote: > Marsh reply on the "achievement gap": " a good deal of the racial and ethnic > achievement gap disappears when you factor out class, but not all of it. And > I confess to having no more insight into why that should be the case than > many scholars who study the question, who have plausible theories but little > by way of definite conclusions. It remains a mystery and a challenge to our > ideals." So, if you just "factor out" most of the people where there is a gap > and only talk about those privileged enough to benefit from a capitalist > education system, then it just goes away. "Class dismissed" indeed. Nice > editing . . . I don't read it that way. I read it as "most of the achievement gap is class determined, it is a mystery that a small amount of it isn't". >From the rest of the interview it doesn't seem likely that the author is unaware of the consequences of class in education. --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] What do Marxists do when labor is no longer the limiting factor of production?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Some ideas on this notion. I'm only going to touch on the bits I disagree with. On 13/07/2011 0:39, ehr...@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu wrote: > In response to my "are we too nice" posting, someone wrote > me something I think I agree with (still have to think about > it more): > >> Yes, we need disciplined cooperation, but not to >> produce as much as possible. We need to maximize >> our wealth by minimizing our waste and consumption. Minimising waste is a good notion. Minimising consumption is a ridiculous call for a world where hundreds of millions of people experience privation in their basic needs. It's fine to talk about minimising consumption when one uses 2x as much energy as the world average (such as the average EU citizen) or even more, but what about people in India, who use about 30% world average energy per capita? Talking to these people about minimising consumption is like talking about the benefits of dieting to the starving, IMO. Also, this has embedded the assumption that human use of resources is always a bad thing, so we have to minimise this necessary evil, and that human purposes are somehow less moral than those of nature. It's a moralist position. Protecting our environment is a requirement to survive and thrive, but that is different from the notion (say, from deep ecology) that "well-being and flourishing of nonhuman life on Earth has value in itself, richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of this value and are also values in themselves and humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital human needs." (Paraphrased.) >> Labor shortage is a quaint theory. Today, we take the >> wealth of nature with machines, and that makes us all >> freeriders. Resources and pollution limits are now the >> limiting factors, the weak links in the chain of production. This is pretty obviously misguided. I'd have to recommend a review of the notions of living and dead labour. Machines do not make themselves, nor even do they quite operate themselves at this stage of production. This notion of being freeriders on nature ... is rather peculiar. Obviously we do not engage in a process of exchange with nature, as nature is not an economic actor. Speaking of freeriding on nature is, as I see it, a large category error: neither is nature a person, nor do the sun, plants and animals engage in labour, that they may be exploited. At the margin, though, what would it take to not be a freerider on nature, and what distinguishes humans from other animals in this regard? We use outputs produced by other natural processes (heat, plant and animal matter, minerals...) just as any plant or animal does. So are we all freeriding on each other? What is this nature, that is at once conjoined with us (we are part of nature is a frequent slogan of environmentalists) and yet separate enough that we can actually exploit it, and how could we interface with such a thing? Commercial exchange? >> Planet parasites unite! Don't kill the host. Parasitism is a relation between at least two entities, whereby one of them benefits and the other suffers harm, in terms of fitness. How is the planet a potential parasite host, what is a function of planetary fitness, and how can such a thing even be computed when planets, to my knowledge, do not reproduce? Being a bit less strict with the metaphor, and assuming it refers to the ecosphere, I still don't see how it is applicable. We're doing what all the other lifeforms are doing: trying to survive and thrive. This is never free from conflict: even plants must compete for sunlight and minerals. Nor is homeostasis ever assured, even without evil humans in the picture. After all, cyanobacteria introduced, merely as a byproduct, but to their benefit (and ours), high concentrations of oxygen in the environment, which at the time, to most life forms, was a metabolic poison. These things happen. >> The freerider concept is the problem and it >> drives the "need" to produce as much as possible, >> even though that is way too much. How is it judged whether it's way too much? How many people have to starve before a particular non-human creature can be justified to suffer harm? That's obviously the absurd end of the calculation, but such balance is always absurd. How many people should go without an education, or without adequate shelter, or adequate control over temperature? > Co-operation also means: if you have a green technology, we > expect you to give it to those in need, in Africa etc. We > will not ask those in Africa to pay for it, but we may ask > them to introduce birth control--while again fighting like > hell for an old age insurance system so that they don't need > so many children to secure their ol
Re: [Marxism] good essay on education
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 10/07/2011 17:52, mckenna...@aol.com wrote: > It's appalling enough that they are suppressed from liberal programming like > NPR, Fresh air, and Bill Moyers. . .but for Foster to reproduce the > exclusion, especially when Giroux's critique is a centerpiece of the Marxist > educational theorists for almost 40 years, is noteworthy. . .and disturbing. I've been googling around this topic a bit, and all I can find is abstract nonsense. (Not saying that's all there is, but that's all I can find.) Is there any canonical statement of what critical pedagogy is about, what are its empirical claims, on what grounds are they based, what are the differential outcomes when applied as opposed to other pedagogical theories, etc? It's fine to make statements on how learning is a social process and critical thinking is good. That doesn't say anything about most of the actual concrete questions relating education: school management, class sizes, the use and abuse of testing, streaming, etc etc. I would point out that workers' states*, whatever else one may complain about them, seem to have in many regards followed relatively traditional models of education, to excellent results. * Insert your favoured notion here (deformed, whatever). --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] Analysis in Spain [was Reflections on the World Socialist Website]
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 05/06/2011 18:11, Manuel Barrera wrote: > I am interested if Spanish or other European comrades can provide analyses of > the current struggle in Spain.Here is an article from the > Guardian:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/28/spain-election-zapatero I will try, though the last time I attempted this I got accused of being sectarian for no discernible reason. The premise of the Guardian is that Rubalcaba is likely to succeed Zapatero in the presidency (as an aside, Spain is a monarchy but for historical reasons the head of government is called a president, you may substitute PM if you want). I find that extremely unlikely. I'll try to give a lot of background. If you're familiar with the last 10 years in Spanish politics there may be little new. In 2008 the PSOE won the general elections, but it doesn't have a sufficient majority in Parliament. It has therefore been operating on the basis of more or less temporary arrangements with other political forces. Fundamentally, Basque and Catalan nationalists, the left, and in some cases the PP. For instance, some of the cuts which PP is now criticising are cuts which they voted in Parliament, and which otherwise would not have passed. At first the crisis didn't seem to hit Spain. The unemployment rate was at a historic low, there was state surplus, etc. However, although the crisis came late, it came very strongly. Since at least 2000 and probably earlier, Spain's model of growth was based on the real estate sector. Part of this came with a relative liberalisation on land use, and part with certain fiscal incentives which made getting a mortgage an economically rational choice. In fact, many families and not few enterprises saw real estate as a speculative investment vehicle, rather than a way to satisfy actual needs. This process came accompanied with an overwhelming amount of corruption in Spain's municipalities, which are the entities that control land use, and which have historically been underfunded. Mayors reached deals to allow land to be developed well beyond the reasonable needs, for the sake of the taxation to be derived from the development, or, all too often, as a means to obtaining bribes (comisiones). As a result of a lot of corruption having been unearthed, as well as the cuts which the government has been engaging in (including a 5% cut on the wages of civil servants) people are largely disappointed and depoliticised. Phrases like "they are all the same", "they're all thieves", etc, are common, and perhaps with a measure of justice. However, it seems that such scandals cause more harm to the PSOE and the left than to the PP, and often PP governments obtain majorities in areas where their representatives have been accused and sometimes sentenced for corruption. The difference in polls between PP and PSOE is at least 10 percentage points. While, if the municipal elections which took place the 22nd of May had been general elections, the PP would not have obtained a sufficient majority to govern alone, it is quite likely that in the coming general elections on 2012 the voting patterns will afford them a comfortable parliamentary majority. Zapatero has already stated he will not run for the upcoming elections, at least as a candidate to the presidency. Rubalcaba was chosen by the Federal Committee, although there had been a promise that primary elections would take place within the PSOE. While this promise hasn't been violated in its form (there will be primaries) the substance is very different: after the central organ of the party has decided in favour of one candidate, it is unlikely that other serious candidates will arise and will obtain support. In fact, the current minister of defence, Chacón, was going to run for that position, but decided to withdraw her candidacy. Rubalcaba is very hated by some sectors in the right for reasons I am not clear on. At the same time, a good amount of the right and its sympathisers support his hardline stance regarding ETA and the Basque conflict, and his tenure at the Ministry of the Interior, during which ETA has been significantly weakened, to the point that Basque nationalist currents are now presenting a political project which explicitly repudiates armed struggle. It's likely that Rubalcaba can somewhat disassociate himself from Zapatero's failure, but it's unlikely that such a disasociation could be complete enough as to afford PSOE another victory in 2012. While the vast majority of Spaniards reject typical rightwing positions (labour reform, pension reform, wage deflation, etc) it's no less true that the PSOE has itself been carrying such policies through, so there's little to choose from between PSOE and PP. I am convinced that PP would have taken, and will indee
Re: [Marxism] Anthony Brain replies to David P.A.'s sectarian line on Spanish Youth protests against unemployment!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 20/05/2011 23:30, MARIAN BRAIN wrote: > David P.A. misunderstands the main dynamic of radicalization of middle class > layers breaking from the Popular Party in Spain and linking up with working > class youth in occupying Madrid and other major Spanish cities. David’s > reaction is one of the most sectarian attitudes I have seen for a long time > and > fatal for any revolutionary to implement. My reaction? Sectarian? Implement? What!? Having read what I wrote, at no point do I state a position about which party to support or to not support (like a sectarian would) nor do I even come up with a call to action, so implement what exactly? My confusion? The only thing I said, and it is as far as I know true, is that a certain connection exists between No Les Votes and the PP, and in particular Libertad Digital and similar rightwing media. Now if anyone wants to suggest Libertad Digital is radicalising and joining the left wing, I'd like some of that stash myself. It's known that in the Spanish electoral context the right wing (PP) is generally more capable to mobilise its electorate, which tends also to be more faithful to the party. While PSOE and other left formations are more prone to demobilisation of their electorates through abstention, or defection to other left wing (and sometimes even right wing) parties. A movement that promotes abstention on the 22nd is very, very clearly going to benefit PP, which electorate will not be the audience for such a message. Now, I'm not claiming the whole No Les Votes people are involved with the PP, or that abstention is their only message: as I said, there seems to be a certain amount of confusion on their demands, with some people asking for abstention, blank votes, null votes, and some people asking for a vote for a party different from PSOE/PP/CiU (the latter demand one which I can agree entirely with). At any rate, NLV seem secondary given the existence of Democracia Real Ya, which are actually implementing deliberation and decisions in assemblies. DRY very clearly see that democracy can't begin and end with the 22nd elections, and that deep hanges are required to make it actual, and remove the power of markets and the large organised parties' leadership. I think DRY are engaging in a very promising process, dividing up to discuss issues of relevance to the Spanish people, trying to come up with solutions, but simply, debating and engaging with politics in the streets. That said, I've no idea if DRY is going to last beyond the 22nd elections. > There maybe a tiny element of Conservative Bourgeois manoeuvring to undermine > Social Democracy by calling them voting for other parties. No Bourgeois layer > would support the beginning of what could be the beginning of a challenge to > Bourgeois rule which could potentially deepen with the unemployed already > setting up committees to distribute food; administer their own > communications; > and meeting every evening to decide how to run the occupation of public > spaces. It's pretty certain there is an amount of connection. Some of the people involved with NLV are advisors or ex-advisors to PP regional governments, etc. The whole of NLV isn't PP, but there is some amount of it. Additionally, papers like Libertad Digital, ABC, La Razón and the rest of the bourgeois press, can play another game here: to denounce, loudly and constantly, the DRY and NLV initiatives, and blame the PSOE for not using state force to break up the assemblies. If the PSOE does not, the right wing electorate gets mobilised on a platform of order. If the PSOE does, the left wing electorate gets demobilised as it sees social democracy directing attacks against peaceful people. > As Trotsky said in the early 1920s in the particular phrase of the epoch > revolutionaries have to be ready to move in rapid changes. What’s unfolding > now > is the greatest ferment in history. The middle class are moving to the left > in > a whole number of semi-Colonies and Imperialist countries. Tunisia and Egypt > has influenced the radicalization within the Imperialist countries. It has > shown the possibility of revolutionary change if millions of workers and > their > allies come onto the streets. Fine. So far I see very little evidence of middle class participation beyond that directed towards electoral ends. I very much hope I'm wrong about this. After the 22nd much of this will be clarified, as any overt or covert support from bourgeois or liberal forces will evaporate, and we will see what remains. > Trotskyists have to support and deepen a possible revolutionary process. At > the > same time we have to argue within the movement for them to win over millions > of > workers organized in Trade Unions and b
Re: [Marxism] Spanish Protests
==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==
On 20/05/2011 8:50, Dan Russell wrote:
> Was just at a meeting with someone who was involved in radical left circles
> in Spain and she was very excited about what she was hearing from friends
> there. Anyone have a feel for where the revolutionary left is at in general
> and in relation to these protests? I don't have the energy to read Spanish
> at this hour.
I'm not too connected to the protests or, indeed, to much of the Spanish
radical left, because where I live it is of insignificant size (that
market share, if I'm allowed the metaphor, is taken up by the
nationalists). However, my feeling for it is that it has been quite a
spontaneous movement, and probably quite a surprise to its organisers.
There seem to be two streams to this, that are similar but not
identical: a movement calling itself democracia real ya (real democracy
now) and one calling itself no les votes (don't vote for them). This
latter movement seems to be somewhat connected to the liberal base of
the PP, the Spanish right wing, and seems to be calling for abstention
on the 22nd elections, against the PSOE government, or, depending who
you ask, for a vote to a different party than PSOE/PP/CiU. There seems
to be some evidence that Libertad Digital, one of the most reactionary
e-newspapers in Spain, has promoted this movement.
As to democracia real ya, it's hard to know what they are about. It
seems they are calling for more direct ("liquid") forms of democracy,
through assemblies, collective deliberation etc. One notion I've been
hearing about is that of a liquid democracy, which is to say, one in
which people can at any time proxy-vote through someone of their trust,
who can in turn proxy-vote for someone else, etc, and divide their
proxies into areas, such that every decision is taken through this
procedure (not just elections).
Tomorrow it is the day of reflection (a day when electoral activity is
forbidden). It seems that there are contradictory reports on what will
happen. The Constitutional Tribunal has stated that demonstrations or
meetings that do not have a particular electoral content are permisible,
whereas the electoral board (an administrative board in charge of
decisions on electoral issues) has forbidden meetings for tomorrow. At
the same time, it appears the assembly of democracia real ya, meeting in
the street, in situ, decided not to call demonstrations for tomorrow
either, so not very clear what the fuss is all about.
There are two important background events against which this is taking
place: 1) the attempt to illegalise Sortu and Bildu (successful and
unsuccessful respectively) which are Basque nationalist left formations,
on the grounds that they support or do not sufficiently condemn ETA's
violence, and 2) the so-called Ley Sinde (Sinde Act) which forbids
websites which offer copyrighted content for download. This law was
passed by an unholy alliance of PSOE, PP and CiU, if I remember
correctly (perhaps not PP, not certain). Penetration of Twitter and such
in Spanish youth seems to be high, and a lot of the annoyance that ended
up in such protests seems to be related to this.
I'll say more about it if I have time and things clarify in any way.
Regards,
--David.
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[Marxism] Marxism chat channel on IRC.
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == For those of you who'd like to chat in realtime with other Marxists, there is a marxism channel on an IRC network called freenode. I like mailing lists, but they make casual conversation and fast responses difficult, so perhaps some of you will be interested as well. I found it out recently and for now there aren't a lot of users, unfortunately. You can connect one of two ways: 1) if you have an IRC client, the info is: Network: irc.freenode.net Channel: ##marxism If you don't have an IRC client you could try Chatzilla, which is relatively simple and multiplatform. 2) It's also possible to connect via web, which may be an option if you are unwilling or unable to install an IRC client. This is the URL: URL: https://webchat.freenode.net?channels=%23%23marxism I'm often around there as "modulus". Would be great to meet more Marxmailers in something closer to realtime chat. Regards, --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
