Re: [Marxism] Stephen F. Cohen is not the man he used to be
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-05-04, at 3:33 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 5/3/14 10:10 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: 1. The Euromaidan politicians have always been gung-ho to join NATO Except when it got in the way of horse-trading after the fashion of Clinton cutting deals with Republicans...Plus, both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko did not find Yanukovych's opposition to NATO a stumbling block to forming a coalition government in 2008. Nor did Yanukovych's orientation to Russia prevent him from coming close to a deal with EU for that matter. Positions taken by bourgeois politicians in Ukraine would embarrass Machiavelli. Of course. In fact, it was I who drew your attention last month to the horse-trading and shifting alliances between the oligarchs and politicians when you waxed enthusiastic about the Orange and Euromaidan revolutions which brought the pro-NATO politicians to power: The equally misnamed 'Orange Revolution' to which you've compared the latest events fell far short of producing a profound historical change for the better, unless you have only in mind (and I know you don't) the revolving door of kleptocrats and corrupt politicians from both western and eastern Ukraine who have been the sole beneficiaries of the turmoil resulting in changes of government. No better illustration of this latter point is there than Petro Poroshenko, the prototypical oligarch and likely winner of Ukraine's presidential election next month who has bounced back and forth between the rival Yanukovych and Yushchenko/Tymoshenko camps depending on which way the political wind was blowing. http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2014-April/158312.html BTW, there wasn't a coalition government in 2008 between the rival camps, as you state above. There was a bitter falling out between Yushchenko and Tymoshenko which prompted the latter to temporarily and opportunistically seek parliamentary and political support from Yanukovych and the Putin government - what Time magazine called a marriage of convenience. But they never governed together or held a common position on NATO. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1838848,00.html In any case, my comment yesterday was in response to your erroneous assertion that Yushchenko and Tymoshenko did not, and do not, favour NATO membership. This no longer seems to be in dispute. 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] Stephen F. Cohen is not the man he used to be
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-05-03, at 12:05 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: If the Euromaidan politicians were so gung-ho to join NATO, they would have done so when Orange Revolution politicians like Yushchenko or Tymoshenko were heads of state. For someone who claims to know more about the Ukraine crisis than anyone else on the list you seem oblivious to the most elementary facts: 1. The Euromaidan politicians have always been gung-ho to join NATO, using the same pretext as the US and West European politicians from the time the organization was founded - that it was a defensive alliance against Soviet, and now Russian, expansion. Following the Orange Revolution in 2005, when Yushchenko and Tymoshenkp became heads of state, Ukraine entered into the Intensified Dialogue programme with NATO, culminating in March 2008, with Ukraine's officially application to join the alliance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Membership_Action_Plan#Ukraine 2. The application to join NATO was immediately shelved, however, on the coming to power of the Yanukovych government, which drew its main support from ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. http://euobserver.com/defence/30212 3. Last week, Tymoshenko reiterated her call for Ukraine to join NATO, and predicted that the move would now be supported by a majority of Ukrainians. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_UKRAINE_TYMOSHENKO?SITE=APSECTION=HOMETEMPLATE=DEFAULT 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] Stephen F. Cohen is not the man he used to be | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-05-02, at 3:50 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Ever since the crisis in the Ukraine broke out, Stephen F. Cohen has been campaigning on behalf of a Kremlin that he warns is being unfairly demonized by the West as part of an effort to start a new Cold War. Some of his arguments can only be described as ludicrous. For example: “That the Ukraine crisis was instigated by the West’s attempt, last November, to smuggle the former Soviet republic into NATO.” In fact, despite the millions of words to this effect from the pro-Putin left, this is what the new foreign minister stated on March 29th: Acting Foreign Affairs Minister of Ukraine Andriy Deschytsia has once again stated that the new Ukrainian government is not intending to lead Ukraine to NATO. “We are considering all options regarding the strengthening of our security and collective security. But we must stick to the existing legislation of Ukraine,” he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Saturday. The official noted that in accordance with the Ukrainian legislation Ukraine is a non-aligned state. You characteristically neglected to add: But the issue whether to change this legislation depends on the Ukrainian parliament. The program of the new Ukrainian government does not contain the intention of becoming a member of NATO, he said. Deschytsia added that Ukraine supports an intensive dialogue with NATO and is discussing different forms and ways of cooperation. http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/198372.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century online complete
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-04-23, at 6:06 PM, Charlie wrote: Andrew Pollack wrote: ...glorifying income inequality as THE source of all ills and a progressive tax as the panacea. From Henry George through David Graeber and now Piketty, the monocausalists never go away. To be fair, Piketty does not indict wealth inequality as the source of all ills. (He welcomes a large amount of inequality on Horatio Alger grounds.) His main concern is that rentier wealth threatens democracy. Which is why many mainstream economists, journalists, and capitalists don't see the book as particularly threatening. In fact, the liberal bourgeoisie thinks the point has been reached where some measures to restore mass purchasing power are necessary to revive the stagnant economy, and have seized on Piketty's work in support of their view. Even Billionaires Love This Guy’s Book About Inequality By Mark Gimein Bloomberg News April 24, 2014 Among the fans of French economist Thomas Piketty, count one you may not have expected, who seems to have been reading his book, Capital in the 21st Century with keen interest: @Carl_C_Icahn: Spent weekend reading great new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. The book highlights future problems for our economy brilliantly. I intend to discuss it more on Shareholders' Square Table shortly. Carl Icahn announcing that he's reading Piketty's book probably works to the advantage of both: Icahn shows he's intellectually engaged, Piketty gets to know he's reaching the corridors of power. That Icahn should actually bother to read the book, though, has incited disbelief: @pkedrosky: Speaking of Piketty's book, laughed out loud at Carl Icahn claiming he read Piketty's book over weekend. Sure you did Carl. Sure. Really, though, it's less of a surprise than you might think at first blush. Icahn (net worth $22.7 billion; rank among world's billionaires: 32) acquired his wealth starting from modest circumstances. He grew up in the outskirts of Queens... it contains hardly anyone who is truly rich. A self-made billionaire being somewhat in tune with Piketty’s book is not shocking. More perplexing is why in an era of massive self-made fortunes like Icahn’s, Piketty chooses to talk largely about the dangers of dynastic fortunes built up through inheritance. No question, the income gap between rich and poor has skyrocketed in the U.S. and Europe. But the driver of that in the United States has not been inheritance. On the contrary, the general trend over the last decades has been for more of the wealth at the top to be earned through wages and entrepreneurship. The main source for that information is work by theUC Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez together with … yes, Thomas Piketty. This is true just about any way you look at it. The share of income for the top 0.5% of Americans coming from capital gains was just 13.4 percent. Even for the very top of the pyramid (the 0.01%) the share was 41.3 percent, much less than the share of top incomes that came from capital gains in the 1960s and 1970s. Meanwhile, dividends — once the main source of income for those at the very top — diminished. Until 1980, the top 0.01% got more of their income from dividends than than from wages (for much of that period, four times as much). So why does Piketty spend much of his book concentrating on inherited wealth? He may simply be prescient. Taking a long view of history, a return to those days of rentier’s living off bond coupons — maybe somewhat harder than Piketty asserts — could be around the corner. Still it’s worth pointing out that the problem of inequality that comes from inherited wealth is less thorny than the problem of wealth that is acquired through effort — or even luck. Piketty writes: “The significance of inequalities of wealth differs depending on whether those inequalities derive from inherited wealth or savings. … Inequality is not necessarily bad in itself: the key question is to decide whether it is justified, whether there are reasons for it.” The buildup of inherited wealth is the easiest kind of inequality on which to get a consensus. There’s nothing especially admirable about being born with a trust fund. Billionaires and socialists agree about expanding opportunity. Much harder is figuring out what to do when even relatively fair opportunities still yield brutally unequal results. Plenty of the well-off will wring their hands over the dangers of dynastic fortune. Good luck reaching the same kind of consensus about the earnings of a chief executive, the programming team at a successful startup, the creators of a TV show — or a billionaire mogul who worked his way up from Queens.
[Marxism] Unfazed by crisis, energy multinationals strengthen Russia ties in bid to tap Asian market
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Digging Themselves in Deeper By Keith Johnson Foreign Policy April 23 2014 Russia may have become an international outcast in the wake of its annexation of Crimea and continued destabilization of eastern Ukraine. But for one group of powerful multinationals, Russia these days is less pariah than promised land. Big Western oil companies from BP to Shell have not just stayed the course in Russia in recent months -- many have essentially doubled down on oil and gas investments there and built even closer ties with Russian energy firms. Taken together, the deals could send billions of dollars flowing into the Russian economy just when Barack Obama's administration is trying to hammer it hard enough to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to reverse his annexation of Crimea and stop menacing eastern Ukraine. We've made clear that we'd be prepared to target certain sectors of the Russian economy if we see a significant escalation, including direct Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine, White House spokesperson Laura Lucas Magnuson has said. It's unclear how successful the American efforts will be if giant multinational energy firms continue investing in Russia. The deals are a boon to Putin and a blow to President Obama for reasons that go beyond mere dollars and cents. The Western companies that sign the agreements also bring much-needed technical know-how, which is critical to Russian efforts to tap oil and gas in an array of inhospitable sites. Basically, they are torpedoing whatever the United States and the EU are trying to do, which is rattle Putin's cage, said Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst with Oppenheimer Co. in New York. I'm very surprised the oil companies are going out of their way to assure Russia and Putin that they are going to do business as usual. Indeed, international oil firms are flocking to do more business in Moscow despite international outrage at the annexation of the Crimean peninsula, fears about Russia's use of natural gas exports to blackmail Europe, and growing signs that Russia is trying to stir up tensions in eastern Ukraine as a prelude to a potential military incursion there. The continued Western investment in Russia reflects the simple fact that the country's energy potential is simply massive, with still-untapped deposits of oil and gas in Siberia and the Arctic and a huge Asian market for energy exports just next door. The prospect of getting in on the ground floor of the opening of Russia's liquefied natural gas export market is especially attractive to many firms, which see demand for gas in China, Japan, South Korea, and India as a guaranteed market for years to come. As a result, a parade of Western CEOs have made clear that they have no plans to end, or even delay, their joint projects with Russia. Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden, for instance, met with Putin at the latter's residence outside Moscow on April 18. According to Bloomberg, van Beurden told Putin that his company is very keen to grow our position in the Russian Federation, including through fresh investments to increase the capacity of the Sakhalin offshore gas field and export terminal in Russia's Far East. Kelly op de Weegh, a spokesperson for Shell, told Foreign Policy that the company's commitment to Russia hasn't been diminished by recent events. Our strategy for working in Russia, in partnership with Russian companies, has not changed, op de Weegh said. Russia is a country of great importance for Shell; it is a major hydrocarbons resource holder and a growing consumer market. She added that the expansion of the Sakhalin liquefied natural gas terminal, which liquefies natural gas taken from offshore fields in sub-Arctic conditions, has been in discussions for years due to its importance as a supply point for the big and growing Asia-Pacific market. BP head Bob Dudley, meanwhile, said on April 15 that it's business as usual in Russia, despite some angst among shareholders, and suggested that BP could serve as a bridge between Russia and the West. BP holds a 20 percent stake in Rosneft, Russia's state-dominated oil giant, which is worth about $13.6 billion. Norway's Statoil also reaffirmed its desire to stay active in the Russian market and ink joint ventures with Russian oil firms, despite the crisis and the looming threat of further sanctions on Russia. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil is quietly pressing ahead with plans to look for oil in the Arctic alongside Rosneft; it is also reportedly in talks tojoin Rosneft for oil deals in northern Iraq. France's Total, for its part, recently underscored its commitment to the Russian market. That includes a sizable shareholding in Russian gas firm Novatek -- controlled by
Re: [Marxism] Unfazed by crisis, energy multinationals strengthen Russia ties in bid to tap Asian market
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (It's not only energy firms who have an interest in cultivating good relations and avoiding a new Cold War with Russia) Russia remains a land of opportunity for investors By Chris Weafer Financial Times April 22 2014 By some measures, Russia is already Europe’s second-biggest consumer market; with 144m people, it could eventually become the largest in Europe. Using the definition favoured by the OECD club of mostly rich nations, Russia’s middle class encompasses more than half the population, compared with 30 per cent in Brazil, 21 per cent in China and 11 per cent in India. The result is a growing market of affluent consumers. Between 2000 and 2012 retail spending in Russia grew at a compound rate of 20 per cent a year. The extraordinary boom in consumer spending has run its course; the growth rate was down to about 5 per cent last year. But the trend is clear. Russians are adopting the affluent lifestyles typical of people in developed economies. […] It is true that oil and gas accounts for about two-thirds of Russian exports. But because of the steady expansion of the economy over the past decade, less than 50 per cent of tax revenue is generated from these industries. The government learnt an expensive lesson in 2008, when the oil price collapse quickly eroded foreign exchange reserves and led to a budget deficit of 6 per cent of gross domestic product in 2009. If the oil price were to fall to $80 a barrel (it is currently about $100), the budget deficit would be 3 or 4 per cent. Given that Russia has public debt of only 11 per cent of GDP, such deficits could easily be sustained for several years. ...despite the intrusion of politics and the risk of volatility in the oil market, Russia is still an attractive country in which to make money. International investors who are already there are staying, and others who join them stand to prosper. Full: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7acfb384-ca0f-11e3-ac05-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fcomment%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproductsiteedition=intl#axzz2zZqNUiEm On 2014-04-23, at 12:54 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: Digging Themselves in Deeper By Keith Johnson Foreign Policy April 23 2014 Russia may have become an international outcast in the wake of its annexation of Crimea and continued destabilization of eastern Ukraine. But for one group of powerful multinationals, Russia these days is less pariah than promised land. Big Western oil companies from BP to Shell have not just stayed the course in Russia in recent months -- many have essentially doubled down on oil and gas investments there and built even closer ties with Russian energy firms. Taken together, the deals could send billions of dollars flowing into the Russian economy just when Barack Obama's administration is trying to hammer it hard enough to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to reverse his annexation of Crimea and stop menacing eastern Ukraine. We've made clear that we'd be prepared to target certain sectors of the Russian economy if we see a significant escalation, including direct Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine, White House spokesperson Laura Lucas Magnuson has said. It's unclear how successful the American efforts will be if giant multinational energy firms continue investing in Russia. The deals are a boon to Putin and a blow to President Obama for reasons that go beyond mere dollars and cents. The Western companies that sign the agreements also bring much-needed technical know-how, which is critical to Russian efforts to tap oil and gas in an array of inhospitable sites. Basically, they are torpedoing whatever the United States and the EU are trying to do, which is rattle Putin's cage, said Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst with Oppenheimer Co. in New York. I'm very surprised the oil companies are going out of their way to assure Russia and Putin that they are going to do business as usual. Indeed, international oil firms are flocking to do more business in Moscow despite international outrage at the annexation of the Crimean peninsula, fears about Russia's use of natural gas exports to blackmail Europe, and growing signs that Russia is trying to stir up tensions in eastern Ukraine as a prelude to a potential military incursion there. The continued Western investment in Russia reflects the simple fact that the country's energy potential is simply massive, with still-untapped deposits of oil and gas in Siberia and the Arctic and a huge Asian market for energy exports just next door. The prospect of getting in on the ground floor of the opening of Russia's liquefied natural gas export market is especially attractive to many firms, which see
[Marxism] Soros on Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Future of Europe: An Interview with George Soros George Soros and Gregor Peter Schmitz New York Review of Books April 24, 2104 issue http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/apr/24/future-europe-interview-george-soros/ […] Schmitz: What do you think of Vladimir Putin’s recent policies with respect to Ukraine, Crimea, and Europe? Soros: Now you are coming to the crux of the matter. Russia is emerging as a big geopolitical player, and the European Union needs to realize that it has a resurgent rival on its east. Russia badly needs Europe as a partner, but Putin is positioning it as a rival. There are significant political forces within the Russian regime that are critical of Putin’s policy on that score. Schmitz: Can you be more specific? Soros: The important thing to remember is that Putin is leading from a position of weakness. He was quite popular in Russia because he restored some order out of the chaos. The new order is not all that different from the old one, but the fact that it is open to the outside world is a definite improvement, an important element in its stability. But then the prearranged switch with Dmitry Medvedev from prime minister to president deeply upset the people. Putin felt existentially threatened by the protest movement. He became repressive at home and aggressive abroad. That is when Russia started shipping armaments to the Assad regime in Syria on a massive scale and helped turn the tide against the rebels. The gamble paid off because of the preoccupation of the Western powers—the United States and the EU—with their internal problems. Barack Obama wanted to retaliate against Syria’s use of chemical weapons. He asked for congressional approval and was about to be rebuffed when Putin came to the rescue and persuaded Assad to voluntarily surrender his chemical weapons. That was a resounding diplomatic victory for him. Yet the spontaneous uprising of the Ukrainian people must have taught Putin that his dream of reconstituting what is left of the Russian Empire is unattainable. He is now facing a choice between persevering or changing course and becoming more cooperative abroad and less repressive at home. His current course has already proved to be self-defeating, but he appears to be persevering. Schmitz: Is Russia a credible threat to Europe if its economy is as weak as you say? Soros: The oligarchs who control much of the Russian economy don’t have any confidence in the regime. They send their children and money abroad. That is what makes the economy so weak. Even with oil over $100 a barrel, which is the minimum Russia needs to balance its budget, it is not growing. Putin turned aggressive out of weakness. He is acting in self-defense. He has no scruples, he can be ruthless, but he is a judo expert, not a sadist—so the economic weakness and the aggressive behavior are entirely self-consistent. Schmitz: How should Europe respond to it? Soros: It needs to be more united, especially in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Putin prides himself on being a geopolitical realist. He respects strength and is emboldened by weakness. Yet there is no need to be permanently adversarial. Notwithstanding the current situation in Ukraine, the European Union and Russia are in many ways complementary; they both need each other. There is plenty of room for Russia to play a constructive role in the world, exactly because both Europe and the United States are so preoccupied with their internal problems. Schmitz: How does that translate into practice, particularly in the Middle East? Soros: It has totally transformed the geopolitical situation. I have some specific ideas on this subject, but it is very complicated. I can’t possibly explain it in full because there are too many countries involved and they are all interconnected. Schmitz: Give it a try. Soros: I should start with a general observation. There are a growing number of unresolved political crises in the world. That is a symptom of a breakdown in global governance. We have a very rudimentary system in place. Basically, there is only one international institution of hard power: the UN Security Council. If the five permanent members agree, they can impose their will on any part of the world. But there are many sovereign states with armies; and there are failed states that are unable to protect their monopoly over the use of lethal force or hard power. The cold war was a stable system. The two superpowers were stalemated by the threat of mutually assured destruction, and they had to restrain their satellites. So wars were fought mainly at the edges. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a brief moment when the United States emerged as the
[Marxism] Geopolitics and mass struggle in Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis and others have been highly critical of those who have drawn attention to the conflict between NATO and Russia over Ukraine, ostensibly because these same neo-Stalinists, tankies, conspiracists etc. and their dupes on the left have focused on it to detract from and misrepresent the more important mass democratic struggle in the country represented by Euromaidan. In fact, Ukraine has been a textbook example of how there can be no separation, especially in times of crisis, in relations between rival states and relations between the rival classes and/or nationalities they support on the ground. The complex interplay of these forces is currently revealed in the standoff between the new government based on the Ukranian-speaking majority and the Russian-speaking minority resisting it in the heavily industrialized Donbas region to the east. The intransigence of the Donbas protesters can't be explained other than in relation to the sharp disagreements between the European NATO countries about how strongly to to risk a confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. If there were unanimity within NATO and the EU about economic sanctions against Russia and military support to the Kiev authorities, the Donbas rebellion and the uneasy support for it by the Putin government would have dissolved by now. It may still do so under Russian pressure resulting from last week's accord with the US and EU in Geneva but that is not yet clear. More generally, the conflict between the western and eastern regions of the country can't be explained other than in the context of their geographic, cultural, and economic ties to the EU nations and to Russia respectively and the centrifugal class and ethnic pressures which these exert inside Ukraine. * * * Ukraine Accord Doubts Grow as Protesters Refuse to Disarm By Stepan Kravchenko, Sangwon Yoon and Volodymyr Verbyany Bloomberg News April 19, 2014 Pro-Russian protesters, testing Russia’s willingness to help defuse the Ukraine crisis, are refusing to lay down arms even as the interim Ukrainian government pledged to abide by an accord reached in Geneva. Acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s government suspended its anti-terrorist operations in the country’s east and expressed a readiness to pursue constitutional revisions. A protest leader in Donetsk refused to disarm and vacate seized property and public places until Yatsenyuk’s administration steps down. The discord adds to skepticism about whether Ukraine, the U.S., and the European Union will be able to use the Geneva accord to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable for de-escalating tensions he and his associates deny they’ve had any role in creating. U.S. and EU officials yesterday reiterated their readiness to deepen sanctions against Russia, which they say has massed troops near Ukraine’s border and is fomenting unrest after annexing Crimea last month. The developments don’t mean Russia is “necessarily reneging on the deal, as it is more of an effort for them to test the deal” and see how they can “avoid sanctions without trying to change the situation on the ground,” said John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Full: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-18/ukraine-accord-doubts-grow-as-protesters-refuse-to-disarm.html Energy Needs Curb Eastern EU Hunger for Russian Sanctions By John Fraher Bloomberg News April 18, 2014 The European Union’s eastern members, once united in their opposition to Soviet rule, are now split over how to respond to Vladimir Putin’s Ukrainian incursion. In one camp, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his Baltic allies argue that the EU and NATO need to face up to their historic responsibility and respond to Russian aggression with tougher sanctions. Others argue that such a stance is unrealistic given Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. At a recent EU summit, conversation turned to energy sanctions, according to a person at the talks. At that point, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban intervened to say he can’t support a clampdown on Russia when Hungary relies on it for 80 percent of his energy, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the debate was private. The split highlights how Europe’s dependence on Russian energy is hobbling its ability to craft a united response that will deter Putin as he extends Russia’s reach into Ukraine. While the EU targeted individuals in initial rounds of sanctions and is threatening Russia with economic measures, it’s not clear how punitive they will be and will require unanimity to pass. Full: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-18/putin-gas-splits-eastern-eu-over-russia-sanctions.html
Re: [Marxism] Geopolitics and mass struggle in Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Apr 19, 2014, at 8:47 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: And this is a guy who worked for 30 years in the education department of a Canadian union. No wonder the trade unions are in such lousy shape. Zzzz. http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2013-November/154606.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The economic dimension to the pro-Russian mobilizations across eastern Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Despite the allegations by Western politicians and journalists that they are agents of Moscow, leaders of the Russian-speaking community in the eastern provinces are refusing to stand down despite the accord reached in Geneva yesterday between Russia, the US, the EU, and the interim Ukrainian government to disarm the militias on both sides and to guarantee Russian language and cultural rights. The Washington Post article from earlier this week shows that fear of austerity and unemployment and the severing of favourable access to the Russian market are driving the protests as much or more than ethnic estrangement from the predominantly Ukrainian-speaking majority in the western part of the country which dominates the central government in Kiev. In Ukraine, a crisis of bullets and economics By Anthony Faiola Washington Post April 16 2014 DONETSK, Ukraine — As pro-Russia militants stormed City Hall here Wednesday, the interim Ukrainian government was battling more than just a separatist problem. Kiev’s credibility is on the line as the central government tries to persuade residents fearful of economic hardship that their future lies with Ukraine rather than Russia. Scenes of armed occupation unfolded Wednesday across eastern Ukraine. Besides the takeover of City Hall in this city of nearly 1 million, separatists farther north flew the Russian flag over six armored vehicles that fell into their hands after Ukrainian forces surrendered them, either willingly or through intimidation. The Defense Ministry said the loss came after a crowd of pro-Moscow residents, mingling with covert Russian operatives instigating violence in the east, blocked an advance by pro-Kiev forces. Nevertheless, many residents here are not eager for the region to follow in the footsteps of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia last month. Ilya, a small-business owner who spoke on the condition that his last name not be used for fear of reprisals, considers himself solidly pro-Ukrainian. Still, the government in Kiev is managing to alienate citizens here, he said, with a little help from the West. At a most dangerous and delicate time, just as it battles Moscow for hearts and minds across the east, the pro-Western government is set to initiate a shock therapy of economic measures to meet the demands of an emergency bailout from the International Monetary Fund. “We don’t trust them,” Ilya said of the country’s interim leaders in the capital as he pushed his infant son in a stroller in the gardens behind City Hall. Both the government and IMF say they have no choice. Interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk acknowledged that the package is “very unpopular,” but Kiev is broke and desperate for cash, and Russia is no longer seen as a viable benefactor. No matter how much they publicly offer their unequivocal support for Kiev, the IMF and Western governments that have pledged up to $27 billion in loans refuse to toss their money down the black hole of corruption and waste that is the Ukrainian economy. Especially here in the east, where cultural and economic ties to Russia are far stronger than in western Ukraine, the bailout is hurting the government’s popularity among an already skeptical audience. Residents are bracing for the worst. A rollback of long-generous subsidies on natural gas will raise the rate consumers pay on their heating and cooking bills by roughly 63 percent next month. About 24,000 state workers and 80,000 police officers nationwide are set to be laid off. Taxes on vodka, beer and cigarettes will soon go up. Changes in property tax calculations mean that many Ukrainian homeowners will soon be paying more. Ukraine is already a failed student of IMF programs, with the fund pulling the plug on a package for the previous government of former president Viktor Yanukovych after it abandoned pledged reforms. But at least one of the previous demands of the IMF — a more flexible exchange rate for Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia — came to pass in February when the embattled Central Bank pulled back from defending the currency. Since then, the currency has fallen precipitously, forcing the Central Bank to raise interest rates this week and driving up the cost of credit. Among the effects of a weaker currency: Prescription drug prices have soared because high-quality medicines here are imported. Deepening resentment In the long run, such austerity measures may be needed to help fix the broken economy , which appeared to reach new heights of corruption when Yanukovych was in power. But they are deepening the sense of resentment against the fragile new government in Kiev. “How can they do this to us all at once?” said Ilya, who owns a heating supply company
Re: [Marxism] Donetsk Pro-Russians Order Jews to 'Register or be Deported' for Supporting Kiev Rule
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-04-16, at 9:14 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 4/16/14 9:10 PM, Ken Hiebert wrote: I note two comments on the site challenging its authenticity. I saw that too. But I also saw Luke Harding's Guardian article that reported on one of these Donetsk pro-Russian militants referring to the Jew Trotsky as dividing the Slavs. Yes, there are Russian fascists and Ukrainian fascists and fascists in every society with varying, usually very small, degrees of influence. Here's where real power resides: EU sanctions push on Russia falters amid big business lobbying By Christian Oliver and James Fontanella-Khan in Brussels, George Parker in London and Stefan Wagstyl in Berlin Financial Times April 16, 2014 Europe’s resolve to impose tough sanctions on Moscow is cracking under corporate lobbying, as companies warn governments that any retaliation from the Kremlin could cost them dearly. Diplomats fear that talks in Geneva on Thursday between the US, Russia, Ukraine and the EU will prove fruitless in tackling the crisis over the occupation of local government buildings in eastern Ukraine by pro-Russian militants. If the talks fail, EU leaders are expected to meet next week to discuss broad economic sanctions against Moscow. But even before such a meeting, the fissures between countries are evident. “Are the member states united on this? No. Are they willing to die for Ukraine? I don’t think so,” a senior European official said, noting that sanctions would demand a consensus from the 28-member bloc. In Germany, the chemical group BASF has been among leading companies advocating caution. In Italy, the energy company Eni is arguing that Europe, which imports 30 per cent of its gas from Russia’s Gazprom, is no position to impose energy sanctions on Moscow. BP is at the forefront of a group of companies who have told British MPs and ministers they are at risk if EU governments decide over the next few days to impose economic sanctions on Russia. British officials have told the Financial Times that BP has warned ministers of possible repercussions if relations with Moscow deteriorate: BP has a 20 per cent stake in Rosneft, the state-controlled oil company. Both Britain and Cyprus are concerned about risks to their financial sectors. In the latter, Russian depositors play a critical role. Britain already appears to be considering weaker sanctions against Russia over its support for pro-Russian militia in eastern Ukraine than originally anticipated. Britain says it is looking for agreement on blocking Moscow joining the OECD, the Paris based group that aims to promote sustainable growth, and accelerating action in World Trade Organisation cases against Russia. Germany is guarded about what measures it favours. Sigmar Gabriel, the economy minister, said it was “in Russia’s hands to prevent a further escalation that would lead to economic sanctions”. Britain’s proposed measures fall well short of the action against Russia’s trade, banking and energy interests that the European Commission has been entrusted with considering. “Sanctions come with an implicit hierarchy starting with trade and escalating through finance and energy. Getting agreement on trade sanctions will be easier but that alone is unlikely to constrain [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s behaviour,” said Mujtaba Rahman, head of European analysis at the Eurasia Group risk consultancy. The Obama administration has been preparing new sanctions on Russia which could be unveiled as early as Friday if the Geneva talks achieve little. According to congressional aides familiar with the discussions, the likely targets who will be added to the sanctions list include more businessmen close to Mr Putin and potentially another Russian bank or state-owned company. However, broader sectoral sanctions are not considered likely at this stage. However, US business groups have also lobbied the administration against introducing sanctions that might lead to retaliation against US interests. The US is also wary about getting too far ahead of the EU in its sanctions. European countries have resented the US’s hectoring tone on the need for sterner measures against Russia, when the EU’s trade relationship is almost a dozen times bigger than America’s. On one side of the European debate, the Baltic nations and Poland favour strong action against Moscow, while accepting that Russian retaliation could be painful. On the other, Italy and Germany are more reticent about sanctions, partly because of lobbying from their leading companies. Polish officials have accepted that a showdown with Russia could sever some gas supplies, often used for chemical and fertiliser plants but said they would have to endure
Re: [Marxism] Maidan or anti-Maidan? The Ukraine situation requires more nuance | Volodymyr Ishchenko | Comment is free
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Apr 15, 2014, at 5:38 PM, Paul Flewers trusscott.foundat...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: A good article, pointing to the problems with both the pro- and anti-Maidan currents, and for the need to cut across the current leading political agendas. [...] The rival parallel nationalist agendas in Ukraine threaten to force people in the mixed areas of the country to declare their allegiance: Russian with Russia or Ukrainian with Ukraine. The spectre of the Yugoslav disaster is arising in Ukraine, the same dynamics which led to the internecine slaughter there are appearing in Ukraine. Unless some sort of class politics which can point to the common interests of workers in the country as a whole can cut across the growing rival nationalist upsurges, disaster is inevitable. My thoughts also - the Guardian article and your gloss on it. If the two sides do manage to avert a repeat of the Yugoslav disaster, it's because Ukraine is at the nexus of their entwined energy and financial interests. Unfortunately, Kargalitsky's latest notwithstanding, there's not much evidence to date of class politics within either camp, much less class politics which bridge the ethnic divide. 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] Occupy was right: capitalism has failed the world | Books | The Observer
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-04-14, at 11:27 AM, Louis Proyect posted: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/13/occupy-right-capitalism-failed-world-french-economist-thomas-piketty Where we learn that Piketty, whose politics are fully within the mainstream of the French Socialist Party, is a red diaper baby: He was brought up in Clichy in a mainly working-class district and his parents were both militant members of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle) – a hardcore Trotskyist party which still has a significant following in France. 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] [Pen-l] Occupy was right: capitalism has failed the world | Books | The Observer
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-04-14, at 11:27 AM, Louis Proyect posted: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/13/occupy-right-capitalism-failed-world-french-economist-thomas-piketty Where we learn that Piketty, whose politics are fully within the mainstream of the French Socialist Party, is a red diaper baby: He was brought up in Clichy in a mainly working-class district and his parents were both militant members of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers' Struggle) – a hardcore Trotskyist party which still has a significant following in France. 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] NATO's eastward expansion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == There's a useful outline in Counterpunch's weekend edition of NATO expansion in Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Balkans since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Renee Parsons largely draws on the work of James Goldgeier, cochair of the bipartisan Project for a United and Strong America and author of “Not Whether but When: The US Decision to Enlarge NATO. NATO's eastward expansion proceeded rapidly under the Clinton and Bush Jr. administrations, reversing assurances by the Bush Sr. administration to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that such would not be the case following the withdrawal of Soviet forces from East Germany. Orchestrated by the Nato Enlargement Office in the State Department, the Western military alliance quickly filled the space previously occupied by the Warsaw Pact, taking in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Baltic states, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania between 1999-2009. Other former Soviet and Yugoslav republics were also invited to join NATO. A strong political and military reaction from Russia, however, has to date caused the alliance to hesitate about formally admitting Georgia and Ukraine. The only discordant note in the article is Parsons' conclusion that the intent of NATO expansion is war with Russia. NATO's pressure on the Russian border is intended to secure peace in the region on terms favourable to the US and its European allies short of a military confrontation. http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/11/us-state-departmentnato-enlargement-project/?utm_source=rssutm_medium=rssutm_campaign=us-state-departmentnato-enlargement-project Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] National independence and the bond markets
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter. But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody. - James Carville) * * * Quebec Bonds Show Scottish Separatists Size Matters By Lukanyo Mnyanda and Rodney Jefferson Bloomberg News April 11 2014 As Scotland’s nationalists step up their campaign to leave the U.K., markets elsewhere suggest independence isn’t popular with bond investors. Yields on Quebec’s 10-year securities declined after separatists in the Canadian province lost ground in an April 7 election. The premium Catalonia pays to borrow compared with the Spanish state fell yesterday to the lowest since at least 2012 after lawmakers rejected plans for an independence referendum. Catalans want a vote about two months after Scots decide on their constitutional future on Sept. 18. “Bond investors like predictability, security and also they like size, so if you are part of a bigger country, that’s definitely supportive,” David Schnautz, a fixed-income strategist at Commerzbank AG in New York, said by telephone on April 9. “Any back-peddling from a drive toward independence on the other hand is then obviously bond positive.” Unlike the Catalans, opinion polls show more Scots want to keep the status quo than create Europe’s newest sovereign state. Yet enough people are undecided to make the outcome uncertain, intensifying the debate over a future independent Scotland’s debt, budget deficit and currency. The nation of 5.3 million doesn’t have its own bonds, so bankers, economists, rating companies and politicians have focused on how much it might have to pay to borrow compared with the U.K. Estimates for the premium depend on whether a newly independent Scotland could keep the pound, something Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has ruled out. Should he not get his way, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has threatened to walk away from Scotland’s share of U.K. national debt, which the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, or Niesr, estimates at 143 billion pounds ($240 billion). The U.K. has said it will honor all its borrowing in the event of Scottish independence. Fitch Ratings said in a report yesterday such a “debt shock” would delay Britain getting back its top credit score. Fitch, which stripped Britain of its AAA rating in April last year, said Britain’s debt burden would surge as the country lost about a tenth of its gross domestic product. In an interview with Bloomberg in New York a week ago, Salmond said “no sane person” would take on more debt to avoid a currency union between Scotland and the rest of the U.K. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today show this morning that “it’s quite different from what you do once the votes are in and people act in the interests of both their countries.” Should Scotland enter a monetary union, Niesr said its cost of borrowing would be between 72 to 165 basis points more than U.K. 10-year bonds because of its size. Scotland would need 23 billion pounds in its first year of breaking away to service its proportion of debt, Niesr said in an April 8 report. Jefferies International Ltd. in London predicts the interest rate for Scottish bonds would be about 100 basis points more than U.K. gilts. That’s based on the 2 billion pounds the semi-autonomous government in Edinburgh can borrow in the market under an existing law giving Scotland more power. If the nation votes for independence, fails to secure a currency union and then walks away from its share of U.K. debt, that premium would increase, said David Owen, chief European economist at Jefferies. In a December report, he put the extra yield at as high as 500 basis points, or 5 percentage points, a figure cited by the U.K. government when warning Scots on future costs. That would be higher than Greece now pays compared with Germany. “Until all these issues are settled -- and they wouldn’t be settled on day one and there would be a period of negotiation -- obviously you’d expect the uncertainty to weigh on investors and that would push up yields,” Owen said in an interview on April 4. “It would also impact the gilt market.” Gilts have gained 1.2 percent since Feb. 13, when Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said Scotland must relinquish the pound if voters back independence, according to Bloomberg World Bond Index. That compares with a 0.4 percent gain for U.S. Treasuries and German bonds. British 10-year bonds yielded 2.63 percent today, 110 basis points more than equivalent German debt. In Quebec, the governing separatist Parti Quebecois was trounced in an election, garnering its lowest support in 44 years.
[Marxism] The Greek bond rally
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It's either irrational exuberance that the worst is over for Greece and the other peripheral countries. or, more likely, a recognition by bond traders that the eurozone deflationary crisis is deepening and yields have further to plunge, supported by stepped-up ECB bond-buying to counter the deflationary threat) Fears grow over scale of eurozone bond rally By Ralph Atkins Financial Times April 10 2014 Greece used to be a byword for bond market trouble. But the country’s successful return on Thursday to global capital markets rode a rally that has sent eurozone government borrowing costs tumbling – in some cases to record lows. Athens’ success in shaking off, at least partly, its eurozone “bad boy” image highlights investors newfound confidence in crisis-hit countries on the region’s periphery. Orders for a €3bn issue of five-year bonds exceeded €20bn. But the forces driving down eurozone yields, which move inversely with prices, are much broader. As investors seek out better performing assets, the periphery has become a haven for investors fleeing troubled emerging markets – and expectations are growing that the European Central Bank will soon embark on “quantitative easing”, or large-scale asset purchases. The scale of the declines, however, is raising worries that the rally has gone too far. “It is becoming a funny world,” says Erik Nielsen, chief economist at UniCredit. “I fear the market may have got the ECB wrong.” With the effects spilling into corporate debt, worries about market frothiness have grown. Lowly-rated Greek banks can now issue bonds at interest rates paid a decade ago on 10-year UK and German government bonds, notes David Lloyd, senior portfolio manager at M G Investments. “Even in a world of super low interest rates, that looks pretty far from being OK to us.” Investors have seen good reasons for cutting the yields they demand on eurozone government debt. At the height of the debt crisis, periphery bonds were treated as “credit markets”; as with “junk” corporate bonds, investors fretted about default risks. As the eurozone crisis eased, thanks to ECB pledges to preserve the eurozone’s integrity – and politicians’ progress in strengthening Europe’s monetary union – Italian and Spanish bonds traded like “rates markets”, moving more in line with US Treasuries or German Bunds, traditionally regarded as risk-free. Spanish and Italian five-year yields have now fallen below UK equivalents. Not only have default risks fallen for periphery countries, inflation is exceptionally low, which could justify even lower rates. While nominal bond yields have fallen sharply, real yields – taking account of inflation – are “still very high” and could fall further relative to German Bunds, argues Andrew Bosomworth, European portfolio manager at Pimco. Japan’s experience over the past two decades shows how government bond yields can defy expectations and edge ever lower, Mr Bosomworth adds. “Investors asked: how can they go lower? But they kept on going down because if you deducted inflation – which was nothing – they were still relatively high.” As worries about the eurozone falling into a damaging deflationary phase have grown, the ECB has readied itself to launch QE. Last week, Mario Draghi, president, said its governing council was “unanimous in its commitment” to using unconventional policies to head off any deflation risks. In the US, QE drove Treasury yields significantly lower – with much of the impact ahead of implementation. Something similar may be happening in the eurozone. “As you move from QE being an out-of-the-money option to a more likely option, you would expect [bond] prices to move – and that is what we’re seeing. But we’re still not where we would be if it were ‘at the money’,” says Laurence Mutkin, head of global rates strategy at BNP Paribas. He reckons the spread, or difference between Spanish or Italian ten year bond yields or German equivalents – currently about 160 basis points – could fall a further 70 points. One risk is that some investors take profits from the recent rally, sending yields higher again. Greek 10-year yields rose on Thursday, suggesting some were exiting after placing orders for its new five-year bonds. A bigger danger is that markets have miscalculated the ECB’s intentions. While the central bank has simulated the effect of a €1tn purchase programme, QE may be some way off – and may not take the form of US-style government bond buying. Mr Draghi has indicated it may prefer to boost credit flows in southern Europe by buying packages of bank loans to small- and medium-sized enterprises in the form of “asset backed securities”. The difficulty for the ECB, however, will be finding
Re: [Marxism] Caring too much. That's the curse of the working classes | David Graeber | Comment is free | The Guardian
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Graeber and his critic, Suren Moodliar, touch on political and psychological reasons for why the working class is not taking action against austerity, when the real answer is lurking in plain sight: workers are either too worried about their jobs to risk dismissal, or too preoccupied with finding employment at home or relocating elsewhere to engage in strikes or other forms of mass action. The ruling classes have taken care to calibrate the reduction of working class standards so as not to provoke a political reaction which could threaten the system and so far, despite widespread insecurity and discontent, they have been successful with rare exceptions. On 2014-04-11, at 9:19 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/26/caring-curse-working-class-austerity-solidarity-scourge Caring too much. That's the curse of the working classes Why has the basic logic of austerity been accepted by everyone? Because solidarity has come to be viewed as a scourge David Graeber The Guardian, Wednesday 26 March 2014 16.40 EDT What I can't understand is, why aren't people rioting in the streets? I hear this, now and then, from people of wealthy and powerful backgrounds. There is a kind of incredulity. After all, the subtext seems to read, we scream bloody murder when anyone so much as threatens our tax shelters; if someone were to go after my access to food or shelter, I'd sure as hell be burning banks and storming parliament. What's wrong with these people? It's a good question. One would think a government that has inflicted such suffering on those with the least resources to resist, without even turning the economy around, would have been at risk of political suicide. Instead, the basic logic of austerity has been accepted by almost everyone. Why? Why do politicians promising continued suffering win any working-class acquiescence, let alone support, at all? I think the very incredulity with which I began provides a partial answer. Working-class people may be, as we're ceaselessly reminded, less meticulous about matters of law and propriety than their betters, but they're also much less self-obsessed. They care more about their friends, families and communities. In aggregate, at least, they're just fundamentally nicer. To some degree this seems to reflect a universal sociological law. Feminists have long since pointed out that those on the bottom of any unequal social arrangement tend to think about, and therefore care about, those on top more than those on top think about, or care about, them. Women everywhere tend to think and know more about men's lives than men do about women, just as black people know more about white people's, employees about employers', and the poor about the rich. (clip) A Response to David Graeber Has the Working Class Really Accepted Austerity? by SUREN MOODLIAR David Graeber answers the provocative title question affirmatively in a recent Guardian op-ed, “Caring too much. That’s the curse of the working classes” (3/26/2014). The result of this excessive caring is “that the basic logic of austerity has been accepted by almost everyone.” So while others may consider solidarity to be a virtue, Graeber believes that it is “the rope from which [the working] class is currently suspended.” This marks something of a shift from his position on caring articulated in his magisterial historical survey, Debt: the First 5,000 Years, where he observes that the “non-industrious poor spent [time] with friends and family, enjoying and caring for those they love, [thereby] probably improving the world more than we acknowledge.” Where “caring” prefigures the new society in Debt, it seems to anchor us to an austere present in the Guardian op-ed. If Debt was about the strange alchemy transmuting love into debt, this op-ed is about how caring becomes austerity – a Gordian knot if ever there was one! Fortunately, his austerity claims fail on several levels; the op-ed’s premise, that the working class accepts austerity is a shaky, largely false one. Further, even if we accept that the working class cares, it does not mean that caring predisposes one to austerity. Does the working class accept austerity? It is easy to make this a fuzzy kind of question, after all, what is “acceptance” and how do you measure it? Nonetheless, pretty uncontroversial polling data show that working people are concerned about budget deficits. But the same polling routinely shows that they support policies that run contrary to the logic of austerity; today about 73% of the US public support raising the minimum wage.
[Marxism] Using the Russian bogey to cement the US/EU/Ukraine alliance
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Seven Lessons of Counterinsurgency 101 in Ukraine BY James Stavridis Foreign Policy April 10 2014 Ukraine hangs at a precarious moment, twisting in an uncertain wind. Russian troops are still massed along the eastern border, and President Vladimir Putin seems intent on keeping his options open: Will he choose invasion, destabilization, or negotiation? The most likely path forward seems to be a Russian attempt to destabilize Ukraine through a covert campaign. The United States and its NATO allies should lean in to help the Kiev regime prepare to conduct counterinsurgency operations, given what appears to be obvious Russian support to violent separatists. Step one should be assessing the potential for an effective insurgency and understanding the historical and cultural pressures that create it. The good news about the Russian annexation of Crimea is that it effectively reduces the remaining Russian ethnic population in the rest of Ukraine. While exact numbers are hard to define precisely, most observers believe the remaining pro-Russian ethnic population is around 15 percent: hardly a critical mass, let alone an oppressed majority. The bad news about the annexation -- in addition to losing a significant chunk of territory and the Ukrainian Navy -- is that Crimea will become a base and staging area for insurgent operations throughout eastern Ukraine. Counterinsurgency 101 has a few basic ingredients, and many Western nations have recent first-hand experience in this complex activity in Afghanistan and Iraq. Clearly, the new regime in Kiev will need sound advice, political support, economic assistance, security equipment, logistical support, and intelligence analysis. Here are the seven specific lessons for Ukraine's Counterinsurgency 101: 1. Undercut the insurgency by all political and economic means. In practical terms, this means a powerful campaign of strategic communications that makes the case -- a strong one -- that a unified, cohesive Ukraine is a home to all Ukrainians, whatever first language they speak and from wherever their ancestors hailed. A sincere and inclusive message will win over some number of ethnic Russians (but fistfights in parliament don't help). A significant part of the message is that Ukraine's best future lies not in policies that are pro-Russian or pro-NATO, but pro-Ukrainian -- meaning the freedom to evaluate where the best opportunities for the nation lie. This can be a powerful force in undermining an insurgency's message of hate, separatism, and total alignment under Russian domination. 2. Provide an economic future that makes sense. The West must offer healthy economic inducements in the form of International Monetary Fund grants, EU assistance, and U.S. funding -- all of which appears to be on track and in the pipeline. Much of counterinsurgency is in providing alternatives to the employment options offered by insurgent leaders; fortunately, most young people would rather have a job or an education than be out planting car bombs. Providing funding to allow Kiev to offer those kind of job inducements is key. 3. Protect the population of Ukraine from the effects of the insurgents. This means strong military and police presence where necessary, controlling violence in demonstrations (which must be allowed in a democratic nation), using sensible strategies to keep government services flowing, retaking government buildings with a minimum of force, and continuing to deliver government services -- from marriage licenses to courts of justice -- in order to undercut counterinsurgent strategy. 4. Get control of the borders. This is a lesson painfully learned in Afghanistan and Vietnam, but crucial to a successful counterinsurgency strategy. This will be challenging, given Russian resources and geographic position -- especially now that they have annexed Crimea. This is where Western military support in intelligence, surveillance, information sharing, logistics, basic equipment (such as night-vision devices and communications gear), and advice and training could be very valuable without escalating the situation. 5. Defend and protect from cyberattacks. In this emerging 21st century of conflict, a fifth element of must be understanding the plans and strategy of the opposition in this medium, and working to counter it. There is a role for traditional information sharing using signals intelligence, overhead sensors, and technical assistance here, but the fundamental activity is occurring in the cyber-world. Ukraine is under constant cyberattack from Russia and needs help and protection in order to operate effectively in countering a violent opposition. 6. Legitimize the new government in Kiev. Popular
Re: [Marxism] Using the Russian bogey to cement the US/EU/Ukraine alliance
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-04-11, at 12:39 PM, Clay Claiborne wrote: A bogeyman is a mythical creature Marv, Are you saying that Russian didn't just annex a part of Ukraine and doesn't have tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine's borders? I don't think we'll be able to agree, Clay, whether Russia's actions were aggressive or defensive in nature. The great thing about America is that everybody gets to run their trap. James Stavridis is a four-star A hole with no say in NATO or Obama policy. In point of fact, you are using him as a boggie man. Nor do I think we'll be able to agree whether Stavridis' recital of the military and other options available to assist Ukraine, short of it integrating it into NATO, reflects the outlook of the US defence and foreign policy establishment and Obama administration, or is at variance with it. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Putin and the Far Right
by religious and tribal leaders or one or another faction of their ruling class, and they do not mobilize their supporters around anticapitalist programs. The Ukrainian movement is a stark illustration of such a movement; it is led by oligarchs and right-wing politicians who, far from being opposed to capitalism and imperialism, seek to turn Ukraine into another Greece within the EU and NATO. Consequently, it has become much more difficult for the left to unite around the legitimacy of such movements today, and to extend support to them. They're as apt to be seen as cat's paws of Western imperialism as much or more than as authentic liberation movements. You and Louis may believe, for example, that you are acting in solidarity with the small Ukrainian and Russian left, although I don't know which groups or individuals you have in mind. On the other hand, I've referred several times to interviews in Links with the Russian Boris Kargalitsky as well as several Ukrainian revolutionary left activists whose analysis of the situation greatly varies from your own. Far from supporting them, Louis has vilified them. You have a more disciplined approach and tone, but I expect you would also not consider them deserving of support because their analyses and aims so fundamentally contradict your own. I am sure that you are right to suggest that the left is small and isolated. But is it condemned to stay that way? In his article The Emergence of the New Left in Slovenia (The Bullet) Gal Kim has this to say. Only a few years ago anyone advocating socialism in the Slovenian public media was seen either as an old nostalgic decrying good old times and Josip Broz Tito (leader of the former Yugoslavia), or as a leftist extremist, who in the political spectrum does not sit far away from the extreme right-wingers. Due to the tragic break-up of socialist Yugoslavia in early 1990s, socialism and Marx have long remained buried in the dustbin of history, or in the best case limited to scarce theoretical discussion within alternative circles. I believe that the far left can break out of their isolation. Apparently, the far right fears this as well. They were willing to resort to physical assault to keep the left away from Maidan. The Russian dissident, Andrei Amalrik, wrote an essay in 1970 called Will the USSR survive until 1984? which, as a Trotskyist at the time, filled me with a mix of mirth and contempt. I never would have believed that Amalrik would only be out by five or six years, and that the Soviet Union would collapse - with the peaceful acquiescence, moreover, of its working class. Same goes for the abrupt restoration of capitalism in China and the decline of the trade unions and demise or transformation of the parties based on them in the West. All this by way of saying that I agree with you that history can turn on a dime, and I don't rule anything out. However, I think predicting the movement of history is as difficult as long-range weather forecasting, so I just try to make sense of what is happening today and in the near term without adopting the mantle of either a cynic or a Pollyanna. On 2014-04-02, at 1:19 PM, Ken Hiebert wrote: Marv Gandall said: Re: [Marxism] [Pen-l] Dugin Tells Separatists in Ukraine What to Do Next | The Interpreter You (referring to Louis) have persistently argued the Ukrainian far right played little role in the recent protests and formation of the new government. If I understand you correctly, you have have now taken it a step further by suggesting that it is instead the Putin government - rather than groups like the Right Sector and Svoboda - which has more affinity with the ideology and symbols of fascism. These are precisely the talking points used by Western politicians and pro-Western commentators to portray the Ukrainian right nationalists and their EU-US sponsors as the targets of Russian aggression, rather than as the instigators of the current crisis. I think that is a nonsensical interpretation of what has transpired, but it makes your reliance on outfits like the US-based Institute of Modern Russia to make your case more comprehensible. Ken Hiebert replies: Louis has posted items reporting a connection between Putin and far-right organizations in a number of European countries. I have reposted one of these items to another list. full: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141067/mitchell-a-orenstein/putins-western-allies If this report is inaccurate, I need to know that, so that I can acknowledge my mistake. Is there any reason to believe that these reports are inaccurate? I can't say, and neither can you. In any case, it's a mistake to see the behaviour of the Russian government as being driven by an affinity for fascism - as much or more of a mistake as to exaggerate the influence of the far right on the centre-right government of Ukraine. Each preside over capitalist
Re: [Marxism] Putin and the Far right
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-04-02, at 6:52 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 4/2/14 5:22 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: We're been discussing Ukraine, and it takes quite an overheated imagination to assert that the Ukrainian nationalist movement and the Thatcherite government it produced are agencies of profound historical change for the better. Please don't quote me out of context. I did not compare Euromaidan to the Syrian revolution. I compared it to the Orange Revolution and the Green Revolution in Iran. I probably should have known better than to even bring up Syria with someone so desperately trying to salvage an unsalvageable political perspective like you. I share Boris Kagarlitsky's unsalvageable political perspective as expressed on several occasions in Links, and reflected in the same publication in very informative interviews with the Ukrainian activists Kolesnik Dmitry (http://links.org.au/node/3784) and Denis (http://links.org.au/node/3735). I'd hesitate to say your enthusiastic support for the Ukrainian nationalist cause is the dominant view among those who consider themselves part of the international left. That being said, what exactly allows the Syrian revolution to pass the Gandalf litmus test and Ukraine to fail? Is it just because fascists were involved at Maidan Square? Most of the people who think like you about Ukraine are prone to harp on jihadist terror and the other Islamofascist threats to our way of life and to our glorious socialist future. Again, your last statement is wildly inaccurate, but no matter. The leading role (not mere involvement) played by the far right in the protests, its inclusion in the new government, and its control of the National Security and Defence Council and new National Guard, is certainly reason to be concerned about the organization and direction of the Ukrainian revolution. So is the pending austerity agenda of the governing conservative parties, whose leaders admire Reagan and Thatcher. By contrast, there are no Marxist or social democratic political currents of any significance, historically the backbone of progressive European social movements. The equally misnamed Orange Revolution to which you've compared the latest events fell far short of producing a profound historical change for the better, unless you have only in mind (and I know you don't) the revolving door of kleptocrats and corrupt politicians from both western and eastern Ukraine who have been the sole beneficiaries of the turmoil resulting in changes of government. No better illustration of this latter point is there than Petro Poroshenko, the prototypical oligarch and likely winner of Ukraine's presidential election next month who has bounced back and forth between the rival Yanukovych and Yushchenko/Tymoshenko camps depending on which way the political wind was blowing. See: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-01/ukraine-s-new-boss-same-as-the-old-boss?alcmpid=view. Unfortunately, the Green Revolution in Iran was suppressed and whether it would have progressed, had it succeeded, from a political to an anticapitalist social revolution is impossible to say. I commented on what distinguishes Syria from Ukraine in my previous post. 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] Putin and the Far right
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-04-03, at 7:44 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 4/3/14 6:59 AM, Marv Gandall wrote: I'd hesitate to say your enthusiastic support for the Ukrainian nationalist cause is the dominant view among those who consider themselves part of the international left. I don't care that much about the international left. I care more about the Ukrainian left. As long as I am on the same wave-length as them, that is what matters. What Ukrainian left are you referring to? The left-wing Ukrainians interviewed by Links are not at all on your wave length. List subscriber Sergil Kutnil perhaps shares your views about the profoundly progressive character of Euromaidan, I can't say for sure. Can you provide some English-language sources to support your claim? 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] Europe's battered youth
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Why aren't Europe's young people rioting any more? By Costas Lapavitsas and Alex Politaki The Guardian April 1 2014 In December 2008, in Athens, a special security officer shot dead a young student, igniting demonstrations, strikes and riots. Young people were at the forefront of the protests, in a country with a long tradition of youth participation in social and political movements. Several commentators at the time spoke of a youth rebellion. In late 2009 it became clear that Greece had been living through a period of false prosperity and was in effect bankrupt. The country fell into the tender embrace of the troika – the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank. Following severe austerity measures in 2010-11, there were again mass demonstrations and strikes, culminating in the movement of the squares – protests against the destruction of private and social life. Young people were again prominent, lending enthusiasm and spirit to the movement. Then there was nothing. As economic and social disaster unfolded in 2012 and 2013, the youth of Greece became invisible in social and economic life. The young have been largely absent from politics, social movements and even from the spontaneous social networks that have dealt with the worst of the catastrophe. On the fifth anniversary of the events of 2008, barely a few hundred young people demonstrated in Greek urban centres. There was no tension, no passion, no spirit, just tired processions repeating well-known slogans. Where were the 17-year-olds from five years ago? Similar patterns can be observed in several other European countries, though perhaps not as extreme. What is the youth of Portugal doing as the country's social structures continue to collapse? Where is the youth of France as the country drifts further into stagnation and irrelevance? And, closer to home, where has the youth of Britain been while the coalition government has persevered with austerity? The answer seems to be that the European youth has been battered by a double whammy of problematic access to education and rising unemployment, forcing young people to rely on family support and curtailing their independence. Uncertain about the future, worried about jobs and housing, the youth of Europe shows no confidence and trust in established political parties. Significant sections have already been attracted to the nihilistic ends of the political spectrum, including varieties of anarchism and fascism. The left, traditionally a home for the radical strivings of young people, has lost its appeal. Take education. As the Greek crisis deepened, large numbers of students were forced to accelerate, or even interrupt, their studies. There are no relevant official indicators of these trends, but anecdotal evidence abounds, and fits with other aggregate statistics. In 2008, Greek households spent, on average, 17% of their disposable income on education, and low-income families more than 20%. This was already a high proportion, reflecting the importance traditionally placed on schooling in Greek society. As the crisis unfolded over the next five years, the proportion doubled, making education an unbearable burden. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that in 2011, 15% of people aged 15-29 were not in education, employment or training. In Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain this proportion was 20%, and the latest EU data indicates that in 2012 things became worse in the three southern countries. Conditions are even harsher with regard to work. Youth unemployment in Europe is a little short of 25%, already a huge number, while in Greece and Spain it has reached extraordinary figures, in the vicinity of 60%. Collapsing youth employment is clearly not the result of more young people seeking jobs, since the number of young people in Europe as a proportion of the population is declining fast. Youth unemployment is rising because the economies of Europe are failing to generate significant numbers of jobs. For those under the age of 25, there are no jobs in the southern countries and few decent jobs in the north. Mass youth unemployment is the reality across Europe, and things are far from rosy even in Germany, the supposed winner of the past few years. The double whammy appears to have sapped the rebellious energy of the young, forcing them to seek greater financial help from parents for housing and daily life. This trend lies at the root of the current paradox of youth in Europe. There is little extreme poverty, and the young are relatively protected and well-trained, but their labour is not valued, their dreams of education are denied and their independence is restricted. As a consequence, frustration has
Re: [Marxism] A Return to a World Marx Would Have Known - NYTimes.com
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-30, at 8:36 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/03/30/was-marx-right/a-return-to-a-world-marx-would-have-known Marx blogged to death Michael Roberts blog March 31 2014 http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/marx-blogged-to-death/#comments The New York Times has launched a debate about whether Karl Marx was right after all about capitalism (http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/03/30/was-marx-right). As the NYT put it in its introduction to the contributions of some well-known economic commentators and bloggers:“in the golden, post-war years of Western economic growth, the comfortable living standard of the working class and the economy’s overall stability made the best case for the value of capitalism and the fraudulence of Marx’s critical view of it. But in more recent years many of the forces that Marx said would lead to capitalism’s demise – the concentration and globalization of wealth, the permanence of unemployment, the lowering of wages – have become real, and troubling, once again. So is his view of our economic future being validated?” You can see what’s worrying the NYT. Like many supporters of capitalism as the only and best system of human social organisation, the NYT is worried that capitalism does not (or no longer seems) to deliver ever-increasing living standards for the majority, but instead is producing ever greater inequalities of wealth and incomes, to such a point that it could provoke a backlash against the system itself. So the NYT offers a debate. And the question of whether Marx was right about capitalism is put to five bloggers. Of course, most of these are very quick to assume that capitalism does work or is, at least, the best system on offer and there is no alternative (TINA), to use Margaret Thatcher’s infamous phrase about the ‘free markets’ and welfare cuts. Take free marketer, Michael R. Strain, a resident scholar at the neo-liberal American Enterprise Institute. Mr Strain tells us that maybe Marx had a point back in the days of Victorian England and Charles Dickens, when there was poverty everywhere. But now, Strain tells us, things are different. Now only just over 5% of the world’s population is living on less than $1 dollar a day compared to over 26% just 40 years ago. This is the great achievement of ‘free enterprise’. This statistic hides a story though, because the big reduction in the worst level of poverty (living on $1 (1987 prices) was achieved by China’s dramatic rise in the world economy. I would be surprised if Strain would conclude that China’s economy is an example of ‘free enterprise’. For that matter, the biggest falls in poverty also took place in the Soviet economies until the fall of the Wall. No matter, after damning Marx with faint praise, Strain brings up a hoary old chestnut used by mainstream economics: the fallacies of Marx’s labour theory of value. You see, it’s obvious false “that the value of an object is determined by the labor required to produce it. I could spend hundreds of hours writing a song; Bruce Springsteen could write one in 15 minutes worth far more than mine. Q.E.D”. Well, fancy Marx not noticing that the product of some people’s labour is worth more in the market than others even though they take less time. Clearly, Strain has not read Marx’s Capital Volume One, where he deals with this issue and many others in relating the difference between ‘concrete’ labour and ‘abstract’ labour time. But again, no matter, Strain has to admit that Marx may still have point about capitalist crises: “There is an inherent instability in capitalism — cycles of boom and bust lead to human misery. Capitalism does create income and wealth inequality.” That doesn’t sound good for ‘free enterprise’ but Strain then tells us that, after all, such crises are not ‘inherent’ and all this inequality and boom and bust were just leftovers from the Great Recession and capitalism would be soon all right. Great – panic over! Strain’s arguments are thin indeed. We get a more serious bashing of Marx from top Keynesian Brad de Long, professor of economics at University of California, Berkeley, and who blogs at Grasping Reality With Both Hands. First, he tries a quick demolition of “Marx’s fixation on the labor theory of value” which according to De Long “made his technical economic analyses of little worth”. You see, Marx’s claim that only labour creates value meant that he could not see rising living standards being achieved if the rate of exploitation of labour rose over time. Marx was “confused between levels and shares” of income. After all, you can have a falling share of value going to labour, but still have rising living
Re: [Marxism] US and West are trampling on the world
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 29, 2014, at 2:03 AM, Michael Karadjis mkarad...@gmail.com wrote: -Original Message- From: Glenn Kissack That is, that the West, particularly the greedy and desperate EU, wanted to get its hands on the tremendous natural resources of the Ukraine, on its heavy industry and cheap but highly-educated work force. They offered a deal. A very bad deal, under which, European companies would be allowed to plunder the country, but Ukrainian people would not be even allowed to enter the EU, let alone seek employment there. Has anyone seen a copy of the proposed EU deal? The full text of the EU agreement with the Ukraine, together with accompanying guides to the various sections, is here. http://eeas.europa.eu/ukraine/assoagreement/assoagreement-2013_en.htm On a quick skim, the documents contain the usual boilerplate about bringing Ukrainian trade and investment laws into line with EU treaties. But there are few specifics which could inflame public opinion. As you know, the deregulation and privatization of industries and infrastructure as well as the reforms aimed at trade union rights and working class standards by signatory governments proceed in piecemeal fashion within the general framework of free trade agreements. It is only later that their impact is registered on an unwary public. Here are are a couple of articles from Counterpunch and Consortium News and an interview from Real News Network attempting to identify the objectives of Western capitalism in the Ukraine which the IMF, EU, and US aid packages and agreements are designed to realize. I don't know whether any or all of the contributors are on Louis' Index Librorum Prohibitorum, but I hardly need add that in itself would not be sufficiently persuasive to invalidate the facts and interpretations which are presented. Who In Ukraine Will Benefit From An IMF Bailout? http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=31Itemid=74jumival=11614 Who Benefits From Ukraine’s Economic Crisis? http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/17/who-benefits-from-ukraines-economic-crisis/?utm_source=rssutm_medium=rssutm_campaign=who-benefits-from-ukraines-economic-crisis Corporate interests behind the Ukraine putsch http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/16/corporate-interests-behind-ukraine-putsch/ Finally, an informative article from the Wall Street Journal earlier this week on the IMF aid package: IMF Reaches Deal to Provide Up to $18 Billion to Ukraine, March 27, 2014 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304418404579464712032792176?KEYWORDS=Ukrainemg=reno64-wsj KIEV, Ukraine—Momentum gathered in the West to censure Russia and shore up Ukraine's moribund economy, as the International Monetary Fund readied as much as $18 billion in rescue loans to help avert a financial collapse. The IMF agreement—which calls for what Ukrainian officials described as painful budget cuts and other measures that will strain the country's fragile economy—will unlock additional aid from other donors. IMF official Nikolay Gueorguiev told a news conference at Ukraine's central bank in Kiev on Thursday. In total, Ukraine is expected to receive a total of $27 billion over the next two years. The IMF said that its executive board would review the deal in April and that the precise amount of the IMF loan would depend on the level of support given by other lenders, including the U.S. and European Union. A senior EU official said on Thursday that the European Commission planned to disburse some €850 million ($1.17 billion) in loans and grants to Ukraine by June if the country completes the IMF accord next month. The bailout comes as Ukraine grapples with the biggest crisis in its post-Soviet history. Mass protests in recent months led to the ouster of former President Viktor Yanukovych and the establishment of a new government. Russia, disturbed by what it perceives as the new government's pro-Western leanings, swiftly seized control and then annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, transforming the crisis into the most charged East-West confrontation since the Cold War. Russia came under renewed fire on Thursday for the incursion, as the United Nations General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution calling the Crimean referendum to rejoin Russia invalid and urged nations not to recognize it. Though it carries no legal consequences, the vote illustrated a lack of public international support for Russia over the Ukrainian crisis. Only 10 other nations—including Syria, North Korea, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba—agreed with Russia to reject the resolution. Russian President Vladimir Putin took steps Thursday to brace against sanctions from the West, backing plans for Russia
Re: [Marxism] US and West are trampling on the world
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 29, 2014, at 11:46 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: On 3/29/14 11:39 AM, Marv Gandall wrote: I don't know whether any or all of the contributors are on Louis' Index Librorum Prohibitorum, but I hardly need add that in itself would not be sufficiently persuasive to invalidate the facts and interpretations which are presented. As if we have been debating the threat posed by the EU. We've been debating the role of the US and EU governments and Ukrainian right-wing nationalists (of both the Thatcherite and neo-fascist persuasions) in the overthrow of the Yanukovych government, which was based on the ethnic Russian population in the eastern part of the country. All of the contributors to whom I referred have characterized the change of government as a putsch and coup d'état, and have seen it as inseparable from the threat posed by the EU. On the other hand, you've vigorously disputed that these forces played any significant role in the Maidan movement and in the new government which it produced. You've celebrated the Maidan protests as a great advance despite the fact that the leading role was played by right-wing ethnic chauvinists, with the revolutionary left and liberals isolated and, in some cases, brutally expelled from the square with the tacit consent of the demonstrators. You've dismissed any suggestion that the Russian absorption of Crimea was provoked by its legitimate fear of creeping NATO encirclement as just so much irrelevant geopolitics. You've baited anyone who points to these discomfiting facts as Putin apologists and purveyors of the false myth that the Ukrainian masses are fascists. In fact, I haven't seen anyone suggest the same on the list. I expect most of us would agree with my impression that support for Maidan and the new government comes primarily from politically unsophisticated and desperate working people who idealize the West and, in particular, it's right-centre parties, and who are especially vulnerable to exploitation by the EU/US/IMF troika on that account. It's not enough to pay lip-service to the EU threat while pretending that it has not manifested itself in any significant way in the events of the past few months, and has had nothing to do with the related issues we have been debating on the list. 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] US and West are trampling on the world
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 29, 2014, at 1:39 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: On 3/29/14 1:16 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: It's not enough to pay lip-service to the EU threat while pretending that it has not manifested itself in any significant way in the events of the past few months, and has had nothing to do with the related issues we have been debating on the list. It is you who are the one that is pretending--namely that when people protest corruption and oligarchic rule that they are tools of the CIA, the EU, NATO and Nicholas Kristof. I wouldn't describe you - nor myself, for that matter - as tools of the above for opposing oligarchic rule and corruption. Anyway, gotta go. 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] Piketty: Save capitalism from the capitalists
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Save capitalism from the capitalists by taxing wealth By Thomas Piketty Financial Times March 28 2014 The distribution of income and wealth is one of the most controversial issues of the day. History tells us that there are powerful economic forces pushing in every direction – towards greater equality, and away from it. Which prevail will depend on the policies we choose. America is a case in point. Here is a country that was conceived as the antithesis of the patrimonial societies of old Europe. Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th century historian, saw America as the place where land was so plentiful that everyone could afford property and a democracy of equal citizens could flourish. Until the first world war, the concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich was far less extreme in the US than Europe. In the 20th century, however, the situation was reversed. Between 1914 and 1945 European wealth inequalities were whipped out by war, inflation, nationalisation and taxation. After that, European countries set up institutions which – for all their faults – are structurally more egalitarian and inclusive than those of the US. Ironically, many of these institutions drew inspiration from America. From the 1930s to the early 1980s, for example, Britain maintained a balanced distribution of income by hitting what were deemed to be indecently high incomes with very high tax rates. But confiscatory income tax was in fact an American invention – pioneered in the interwar years at a time when that country was determined to avoid the disfiguring inequalities of class-ridden Europe. The American experiment with high tax did not hurt growth, which was higher at the time than it has been since 1980s. It is an idea that deserves to be revived, especially in the country that first thought of it. The US was also first to develop mass schooling, with nearly universal literacy – among white men, at any rate – in the early 19th century, an accomplishment that took Europe almost another 100 years. But again, it is Europe that is now more inclusive. True, the US has produced many of the world’s outstanding universities. But Europe has done better at producing solid middle-ranking ones. According to the Shanghai ranking, 53 of the 100 best universities in the world are in the US, and 31 in Europe. Look instead at the top 500 universities, however, and the order is reversed: 202 in Europe against 150 in the US. People often talk up the virtues of their national meritocracies, but – whether in France, America or elsewhere – such rhetoric seldom fits the facts. Often the purpose is to justify existing inequalities. Access to American universities – once among the most open in the world – is highly unequal. Building higher education systems that combine efficiency and equal opportunity is a major challenge facing all countries. Mass education is important, but it does not guarantee a fair distribution of income and wealth. US income inequality has sharpened since the 1980s, largely reflecting the huge incomes of people at the top. Why? Have the skills of the managerial cadre advanced further than everyone else’s? In a large organisation, it is hard to know how much each person’s work is worth. But another hypothesis – that top managers by and large have the power to set their pay themselves – is better supported by the evidence. Even if wage inequality could be brought under control, history tells us of another malign force, which tends to amplify modest inequalities in wealth until they reach extreme levels. This tends to happen when returns accrue to the owners of capital faster than the economy grows, handing capitalists an ever larger share of the spoils, at the expense of the middle and lower classes. It was because the return on capital exceeded economic growth that inequality worsened in the 19th century – and these conditions are likely to be repeated in the 21st. The Forbes global billionaire rankings show that the wealth of the very richest has grown more than three times as fast as the size of the world economy between 1987 and 2013. US inequality may now be so sharp, and the political process so tightly captured by top earners, that necessary reforms will not happen – much like in Europe before the first world war. But that should not stop us from aspiring to improve. The ideal solution would be a global progressive tax on individual net worth. Those who are just getting started would pay little, while those who have billions would pay a lot. This would keep inequality under control and make it easier to climb the ladder. And it would put global wealth dynamics under public scrutiny. The lack of financial transparency and reliable wealth
Re: [Marxism] BBC News - Ukraine leader Turchynov warns of far-right threat
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-28, at 3:25 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/28/14 3:11 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: Russia Times. Just kidding. http://www.tasnimnews.com/English/Home/Single/297143 The Maidan gathering wants Andrey Parubiy, 43, to head the country’s National Security and Defense Council. A deputy for Fatherland party, he actively participated both in the recent uprising and in the Orange Revolution. Parubiy began his political career back in the late '80s, when he headed a nationalist youth organization. A leader of the radical group Pravy Sektor (Right Sector), Dmitry Yarosh was reportedly proposed as the council’s deputy head. However, he has so far not accepted the offer, RT reported. http://peopleandnature.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/take-sides-with-people-not-with-putin/ The second group, the Right Sector, is a really dangerous collection of neo-Nazis and extreme nationalists, formed in the course of battles with Yanukovich’s police force. It has combat units, some armed, all over Ukraine. But the assertion, repeated by Seumas Milne and many other western journalists, that their leader Dmitry Yarosh is deputy head of the national security council, is wrong. He was offered the job, and turned it down.[1] [1] I have checked dozens of stories about Yarosh from Russian and Ukrainian news outlets. They report e.g. his plan to run for president, to turn the Right Sector into a political party, etc, but do not describe him as a member of the government. I have checked with sources in Kyiv who confirm that he never was. When the new government was formed at the beginning of March, it was widely reported that Yarosh was offered a post. That information seems to have been picked up by western journalists who assumed he had accepted, but didn’t check. It's possible Yarosh might have been offered the job but turned it down. That would still indicate that the new government has had to defer to the far right's popular support. How much support Parubiy, Yarosh, and the far right have within the population - and, more particularly, within the repressive agencies of the state, including the new National Guard being formed by Paruiby - should, as I indicated, become more clear within the next few days, depending on how the standoff in front of the Rada is resolved. 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] Castaneda: Now is the time to hit Venezuela with sanctions
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The former Marxist admirer of Che Guevara who became Mexico's foreign affairs minister says the US and its allies in Europe and Latin America can more easily target Venezuela with sanctions than they can Russia, and they should take the opportunity afforded by the Ukraine crisis to do so. http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jorge-g--casta-eda-contrasts-the-west-s-attention-to-eastern-europe-with-latin-america-s-indifference-to-venezuela 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] Ukranian masses get first taste of freedom
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The new Ukrainian government announced today that household gas prices would rise by 50 per cent from May 1, a condition being imposed by the IMF in exchange for a $15bn emergency loan. “At least it will be the end of the heating season, so less politically disruptive – and many Ukrainians would argue that this is a price to pay for freedom”, Tim Ash, emerging markets strategist at Standard Bank, told the Financial Times (below). Meanwhile, today's Wall Street Journal reports that Western solidarity with the Ukraine only goes so far. One idea which has been recently been circulating in Western policymaking circles is that the Ukrainian government should invoke the doctrine of odious debt and default on the recent $3bn loan extended to the previous Yanukovych government by the Russians. The Russians provided the loan to dissuade Yanukovych from signing an EU association agreement, subsequently signed by the Yatsenyuk government. Since the Russian bond was registered in accordance with English law, the UK government could make collection of the debt unenforceable in English courts. However, it's considered highly unlikely that the Cameron government will agree to go down this road. After all, the overriding principle is the sanctity of debt. It could give the impression that the Brits are fickle about debts, the WSJ reports. “It would be quite a big step for the British government to try and say it becomes unlawful to pay back this bond, a British corporate lawyer told the Journal. Yes, quite. * * * IMF rushes through $15bn Ukraine bailout By Peter Spiegel in Brussels and Neil Buckley in Kiev Financial Times March 26 2014 The International Monetary Fund is expected to announce a rescue package for Ukraine of about $15bn as early as Thursday in hopes that the initial aid payments could be made by the end of April, according to officials involved in the negotiations. The programme, which will come in a traditional IMF bailout known as a “standby arrangement”, is being rushed to the fund’s board because of concerns Kiev is running out of foreign currency reserves. Securing the IMF deal will be a significant boost for Ukraine’s government as it battles to stabilise the country’s economy, while Russian tanks mass on its borders. Foreign exchange reserves have fallen to barely two months’ import cover, and the finance ministry warned this week it expected the economy to contract by at least 3 per cent this year. The Fund had been considering a quick infusion of $1bn through its “rapid financing instrument”, but EU and US loans intended to be disbursed alongside the quick IMF aid were not coming quickly enough, officials said. Instead, the IMF is hoping to agree the entire bailout package with Arseniy Yatseniuk, the Ukrainian prime minister, by the end of Wednesday and announce the deal on Thursday morning. A package of $10bn-$15bn would be less than the $15bn-$20bn that Ukraine’s finance minister Oleksandr Shlapak said the country was seeking, although other nations are expected to contribute. A Fund rescue package will also unlock significant funding from other sources that has been made conditional on reaching an IMF deal. Officials said that IMF negotiators were still working with Mr Yatseniuk on a number of fiscal measures, including how to help households who will be hit hard by the end of subsidies to heating fuel. But they believe Kiev will come to an agreement by the end of the day. “We have been about to finalise [the agreement] for a few days,” said one person involved in the discussions. “They will be sorted out, hopefully today.” “Ukraine needs the money and the west is eager to demonstrate support,” said Mujtaba Rahman, head of European analysis at the Eurasia Group risk consultancy. “All parties have an incentive to finalise and disburse quickly rather than wait until after May’s presidential elections.” Negotiators are hoping to announce bilateral loans alongside the IMF funding. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week announced his government would pitch in Y150bn, or about $1.5bn, and the EU is attempting to get final agreement for another €1.6bn. The US assistance, in the form of $1bn in loan guarantees, has been held up in Congress for days as Democrats and Republicans spar over whether the aid bill should include passage of the funding for the IMF. Speaking before his final meeting with the IMF mission, Mr Yatseniuk said he expected the EU’s €1.6bn in aid to delivered first, within two months of the IMF agreement being signed. The IMF has long attached two main conditions to any further financial support, which the previous government of president Viktor Yanukovich had not been prepared to accept.
[Marxism] Crimea crisis accelerates Russian energy turn to China
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Crimea Crisis Pushes Russian Energy to China From Europe By Rakteem Katakey Bloomberg News Mar 25, 2014 The Crimean crisis is poised to reshape the politics of oil by accelerating Russia’s drive to send more barrels to China, leaving Europe with pricier imports and boosting U.S. dependence on fuel from the Middle East. China already has agreed to buy more than $350 billion of Russian crude in coming years from the government of President Vladimir Putin. The ties are likely to deepen as the U.S. and Europe levy sanctions against Russia as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine. Such shifts will be hard to overcome. Europe, which gets about 30 percent of its natural gas from Russia, has few viable immediate alternatives. The U.S., even after the shale boom, must import 40 percent of its crude oil, 10.6 million barrels a day that leaves the country vulnerable to global markets. The alternatives to Russia also carry significant financial, environmental and geological challenges. Canada’s oil sands pollute more than most traditional alternatives, while Poland’s promising shale fields have yet to be unlocked. The biggest oil finds of the past decade are trapped under the miles-deep waters offshore Brazil and West Africa. “You’re going to see the Russians go out and try to sell and you’re going to see the Asian buyers drive hard bargains with Russia,” said Philip Verleger, an energy economist at PKVerleger LLC in Carbondale, Colorado, suggesting European countries will feel the most pain in the form of higher gas prices as they struggle to reduce their dependence on Russia. As world leaders gathered in The Hague to discuss nuclear security issues, U.S. President Barack Obama sought to encourage Chinese criticism of Russia on Ukraine. Chinese President Xi Jinping in turn pressed Obama about a reported U.S. breach of the servers of China’s largest phone-equipment maker. China has always held a “just and objective attitude” toward the Ukraine crisis, Xi said in the meeting with Obama, according to a report yesterday from China’s official Xinhua news agency. The world’s biggest energy user, China abstained from the United Nations Security Council resolution that declared the Crimean succession referendum illegal. Russia vetoed it. China imported a record amount of Russian crude last month, 2.72 million metric tons, about a supertanker full every three days. The total more than tripled in a decade, and Russia now represents 12 percent of China’s crude imports, customs data show, among the highest levels in the past seven years. “It’s always been assumed Russia reorienting its shipments toward China would be a long-term objective; originally it was considered something of a leverage point for Russia,” said Robert Kahn, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “Now people may see it as a reaction to the possible loss of a European market.” As the world’s largest oil producer, Russia exported about $160 billion worth of crude, fuels and gas-based industrial feedstock to Europe and the U.S. in 2012, according to the International Trade Centre’sTrade Map, which is sponsored by the World Trade Organization and the United Nations. European members of the Paris-based International Energy Agency imported 32 percent of their raw crude oil, fuels and gas-based chemical feedstock from Russia in 2012. Europe will face higher gas prices if Russia successfully curtails pipeline supplies and diverts volumes to Asia, as more expensive shipments of the heating- and power-plant fuel arrive by tanker at European ports, said Peter Morici, an economist and professor at the University of Maryland. The U.S. will turn to the Middle East to replace any barrels it loses from Russia, he said. The U.S. imported 167.5 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products from Russia in 2013, 4.1 percent less than a year earlier and 25 percent lower than in 2010, according to theU.S. Energy Information Administration. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries supplied 45 percent of the total 7.7 million barrels a day of crude oil imports last year, according to the data. Russia faces its own challenges reducing its dependence on energy exports to Europe and the U.S., including a shortage of pipelines to Asia, Kahn said. In its pivot toward China, Russia is competing with energy suppliers from the Middle East and West Africa who also are targeting Asian buyers as the U.S. meets a rising portion of its oil and gas needs with North American production. “The Asian buyers are in the driver’s seat,” Verleger said. […] Chinese President Xi visited Moscow on his first state tour in March last year, gaining a share of Russia’s prized Arctic
[Marxism] LENIN'S TOMB: Against imperialist intervention in Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-22, at 12:46 PM, Richard Fidler wrote: Reducing Russia's interest in the Crimean and Ukrainian events to its imperialist character and putting it on a parallel with the US, EU and NATO interests in this instance is a simplistic evasion of engaging in a serious analysis of the geopolitics involved in this post-Soviet (and yes of course post-workers state) world. [ ] Some list subscribers might be interested in Russia's case, outlined clearly by Putin: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/20/on-crimea-and-sevastopol/. I think anti-imperialists can find in it powerful arguments to defend capitalist (and imperialist) Russia against the capitalist West, and in particular Russia's residual interests as a sovereign power not under the direct domination of the Western imperialist hegemon. The US, EU, Russia, and Ukraine are all capitalist societies characterized by great disparities of wealth and power. The mass of the population in all of these countries will not materially benefit from the current conflict between them, however these are resolved. This includes the Ukraine, where the new government and the movement which brought it to power are staunchly in favour of capitalism and EU integration. The great mass of humanity has an interest both in securing social justice within states and preventing war between them, especially conflicts which could escalate into a nuclear conflagration. The most aggressive and destabilizing power today and the greatest threat to international security is the United States of America. The actions taken by Russia and China, even though each is no longer an anticapitalist state, remain defensive in nature, aimed against encirclement by the US and its allies. There is no other context in which to view the recent events in the Ukraine and Crimea. The Western governments and media, of course, have their own version of events - that the involvement of the US and EU and the Ukrainian far right in the overthrow of the Yanukovych regime was insignificant, and that Russia was and remains the aggressor. 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] Addendum : Towards A Democratic Secular State
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-21, at 3:09 PM, shaun may wrote: joseph Catron wrote : Seriously, where do people get off? If you disagree with a position held bymillions of Palestinians, that's fine - lots of other Palestinians do, too- but don't assume they're all dummies, or worse, for not buying into yourbrilliant idea. Most of them have intelligent, principled, and I dare saymore informed reasons for thinking as they do, and pretending otherwise isthe stuff of entitled jackasses. Millions support Putin in his predatory manouevres in the Ukraine. I dare say that many could accommodate themselves to the expulsion of the Tatars from the Crimea. YOUR assertion that millions support the continuation of the Zionist entity is simply YOUR assertion. The vast majority of the Palestinian people want to see it destroyed. And no amount of polling nonsense from the American capitalist press can refute that. Only a liberal apologist - and certainly NOT a Marxist - would buy into that. Posting lies and distortions on this list will not make a simple historical truth into a lie. Such are the methods of Zionism Can we assume that Joseph Catron is also another two-stater on this list i.e. another apologist for Zionist apartheid? Certainly NOT a Marxist on a MARX list. As stated previously, I will not engage with Zionists or their apologists on this list. So come out from behind your liberal mask like Ranz has done and let us know. You can check out this Zionist apologist for yourself at http://joecatron.wordpress.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] How Russia could squeeze an hostile Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Below, a good rundown of the levers Russia has available to pressure the new Ukrainian government if it doesn't comply with the Russian demand that it remain outside of Nato or if seeks to harm Russian interests in other ways. Russia's most noted weapon is its control of the gas price and gas supply, which it has previously used to force compliance. It can demand repayment of Soviet debt incurred by Ukraine if the latter proceeds with its threat to review the division of Soviet assets. It can counter the announced intention of the Ukrainian government to restrict the entry of Russians into the country by cutting off the flow of Ukrainians working in Russia. It can lend military and other support to the predominantly Russian-speaking provinces in east Ukraine if there is an escalation of the tensions with the central government and its Ukrainian nationalist supporters. Any of these measures would add to the heavy debt burden already being carried by the Ukrainian state, which will force it to cut further social spending and deepen the economic slowdown precipitated by the crisis. According to one London-based analyst quoted below, the pending EU/IMF emergency loans will come with strings attached, requiring austerity measures that will hurt household incomes. If Russia’s goal is to make the current Ukrainian government unpopular, Moscow does not have to do much in the coming year. * * * Putin’s Tools of Sabotage Beat Urgency of Ukraine Invasion By Henry Meyer Bloomberg News March 20 2104 After annexing Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin may not need to invade the rest of Ukraine to bring it to its knees. Political and financial sabotage can work just as well. While Putin promised that Russia isn’t about to send in troops, he has plenty of other tools to undermine the Western-backed Ukrainian government. They include fomenting insurrection by Russian-speakers, waging a cyberwar, visa restrictions and crippling Ukraine financially by ramping up natural gas prices and demanding the repayment of billions of dollars in debts. “Putin has the means to drastically destabilize Ukraine,” Fredrik Erixon, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, said by phone. “The more problems and unrest, the better his chances of getting east Ukraine to exit and join Russia.” More than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s pro-Western ambitions represent the biggest challenge for Putin as he seeks to project Russian power in his backyard. Putin, in a speech to lawmakers on March 18, accused the West of relentlessly encroaching on Russia’s interests since the end of the Cold War as the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization expanded eastward. He described Ukraine, where leaked audio recordings have shown U.S. diplomats discussing how to oust Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovych and who should replace him, as the last straw. “Everything has its limits,” Putin said. “And in the case of Ukraine, our Western partners have crossed the line.” The U.S. and the EU have branded the March 16 referendum that paved the way for Russia’s annexation of Crimea illegal, imposing sanctions and warning of escalating measures to come. The worst standoff between the West and Russia since the Cold War looks set to intensify even without direct Russian military intervention in the rest of Ukraine. As Putin seeks to counter Western influence in Ukraine, Russia says its neighbor should adopt a new federal constitution that guarantees political and military neutrality, grants powers to the regions, and make Russian a second official language. There’s no indication that would be acceptable to the Ukrainian government, which took power after Yanukovych was toppled amid protests last month, or to its Western supporters. For Putin, seeking leverage to enforce his vision of Ukraine’s future, invasion is a high risk option because it could draw in irregular forces against Russian troops and trigger much tougher Western sanctions. Its probability is less than half, according to the New York-based Eurasia Group, which analyzes political risk. Russia won’t deploy troops in eastern Ukraine unless mass killings occur there, Sergei Mironov, leader of the pro-Kremlin Just Russia party, told reporters yesterday in Moscow. Russia may opt to use economic levers first, including a temporary cut-off of gas supplies and an increase in prices, Eurasia said in a research note this week. Ukraine needs $15 billion to repay foreign debt after investors withdrew funds. Since its European and U.S. allies are effectively on the hook for that debt, adding to the repayment burden “punishes Ukraine and
Re: [Marxism] FW: Right-wingers with a left-wing guise
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 20, 2014, at 10:15 AM, Richard Fidler rfidle...@sympatico.ca wrote: Right-wingers with a left-wing guise Raúl Zibechi ALAI AMLAT-en, 19/03/2014.- Recent mass demonstrations, instigated by the right-wing in a variety of countries, indicate their capacity to co-opt symbols that they used to scorn, to the confusion of many on the left. Andriy Parubiy is a right-winger who, in the context of current Ukrainian politics, doesn't need, and would be ill-advised, to adopt a left-wing guise. While there hasn't been a fascist coup in the Ukraine and the interim regime is dominated by centre-right parties, Parubiy is a good illustration of the influence wielded by the far right in the Euromaidan movement and the Yatsenyuk government. Louis and others have hotly denied such influence has existed. Parubiy may be one of only a handful of unsavoury pro-fascist characters in the new government but he is head of its most powerful ministry - the National Security and Defence Council. Before that, he commanded the flying squads which confronted the police and military forces of the Yanukovych regime and maintained order in the square. The latter involved thuggery against anarchist and other left-wing demonstrators. A measure of Parubiy's present influence is that he is the architect of one of the government's early announced initiatives: a plan to place restrictions on Russians visiting Ukraine, often to see relatives and friends living in the country. When Ukraine declared its independence in 1991, Parubiy co-founded the Social National Party with Oleh Tyahnybok, the current leader of Svoboda who has also risen to prominence as one of Ukraine's most powerful politicians. According to Wikipedia, the party combined radical nationalism and some neo-Nazi features (by its name and the Wolfsangel-like sign). In 1998-2004 Parubiy led the paramilitary organization of SNPU, the Patriots of Ukraine. It was partly in deference to Parubiy and other far right leaders that the Yushchenko government, which came to power following the 2004 Orange Revolution, awarded Stepan Bandera, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists which collaborated with the Nazis, the title of Hero of Ukraine. Two years ago, Parubiy joined the current governing party led by Tymoshenko and Yatsenyuk - a move reminiscent of the entryist tactics of far left activists hoping to expand their influence in mass social-democratic and liberal parties. The difference is that none, to my knowledge, ever exercised commanding influence in a mass movement which resulted in a key government portfolio. It's unclear how many other fascist sympathizers may have followed Parubiy's lead into the centre-right parties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Parubiy 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] FW: Right-wingers with a left-wing guise
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 20, 2014, at 1:37 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: On 3/20/14 1:19 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: While there hasn't been a fascist coup in the Ukraine and the interim regime is dominated by centre-right parties, Parubiy is a good illustration of the influence wielded by the far right in the Euromaidan movement and the Yatsenyuk government. Louis and others have hotly denied such influence has existed. I don't know about what others believe, but I have written very few words about the government except to say that it is inimical to the interests of the average Ukrainian who is seeking nothing more than an end to corruption, Russian domination, and an economy that favors opportunity even if it is utopian to think that this is possible under capitalism. Of course, as someone who has been badgering Marxmail for what seems like 15 years now to vote for Democrats, one would think that Marvin would be sensitive to the moods and prejudices of the man and woman on the street in the Ukraine I have been quoting for a while now. They at least seem to have fewer illusions in the ruling parties than him. What nonsense. I would ask comrade Vyshinsky to produce the evidence to support his charge. I thought, along with others, that Obama's election in 2008 would accelerate the momentum which had built up around his campaign in the wake of the financial crisis, particularly as it was likely the Democratic administration would soon betray its promises and bring the DP base into collision with its leadership. This is on the record. If recall correctly, others like Fred Feldman and Joaquin Bustelo were sympathetic to the Obama campaign, mainly because it represented for them a mobilization of the black community against white racist forces. My perspective was mistaken. While the betrayals of the Obama administration resulted in widespread grumbling by liberal intellectuals and activists, it failed to translate into an organized left-wing opposition which could have provided the main forces for a viable third party after an unsuccessful internal struggle against the leadership to reform the DP. When the lack of organized resistance to administration policies regarding the banks, healthcare, housing, jobs, foreign policy, etc. became quickly apparent. I subsequently argued with Charles Brown, Robert Naiman, and others on the LBO and Pen-L lists who continued to support the administration. This is also part of the record. If anything, I find Louis' support for the left bourgeois Green Party equally problematic, though I would not stoop to smearing him for it, because I am aware it is also tactical in nature. My first allegiance has always been to the unions and allied movements who comprise the base of the DP and its kindred social democratic parties abroad, and I still think it's more likely than not that any mass radicalization in the US leading to the formation of a viable third party would first express itself more powerfully in the DP, with its mass working class, minority, and left liberal following rather than in a would-be third party set up in opposition to it. But the response of the DP ranks over the past six years has been as disappointing as Louis' embrace of the Green Party. In any case, it's wearying to have to respond to this charge on each occasion that I post something to the list that Louis finds difficult to deal with on its merits. But I'm by no means the only target of the Proyect school of falsification, and I'm quite prepared to put up with it in order to discuss with the serious leftists on this list whose opinions I respect. 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] FW: Right-wingers with a left-wing guise
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 20, 2014, at 2:51 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: On 3/20/14 2:39 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: If anything, I find Louis' support for the left bourgeois Green Party equally problematic, though I would not stoop to smearing him for it, because I am aware it is also tactical in nature. Yes, I might be mistaken on the Greens. I just learned that Donald Trump had donated $300,000 to Howie Hawkins Senatorial campaign and that Howie has used $10,000 of that to pay for his 60th birthday in Syracuse with Beyonce jumping out of a cake to sing Happy Birthday and The Internationale. In the unlikely event the US Greens or began to supplant the DP as the preferred choice of the urban working class and single issue movements and began to vie for governmental power, they will have little problem attracting Wall Street money in exchange for bringing their program into line with that of the Democrats. In fact, they will be required to do so if they have any hope of administering the capitalist system. That's characteristic of electoral systems based on plutocracy. The history of the most successful Green Party in Germany bears this out, as does the long evolution of the mass social democratic and Eurocommunist parties the closer they got to power. Yourself and Howie Hawkins will have long been relegated to the sidelines by the realos of the USGP well before they approach that level of popular support. 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] It's time to take a second look at Kagarlitsky
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 19, 2014, at 9:58 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: I'm sorry but I find this formulation from Kagarlitsky deeply problematic: Neither Maidan nor the demonstrations in the east have had the character of a spontaneous popular revolution. In both cases, outside forces have been involved. In fact the protests in Kiev have been marked largely by: 1. Their spontaneous character. 2. Their breach with the official leadership of people like Tymoshenko and Klitchko. You may want to believe that the centre-right and far right parties did not bring large numbers of their supporters out to Maidan and other city centres. We clearly don't read the same press accounts. Demonstrations are rarely spontaneous; at best, they are semi-spontaneous with some protesters joining of their own volition and then typically following the lead of the most active organized political factions. In this case, the unorganized revolutionary left and left liberal demonstrators were far outnumbered by the supporters of the more disciplined conservative and pro-fascist political groups and parties. The hegemony of the dominant centre-right pro-Western faction is reflected in polling for the planned Ukrainian presidential elections, where the three contenders far outdistancing the rest of the field are Vitali Klitschko, Yulia Tymoshenko, and the oligarch Petro Poroshenko. All would feel comfortably at home in the US Republican, British Conservative, and German Christian Democratic parties. There is no evidence whatsoever of an alleged breach of the west Ukrainian masses with their official leaderships. That's more wishful thinking on your part. 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] It's time to take a second look at Kagarlitsky
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-19, at 2:11 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/19/14 2:02 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: Their breach with the official leadership of people like Tymoshenko and Klitchko. I was wrong here. The word I should have used was disaffection. The substitution doesn't affect the substance of what you wrote. You criticized Kagarlitsky for suggesting that the major pro-Western bourgeois parties headed by Klitschko and Tymoshenko played a central role, with the connivance of US and EU officials, in mobilizing the masses against Yanukovytch when the talks with the EU collapsed. You claim instead that the demonstrations were spontaneous and expressed a break/disaffection from the official leadership. The point remains, however, that there is no evidence the west Ukrainian masses, those who gathered spontaneously or were encouraged to go to Maidan, have broken with or become disaffected from the centre-right party leaders unless it has been to move further to the right. This is confirmed by early polling for the scheduled presidential elections in May: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_presidential_election,_2014#Registered_candidates 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] It's time to take a second look at Kagarlitsky
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-19, at 4:46 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/19/14 4:21 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: The point remains, however, that there is no evidence the west Ukrainian masses, those who gathered spontaneously or were encouraged to go to Maidan, have broken with or become disaffected from the centre-right party leaders unless it has been to move further to the right. No, they have not broken but how would you know if someone was disaffected or not? I have tried to provide evidence of this from newspaper reports that you deem untrustworthy. I think other people with less of a stake in discrediting the Euromaidan would be more likely to believe what follows: http://www.gallup.com/poll/167825/ukraine-next-leader-need-restore-trust.aspx Ukraine's Next Leader Will Need to Restore Trust Confidence in national government 26% or lower since 2006 by Zach Bikus and Neli Esipova WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Regardless of whom Ukrainians elect as their next president on May 25, this leader will need to be able to quickly gain the trust and confidence of a population that has had little faith in their past leadership. Since the Orange Revolution in 2004-2005, the majority of Ukrainians have said they do not have confidence in their government. No more than 26% have had confidence in the past eight years. Mistrust of bourgeois politicians is common under capitalism, for good reason. That's why you have this revolving door between the governing left-centre and right-centre parties in electoral politics. We can touch base again on May 26th to see whether the widespread grousing described above has resulted in a break from the current crop of pro-Western leaders. I don't have a stake in discrediting the Euromaiden. It would a tremendous advance to see Ukraine elect a left-wing leader, even a left liberal. That wholly unexpected development would transform East European and Russian politics. Not gonna happen, unfortunately. 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] European extreme right and Russian imperialism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-16, at 7:27 AM, Michael Karadjis wrote: Don't agree with the colourful characterisation below of Putin's Russia as fascist imperialist, nor with the idea that the West not stopping Putin represents a sell-out, since I think the EU and US are also bloodsuckers alongside Russia in Ukraine. However, the article here is an excellent antidote to the monomaniacal identification of the Ukrainian Maidan movement with its ultra-rightist/fascist elements (I'm not so concerned with the semantics), as it shows the strength of identity of the great bulk of the European ultra-rightist/fascist movement with Putin and capitalist Russia. Michael: You're someone who has my respect, and I'd be interested in knowing the extent of your agreement with the following propositions. 1. We support left-wing governments, parties and movements against the US and European capitalist states. If there is a confrontation between these states - as, in this case, between Putin's Russia and Yatsenyuk's Ukraine, backed by the US and EU - there is no justification to support either side. 2. The centre-right parties from the mainly Ukrainian-speaking regions which head the government enjoy more public support at this juncture than Svoboda and the other parties further to their right. 3. The great majority of the Maidan protesters, with varying degrees of political understanding and commitment, were and remain supporters of the centre-right and far right parties, while the socialist and liberal left do not have their own parties nor any comparable influence in Ukrainian politics. 4. The precise relationship of forces between the centre-right and far right parties can't be quantified and the direction of events can't be forecast, although they have provoked fierce speculation on the international left, mirrored on the list. For example, Kagarlitsky's articles and the interview with the radical Maidan activist named Denis in recent issues of Links made a deep impression on me but were repudiated by Louis, who has relied on other sources. 5. Though it's dominated discussion, the relationship of forces between the centre-right and the far right is of secondary importance. What's decisive is that there is no left-wing government, party, or movement to support, as in Greece and Venezuela, and should be reflected in how we approach the issue in both tone and substance. 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] Don't believe the Russian propaganda about Ukraine's 'fascist' protesters
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-14, at 3:44 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/14/14 3:05 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: I don't think we're that far apart, but I may be wrong. Well, at least you have finally eased up on the fascists are coming--hide the silverware talking points that I have heard maybe 65 times over the past 3 weeks. You're not fooling anyone who's followed this thread. I don't think I've ever come across an individual who has such difficulty finding common ground with others, all in the guise of an unrepentant Marxist and spokesman for 1500 Marxmail subscribers. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The pressure on Russia to settle
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Russian Richest Face Margin Calls With Billions at Stake By Robert LaFranco and Alex Sazonov Bloomberg News March 14 2014 Alexander Lebedev is concerned. “Russian businessmen are very scared,” the 54-year-old former billionaire, who served in the Soviet embassy in London during the Cold War and owns Russia’s National Reserve Corp., said by phone. “There are risks to the Russian economy. There could be margin calls, reserves might be drawn down, exchange rates may fall and prices will rise. This worries me.” Billionaires in Russia and Ukraine risk further losses as market volatility and the threat of Iran-style economic sanctions intensify following Russia’s incursion into Crimea. Since Feb. 28, the day unidentified soldiers took control of Simferopol Airport in southern Ukraine, Russia’s 19 richest people have lost $18.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 300 richest wealthiest people. “The instability caused by the situation in Crimea could be a problem for the oligarchs,” Yulia Bushueva, who helps manage $500 million at Arbat Capital in Moscow, said in a telephone interview. “If a billionaire pledged their stakes in publicly traded companies as collateral for a line of credit, they could face margin calls and have to re-negotiate with banks.” The U.S. and the European Union are threatening sanctions against Russia if it doesn’t back down from annexing the Black Sea province, which is holding a referendum in two days to join Ukraine’s former Soviet-era master. “All sides now understand each other’s positioning and understand the constraints each other face,” Michael O’Sullivan, chief investment officer of Credit Suisse Private Banking, said in a telephone interview. “It’s now clear as well that an escalation would have negative consequences on pretty much all the players.” The European Union last week froze the assets of 18 Ukrainians, including “hundreds of millions of euros” in the Netherlands controlled by former PresidentViktor Yanukovych and his son, Oleksandr, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said March 6 on the television show Pauw Witteman. Dmitry Firtash, a 48-year-old Ukrainian billionaire who made his fortune importing Russian natural gas, was arrested in Vienna Wednesday by an organized-crime unit of the Austrian police on a warrant issued by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a statement by the country’s Interior Ministry. He is alleged to have paid bribes and formed a criminal organization, according to the warrant, issued after an FBI investigation that began in 2006, the ministry said. One Russian billionaire, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation, said he was concerned about the effect potential sanctions might have on business. He said he’d consider buying assets outside of Russia if sanctions were imposed. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said in a March 11 telephone interview that “there were no consultations” with Russian businessmen and that they “have not expressed any concern” over the situation. According to a March 13 report in the Wall Street Journal, a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that business leaders in Russia have been in “constant contact,” and that Putin had not met with any of them. The report said a recent meeting between the country’s industrialists and high-ranking government officials turned “tense” when the subject of sanctions came up. Doing business under sanctions might not be all bad for Russian entrepreneurs, according to South African billionaire Natie Kirsh. “There are opportunities that come out of sanctions,” the 82-year-old, who started building his $5.9 billion retail and real estate empire during apartheid, said by phone from Johannesburg. “Sanctions can be broken. It always depends on the extent of the sanctions and how they take.” F.W. de Klerk, South Africa’s last president during the apartheid era, said the country and businessmen were able to work around the sanctions levied by the U.S. beginning in 1986. “The sanctions delayed change in South Africa because it made us look for ways to evade them,” de Klerk, 77, said in a telephone interview from Cape Town. “We worked with the business community to find ways to keep companies going. In the end, not many factories shut down, they just changed ownership.” Kirsh said the Cold War could reemerge out of Russia’s incursion in Ukraine, and energy suppliers outside of Russia will benefit if sanctions are levied. “It’s a different story with Putin,” Kirsh said. “South Africa doesn’t supply 30 percent of Europe’s oil and gas. There will be some people outside of Russia that will see a huge
[Marxism] The pressure on the EU to settle
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Russia Wields $160 Billion Stick in Crimea Sanctions Standoff By Joe Carroll and Rebecca Penty Bloomberg News March 14 2014 Vladimir Putin’s control over $160 billion in oil and natural gas exports may be his most potent weapon in Russia’s face-off with Europe and the U.S. over Ukraine. As Crimea prepares to vote Sunday on whether to return to Russian control, the U.S. and its European allies have few levers to deter Putin’s Ukrainian venture. Threats of visa bans and asset freezes haven’t rattled the Kremlin thus far -- six hours of face-to-face talks between the top U.S. and Russian diplomats ended yesterday without a deal. Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, exported $160 billion worth of crude, fuels and gas-based industrial feedstocks to Europe and the U.S. in 2012. While shutting the spigot on Russian energy exports would starve the Moscow government of essential flows of foreign cash, the price may be too high for European consumers and it may not alter Putin’s plans, said Jeff Sahadeo, director of Carleton University’s Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies. “In the short term, this would be very difficult to do and it’s not clear it would even affect Russian behavior,” Sahadeo said in a phone interview from Ottawa. If the West “puts down the card of energy sanctions, it becomes a question of who blinks first.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the EU’s biggest economy, said yesterday her nation is prepared to bear the economic pain that would accompany Russian retaliation to any sanctions. Analysts from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley have said Europe probably won’t back sanctions that limit flows of Russia’s oil and gas. European members of the Paris-based International Energy Agency imported 32 percent of their raw crude oil, fuels and gas-based chemical feedstocks from Russia in 2012. Collectively, the EU, Turkey, Norway, Switzerland and the Balkan countries got 30 percent of the natural gas they burned from Russia last year, much of it pumped through pipelines that cross Ukrainian territory, according to the U.S. Energy Department in Washington. Abstaining from Russian oil and gas would be “off the table” for Europe, said Marc Lanthemann, Eurasia analyst with Stratfor, a geopolitical intelligence company based in Austin, Texas. Europe risks a replay of its failed attempt six years ago to punish the Kremlin for going to war with the Republic of Georgia, when it was unable to impose sanctions after acknowledging its dependence on Russian energy. “We’re not expecting sanctions with many teeth coming through,” Lanthemann said. The most likely penalties are financial sanctions against Russian banks and oligarchs. Crimea, a dominion of Russia and then the Soviet Union for more than two centuries before the Communist empire collapsed in 1991, votes on March 16 on whether to break away from Ukraine. The plebiscite was called after a popular uprising forced Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych to flee the Ukrainian capital of Kiev last month. Ukraine’s central government said Russia already has taken control of the Crimean peninsula and has massed troops along the border. The defense minister forEstonia, another former Soviet possession, warned that Russian military units are gearing up to invade eastern Ukraine, home to a large minority of ethnic Russians. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday the nation has no plans to invade eastern Ukraine. “Our partners understand that sanctions are a counterproductive instrument,” he told reporters after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. A spokesman for the Russian embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on potential sanctions. While the ruble, Ukrainian hryvnia and other regional currencies have tumbled as the conflict escalated, global oil markets aren’t reacting to the potential for a sanctions-induced supply disruption. Brent crude futures traded in London, the benchmark for more than half the world’s oil, are little changed at about $109 a barrel since the Crimean regional assembly announced the referendum on March 6. The U.S. and Europeans will likely disagree over any energy sanctions and how much should be curtailed, said Seva Gunitsky, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs. “In order to get any traction with sanctions you have to bring the EU in and I think that will be a difficult task because of their dependence on Russian oil and gas resources,” Gunitsky said. The European Union’s bill for Russian oil and gas amounted to $156.5 billion in 2012, 38 times what the U.S. spent for Russian energy,
Re: [Marxism] Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-15, at 12:13 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/15/14 11:57 AM, turb...@aol.com wrote: (And I'm not saying this out of some mandarin disdain for the masses, but rather because there are many situations in which people in the streets figure less significantly in the outcome than the machinations of big powers; this, IMO, is one such situation) Russia shouldn't dominate Ukraine either. But those whose main thrust is to denounce Russian imperialism come dangerously close to echoing the propaganda of their own ruling class. In the interests of transparency, Creegan speaks for the CPGB, a tiny sect in Britain… a·void·ance (ə-void′ns) n. The act of shunning or avoiding. One of Ukraine’s most prominent Jewish leaders dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reasoning for Moscow-backed militiamen taking over the region as “ridiculous” ahead of Sunday’s referendum on the future of Crimea...the President of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee Eduard Dolinsky said that the community did “not feel any specific threat at this moment. And we can solve any issues inside our country in dialogue with all political forces peacefully.” Whatever Putin may or may not believe, no one here has argued the Ukrainian Jewish community is, as Dolinsky delicately puts it, under specific threat at this moment, justifying a Russian invasion. Myself and others have been referring to anti-semitic statements made by leaders of Svoboda, the party which played a prominent role in bringing the present government to power and subsequently being invited to join it. It beats me why this agitates you so. It seems to me to be the elementary responsibility of the international left and all people of good will to bring these statements and the role of Svoboda to public attention, especially in the US and western Europe, in the interests of constraining their own governments. As for Jewish opinion, you cite a single source, one which would not want to rock the boat in present circumstances, while ignoring that the World Jewish Congress has labelled the party as neo-Nazi and called for it to be banned. Perhaps the WJC and other Jewish organizations will fall into line with the Western effort to disguise the more unsavoury features of the new regime and its core base of support, but that has not happened as yet. 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] Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-15, at 3:29 PM, Steve Heeren wrote: amen, Jim Creegan. Louis Proyect constantly resorts to ad hominem replies (they can't be called arguments). The irony is that Louis is always beating the drum against sectarianism and for a broad, inclusive, democratic party of the left.. He denounces the existing small left organizations without exception as Zinovievist, maintaining that they are typically built around a single leader and the imposition of strict ideological discipline from the top. He professes to be strongly opposed to the practice of treating any departure from the prescribed line as a heresy imported from an alien political environment. Louis is the best example I know of how NOT to intervene in the unions and other mass organizations and to build a left-wing party, questions which preoccupied most of us for most of our lives. In the absence of an imposed discipline from above, there is a need for a consciously self-disciplined membership if an organization is to survive and gain influence in the wider political world. Louis wholly lacks such self-control. He likes to dish it out, but can't take it without exploding and resorting to personal sneers when he has difficulty dealing with the substantive issues - the kind of disruptive behaviour that's impossible for even the most democratic organization to bear. It's not enough to be a politically sophisticated intellectual, if your temperament is more likely to split rather than build an organization. Despite the wide range of opinion which would be represented and the inevitable disagreements which would result, I expect I could comfortably coexist in the same group with those who have been on both sides of the Ukraine debate. Louis may have once been a hand-raising machine in the SWP, but these days I doubt he could last very long anywhere without being seen as the leader, and I know I'm not alone in my opinion. 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] Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-15, at 4:30 PM, Joseph Catron wrote: And since Lou keeps returning to Jewish opinion, attacks on Jews, etc., etc., ad infinitum, I have a vague idea that the Jewish leaders of Damascus are responsible for the kind of flowery praise that would make Dolinsky's comments look like fiery denunciations. Let's not overlook also that Svoboda and right-wing Ukrainian nationalism in general is not only about the Jews. Like the rest of the European far right which has a soft spot for the old-fashioned fascism, it is virulently anti-immigrant, anti-union, anti-gay, anti-abortion, and anti-left as well as being anti-semitic. In one breath, Louis tells us not to tut-tut about these guys and in the next he laments the absence of left-wing flying squads in Maidan which could have beaten the shit out of them and replaced them at the head of the protests. 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] Don't believe the Russian propaganda about Ukraine's 'fascist' protesters
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-13, at 6:48 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: To recapitulate my views on the Ukraine briefly as I have been developing them over the past few weeks: 1. Poverty, corruption and hatred toward Russian domination fueled the protests that led to the collapse of Yanukovych's government. 2. Sympathy for the far right as indicated by polling about attitudes toward the fighting forces in WWII amounts to 16 percent nationwide and only nears a majority in Galicia, a province that has 10 percent of the country's population. In Kyiv, 89 percent of the population views the Red Army favorably, as opposed to 2 percent favorable toward the armed wing of Bandera's ultraright group. 3. In the past 15 years, there are only two reports of violent attacks on Jews in the Ukraine. Social scientists who follow anti-Semitic trends view France and Britain as far more worrisome. 4. There is nothing more progressive about Russia in comparison to the EU. The Eurasian Trade organization is not COMECON and Putin is not Brezhnev. 5. Fascism is not on the agenda anywhere in Europe despite the fact that there are fascists everywhere. If you are going to worry about the ultraright, worry about France where Le Pen got twice the vote of Svoboda. 6. The new power in Ukraine is poised to impose a Greek-style austerity. People who have been suffering from a total economic collapse are not likely to rally around a government imposing it because it invokes nationalistic themes. In fact, as I indicated already, there are reports that the average citizen who supported Euromaidan views it as having a dirty past, according to the Estonian foreign minister. That's about it, I guess. I don't think we're that far apart, but I may be wrong. Here are my comments: a) You understate the ethnic divisions between west and east Ukraine which were as important in fuelling the protests as the living conditions and corruption of the Yanukovych government. The ethnic divisions were present before the arrival of Yanukovych, and the Crimean crisis, if anything, has exacerbated them. b) In rejecting the hysterics of those who believe there has been a fascist coup in the Ukraine, you bend the stick back too far in dismissing the pro-fascist groups as having little or no significance. While it's true the wartime historical memory of the Ukrainians is pro-Soviet, that's less important than the leading role played by the far right in the recent protests which led to the change in regime. By most accounts, and as you would expect, that's won Svoboda and the lesser pro-fascist groups the increased respect of the masses, especially in the western half of the country. In the absence of any remotely comparable left parties, they stand to make the most gains if the right of centre Yatsenyuk government should falter. The previous Yushchenko-Tymoshenko leadership contributed to their present legitimacy by burnishing the image of Bandera and the other pro-fascists who fought on the Nazi side. c) I'm not as convinced that the new government is poised to initiate a Greek-style austerity. The US/EU/IMF axis is not stupid, and, in the present volatile conditions with the far right waiting in the wings, it likely understands its immediate need is to restore order and consolidate the pro-Western regime before risking an attack on fuel and food subsidies and other social programs. I'm attaching a recent opinion piece by the Larry Summers, who knows his way around the issue, which I think is a good indicator of the slow pace of reform being contemplated. d) It's equally difficult to anticipate how much, if any, mass resistance there would be to austerity. The expected challenge from the left to the capitalist states and traditional parties in the crisis-racked European periphery never really materialized except in Greece. In Ukraine, the potential for a class-based response led by a left-wing party is out of the question since, to my knowledge, no such party exists - even in embryo. Socialist ideology and left-wing parties were rejected in reaction to the Soviet experience, and replaced by an idealized view of Western bourgeois democracy and conservative leaders like Reagan and Thatcher. The identification with nation rather than class, and the promise of EU membership, may be sufficient to persuade the Ukrainian masses to reluctantly bear the necessary sacrifices that their leaders and Western governments will be demanding. ‘Potemkin money’ is the wrong way to help Ukraine By Lawrence Summers Financial Times March 9 2014 Events in Ukraine have underscored the importance of effective external support for successful economic and political reform. The international community
Re: [Marxism] Ukraine: Between 'Popular Uprising for Democracy' and 'Fascist Putsch'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 12, 2014, at 2:01 PM, Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com wrote: Yatseniuk, of course, now heads the new government in which Svoboda plays a prominent role. By which you mean 3 out of 18 seats? Since you asked, I'll attempt an answer. The number of Cabinet seats Svoboda holds isn't an indicator of its increased influence both in the streets and in the government. It shouldn't be necessary to remind anyone on this list that power can be and is often exercised outside the higher institutions of the state. The party's leader and co-founder is Oleh Tyahnybok. He is conspicuously absent from the government. Yet he is widely considered to be one of the three most powerful politicians in the country. See: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140664/annabelle-chapman/ukraines-big-three Tyahnybok's exclusion, and that of other Svoboda and Right Sector leaders, is clearly by design and likely with their cooperation. It's safe to assume that the government's image was crafted by US and EU officials in consultation with the new government in order to appeal to a Western public which will be footing the bill and risking a damaging confrontation with Russia to maintain it in power. The far right leaders have been assigned a low profile because their anti-semitic and other xenophobic, homophobic, and authoritarian views would badly compromise the appearance of the new government and render American and European support for it tenuous. But the Yatseniuk government is still dependent on the continued support of the far right, and the chief US and EU concern at present is that Svoboda and the Right Sector will continue to grow, and will not be content to wait in the wings for long, and will further inflame the festering crisis with Russia. More about Tyahnybok and Svoboda here: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20824693 http://www.channel4.com/news/kiev-svoboda-far-right-protests-right-sector-riot-police So Tyahnybok's absence and the party's limited representation in the Cabinet are not a true measure of Svoboda's political weight in the government and the country. But judging by Clay's response above, I would say the Western-sponsored effort to paper over its influence has worked very well. 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] Fwd: Ukraine: Between 'Popular Uprising for Democracy' and 'Fascist Putsch'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == From: Marv Gandall marvga...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Marxism] Ukraine: Between 'Popular Uprising for Democracy' and 'Fascist Putsch' Date: 13 March, 2014 7:34:33 AM EDT To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Tyahnybok's exclusion, and that of other Svoboda and Right Sector leaders, is clearly by design and likely with their cooperation. It's safe to assume that the government's image was crafted by US and EU officials in consultation with the new government in order to appeal to a Western public which will be footing the bill and risking a damaging confrontation with Russia to maintain it in power. The far right leaders have been assigned a low profile because their anti-semitic and other xenophobic, homophobic, and authoritarian views would badly compromise the appearance of the new government and render American and European support for it tenuous. But the Yatseniuk government is still dependent on the continued support of the far right, and the chief US and EU concern at present is that Svoboda and the Right Sector will continue to grow, and will not be content to wait in the wings for long, and will further inflame the festering crisis with Russia. Eugene Robinson's piece in yesterday's Washington Post is a good illustration of the queasiness and unease of informed liberal opinion in the US and EU about the political character of the new government, its far right activist base of support, and the danger of being dragged into a confrontation with Russia over Crimea. Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists present a need for U.S. caution By Eugene Robinson Washington Post March 10 2014 When the new Ukrainian prime minister visits the White House this week, President Obama should offer continued support — but also ask pointedly why several far-right ultra-nationalists have such prominent roles in Ukraine’s new government. I don’t know of any reason to doubt Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s commitment to democracy and pluralism. The same cannot be said for other members of the provisional regime that is trying to reverse Russia’s grab of the Crimean Peninsula. Oleksandr Sych, one of three vice prime ministers, is a member of the controversial All-Ukrainian Union “Svoboda” party, whose leader charged that Ukraine was being controlled by a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” before last month’s revolution. Members of Svoboda also run the agriculture and environment ministries. Last year, the World Jewish Congress called on the European Union to consider banning what it considered neo-Nazi parties, including Svoboda. The head of the National Security and Defense Council, in charge of the armed forces, is Andriy Parubiy, who founded the Social-National Party of Ukraine, an openly neo-fascist precursor to Svoboda. Parubiy’s deputy is Dmitro Yarosh, the leader of Right Sector, a far-right paramilitary group that clashed violently with the security forces of deposed leader Viktor Yanukovych. All of this is to say that the situation in Ukraine is not as simple as it might seem. It’s not fair to say that the new government is dominated by the far right. But the front-and-center presence of these unsavory characters should be enough to warn policymakers in Washington that Ukraine’s new leaders will have to be pressed to respect the rights of all citizens, including supporters of the ousted regime. I tend to agree with the assessment by former defense secretary Robert Gates, who told “Fox News Sunday,” “I do not believe that Crimea will slip out of Russia’s hand.” Russian troops essentially control the peninsula and, from all reports, have substantial popular support. Unless a planned referendum on retrocession to Russia produces a surprise result — and Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t like surprises — it is hard to see how the Ukrainian government can wrest Crimea back. The other Russian-speaking parts of eastern Ukraine are a different story — potentially. Putin would face much more determined international opposition if he were to send troops to capture more of the country — unless the new government gives him an excuse. The far-right parties have long championed Ukrainian-only laws that ban the use of the Russian language in official business. They have ideas about rewriting history books and celebrating Ukrainian — as opposed to Russian or Jewish — ethnic heritage. Svoboda’s platform, for example, calls for Ukrainian passports to specify the bearer’s ethnicity. Sorting all of this out will require the government to reassure Russian speakers in the east that they do not need protection from Moscow, as Putin claims. But Russian media are playing up an incident Saturday
Re: [Marxism] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 13, 2014, at 11:53 AM, Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com wrote: You may be interested in kibitzing. I am interested in what develops the revolutionary consciousness of the masses and how that can be enhanced. Collosal bluster. I can't believe I've wasted so much time on this posturing bullshitter. 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] Don't believe the Russian propaganda about Ukraine's 'fascist' protesters
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-13, at 4:33 PM, Louis Proyect posted: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/13/russian-propaganda-ukraine-fascist-protesters-euromaidan/ Don't believe the Russian propaganda about Ukraine's 'fascist' protesters The Euromaidan was a place of multi-ethnic national solidarity in the face of repression – Putin only seeks to justify his aggression by Olexiy Haran theguardian.com, Thursday 13 March 2014 06.04 EDT Louis is always interested in the political background and institutional affiliation of authors of articles like this in order to assess their credibility, which is entirely appropriate. So I took a page out of his book for this fellow. Turns out he's a Ukrainian political scientist from Kiev who has been a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and has lectured extensively in the United States. He was an advisor to the Yushchenko government and is now the Eurasia Foundation's regional vice-president for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. http://www.kiev-dialogue.org/index.php?id=170 As Louis may or may not know, the Eurasia Foundation has evolved from a U.S.-based foundation with multiple field offices into the Eurasia Foundation Network – a constellation of affiliated, locally registered foundations in Russia, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova that work in partnership with Eurasia Foundation in the U.S. http://www.eurasia.org/about-us It has an impressive roster of US corporate executives on its Board of Trustees. http://www.eurasia.org/about-us/board-of-trustees The foundation took the initiative in setting up an Open Maidan University. Its web site highlights that representatives from Ukraine’s business community have been some of OMU’s most enthusiastic supporters. The director of Microsoft Ukraine has given several lectures at the podium. Economic and business issues seem to obsess the protesters. http://www.eurasia.org/euromaidan-protests-new-education-venture I recommend Dr. Haran's Guardian piece be read in its proper context. 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] Ukraine: Between 'Popular Uprising for Democracy' and 'Fascist Putsch'
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-12, at 8:17 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/12/14 5:15 AM, Richard Fidler wrote: Excellent, informative article: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/948.php. Well, this is just a crock of shit from Mandel: The heroes of the western provinces collaborated with the German occupation and participated in its crimes; the heroes of the east and south fought fascism and for the Soviet Union. What evidence is there of the OUN being regarded as heroes? I cited a poll conducted by social scientists that found that only 8 percent of Ukrainians regarded the OUN as the fighting force worthy of support during WWII. That's true. Recall that Ukraine was a Soviet republic, so many of its citizens in both the eastern and western provinces would probably have some recollection of grandparents or other relatives who were in the Red Army. Also, those schooled in the country before the collapse of USSR would have been thoroughly educated about the Great Patriotic War. It's useful, however, to delve into more detail, as we did when Louis first brought the poll to our attention. One would expect Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the eastern half of the country to sympathize with the Soviets, but it was somewhat surprising and encouraging that a plurality of those surveyed in the eastern provinces also supported the Red Army. The notable exception was Galicia, whose major city is Lviv. Those surveyed in that province strongly favoured Bandera, Shukhevych, and the right-wing militias which actively participated in the slaughter of the Jews and in war crimes against Russian POW's, pro-Soviet civilians, and Poles living inside the western Ukraine. There was more pro-Soviet sentiment among older than younger Ukrainians, but not by a significant margin. The really troubling aspect of the poll is that it confirms the efforts which have been underway for some time by the Ukrainian leadership to rehabilitate the pro-fascist forces - a development which has undoubted gained impetus from the recent Maidan events and the vanguard role (to use Timothy Snyder's sympathetic description) played by the Right Sector and Svoboda. According to the study which examined the poll: Supporters of nationalist parties, such as Svoboda and Our Ukraine, are likely to embrace different views concerning the war, compared to supporters of pro-Communist or pro-Russian parties, such as the Communist Party and the Party of Regions. For example, Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine from 2005 to 2010 and a leader of the Our Ukraine Bloc, which included his party and other nationalist parties, promoted as a centerpiece of his policy commemoration of the UPA as fighters for the Ukrainian independence and national heroes...Yushchenko awarded the Hero of Ukraine title to Roman Shukhevych, the supreme commander of the UPA. Svoboda, a radical nationalist party, which won regional elections in Galicia in 2010 and won 10.5 percent of the national vote in the 2012 parliamentary elections, promoted similar policies, not only concerning the UPA but also concerning the SS “Galicia” Division...This party, which was originally called the Social-National Party, combined radical nationalism with elements of neo-Nazi ideology. Svoboda called for removal of war monuments to Soviet soldiers, and it blocked, with the help of violence, public celebrations of Victory Day in Lviv in 2011. The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT), which was a key member of the Orange coalition and presented itself as a democratic pro-Western party, advanced a populist ideology and did not emphasize its stance on such historical memory issues as World War II. However, after the loss in the 2010 presidential elections, Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party started also to adopt a nationalist rhetoric, and publicly used a greeting that was used by the OUN-B and the UPA during the war. The greeting 'Slava Ukraini' (Glory to Ukraine) and a fascist-style hand salute were modeled by the OUN on similar greetings and salutes by other fascist and semi-fascist parties...The Fatherland Party, which was led by Arseni Yatseniuk after Tymoshenko’s imprisonment on criminal charges, formed a political alliance with Svoboda during the 2010 parliamentary elections and after the elections. Yatseniuk, of course, now heads the new government in which Svoboda plays a prominent role. 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] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-11, at 12:45 AM, Clay Claiborne wrote: It seems to me the international socialism movement is largely responsible for its own demise. I would say the unanticipated capacity of capitalism to recover from recurrent crises; the extension of the vote and development of the welfare state; the opening up of vast new zones of exploitation in eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America; the evolution of Western industrial economies into more fragmented and difficult to organize ones based on services, and other material factors had much more to do the disappearance of the mass international socialist movement. You can choose to blame it on a crisis of leadership and opportunism, but its leaders were mainly a symptom rather than a cause of its decline. This is a very broad subject which I have no wish to debate in the abstract, though it clearly frames my understanding of specific issues just as the misleadership theory frames yours. 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] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-11, at 8:29 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/11/14 8:17 AM, Marv Gandall wrote: the extension of the vote and development of the welfare state; Huh? The last 40 years at least has been about the dismantling of the welfare state. What planet have you been living on? Thanks for this; I hadn't noticed. I was addressing the reasons for the unexpected resilience of capitalism despite forecasts of its imminent demise by Marxist theoreticians over the past century and a half. On 2014-03-11, at 7:50 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/10/14 11:28 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: Fair enough. But do we support all mass movements without exception - even ones led by popular right wing groups and parties often viciously opposed to the values and institutions historically supported by the left? There was no mass movement. This was a spontaneous revolt of people fed up by corruption and poverty. A mass movement would be something like the civil rights movement in the USA that has developed organically over decades or the antiwar movement. People poured into Maidan square and the well-organized and powerful ultraright used the opportunity to muscle out the left. Whatever you want to call it, the Maidan ___ successfully toppled a government and replaced it with one of its own. I don't accept for a minute that the masses who poured into Maidan square and the western Ukrainians who supported them were predisposed to fascism. They were apolitical, and for the most part still are. This was and is the source of the __'s weakness. It's been vulnerable to manipulation and control by the far right groups and the conservative parties who appeal to and reinforce its ethnic identification with the traditional Ukrainian language, culture, and religion. The ultraright was able to dispatch the tiny left with such ease because it tapped into the unfortunate ethnic divisions which are threatening to tear the country apart, not because it had more and better organized street fighters. This is what really underlay the attacks on the corruption and economic policies of the Yanukovych government and its west Ukrainian Russian-speaking base. The previous Yushchenko and Tymoshenko governments which drew for support on the Ukrainian-speaking Western part of the country were equally subservient to the oligarchs and did little to raise the living standards of the people, but this was generally overlooked by the crowds in Kyiv and elsewhere in their eagerness to restore their own bourgeois ethnocrats to power. Alas, a sign of the times. 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] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'm aware of the reports, Louis, and am less impressed by them than you are. Distrust of politicians is as endemic as the regular eruption of popular protest in capitalist societies. In the US, many conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats mistrust their leaderships. But they rarely if ever break with them because they much more fear the opposition. In the Ukraine, if the masses in the western regions abandon the right-centre Yatsenyuk government in reaction to austerity, it will most likely be to move further to the right, to right-wing populist formations like Svoboda and the Right Sektor who are waiting in the wings. That is what the EU and US politicians fear. There are no remotely comparable alternatives on the left, and it is hard to see one developing given the ethnic rather than class consciousness of the mass of the Ukrainian population as well as the legacy of really existing socialism in the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe. But I'd love to be proven wrong, and your perspective vindicated. On Mar 11, 2014, at 2:02 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: On 3/11/14 12:52 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: The previous Yushchenko and Tymoshenko governments which drew for support on the Ukrainian-speaking Western part of the country were equally subservient to the oligarchs and did little to raise the living standards of the people, but this was generally overlooked by the crowds in Kyiv and elsewhere in their eagerness to restore their own bourgeois ethnocrats to power. Alas, a sign of the times. OVERLOOKED BY THE CROWDS, REALLY?? Comrades, especially Marv, should listen to the entire 11 minute phone conversation between Paet and Ashton. The most interesting thing is the first 8 minutes or so when Paet reports that civil society, in other words, ordinary Ukrainians who took part in the Orange Revolution or who supported the removal of Yanukovych and entry into the EU--and nothing else--now expect a clean break with oligarchy and corruption. He says that they regard the Tweedle-Dee as having a dirty past, even though Tweedle-Dum was even dirtier. The idea that such people were subservient to the new crew is belied by both the phone call and reports from many different sources that seems to have eluded Marvin Gandall. http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/01/urkaine-crisis-maidan-idUSL6N0LY0SM20140301 While the new government has not made direct calls for protesters to leave, many on the square distrust the new leadership to enact the kind of reforms they want and have vowed to stay. Protesters on the square universally tell tales of the wild riches that ordinary parliamentarians gain - one confidently talked of the millions a member of parliament can get for voting correctly during a debate. They reckon that the leaders of the opposition-turned government, such as acting President Oleksander Turchinov and Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk will enjoy such benefits. http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21597974-can-ukraine-find-any-leaders-who-will-live-up-aspirations-its-battered-victorious None of the politicians, including the three opposition leaders Arseny Yatsenyuk, Vitaly Klitschko, a former boxer, and Oleh Tyagnibok, are trusted by Maidan. Witness the reaction to Ms Tymoshenko’s appearance on Maidan after her release from prison. In the Orange revolution she was treated like a messiah. This time, while people were glad to see that she had been freed, they knew better than to put their fate in her hands—or those of any other politician for that matter. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304255604579407421341927360 Ukrainians distrust, with good reason, the entire political class. Mr. Yanukovych wasn't the only greedy or incompetent pol here. But the Maidan crowds can't rule the country, and in the past five days, parliament has assumed that role. On Wednesday night, the names of those who would lead a proposed new transitional government were announced before thousands packed in at the Maidan. Some were booed, others were cheered. Behind closed doors, the politicians are trying to recreate the old system, says Mustafa Naim, an Afghan-Ukrainian journalist, furious at the signs of deal-making by the same old faces. You can see it in their eyes. We may need to go out on the Maidan again. He says Ukraine needs to clean the whole political slate by scheduling a parliamentary election to coincide with the planned presidential vote in late May. Mr. Naim started all this in late November by calling a meeting on the Maidan to protest Mr. Yanukovych's decision to abandon an EU association pact. Now he hosts a show on a new
Re: [Marxism] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-10, at 11:31 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/10/14 10:34 AM, Jim Farmelant wrote: Under such circumstances, having far right extremists, like Svoboda within the new government might prove useful when push comes to shove. That might be true but it has nothing to do with what Leupp wrote. In fact I don't think there's much analysis in all of these Ukraine going fascist articles except the customary references to Svoboda's emblem resembling a swastika, anti-Semitic statements from rightist politicians, etc. AFAIK, no one chiming in on the Ukraine discussion on this list has suggested Ukraine is going fascist. As Jim points out, what's at issue is the new right-wing nationalist government which is preparing to impose austerity in exchange for loans from the US, EU, and IMF. There's little to distinguish it, except its ethnic base of support, from the Yanukovych government which preceded it and from the Putin regime in Russia. I'm not as confident as Jim that austerity will provoke mass protests; if anything, the Maidan movement, which relegated the tiny Ukrainian left to the margins and propelled the new government to power, will more likely strengthen the state's ability to impose its program. Yet the clear impression conveyed by Clay, Andy, yourself and a few others is that this government is somehow worth defending against the greater evil represented by Putin and the Russians. So far as I'm concerned, we don't have a dog in this inter-imperialist fight and before I jump on the Maidan bandwagon, I'd need to see evidence of a break with the new government and its policies. That can't be taken for granted; to date, in the absence of left-wing organizations of any significance, the spontaneous mass occupation of city squares outside of Greece have seen the replacement of one set of kleptocrats with another. 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] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 10, 2014, at 6:45 PM, Andrew Pollack acpolla...@gmail.com wrote: Marv made a simple mistake -- he focused on our denunciation of Russia and extrapolated that incorrectly into our supposed support for the government of Ukrainian oligarch set B (following set A). Thanks, Andy. It's always been clear to me that you and the others don't support bourgeois governments, and I'm sorry to have left the the wrong impression. In relation to the Ukraine, because the the government and the mass movement which produced it are so intertwined, the zealous defense of the movement can be perceived or misperceived, as in your case, as the defence of the government around their shared program. Both are wholly dominated by right and far right parties and, despite the interest in the tiny Ukrainian left on the list, there is no evidence of a class struggle. If there were, there would be little difficulty differentiating between a repressive state and an independent class movement ranged against it, and the left would not be as divided on the question as it is now. Clay, Louis, and others have also denounced those who point to to the interimperialist rivalry between the West and Russia, dismissing the international context as largely irrelevant to the development of the Maidan movement and an effort by their political opponents to undercut it. But international and domestic politics are inseparable, and due attention needs to be paid to the relationship between them. The outcome of the greatest class struggle in Western Europe during the 20th century, the Spanish Civil War, was decisively influenced by the efforts of the USSR to reach an accomodation with the Western capitalist powers at the expense of the revolutionary process in that country. Earlier, the international class struggle was profoundly shaped by the split in the Second International directly resulting from the interimperialist rivalry which culminated in the First World War. 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] Fascism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-10, at 10:50 PM, Clay Claiborne wrote: Marv, i don't discount inter-imperialist rivalries. Not in Ukraine, not in Syria, Libya or Egypt. Not even in Occupy LA [RT was around a lot] I just don't discount the mass struggle. In all the above cases, I see the mass movement as the engine driving developments. It should be understood that imperialist and other opportunists will always circle around movements like these, trying to control them or destroy them, and to somehow find some advantage in them. This will always cloud the picture of any real world struggle but we should never lose sight of who is driving these developments. This is what the non-interventions do. Fair enough. But do we support all mass movements without exception - even ones led by popular right wing groups and parties often viciously opposed to the values and institutions historically supported by the left? Notwithstanding that many of those who flocked to Maidan, as in all mass movements, were non-ideological when they joined the fray, in what way does the political character of the Maidan movement not fit this description? This is a recurrent question we never had to grapple with before the demise of the once powerful international workers' movement, when mass protests and uprisings were typically led by socialists of one stripe or another, and defining a position in relation to them was reflexive. 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] Ukraine: The truth about the leaked Maidan sniper story
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-09, at 12:19 AM, Clay Claiborne wrote: *UPDATED 8 Mar 2014*: The *Toronto Star* reports http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/03/07/the_fog_of_war_russianstyle.html that Olga Bogomolets says that the reported conversation with Urmas Paet never happened... Which sounds like she agrees with me that a doctor couldn't know that victims were shot by the same sniper just by examining the wounds. And actually, I was wondering if the cops and activists would have been treated by the same doctors. Now that question is answered. So now the ball is in Paet's court. He now needs to say where the story came from. Ashton may be the headliner, but she was just the patsy, all she did was listen while Paet told the tale that made the tape that then got leaked. I don't give the same credence you do to the line being peddled by the Ukrainian government - that the sniper incident was a Putin propaganda ploy - nor to the recanted statements of Dr. Bogomolets, which damaged the government she supports and quite possibly her own career when they were made public. Now the Ukrainian health minister quoted below spins the yarn further with the suggestion that the Russian objective was to topple Yanukovych, in the full knowledge it would bring the opposition to power. Since the Ukrainian government is very unlikely to permit a full and impartial investigation to support its fantastic claims, we might as well just leave it at that. Russia, Ukraine feud over sniper carnage By Mike Eckel Associated Press March 8 2104 KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — One of the biggest mysteries hanging over the protest mayhem that drove Ukraine's president from power: Who was behind the snipers who sowed death and terror in Kiev? That riddle has become the latest flashpoint of feuding over Ukraine — with the nation's fledgling government and the Kremlin giving starkly different interpretations of events that could either undermine or bolster the legitimacy of the new rulers. Ukrainian authorities are investigating the Feb. 18-20 bloodbath, and they have shifted their focus from ousted President Viktor Yanukovych's government to Vladimir Putin's Russia — pursuing the theory that the Kremlin was intent on sowing mayhem as a pretext for military incursion. Russia suggests that the snipers were organized by opposition leaders trying to whip up local and international outrage against the government. The government's new health minister — a doctor who helped oversee medical treatment for casualties during the protests — told The Associated Press that the similarity of bullet wounds suffered by opposition victims and police indicates the shooters were trying to stoke tensions on both sides and spark even greater violence, with the goal of toppling Yanukovych. I think it wasn't just a part of the old regime that (plotted the provocation), but it was also the work of Russian special forces who served and maintained the ideology of the (old) regime, Health Minister Oleh Musiy said. Putin has pushed the idea that the sniper shootings were ordered by opposition leaders, while Kremlin officials have pointed to a recording of a leaked phone call between Estonia's foreign minister and the European Union's foreign policy chief as evidence to back up that version. This much is known: Snipers firing powerful rifles from rooftops and windows shot scores of people in the heart of Kiev. Some victims were opposition protesters, but many were civilian bystanders clearly not involved in the clashes. Among the dead were medics, as well as police officers. A majority of the more than 100 people who died in the violence were shot by snipers; hundreds were also injured by the gunfire and other street fighting. On Tuesday, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov signaled that investigators may be turning their attention away from Ukrainian responsibility. I can say only one thing: the key factor in this uprising, that spilled blood in Kiev and that turned the country upside down and shocked it, was a third force, Avakov was quoted as saying by Interfax. And this force was not Ukrainian. The next day, Prosecutor General Oleh Makhntisky said officials have found sniper bullet casings on the National Bank building a few hundred yards up the hill from Maidan, the square that became the center and the symbol of the anti-government protests. He said investigators have confirmed snipers also fired from the Hotel Ukraine, directly on the square, and the House of Chimeras, an official residence next to the presidential administration building. Deputy Interior Minister Mykola Velichkovych told AP that commanders of sniper units overseen by the Berkut police force and other Interior Ministry subdivisions
Re: [Marxism] Ukraine: The truth about the leaked Maidan sniper story
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Mar 8, 2014, at 12:39 AM, Clay Claiborne clayc...@gmail.com wrote: What gets left out of most reports on this /sensational/ story is that in the leaked conversation, Estonia Foreign Minister *Urmas Paet* is telling European Union foreign policy chief *Catherine Ashton* what *Olga Bogomolets* told him. He is not telling Ashton what he knows to be fact; he is telling her a rumor he was told by an activist doctor who treated some of the sniper victims. (Paet: /There is this lady called Olga.../ [2:27 on tape]) All those who take this story as truth are taking the word of this one woman and all those who peddle this story without making that clear are engaged in a Putin propaganda effort. Dismissing Paet's concerns, anxiously expressed in confidence to Ashton, as a sensational story and a Putin propaganda effort lacking any real foundation sounds very much like special pleading for the new Ukrainian regime. As I understand it, the regime has not issued a denial, which would be commonplace. Paet was not idly chatting with Ashton about a rumor he heard from a Maidan activist, as you suggest. By his own admission, he considered the rumour to be credible in the context of a stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers it was...somebody from the new coalition and that it's really disturbing that now the new coalition says that they don't want to investigate what exactly happened. This was said to Ashton in confidence by a resolutely pro-Western supporter of the new government. See: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/ukraine-bugged-call-catherine-ashton-urmas-paet You bend the stick back way too far in your support of the heterogenous opposition movements to Assad and Putin, and don't seem to much distinguish between the left and right wing forces which compose them. Worse, you imfer that any critical approach to these contradictory movements makes one an apologist for the Syrian and Russian governments. In truth, there are apologists on both sides, yourself included. 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] Boris Kagarlitsky: Polite intervention and the Ukrainian uprising
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-07, at 2:05 AM, glparrama...@greenleft.org.au wrote: By Boris Kagarlitsky, Moscow; translated by Renfrey Clarke March 4, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Why, do you suppose, war has not yet broken out between Russia and Ukraine? The answer is very simple: no one plans to go to war, and no one can. Kiev for practical purposes does not have an army, while the government that has appeared in Kiev has no control over half of Ukraine, and cannot even exercise particular control over its own supporters. If the Ukrainian authorities make any serious attempt to mobilise their forces, this will merely provoke new protests. Even rumours of such a possibility have been enough to provoke anti-government demonstrations in Odessa. Full article at http://links.org.au/node/3752 Kagarlitsky's continuing analysis of the contending forces has been superb. From the same article: More than likely, the present authorities in Kiev will not hold out for long… Commentators in Moscow who are sympathetic to them remind us constantly that most of the ministries in the new government are not held by radicals from Svoboda or the Right Sector, but by more moderate politicians. Meanwhile, the commentators neglect to mention that these “moderates” are hostages of the radicals. As Mao said, power comes from the barrel of a gun. In circumstances where the army has fallen to pieces, and the organs of law enforcement have either been smashed, or are demoralised, or have been placed under the control of the Right Sector, it is the radical nationalists who control the situation. The “moderates” in the government are only tolerated because they have promised to stop the eastern provinces splitting away. Now that they are failing to cope with this task, they will be purged. Either western Ukraine will move against Kiev as well, seeking the formation of a more resolute and “national” government as a “response to Russian aggression”, or the same impulse will come from within the capital itself. In either case, right-wing pressure will result in such a government being formed that Kiev itself will rise in revolt. In the east, meanwhile, the disintegration of the Party of the Regions and the collapse of the old administration have not resulted in the “triumphant progress” of the Maidan movement, but on the contrary, to growing resistance to the new authorities holding sway in Kiev. Among leftists, the deepening economic crisis is sowing hopes that the demonstrations under “national slogans” will soon be replaced by class-based protests both in the east and the west. Developments of this sort, however, do not occur automatically. Neither Maidan nor the demonstrations in the east have had the character of a spontaneous popular revolution. In both cases, outside forces have been involved. The class nature of the new regime in Kiev was demonstrated with striking clarity when billionaire oligarchs were appointed to key posts in the eastern regions. In exchange for “stabilisation”, they were offered the chance to privatise not only the economy in the eastern provinces, but also the functions of power. Meanwhile, it should be noted that the people who are now coming to power in the east are not exactly sons and daughters of the popular masses either. The only cause for optimism is the fact that from the beginning, the ideological vector of the protests in the east has been different from that in the west. Left activists were driven from the Maidan in Kiev and beaten up (that is not to mention what happened to left-wing symbols and monuments). In Kharkov and Odessa, by contrast, Soviet monuments were defended, and here and there people even raised red flags. But there should be no illusions here: what is involved for the present is cultural differences rather than class positions. Members of the left need to work in the protest movement in the eastern regions, strengthening their influence and helping to shape a positive program. In this case, there is a real chance that the entire movement can be shifted to more progressive positions, and that the left can win hegemony within it. This is no more than a potential opening, but with the Maidan movement no such chance existed. The conflict unfolding in Ukraine is not a contest of unalloyed good versus unambiguous evil. Nor is it even a contest between a “Russian” south and east and a “Ukrainian” west. In both cases, economic interests are intertwined with cultural contradictions, and the logic of the conflict is leading to the formation of alliances that do not always correspond to declared ideologies. What is occurring is not so much a split within the country as its fragmentation.
[Marxism] The Ukrainian crisis and the interests of Russian capitalism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This can be read as Putin speaking to the US and its NATO allies through a respectable intermediary. It proposes a settlement which would evidently provide the Russian bourgeoisie with the reassurance it deems necessary that the recent events in the Ukraine neither reflect, nor will result, in an imperialist plot to encircle it. The writer is dean of the faculty of international economics and foreign affairs of the National Research University at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow - MG Russia needs to defend its interests with an iron fist By Sergey Karaganov Financial Times March 5 2014 The disintegration of the Soviet Union was not viewed as a defeat by the Russian people, but the west treats Russia as a defeated nation all the same. President Vladimir Putin has been trying to bring together most of the countries of the former Soviet Union in an economic alliance. This would have strengthened the region’s economic competitiveness and helped ward off the kind of instability that bedevilled the Weimar Republic after the dissolution of the German Empire. However, the west has done more or less everything it could to prevent this legitimate rapprochement. The Ukrainian elite has been unable to steer its country towards a more prosperous future. In 1990 Ukraine’s gross domestic product per capita was similar to that of Belarus; today, it is half. Each change of government has brought a worse cadre of incompetents and thieves into Kiev’s corridors of power. The elections in 2004 – in which the west openly interfered – ushered in the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko: nationalist, unbelievably incompetent but staunchly pro-western. In 2010 he was replaced by Viktor Yanukovich, whose flaws were just as deep. This discredited elite has clung to power by playing off Russia and the west, extracting favours in return for fleeting professions of allegiance. The last round came when the EU, humiliated by a string of rejections, offered an association deal that would have precluded Ukrainian participation in the Russian-led customs union. Mr Yanukovich, hoping either to secure a loan from the west or to blackmail Russia into generosity, pretended to embrace Europe. When Russia responded with the promise of a loan, Mr Yanukovich duly switched sides. Demonstrators who were disgusted by this behaviour took to the streets of Kiev. Soon they were joined by murky rightwing fringe groups, who attacked police with firebombs on and off for weeks. The Russian government believes these protesters were openly supported by the west. Then the shooting began and Ukraine plunged deeper into chaos. These events happened against the backdrop of a campaign of anti-Russian propaganda and smears that lasted for more than a year. I lived through two decades of the Cold War, but I am hard pressed to remember such an avalanche of lies. This took an especially vicious form during the Olympic Games in Sochi, which were a triumph for Russia and its athletes. In Russia pundits saw a clear purpose in this campaign: to lay the ground for a new policy of containment. This refreshed memories of the double standards and lies that have been characteristic of the west’s behaviour for the past 20 years. We were reminded of the eastward expansion of Nato, over the pleas and protests of a weakened Russian state. Had Ukraine been absorbed into the alliance, Russia’s strategic position would have become intolerable. When calls for reason proved powerless to stop Nato’s expansion, Russia halted it instead with an iron fist. In 2008 Russia responded to an attack by Georgian troops that killed Russian peacekeepers and scores of Ossetian civilians. Ukraine has since designated itself a nonaligned state, although Nato officials continued to try to lure it. It is against this background that Russia’s actions over the past week must be seen. The iron fist is once again being shown to revanchists seeking consolation for the geopolitical and moral loses of the last decade. Of course, some in the Russian establishment also want to strengthen their positions or cover past mistakes by seeking confrontation with the west. To prevent the situation from deteriorating further, all sides now need to calm down. A trilateral conversation on the future of Ukraine should take place between that country, Russia and the EU, as Moscow has repeatedly proposed. The outline of a compromise is clear. A federal structure for Ukrainian institutions – and a switch to a parliamentary system in place of a presidential one – would enable the people of each region to make their own choices over language and cultural allegiance. Ownership and control of the gas transportation system should be shared between
Re: [Marxism] Ukrainian attitudes towards WWII
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-03, at 7:47 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: The 2012 KIIS Survey shows that the absolute majority of the residents of Ukraine, given a choice of the various forces active in Ukraine during World War II, support most the Soviet Army (75%). In addition, 4% favor the Soviet partisans. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army [militia led by ultrarightist Stephan Bandera] is a choice of 8% of the respondents. In contrast, only 1% support the German Army. The relative majorities (41% each) of adult Ukrainians have negative views of both Joseph Stalin and [Bandera cohort] Roman Shukhevych during the war. However, a much greater percentage (32%) hold very positive or mostly positive views of the wartime activities of Stalin, compared to Shukhevych (14%). The absolute majority (91%) of the respondents regard Hitler’s actions during the war negatively, while only 1% express a positive opinion of the leader of Nazi Germany. A fifth of Ukrainians do not know who Roman Shukhevych was, in contrast to 1% who do not recognize Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler (see Table 1). full: https://www.academia.edu/3378079/The_Politics_of_World_War_II_in_Contemporary_Ukraine A very illuminating and encouraging document! Thanks for posting. As the figures above demonstrate, the Ukrainian masses are no more sympathetic to fascism than other peoples, including those elsewhere in Eastern Europe who directly experienced Stalinism and ultimately turned against the Soviet bloc. The sole exception was the province of Galicia, whose major city is Lviv, which demonstrated the highest regional level of support for the UPA (45%) and lowest level of support for the Soviet Army (23%). In general, as to be expected, the predominantly and heavily industrialized Russian-speaking eastern provinces were more strongly antifascist than the western half of the country. It should be noted that the pro-Western Ukrainian nationalist leaders who have just recaptured control of the state apparatus have been trying for some time to alter the negative public opinion of the fascist bands who actively participated in the mass killing of Jews, Poles, Red Army POW's, and anti-Nazi partisans. The report states: Supporters of nationalist parties, such as Svoboda and Our Ukraine, are likely to embrace different views concerning the war, compared to supporters of pro-Communist or pro-Russian parties, such as the Communist Party and the Party of Regions. For example, Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine from 2005 to 2010 and a leader of the Our Ukraine Bloc,which included his party and other nationalist parties, promoted as a centerpiece of his policy commemoration of the UPA as fighters for the Ukrainian independence and national heroes...Yushchenko awarded the Hero of Ukraine title to Roman Shukhevych, the supreme commander of the UPA. Svoboda, a radical nationalist party, which won regional elections in Galicia in 2010 and won 10.5 percent of the national vote in the 2012 parliamentary elections, promoted similar policies, not only concerning the UPA but also concerning the SS “Galicia” Division...This party, which was originally called the Social-National Party, combined radical nationalism with elements of neo-Nazi ideology. Svoboda called for removal of war monuments to Soviet soldiers, and it blocked, with the help of violence, public celebrations of Victory Day in Lviv in 2011. The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT), which was a key member of the Orange coalition and presented itself as a democratic pro-Western party, advanced a populist ideology and did not emphasize its stance on such historical memory issues as World War II. However, after the loss in the 2010 presidential elections, Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party started also to adopt a nationalist rhetoric, and publicly used a greeting that was used by the OUN-B and the UPA during the war. The greeting 'Slava Ukraini'(Glory to Ukraine) and a fascist-style hand salute were modeled by the OUN on a basis of similar greetings and salutes by other fascist and semi-fascist parties...The Fatherland Party, which was led by Arseni Yatseniuk after Tymoshenko’s imprisonment on criminal charges, formed a political alliance with Svoboda during the 2010 parliamentary elections and after the elections. They are having more success rehabilitating the fascist side with younger Ukrainians who have the least historical memory of the war, but only slightly; this cohort still expressed support for the Soviet side by a wide margin. The respondents, ranging from 63% of the 18-29 years old to 85% of the respondents 70 years old and older, favor most the Red Army during the war...The 18-29 years old express slightly greater support for the UPA (14%)
Re: [Marxism] International Viewpoint statement on Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-03, at 6:28 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/2/14 10:59 PM, turb...@aol.com wrote: ...Are you arguing that we should be indifferent to predominant fascistic influence in the Euromaidan movement because the fascists might not succeed? If so, this is an extremely peculiar argument. Interview with Ilya Budraitskis, a Moscow-based socialist in Kiev. Budraitskis: Fascism arose after the First World War as a counter-movement to strong revolutionary communist workers’ movements across large parts of Europe. Fascists had the explicit aim of smashing these workers’ movements and securing the dominance of capital, something the liberal state could not guarantee...In Ukraine in 2014 there is neither a strong workers’ movement, nor a fascist movement that aims to destroy it, nor a state which capital doesn’t trust. The situation is neither about bringing the working class to power, nor about physically destroying the workers’ movement. This is quite true, but at the same time shouldn't obscure the backward character of the mass movement, which the fascists reinforce. It's comforting to describe the movement as contradictory, but there is little evidence of such political contradictions, with the radical and liberal left marginalized and the values they represent discredited, and the movement's organization tightly controlled from above by the right nationalist parties. From the first interview with Denis, a left-wing activist in Kiev: Vratislav: ...I read that the ultra-right activists are a minority within the movement, however an important one. Could you possibly make an estimation how big this minority is and explain what gives them such an importance? And what about liberals? How numerous they are and what is their importance in the movement? I mean even in terms of practice. Denis: Ukraine has a big problem with liberals – they don’t exist as a self-sufficient strong political trend. Both political camps are dominated by right populist ideologies – a wild mix of conservatism and nationalism. That’s the main problem, because the actual number of the ultra right activists is not that big, it’s even tiny compared to the crowd which at some times consisted of 100 thousand people or even more; while the full mobilization potential of fascists from all Ukraine is approximately 1-2 thousands. But, first of all, their ideas are welcome among the apolitical crowd; second of all, they are very well organized, and also people love their “radicalism”. An average Ukrainian worker hates the police and the government but he will never fight them openly and risk his comfort. So he or she welcomes a “vanguard” which is ready to fight on their behalf; especially if that vanguard shares “good” patriotic values. […] Vratislav: It is obvious that conservative views play an important role within the consciousness of a large part of the Ukrainian population. Where shall we look for historical and social sources of such conservatism? Denis: Yes, I’ve already written about the creepy archaic patterns that are being revived at Maidan. Also, about the reasons: during the last 20 years the humanitarian policies of the state were in the hands of nationalists. And they managed to raise a generation which doesn’t see any problem in phrases like “Ukraine for Ukrainians” or “Ukraine is above all”, in a notion of “gene pool of the nation”. Also, the traditions and the “heroic” past is also considered as something a priori good. Denying the current state of affairs and the Soviet experience, being afraid of all the progressive elements of EU ideology (like tolerance for LGBT, popularity of leftist ideology) they are gladly embracing all the invented traditions they were taught in schools. Vratislav: Would it be plausible to identify as a reason of this conservatism also the fact that after the initial “shock therapy” in the 1990´s, the capitalist restructuring lost its momentum and since then the Ukraine has tended towards becoming a “world for itself” and preserving a certain social-economic status quo, perhaps, in order to avoid an explosion of so many contradictions (class, national, geopolitical, economical, etc.) that intersect each other in the Ukrainian society? In such a context of a defensive withdrawal from global liberalisation processes, strong and widespread conservative nationalism, with its unquestioning celebration of the “glorious” past, would seem to make sense. Denis: I don’t know much about how this restructuring went in the “exemplary” countries like Czech Republic; didn’t you have a certain resurgence of conservative values and nationalist “invented traditions”? As far as I know, that has been the case not only in Ukraine and
Re: [Marxism] International Viewpoint statement on Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-03, at 10:16 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: On 3/3/14 9:45 AM, Marv Gandall wrote: This is quite true, but at the same time shouldn't obscure the backward character of the mass movement, which the fascists reinforce. It's comforting to describe the movement as contradictory, but there is little evidence of such political contradictions, with the radical and liberal left marginalized and the values they represent discredited, and the movement's organization tightly controlled from above by the right nationalist parties. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/rd/2.htm V.I. Lenin Revolutionary Days Father Gapon I'm sure our common assessment of the mass movements in the Ukraine and elsewhere would be different if they included left-wing parties and militant trade unions on the rise as in Lenin's time. Even if, for that matter, they were being led in their early stages by those like Father Gapon and other liberal reformers seeking to end, rather than strengthen, the traditions of all dead generations weighing like a nightmare on the brains of the living. 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 (Israel and the formation of Hamas)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-03, at 6:29 PM, Ken Hiebert wrote: I read the piece by Ramzy Baroud. I don't think there is much disagreement. In his account as well, Israel did favour the Muslim Brotherhood at some point. Israel's curious attitude could be explained as part of its policy of reward and punishment. Since the Islamists had - at that particular time - renounced armed struggle, and were providing services, which spared the Israeli budget many millions, there seemed little need to discontinue what at the time may have seemed innocuous activities. But more importantly, Israel was wary of the augmentation of PLO institutions abroad and growing influence on Palestinian societies in the occupied territories. More, the growing bitterness between other liberation movements in Gaza and the Islamic movement, led by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin gave Israel hope that growing hostilities would result in the pacifying and paralysis of all respective groups, sparing Israel the rigorous task of reining them in. One could argue that any Israeli interference to halt the growth and evolvement of the Islamic movement in Gaza, in that period, would have merely sped up its radicalization, as opposed to annihilating it altogether. Further support for the view that while Israel did not create political Islam, neither did it discourage its growth, expecting it would weaken the Palestinian national movement: How Israel Helped to Spawn Hamas By ANDREW HIGGINS Wall Street Journal Jan. 24, 2009 Moshav Tekuma, Israel Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an enormous, stupid mistake made 30 years ago. Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation, says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction. Instead of trying to curb Gaza's Islamists from the outset, says Mr. Cohen, Israel for years tolerated and, in some cases, encouraged them as a counterweight to the secular nationalists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat's Fatah. Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas. Sheikh Yassin continues to inspire militants today; during the recent war in Gaza, Hamas fighters confronted Israeli troops with Yassins, primitive rocket-propelled grenades named in honor of the cleric. Last Saturday, after 22 days of war, Israel announced a halt to the offensive. The assault was aimed at stopping Hamas rockets from falling on Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hailed a determined and successful military operation. More than 1,200 Palestinians had died. Thirteen Israelis were also killed. Hamas responded the next day by lobbing five rockets towards the Israeli town of Sderot, a few miles down the road from Moshav Tekuma, the farming village where Mr. Cohen lives. Hamas then announced its own cease-fire. Since then, Hamas leaders have emerged from hiding and reasserted their control over Gaza. Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at a more durable truce are expected to start this weekend. President Barack Obama said this week that lasting calm requires more than a long cease-fire and depends on Israel and a future Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security. A look at Israel's decades-long dealings with Palestinian radicals -- including some little-known attempts to cooperate with the Islamists -- reveals a catalog of unintended and often perilous consequences. Time and again, Israel's efforts to find a pliant Palestinian partner that is both credible with Palestinians and willing to eschew violence, have backfired. Would-be partners have turned into foes or lost the support of their people. Israel's experience echoes that of the U.S., which, during the Cold War, looked to Islamists as a useful ally against communism. Anti-Soviet forces backed by America after Moscow's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan later mutated into al Qaeda. At stake is the future of what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine, the biblical lands now comprising Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Since 1948, when the state of Israel was established, Israelis and Palestinians have each asserted claims over the same territory. The Palestinian cause was for decades led by the PLO,
Re: [Marxism] Ukraine -- Just a Change at the Top
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-03, at 4:56 PM, Paul Flewers wrote: A balanced critical commentary from within Ukraine. […] 'However, this does not mean the start of systematic democratic change, or that the new government is in any way going to challenge the root of pervasive corruption in Ukraine: poverty and inequality. Moreover, it is likely only to aggravate these problems, putting the burden of the economic crisis on the shoulders of Ukraine's poor, not on the rich Ukrainian oligarchs.' In fact, the rich Ukranian oligarchs are being implored to assume direct responsibility for restoring order: Ukraine Turns to Its Oligarchs for Political Help By ANDREW E. KRAMER New York Times March 2, 2014 KIEV, Ukraine — As tensions rose on the streets of the Russian-speaking eastern portion of Ukraine, the response of the new government in the capital on Sunday was not to send troops, but to send rich people. The interim government, worried about Russian efforts to destabilize or seize regions in eastern Ukraine after effectively taking control of the Crimean peninsula in the south, is recruiting the country’s wealthy businessmen, known as the oligarchs, to serve as governors of the eastern provinces. The strategy, which Ukrainian news media are attributing to Yulia V. Tymoshenko, a former prime minister and party leader, is recognition that the oligarchs represent the country’s industrial and business elite, and exercise great influence over thousands of workers in the east, which is largely ethnically Russian. The office of President Oleksandr V. Turchynov announced on Sunday the appointments of two billionaires — Sergei Taruta in Donetsk and Ihor Kolomoysky in Dnipropetrovsk — and more were reportedly under consideration for positions in the eastern regions. Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/world/europe/ukraine-turns-to-its-oligarchs-for-political-help.html?_r=0 * * * Meantime, their rich Russian counterparts are losing money and are being threatened with sanctions - the same strategy the US and EU employed to get the Iranian bourgeoisie to prevail on its political leadership for an accommodation with the West. Russia is in no position to fight a new cold war By Gideon Rachman Financial Times March 3 2014 […] The interdependence of the Russian and western economies means that rogue actions by the Kremlin can inflict an immediate economic cost on Russia. The first part of that price became apparent with the crash on the Moscow stock market after the move on Crimea – with the shares of Gazprom and Sberbank – two big companies closely tied to the Kremlin – falling by about 10 per cent each. The imposition of formal economic sanctions or visa bans on members of the Russian elite would heighten the pain. Rich Russians now take for granted the right to pop over to London or Paris for the weekend. Billions of dollars of Russian money are stashed away in western banks or invested in European property. The Russian central bank itself has estimated that two-thirds of the $56bn that flowed out of Russia in 2012 might have been the proceeds of crime. Funds that are the fruits of corruption are vulnerable to legal action. The City of London and the Swiss authorities, in particular, have not been noted for their eagerness to question the origins of Russian money. But those questions could now be asked a little more urgently. President Putin himself has long been rumoured to have billions salted away in the west. Presumably, not all of that money is the product of savings from his Kremlin salary. If western intelligence agencies have done their job, they will presumably know where this money is. Visa bans on a widened circle of Russian leaders, implicated in the military intervention in Ukraine, are certainly feasible – which would stop them enjoying the properties and funds they have accumulated in Europe. America’s “Magnitsky list” – imposing visa bans on Russian officials implicated in the killing of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky – has already established the precedent. Of course, the economic damage inflicted would flow both ways. The most obvious western vulnerability is Europe’s reliance on Russian energy. The image of western householders shivering because the Russian gas tap has been turned off will worry European leaders. Yet even here, Europe’s vulnerability – and Russia’s willingness to use the energy weapon – can be overstated. Russia needs to sell energy abroad. It gets some 70 per cent of its export revenues from oil and gas. The importance of such revenues to the Russian state ensured that energy sales to Europe were continued even during the height of the cold war. Meanwhile, European demand for Russian gas has fallen during
Re: [Marxism] Ukraine -- Just a Change at the Top
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-03-03, at 9:53 PM, martin schiller wrote: On Mar 3, 2014, at 6:40 PM, Marv Gandall forwarded a clip containing this conclusion: Or they can have access to the riches of the west. They cannot have both. Which riches would those be? The consumer, property, and financial markets of the US and other OECD countries are still the deepest in the world and access to them is a powerful tool promoting compliance to US foreign policy by the emerging bourgeoisies of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. These riches, of course, don't belong to the working class in the West. 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] [Pen-l] Prediction: Ukraine's love affair with the West will be short-lived
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Feb 28, 2014, at 11:12 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: If Ukraine is about to undergo a Greek-style austerity program, that will direct anger at the government, not at the Kremlin...Call me old-fashioned but I think that imposing austerity will force Ukrainians to seek a permanent solution to their woes. That's something nationalism has no answer for. It's a possibility which concerns The Economist, and therefore, one can safely assume, the US and EU elites whose views it reflects. The overthrow of the Yanukovych regime, the magazine observes, has made two things clear. One is that the government is going to be controlled by Yulia Tymoshenko, Mr Yanukovych’s archrival, who was in prison until February 22nd...More importantly, it demonstrated the level of Maidan’s mistrust of established politicians and its refusal to delegate the power it has won. The appointment of the interior minister, Arsen Avakov, was actually vetoed by Maidan. Vladimir Parasyuk, one of the Maidan leaders, said: 'As a citizen of Ukraine I won’t allow this. My conscience won’t let me.' He said the interim government had one night to decide, but it must present a new candidate. 'Maidan will not disperse,' he went on. 'We will be a controlling organ and they should know that if they betray us, we will come to each one of them and demand answers on behalf of our dead comrades—the heroes of Ukraine.' The crowd cheered. None of the politicians, including the three opposition leaders Arseny Yatsenyuk, Vitaly Klitschko, a former boxer, and Oleh Tyagnibok, are trusted by Maidan. Witness the reaction to Ms Tymoshenko’s appearance on Maidan after her release from prison. In the Orange revolution she was treated like a messiah. This time, while people were glad to see that she had been freed, they knew better than to put their fate in her hands—or those of any other politician for that matter. The mistrust of established politicians and evident refusal of the mass movement to delegate the power it has won is what in The Economist's view distinguishes the current uprising from the Orange Revolution to which it has often been compared: This revolution is more important than the Orange revolution of 2004, which was a response to Mr Yanukovych’s election to the presidency through a fraudulent run-off eventually overturned by the supreme court. While the other post-Soviet revolution at around the same time—Georgia’s 2003 Rose revolution—succeeded in resetting its country’s direction, the Orange revolution foundered. Ukraine’s revolution-yet-to-be-named was largely brought about by the failure of that previous, more peaceful but frustratingly unsuccessful uprising to change the country’s dysfunctional political culture or build bridges between its regions, which have little by way of history to unite them. And what then degenerated into bitter farce may yet end up, this time round, in tragedy...There is little by way of an elite devoted to forging a new, modern nation state; the possibility of failure, a descent into chaos, insurrection—notably in the Crimea—or even secession remains stark. The magazine supports the contention that austerity may well bring the class and ideological contradictions in the movement to the fore: Ukraine is in dire need of some sort of rescue package from the IMF and the EU if it is not soon to run out of cash. Any such support will be conditional on the country finally committing itself to structural reforms, including cuts in its vast energy subsidies, and to curbing corruption. The first will bring prompt pain to almost all citizens, the second will be resisted by many functionaries. For such commitments to merit credence, Ukraine needs a legitimate government that will sweep away the old political set-up—which is also what Maidan is demanding. The problem is that Maidan was not the only player in the revolution. A less visible battle has been going on between various Ukrainian oligarchs and the members of Mr Yanukovych’s extended family who took their place at the trough. These oligarchs used their money, influence and political fronts to pile on pressure. But although Mr Yanukovych provided oligarchs and Maidan with a common enemy in the run up to the revolution, the allies could well turn into adversaries in the aftermath. The oligarchs and their political place-men are creatures of the dysfunctional state that Maidan rejects; some will surely seek to use the revolution to regain their lost interests and restore the pre-Yanukovych status quo. http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21597974-can-ukraine-find-any-leaders-who-will-live-up-aspirations-its-battered-victorious Send
[Marxism] UAW's failure to sway VW workers clouds future
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The Chattanooga plant vote is a grim illustration of the old labour movement maxim: The workers don't need a union to go backwards; they can do that by themselves - the typical outcome in conditions of labour surplus rather than labour shortage. But the VW setback was extraordinary in that, even with the open support of management, the union was unable to overcome the fear of job loss gripping the working class in the developed capitalist economies - MG UAW's failure to sway VW workers clouds future By Robert Wright in New York Financial Times February 16 2014 In the months leading up to last week’s vote on union recognition at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga factory in Tennessee, officials of the United Auto Workers’ union went out of their way to sound calm and measured. Bob King, the union’s president, regularly spoke approvingly about the company’s commitment to workers’ right and strong business record. But there was no disguising how nerve-racking the vote was for senior officials, who many observers suspected were concerned about the solidity of its support at the plant. The ballot was “a matter of life and death” for the union, Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the centre for the study of work, labour and democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told the Financial Times in October. If the union could not organise workers in such non-unionised, foreign-owned factories – which account for a growing number of jobs in the US car industry – the industry would have effectively a “non-union pay structure”, Prof Lichtenstein said. The question for Mr King and the UAW is whether, after workers at the Chattanooga plantvoted 53 to 47 per cent against union representation, the union’s role is fated to dwindle. In the defeat’s immediate aftermath, union officials criticised the interference from outside conservative lobbyists and politicians in the vote. But the longer-term issue for the union may be a practical one: it was unable to persuade workers that they would be better off with union membership than without. Dennis Williams, the UAW’s secretary-treasurer, said after the vote that the union was “outraged” by the interference from politicians and lobby groups but proud of the workers who had been “brave” and stood up to the “tremendous pressure”. “We hope this will start a larger discussion about workers’ right to organise,” he said. The ideological aspects of the struggle have certainly been eye-catching. The UAW extolled the virtues of Volkswagen’s continental European-style way of dealing with workers through unions and their representatives on works councils, which make workplace decisions jointly with management. The UAW’s opponents stressed its links to political decisions that were unpopular in the conservative south, such as the Obama administration’s bailout of General Motors, Chrysler and other parts of the domestically-owned auto industry. The Center for Worker Freedom – funded by Grover Norquist, the anti-tax campaigner – posted adverts near the Chattanooga factory bearing the United Auto Workers’ name with the word “auto” crossed out and replaced with “Obama”. The UAW may yet challenge the ballot results based on complaints about such outsiders’ campaigns. However, both pro and anti-union workers at the Chattanooga plant consistently stressed practical rather than ideological factors as their reasons to support or oppose unionisation. In that regard, the critical intervention may have been that by Bob Corker, the junior US senator from Tennessee, who last Wednesday claimed that Volkswagen’s management would allocate badly needed work on a new sport utility vehicle to Chattanooga only if workers rejected unionisation. The company denied its decision on where to build the SUV would depend on the union vote. Indeed, managers at the plant have privately complained VW’s German management might deny the plant the work if it failed to adopt some form of worker representation. Mr Corker said after Friday’s vote he was “thrilled” for the VW employees. Mr Corker’s claim had the power to change workers’ minds precisely because work levels at the factory are among the workers’ biggest concerns. The plant builds only the Passat midsize car, for which demand has been declining. Workers at the plant tend to cite the need to win new work for the plant as an issue than pay – which is high for the area – or management behaviour, about which few have specific complaints. “The threats against the workers were what shifted things,” Mr King said. However, while specific local factors may have hampered the UAW’s efforts in Chattanooga, many observers believe local factors at other non-unionised auto plants could be still less
[Marxism] Dollar's continued strength defies forecasts
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Feb 7, 2014, at 1:45 PM, T thomasfbar...@earthlink.net wrote: Foo. Typical journalistic nonsense. See chart of dollar at: http://quotes.ino.com/chart/index.html?s=NYBOT_dxt=a=w=v=dmax Since Summer of 2013, the international exchange value of the dollar has declined sharply. Your chart shows the dollar has actually traded in a narrow range since last summer. You could have better illustrated your point with reference to the long decline of the dollar since the move to floating exchange rates in the early 70's. Since it peaked in the mid-80's, the USD has lost half it's exchange value relative to a basket of major currencies. See: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=linewidth=800height=480preserve_ratio=trues%5B1%5D%5Bid%5D=TWEXMMTH But I wouldn't make too much of this. The relative FX decline of the dollar against the euro, yen, and other currencies hasn't affected its status as the reserve currency of choice against them over the entire period. Commodities continue to be priced in dollars, and it is at the other side of most paired currency trades. So long as the US remains the world's largest and perceptibly most stable market, with the world's most powerful military, investors and exporters will continue to accumulate dollars pumped out by the Fed, and other central banks will conduct open market operations to maintain a loose peg so that their producers are able to gain access to the deep American domestic market. The renminbi is likely to challenge and perhaps supplant the dollar if and when China's economy overtakes the US. But, barring a catastrophic collapse of American capitalism, this will be a gradual process as the PRC moves gradually to full convertibility of its currency. The Financial Times article I posted yesterday is not in contradiction to any of the above and acknowledged the likely ascent of the renminbi. So I don't understand why you dismissed it as typical journalistic nonsense. Perhaps you could explain further. 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] Running dogs of US imperialism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/military-dog-captured-by-taliban-fighters-who-post-video-of-their-captive/2014/02/06/c8d0f8f0-8f44-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Chomsky: the prerogatives of power
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == As the year 2013 drew to an end, the BBC reported on the results of the WIN/Gallup International poll on the question: “Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?” The United States was the champion by a substantial margin, winning three times the votes of second-place Pakistan. By contrast, the debate in American scholarly and media circles is about whether Iran can be contained, and whether the huge NSA surveillance system is needed to protect U.S. security. In view of the poll, it would seem that there are more pertinent questions: Can the United States be contained and other nations secured in the face of the U.S. threat? […] The U.S., conscious of “soft power,” undertakes major campaigns of “public diplomacy” (aka propaganda) to create a favorable image, sometimes accompanied by worthwhile policies that are welcomed. But when the world persists in believing that the United States is by far the greatest threat to peace, the American press scarcely reports the fact. The ability to ignore unwanted facts is one of the prerogatives of unchallenged power. Closely related is the right to radically revise history. […] Full: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21671-noam-chomsky-prerogatives-of-power 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] Interesting article on Libya referenced in Achcar's The People Want
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-01-26, at 3:09 PM, Louis Proyect posted: http://afrol.com/articles/37336 Libya economy reveals basis for protests afrol News, 16 February - While the Libyan economy drowns in petrodollars and its Great leader Muammar al-Ghaddafi buys support abroad, almost half of its youth are unemployed. […] Most of the Libyan leader's megalomaniac projects are poorly assessed schemes not based in the development needs of the country or its population. Bluntly, they are mostly a waste of billions of dollars. Yesterday's Independent (UK) on how Goldman Sachs' helped waste those billions: Gifts, perks and Moroccan luxury: How Goldman Sachs 'won over Libyans' By James Moore The Independent Friday, 31 January 2014 Goldman Sachs offered gifts, luxury trips to Morocco and an internship at its Fleet Street offices to win business from the Gaddafi placemen running the $60bn Libyan Investment Authority, papers filed at the High Court allege. The legal claim, lodged by Libya’s new regime, claims that poorly qualified and naive staff were courted with chocolate and aftershave and were lavishly entertained on a corporate credit card issued to Youssef Kabbaj, the bank’s former head of North Africa. The coveted internship, in London and Dubai, was allegedly handed to Haitem Zarti, brother of the fund’s deputy director, Mustafa Zarti, who owed his position to his friendship with Saif al-Islam, Colonel Gaddafi’s son whom he had met while studying in Vienna. Such placements are more usually fought over by top-performing graduates from the world’s leading universities. Mr Kabbaj also brought gifts of chocolates and after shave to the LIA team in Tripoli when he came to visit, calling the men his “friends”. He took six of them on trips to his native Morocco and “paid for extensive expenses for them on his corporate credit card provided by Goldman,” the claim alleges. All this, the claim says, led to Goldman establishing a relationship of “trust” with the LIA – set up to invest parts of the country’s vast oil wealth – which allowed the bank to make $350m (£210m) from a series of trades worth $1bn that ultimately proved worthless. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/gifts-perks-and-moroccan-luxury-how-goldman-sachs-won-over-libyans-9097689.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Class reproduction
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (It won't surprise anyone on this list that American capitalism's vaunted social mobility has always been a myth. What's changed over a generation is that the vastly disproportionate share of national income has widened. The last sentence provides comic relief). Class in America Mobility, measured America is no less socially mobile than it was a generation ago The Economist Feb 1st 2014 AMERICANS are deeply divided as to whether widening inequality is a problem, let alone what the government should do about it. Some are appalled that Bill Gates has so much money; others say good luck to him. But nearly everyone agrees that declining social mobility is a bad thing. Barack Obama’s state-of-the-union speech on January 28th dwelt on how America’s “ladders of opportunity” were failing (see article). Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio, two leading Republicans, recently gave speeches decrying social immobility and demanding more effort to ensure poor people who work hard can better their lot. Just as the two sides have found something to agree on, however, a new study suggests the conventional wisdom may be wrong. Despite huge increases in inequality, America may be no less mobile a society than it was 40 years ago. The study, by a clutch of economists at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, is far bigger than any previous effort to measure social mobility. The economists crunch numbers from over 40m tax returns of people born between 1971 and 1993 (with all identifying information removed). They focus on mobility between generations and use several ways to measure it, including the correlation of parents’ and children’s income, and the odds that a child born into the bottom fifth of the income distribution will climb all the way up to the top fifth. They find that none of these measures has changed much. In 1971 a child from the poorest fifth had an 8.4% chance of making it to the top quintile. For a child born in 1986 the odds were 9%. The study confirms previous findings that America’s social mobility is low compared with many European countries. (In Denmark, a poor child has twice as much chance of making it to the top quintile as in America.) But it challenges several smaller recent studies that concluded that America had become less socially mobile. This result has caused a huge stir, not least because it runs counter to public perceptions. A recent Gallup poll found that only 52% of Americans think there is plenty of opportunity for the average Joe to get ahead, down from 81% in 1998. It also jars with other circumstantial evidence. Several studies point to widening gaps between rich and poor in the kinds of factors you would expect to influence mobility, such as the quality of schools or parents’ investment of time and money in their children. Cross-country analyses also suggest there is an inverse relationship between income inequality and social mobility—a phenomenon that has become known as the “Great Gatsby” curve. What is going on? One possibility is that social stratification takes time to become entrenched. In a new book, Gregory Clark, an economic historian at the University of California, Davis, who tracks mobility over hundreds of years by following surnames, reaches far more pessimistic conclusions (see article). Another, sunnier, explanation is that even as income gaps have widened over the past 30 years, other barriers to mobility, such as discrimination against women and blacks, have fallen. Most likely, the answer lies in the nature of America’s inequality, whose main characteristic is the soaring share of overall income going to the top 1% (from 10% in 1980 to 22% in 2012). The correlation between vast wealth accruing to a tiny elite and the ability of people to move between the rest of the rungs of the income ladder may be small—at least for now. Whatever the explanation, it would be unwise to take much comfort from this study. For a start, since the gap between top and bottom has widened, the consequences of an accident of birth have become bigger. Second, if the gains of growth are going mostly to those at the top, that bodes ill for those whose skills are less in demand. Many economists worry that living standards for the non-elite will stagnate for a long time. Is your town a launchpad or a swamp? Third, although social mobility has not changed much over time, it varies widely from place to place. In a second paper, the economists crunch their tax statistics by region. They find that the probability of a child born into the poorest fifth of the population in San Jose, California making it to the top is 12.9%, not much lower than in Denmark. In Charlotte, North Carolina it is 4.4%, far lower
[Marxism] Fast track authority: Back to the drawing board?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Reid Deals Body Blow to Obama on Trade His Opposition to Fast-Track Authority for Trade Deals Puts Him at Odds With President's Economic Agenda By WILLIAM MAULDIN and SIOBHAN HUGHES Wall Street Journal Updated Jan. 29, 2014 9:47 p.m. ET WASHINGTON—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid broke publicly with the White House Wednesday on trade policy, instantly imperiling two major international trade deals and punching a hole in one piece of the economic agenda the president outlined in his State of the Union address a day earlier. Mr. Reid told reporters he opposed legislation aimed at smoothing the passage of free-trade agreements, a vital component to negotiating any deal, and pointedly said supporters should back down. I'm against fast track, Mr. Reid (D., Nev.) said, using the shorthand term for legislation that prevents overseas trade agreements from being amended during the congressional approval process. I think everyone would be well-advised just not to push this right now. The move spells trouble for two sets of complicated talks, one with the European Union and the other with countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Both deals likely would have required such a fast track approval to clear the Congress. The U.S.'s negotiating partners wouldn't likely commit to a final agreement that could be unpopular back home without assurances that it couldn't be modified by U.S. lawmakers. Mr. Reid declined to say whether he would stop fast-track legislation from coming up for a Senate floor vote, but other senators said his opposition was important. You can kiss any new trade deals goodbye, said Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas.) I think the majority leader's focus is on the November elections and he doesn't want to expose his vulnerable members to controversial votes. Added Gary Hufbauer, senior trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington: It's a one-two punch against trade policy, he said. Mr. Reid's comments amplified a fight within the Democratic Party over trade at a surprising moment. Mr. Obama said in the State of the Union speech that fast-track authority and the trade deals would help boost hiring at small businesses, which he said account for 98% of U.S. exporters. Mr. Reid's opposition places him as the leader among Democrats who contend trade deals are bad for U.S. workers. A White House official suggested the administration would continue to press for what is formally known as trade promotion authority, saying that Mr. Reid's position on this particular issue was well known. We will not cede this important opportunity for American workers and businesses to our competitors, the official said. How the administration will do that isn't clear. Many Democrats say free-trade agreements don't do enough to stem the flow of jobs overseas and don't require trading partners to observe strict-enough labor and environmental rules. Some are concerned the Asia-Pacific pact under negotiation would siphon U.S. jobs to low-income countries such as Vietnam. Some conservative and tea-party Republicans oppose giving fast-track authority to Mr. Obama, complicating the Republican position. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the biggest supporters of the trade agreements under negotiation, said the Obama administration has a decision to make on how hard to fight against its own party. This puts the president front and center in terms of how bad does he want a trade agenda, said Myron Brilliant, executive vice president at the Chamber. We think he does. The strongest business support for trade negotiations comes from companies that do the most business overseas, including Hollywood studios and exporters of heavy machinery. Others with a U.S. focus, such as textiles and auto makers, are worried the trade deals could expose them to what they say is unfair competition from abroad. Agricultural concerns would likely only support trade pacts that significantly open export markets, especially Japan. U.S. officials had hoped to finish talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes Japan and other Asian and Pacific nations but not China, last year. Sensitivities over basic tariffs and quotas, especially in agriculture, have held the talks back. The latest developments come amid growing skepticism in Japan about the U.S.'s commitment to free trade. It's up to the resolve of the U.S. government, Japan's economy minister, Akira Amari, told reporters in Tokyo Thursday morning. If the president comes to the negotiating table with a strong enough determination to wrap it up by spring, other countries will follow suit. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been pressing forward with free-trade deals to keep pressure on
[Marxism] Emerging market turmoil latest manifestation of global financial crisis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of The Telegraph in Britain has been nervously tracking the precarious state of the world economy and decrying the economic orthodoxy of central bankers and politicians since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008. The epicentre of the barely-contained crisis has moved from the US to Europe and now into the emerging markets and again threatens to precipitate a global depression.) World risks deflationary shock as BRICS puncture credit bubbles As matters stand, the next recession will push the Western economic system over the edge into deflation By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard The Telegraph January 29 2014 Half the world economy is one accident away from a deflation trap. The International Monetary Fund says the probability may now be as high as 20pc. It is a remarkable state of affairs that the G2 monetary superpowers - the US and China - should both be tightening into such a 20pc risk, though no doubt they have concluded that asset bubbles are becoming an even bigger danger. We need to be extremely vigilant, said the IMF's Christine Lagarde in Davos. The deflation risk is what would occur if there was a shock to those economies now at low inflation rates, way below target. I don't think anyone can dispute that in the eurozone, inflation is way below target. It is not hard to imagine what that shock might be. It is already before us as Turkey, India and South Africa all slam on the brakes, forced to defend their currencies as global liquidity drains away. The World Bank warns in its latest report - Capital Flows and Risks in Developing Countries - that the withdrawal of stimulus by the US Federal Reserve could throw a curve ball at the international system. If market reactions to tapering are precipitous, developing countries could see flows decline by as much as 80pc for several months, it said. A quarter of these economies risk a sudden stop. While this adjustment might be short-lived, it is likely to inflict serious stresses, potentially heightening crisis risks. The report said they may need capital controls to navigate the storm - or technically to overcome the Impossible Trinity of monetary autonomy, a stable exchange rate and free flows of funds. William Browder from Hermitage says that is exactly where the crisis is leading, and it will be sobering for investors to learn that their money is locked up - already the case in Cyprus, and starting in Egypt. The chain-reaction becomes self-fulfilling. People will start asking themselves which country is next, he said. Emerging markets are now half the global economy, so we are in uncharted waters. Roughly $4 trillion of foreign funds swept into emerging markets after the Lehman crisis, much of it by then momentum money late to the party. The IMF says $470bn is directly linked to money printing by the Fed . We don't know how much of this is going to come out again, or how quickly, said an official from the Fund. One country after another is now having to tighten into weakness. The longer this goes on, and the wider it spreads, the greater the risk that it will metamorphose into a global deflationary shock. Turkey's central bank took drastic steps on Tuesday night to halt capital flight, doubling its repurchase rate from 4.5pc to 10pc. This will bring the economy to a standstill in short order, and may ultimately prove as futile as Britain's ideological defence of the ERM in September 1992. South Africa raised rates on Wednesday by half a point to 5.5pc to defend the rand, and India raised a quarter-point to 8pc on Tuesday, all forced to grit their teeth as growth fizzles. Brazil and Indonesia have already been through this for months to stem a currency slide that risks turning malign at any moment. Others are in better shape - mostly because their current accounts are in surplus - but even they are losing room for manoeuvre. Chile and Peru need to cut rates to counter the metals slump, but dare not risk it in this unforgiving climate. Russia has a foot in recession but cannot take action to kickstart growth as the ruble falls to a record low against the euro. The central bank is burning reserves at a rate of $400m a day to defend the currency, de facto tightening. As for Ukraine, Argentina and Thailand, they are already spinning out of control. China is marching to its own tune with a closed capital account and reserves of $3.8 trillion, but it too is sending a powerful deflationary impulse worldwide. Last year it added $5 trillion in new plant and fixed investment - as much as the US and Europe combined - flooding the global economy with yet more excess capacity. Markets have a touching faith that the same Politburo responsible for a spectacular credit
Re: [Marxism] Fast track authority: Back to the drawing board?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sounds like a manoeuvre initiated in particular by Democrats representing districts with less competitive manufacturers to get tougher language in these trade agreements to protect against alleged Japanese and Chinese currency manipulation and dumping. The administration is probably crafting some weasel words as we speak in order to mollify the auto, steel, and other industries and their unions in exchange for the authority to negotiate the deals. It's clearly been taking its marching orders from the stronger financial, pharmaceutical, and high tech industries in the US who have the most to gain from these agreements and who have been driving the process forward. On Jan 30, 2014, at 10:39 AM, Dennis Brasky dmozart1...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Maybe he'll wait out the November election and then push it. On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 10:36 AM, michael perelman michael.perelm...@gmail.com wrote: It will be interesting to see how hard Obama fights against congressional gridlock for his free-trade treaty, given how weak he is been in fighting for matters in the public interest. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/marvgand2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Why aren’t the poor storming the barricades?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-01-27, at 5:56 PM, Gary MacLennan wrote: Which brings me to the key question, not Why aren't the poor out in the streets?, but why is *The Economist* asking it. A subsidiary question here might be why has a conservative organization like Oxfam highlighted the fact that 85 people own 50% of the world's wealth? For me that answer is two fold. Always and always , power and privilege and the ability to dominate is accompanied by fear. No rulers are without fear of those they rule. the second answer for me brings us back to consumption. the other side of the Cato analysis is that there is not much of a consumption gap between the rich and the poor, means in fact that there is under-consumption. Imagine those 85 trillionaires pigging out all day long and I am sure they do. There would still be a short fall in consumption. I agree, Gary, although judging from the following commentary in the same publication yesterday, secular stagnation resulting from anemic demand seems to outweigh their fear of social unrest in their home markets. As you'll note, the proposals to stimulate demand circulating among bankers, investors, politicians, and their advisors are equally anemic, and could hardly be otherwise since a real boost to purchasing power would require the revival of the trade unions and other mass organizations, vastly increased state spending on infrastructure and other public programs, and structural encroachments on ruling class power and property. All the movement to this point has been in the opposite direction, and so long as the corporations have been reaping record profits, they've seen no reason to panic. Although the article suggests they are worried about the long-term negative effects of automation, it omits mention of their more pressing immediate concern - that the financial crisis in the advanced capitalist countries may be spreading into China and their other profit centres in the new emerging markets which have kept the global system afloat so far. Of plutocrats and progressivism The Economist Jan 27th 2014 INEQUALITY was one of the big themes at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. According to an annual survey published by the WEF, Davos types view the widening gap between rich and poor as the biggest risk facing the global economy over the next decade. In panel discussions and television interviews, it was de rigeur for businessmen to fret about the dangers posed by their ever-growing share of the pie. At one session 64% of the audience said wealth concentration was “corroding democracy”. An attention-grabbing factoid from Oxfam—that the world’s 85 richest people have more wealth than poorest 3.5 billion—went viral. Even the Pope sent a message that Davos Man should worry about distribution. The irony of a bunch of plutocrats tut-tutting about income concentration is rich. (Jon Stewart’s Daily Show did a fine lampoon). And much of the concern was cosmetic. Inequality was the second-highest risk in last year’s WEF survey, and nobody paid much attention. This year, with the global economy improving, Davos attendees could intone publicly about Important Issues. (“Mindfulness” was another fashionable subject.) Privately, bankers were much more exercised about the evils of regulation than wealth concentration. Nonetheless, the public fretting was not all fake. Business leaders are more aware than most of the scale and pace at which technology is reshaping the global economy. They recognise that the big economic shifts that have concentrated wealth—capital’s rising share of national income and the skewing of wage gains to those at the very top of the income ladder—are not just here to stay, but, thanks to the accelerating pace of digital innovation, may get worse. Ken Rogoff, a professor at Harvard University, told one panel that on current trends, Davos would soon be hosting the world’s first person with a $200 billion net worth. But it was hard to find any businessman optimistic about the prospects for Europe’s army of unemployed young, or America’s workers with only middling skills. CEOs from emerging economies tended to be more hopeful that growth would raise all boats. But in the aging, slower-growing rich world, Davos Man was not very optimistic about what lay ahead for the average Joe—and, by and large, that worried him. What should be done? That’s where Davos was deeply disappointing. A gathering that was filled with bold futurology—endless panels about medical innovations that will allow us to live to 150—was remarkably bereft of big thinking on how to broaden the gains from tomorrow’s growth. Politicians peddled palliatives. Businessmen worried about crude redistribution and lamented poor
[Marxism] Pete Seeger dead: folk singer and activist dies at 94
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/pete-seeger-dead-folk-singer-and-activist-dies-at-94-1.2513591 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] Post of my thoughts on the revolt in Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-01-27, at 5:08 PM, T wrote: Reports of dual power in parts of Ukraine follows: Solidarity, T From today’s Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304691904579345024149002010?KEYWORDS=Pressure+on+Ukraine+Leader+Mounts The uprisings in recent days started in Ukraine's west, where Mr. Yanukovych is most unpopular. The mayor of Lviv, a major center of dissent, said the new laws wouldn't apply there. Protests have even spread to regions east of Kiev that for years have been loyal to Mr. Yanukovych. Interesting, especially in light of speculation about a Ukrainian breakup (highly unlikely, since it would leave the western half landlocked, and the opposition expects to win the next election). Will Ukraine Be the Next Yugoslavia? By Leonid Bershidsky Bloomberg News Jan 27, 2014 When children released white doves on St. Peter's Square as part of Pope Francis's prayer for peace in Ukraine on Sunday, the birds were immediately attacked by a crow and a seagull. Facile as the symbolism may seem, it's an appropriate reflection of how dire the situation has become: The rising hostility between radical protesters and President Viktor Yanukovych is threatening to turn a nation of 46 million into another Yugoslavia. Angered by the deaths of three protesters last week, Ukrainians hostile to Yanukovich have seized local government buildings throughout the nation. As of Jan. 27, the rebels controlled administrative buildings throughout western Ukraine, in three central regions and in the capital, Kiev, according to a map published by the web site Inspired.com.ua. Only in Donetsk, Yanukovych's home base, and in the pro-Russian Crimea have there been no attempts to seize power. Riot police managed to put down rebellions in four regional centers -- Sumy, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye and Cherkasy. The Cause of Unrest in Ukraine Yanukovych appears to lack either the military force or the determination to crack down everywhere. Defense Minister Pavlo Lebedev said the military would remain neutral and described calls for its involvement on either side as provocations. Riot police, who have stood faithfully behind Yanukovych, are spread thinly. The dispatching of thousands of police to battle protesters in Kiev has left regional centers inadequately protected -- particularly in the west where the opposition to Yanukovych is strongest. Reports from Yanukovich's Regions Party and a carefully-worded statement from Ukraine's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, suggest the president's allies are against putting down the rebellion by force. We are exclusively for a peaceful scenario for resolving the conflict, Regions Party member Tariel Vasadze told theinsider.com.ua after a meeting between party members and Yanukovych, where lawmakers floated the idea of letting the opposition have some ministerial posts as a compromise. Akhmetov, whose fortune Bloomberg estimates at $12.3 billion, issued a statement through his holding company, SCM: The only way out is to go from street clashes and attempts to put them down to constructive negotiations to achieve results. The call from the nation's most powerful businessman followed a meeting of Ukrainian oligarchs in Kiev at which scenarios for the future were discussed without any politicians present. On Saturday evening, the presidential website quoted Justice Minister Olena Lukash, whom Yanukovych had asked to negotiate on his behalf, as saying that two opposition leaders had been invited to join the government. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, leader of Ukraine's second-biggest parliamentary party, Batkivschina, was being offered the prime minister's job, and former world champion boxer Vitali Klitschko was invited as deputy prime minister for humanitarian matters. Protesters in Kiev's main square met the proposal with derision. Yatsenyuk was quick to point out that the opposition wanted more than portfolios. No deal, he tweeted. We're finishing what we started. The protesters' demands include an immediate amnesty for everyone arrested during the disturbances and a constitutional reform that would transfer some of the president's powers to the parliament. Klitschko, not particularly tempted by the chance to become Ukraine's humanitarian czar, wants an early presidential election. Even before the protests began, polls showed that Klitschko could beat Yanukovych in a runoff vote. Further complicating the situation, the opposition leaders in parliament do not control the people assembled in Kiev, not to mention other regions. While the politicians were discussing compromise, a group calling itself Spilna Sprava, or Common Cause, seized three ministry buildings in the center of the capital
[Marxism] At Davos, guarded relief about world economy, concern about global mass protest and rise of the anti-euro right
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Populism puts global elite on alert By Gideon Rachman Financial Times January 21 2014 This year’s meeting of the World Economic Forum, which begins Wednesday, will be the first “normal” Davos for five years. Ever since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, in September 2008, a sense of crisis has hovered over the annual event. The nature of the fears bothering Davos man – and woman – changed slightly from year to year as worries about the collapse of the global financial system gave way to a fear of another Great Depression, and then to more specific concerns about the collapse of the eurozone. This year, however, the clouds have thinned, the terrors have lifted – and genuine optimism has returned. The threat of financial collapse now seems reassuringly remote. The US economy is strengthening and could grow 3 per cent this year. A strong rebound is also under way in the UK. And both the eurozone and Japan will also grow this year, albeit at slower rates. An economic rebound has also led to a modest recovery in political confidence. Talk of the “decline of the west”, which has been ubiquitous in recent years, is less common. Instead, it is becoming fashionable to argue that emerging markets are due for a correction – and to highlight political problems in rising powers such as China, India and Brazil. Genuine economic and political turmoil in the Bric nations or other emerging markets would be a source of deep concern. But a modest correction, if combined with a western revival, is not enough to disturb the “good news” story that is likely to dominate this year’s Davos. But while optimism has returned for the bankers, businesspeople, politicians and random celebrities who like to assemble at the WEF, their overarching narrative about the way the world works is now more complicated than it was in the pre-crisis era. Before the financial crash, Davos was essentially a festival devoted to celebrating the virtues of globalisation. While anti-globalisation protesters were occasionally given a voice (or more often confined to the “Open Forum”, well away from the posh hotels), their arguments about inequality were seen as pretty marginal. In 2014, however, the sense that something is wrong with the way the rewards of globalisation are distributed has entered mainstream debate. One common trend in recent years – linking the rich economies of the west, with the emerging powers – has been outbreaks of large-scale social protest, highlighting inequality and corruption. The examples keep piling up: the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, the Indignados in Madrid, the anti-corruption protests in Delhi, the mass demonstrations in Brazilian cities last summer, the Gezi Park movement in Turkey and the rallies that followed last year’s coup in Egypt – all seem to demonstrate how quickly anti-establishment sentiment can be fanned in the age of social media. Since the WEF is, essentially, a gathering of the global elite, its delegates will be concerned by evidence that “populism” (to use a favourite Davos term) is on the rise. These worries have already been reflected in the world beyond the Swiss ski slopes as political leaders, operating in very different systems, attempt to respond to anti-elitist anger. In China, President Xi Jinping has launched a high-profile anti-corruption crusade and tried to restrict conspicuous consumption by officials. In India, the new rising political force is the Aam Aadmi party, whose symbol is a broom, and which has already swept to victory in the municipal elections in Delhi. In the US, even Republican politicians are talking more about inequality and the economic pressures on the middle class, a belated reaction to the fact that, in real terms, the average American family now earns less than it did in 1989. A central question for politics in the coming year is whether current political leaders are capable of responding effectively to this anti-establishment sentiment, or whether new, more radical, political forces will emerge. The elections to the European Parliament in May are likely to see a surge in support for “outsider” political parties, many of which are likely to make opposition to the EU and immigration central themes, while stressing the pressure on living standards of working people. The biggest shock could come in France where the National Front (FN), long regarded as a far-right party with links to fascism, may make a decisive breakthrough by emerging as the largest party in the European elections. A low turnout, a proportional voting system, the deep unpopularity of President François Hollande and the FN’s attempts to clean up its image have helped it to strengthen its appeal. But, whatever the extenuating
[Marxism] Why (much) shorter hours at no less in pay may become a very popular demand
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (Cover story in the latest Economist) The future of jobs The onrushing wave Previous technological innovation has always delivered more long-run employment, not less. But things can change The Economist Jan 18th 2014 IN 1930, when the world was “suffering…from a bad attack of economic pessimism”, John Maynard Keynes wrote a broadly optimistic essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”. It imagined a middle way between revolution and stagnation that would leave the said grandchildren a great deal richer than their grandparents. But the path was not without dangers. One of the worries Keynes admitted was a “new disease”: “technological unemployment…due to our discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour.” His readers might not have heard of the problem, he suggested—but they were certain to hear a lot more about it in the years to come. For the most part, they did not. Nowadays, the majority of economists confidently wave such worries away. By raising productivity, they argue, any automation which economises on the use of labour will increase incomes. That will generate demand for new products and services, which will in turn create new jobs for displaced workers. To think otherwise has meant being tarred a Luddite—the name taken by 19th-century textile workers who smashed the machines taking their jobs. For much of the 20th century, those arguing that technology brought ever more jobs and prosperity looked to have the better of the debate. Real incomes in Britain scarcely doubled between the beginning of the common era and 1570. They then tripled from 1570 to 1875. And they more than tripled from 1875 to 1975. Industrialisation did not end up eliminating the need for human workers. On the contrary, it created employment opportunities sufficient to soak up the 20th century’s exploding population. Keynes’s vision of everyone in the 2030s being a lot richer is largely achieved. His belief they would work just 15 hours or so a week has not come to pass. When the sleeper wakes Yet some now fear that a new era of automation enabled by ever more powerful and capable computers could work out differently. They start from the observation that, across the rich world, all is far from well in the world of work. The essence of what they see as a work crisis is that in rich countries the wages of the typical worker, adjusted for cost of living, are stagnant. In America the real wage has hardly budged over the past four decades. Even in places like Britain and Germany, where employment is touching new highs, wages have been flat for a decade. Recent research suggests that this is because substituting capital for labour through automation is increasingly attractive; as a result owners of capital have captured ever more of the world’s income since the 1980s, while the share going to labour has fallen. At the same time, even in relatively egalitarian places like Sweden, inequality among the employed has risen sharply, with the share going to the highest earners soaring. For those not in the elite, argues David Graeber, an anthropologist at the London School of Economics, much of modern labour consists of stultifying “bullshit jobs”—low- and mid-level screen-sitting that serves simply to occupy workers for whom the economy no longer has much use. Keeping them employed, Mr Graeber argues, is not an economic choice; it is something the ruling class does to keep control over the lives of others. Be that as it may, drudgery may soon enough give way to frank unemployment. There is already a long-term trend towards lower levels of employment in some rich countries. The proportion of American adults participating in the labour force recently hit its lowest level since 1978, and although some of that is due to the effects of ageing, some is not. In a recent speech that was modelled in part on Keynes’s “Possibilities”, Larry Summers, a former American treasury secretary, looked at employment trends among American men between 25 and 54. In the 1960s only one in 20 of those men was not working. According to Mr Summers’s extrapolations, in ten years the number could be one in seven. This is one indication, Mr Summers says, that technical change is increasingly taking the form of “capital that effectively substitutes for labour”. There may be a lot more for such capital to do in the near future. A 2013 paper by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, of the University of Oxford, argued that jobs are at high risk of being automated in 47% of the occupational categories into which work is customarily sorted. That includes accountancy, legal work, technical writing and a lot of other
Re: [Marxism] Pacifica network fifth column on board of directors (from FB)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jan 15, 2014, at 3:30 PM, Jeff meis...@xs4all.nl wrote: I just want to point out that anarchism does not very well apply to the left-right convergence involved in the Pacifica struggle, or more generally involving such issues where there is more than a superficial concurrence between a section of the far right and far left. Or more specifically, although I'm not there to witness it, I really doubt there are many people calling themselves anarchists who'd be taken in by the sort of appeal referred to above. Of course the field of anarchists is at least as wide as those calling themselves Marxist, so this isn't an absolute statement, but I find that among activists, those sporting the anarchist label are much less likely to be fooled into cooperation with the right wing than many other leftists I agree with your extended commentary, Jeff. I mainly had in mind not the street activists but the various students, professors, and other dissenting intellectuals I've come across over the years who self-identified as philosophical anarchists, often to distinguish themselves from that tradition's bomb-throwers and authoritarian Marxism. You suggest otherwise, but wouldn't there likely be a fair sprinkling of such gentle anarchists among the gullible left leaning Pacifica listeners described in the letter? 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 End of Palestine? An interview with Norman Finkelstein
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jan 11, 2014, at 5:38 PM, Patrick Bond pb...@mail.ngo.za wrote: Thinking back, the settler-colonial regime led by PW Botha appeared invincible in mid-1985, after wiping out activists and imposing a state of emergency; but suddenly with very little warning, the rapidly declining legitimacy of the apartheid state, the durable internal protests and the financial sanctions squeeze came together in a formidable way, and in eight quick years after that August 1985 crisis, Mandela's negotiating team achieved their core demand - one-person, one-vote in a unitary state - and in April 1994 won the first election under a political democracy. No one thought that possible a decade earlier, no one. Take heart! If this is the yardstick, Patrick - one person, one vote in a unitary state - no one disputes this as a possibility, least of all Finkelstein who has uniquely insisted it is imminent. Taking it a step further, you could argue that the Palestinians have had a de facto state where they have exercised their right to vote since the Oslo accords, and that it likely prefigures the de jure state expected to result from an imposed peace settlement. Formal statehood will represent an advance, but how much of an advance is open to debate, as currently in South Africa and Northern Ireland. 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 end of Palestine?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2014-01-11, at 2:32 PM, Glenn Kissack wrote: I have found that Finkelstein can be a bit inconsistent. A few years ago I heard him speak at the Judson Church, where he surprised everyone by saying the Israeli Lobby was growing weaker and the Palestinians were winning. Now he seems to be saying that the other side will get what they want. I also don’t quite get this dismissal of BDS. Finkelstein is saying that BDS is irrelevant, and that Palestinian civil society and its foreign supporters should instead be urgently trying to block the pending accord - in effect, a document outlining the terms of surrender which will render BDS moot. However, I doubt Finkelstein really believes this to be a more viable strategy. Not when the bulk of the interview is a detailed examination of the adverse regional and international balance of forces, the readiness to bow to it of the corrupt PA leadership and even Hamas, and (Patrick's and Andrew's wilful optimism notwithstanding) the absence for some time of any widespread active resistance by the Palestinian masses against the occupation. Implicit in Finkelstein's belief that a settlement will be imposed on the Palestinians is a recognition that their historic struggle against the Zionist settler colony is exhausted. Landlocked and subject to continued military and economic control by their more powerful neighbour, they may well have settle with their enemy on less favourable terms than did the ANC in South Africa and the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. I hope Finkelstein and those like myself who share his perspective are wrong, but this presently seems the most probable outcome. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The end of Palestine?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The impending denouement of the Palestine-Israel conflict in the context of the present relationship of forces, as seen by Norman Finkelstein. *. *. * The End of Palestine? An Interview with Norman G. Finkelstein by Jamie Stern-Weiner US Secretary of State John Kerry was in the Middle East again this week, conducting intensive talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials and other regional actors. His aim, it has been widely reported, is to reach a framework agreement as a prelude to a final settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Norman Finkelstein is the co-author, with Mouin Rabbani, of How to Solve the Israel-Palestine Conflict (OR Books, forthcoming). I spoke with him about the significance of the negotiations, as we enter what may be a decisive phase in the Palestinians' long struggle for self-determination. You’ve been warning for some time now that the Israeli-Palestinian talks being brokered by Secretary of State Kerry might, unlike many prior rounds of negotiations, actually produce a deal to end the conflict. Its content would amount to Israel’s long-standing terms of settlement. What’s your assessment of where the diplomatic process is currently at? A “framework agreement” will shortly be reached, and a final settlement will probably be signed in the last six months or so of President Obama’s term in office. When the Kerry process was first announced I was virtually alone in predicting that it would actually go somewhere; now, it’s widely assumed. Many respected Israeli commentators now take for granted that an agreement is just a matter of time. In recent weeks the Kerry talks have apparently focused on Israel’s demands for (i) an enduring military presence in the Jordan Valley and (ii) Palestinian recognition of it as a “Jewish state.” The Palestinians will negotiate some face-saving deal on the Jordan Valley involving a US-Israeli joint presence for a period of time. The Jordan Valley was already essentially resolved at the Annapolis negotiations in 2008. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is raising it now only so he can later claim to be making a “heart-wrenching concession”—Israel is adept at “conceding” things to which it has no title in the first place—by allowing for only a temporary US-Israeli presence along the border. It’s been received wisdom for years—even pro-Israel hack Dennis Ross concedes it in The Missing Peace—that the Jordan Valley has no strategic value. On the “Jewish state,” the agreement will probably resolve on the formula: Israel as the state of the Jewish people and its citizens, Palestine as the state of the Palestinian people and its citizens. It will afford (legal) protection for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, but will negate the right of return for Palestinian refugees, which is what Israel really cares about. Palestinian President Abbas can then claim it as a victory because he secured the rights of Palestinians in Israel. The whole thing is diabolical. The Israelis—with, of course, active and critical US connivance—have managed to completely shift the debate and shape the agenda. The only issues now being discussed are the Jewish state and the Jordan Valley, which, in terms of the international consensus for resolving the conflict, never figured at all. (Even in prior bilateral negotiations presided over by the US, such as at Annapolis, these were at most peripheral issues.) The key issue (apart from the refugees), in terms of the international consensus and in prior bilateral negotiations, has been the extent of the land swap along the border: Will Israel be allowed to annex the major settlement blocs and consequently abort a Palestinian state? But the debate has completely shifted, because annexing the settlement blocs is a done deal. The framework agreement will probably just speak of land swaps in terms of percentages, and merely insinuate—as the Clinton Parameters did—Israel’s annexation of the major settlement blocs without divulging the precise details. But it is striking that in all of the discussion over the last several weeks, Ma'ale Adumim—i.e., the largest settlement bloc that effectively bisects the West Bank—has never even come up. Because it’s already been resolved, in Israel’s favour. And a final deal will follow? A lot of politicking still has to be done, a lot of marketing, a lot of hysteria in Israel—its usual, Oscar-winning performance. It will take the full three years that remain of Obama’s presidency, climaxing in a Camp David-like summit (Obama also loves drama, speechifying is his forte and he’s probably already contemplating which hip black leather jacket to wear), before the final deal is sealed. One of the principal obstacles at this point to reaching
Re: [Marxism] Syrian rebel leader Idriss in Turkey, denies fleeing
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2013-12-13, at 2:29 AM, Michael Karadjis wrote: Syrian rebel leader Idriss in Turkey, denies fleeing December 12, 2013 04:28 PM http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2013/Dec-12/240855-syrian-rebel-leader-idriss-in-turkey-denies-fleeing.ashx#axzz2nKspUd4f ISTANBUL: The top military commander of the Western-backed Syrian opposition is in Turkey for talks with rebels, a spokesman said Thursday, denying reports that he had fled Syria. The Wall Street Journal reported that General Selim Idriss, the head of the Free Syrian Army's Supreme Military Council, had been forced to flee after the rival Islamic Front overran key FSA bases near the border with Turkey. But a spokesman for the Syrian National Coalition said Idriss was in Turkey holding talks with both FSA rebels and also the Islamic Front, which has emerged as the biggest Islamist rebel grouping in Syria. General Selim Idriss is in the south of Turkey on the border of Turkey and Syria, SNC spokesman Khaled Saleh told AFP in Istanbul. […] Saleh dismissed the Wall Street Journal report that Idriss had flown to Qatar after fleeing to Turkey as laughable. Yesterday (Wednesday) he was actually meeting with the Islamic Front, he said. General Idriss is still in contact with the FSA brigades that are on the ground, he's still in contact with the Islamic Front. The Islamic Front was formed last month when six groups merged and pledged to work towards forming an Islamic state. It has rejected the authority of the FSA Follow up report from the WSJ: Moderate Syrian Rebels Try to Recover After Islamists Take Over Headquarters U.S. Changes Account of Commander Fleeing Syria to Turkey During Incursion By ADAM ENTOUS in Washington and RIMA ABUSHAKRA in Beirut Updated Dec. 12, 2013 3:23 p.m. ET Commanders of Syria's Western-backed opposition fighters met Thursday to try to salvage their efforts to oust Bashar al-Assad's regime after Islamist rebels ran them out of their headquarters, threatening to sideline the steadily weakening group. The takeover of Gen. Salim Idris's facilities by Islamist fighters over the weekend caught the Obama administration by surprise and threw U.S. policy into turmoil. Officials said they were struggling to piece together what happened and what it meant for support of the moderates. On Wednesday, some senior U.S. officials said they believed that Gen. Idris, the commander of the Free Syrian Army, had fled northern Syria to Turkey after Islamist rebels seized his headquarters and some warehouses storing international aid. However on Thursday, the State Department said updated information showed Gen. Idris was in Turkey at the time of the incursion and had not fled Syria. Mr. Idris said the same thing in an interview with CNN, denying he had fled. State Department officials said Gen. Idris has a house just across the border in Turkey, not far from the headquarters in northern Syria. Gen. Idris then flew from Turkey to Qatar, U.S. officials said. He has since returned to Turkey and SMC officials said he met Thursday with other commanders from his group. I am back. I am with my officers, Gen. Idris told CNN. We are trying to stop the fight between the revolutionary forces and to go back to fight against the regime. The U.S. and Britain responded to the seizure of the warehouses over the weekend by freezing further shipments of nonlethal military support to the moderate opposition. State Department officials said they hoped to restart shipments as soon as possible. The U.S. wants to assure the military gear won't end up in Islamists' hands. A State Department official said that approximately $1 million in nonlethal equipment and supplies, including about 50,000 military rations, were inside the warehouses that were seized by Islamists on Dec. 6. This included nine pickup trucks, four passenger buses, and office and communications equipment, the official said. The warehouses and offices were controlled by the Supreme Military Council, the moderate opposition umbrella group that includes the FSA and cooperates in aid distribution, officials said. State Department spokesman Marie Harf said that the U.S. was still trying to collect all the facts about what transpired over the weekend and what it means for U.S. military assistance to Gen. Idris's men. The armed takeover of Gen. Idris's headquarters was a sign of a fracturing relationship between the two largest groups in the Syrian insurgency and the ascension of the Islamists in the opposition arena. Imagine you have guests in your home and as you are sleeping, they pull their weapons on you and say: 'Don't move, leave with your personal items and guns only'. What would you do?, said
[Marxism] Another poll registering US working class discontent and confusion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (Sample shows most poorer workers, many non-white, favouring government intervention in the economy, but middle income workers still clinging to faith in the market) Americans Say Dream Fading as Income Gap Hurts Chances By David J. Lynch Bloomberg News Dec 11, 2013 The widening gap between rich and poor is eroding faith in the American dream. By almost two to one -- 64 percent to 33 percent -- Americans say the U.S. no longer offers everyone an equal chance to get ahead, according to a Bloomberg National Poll. And some say the government isn’t doing much to help. “There’s a lot of policies that make it easier for the rich to get richer and the poor to go nowhere,” says Ryan Sekac, 26, a mechanical engineer in Westerly, Rhode Island. The Dec. 6-9 poll follows public statements by leaders, from President Barack Obama to Pope Francis, expressing alarm about growing income inequality. The richest 10 percent of Americans last year earned more than half of all income, the largest total since 1917, according toEmmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley. “Everyone on both sides of the aisle talks about the American dream,” says Sekac. “Right now, that’s not something everyone in this country can aspire to.” Still, respondents are almost evenly split on the need for government action to narrow the income gap: 45 percent say new policies are needed, while 46 percent say it would be better to allow the market to operate freely even if the gap gets wider. Spanning Incomes The lack of faith is especially pronounced among those making less than $50,000 a year: By a 73 percent to 24 percent margin, they say the economy is unfair. Even 60 percent of those whose annual income is $100,000 or more bemoan the absence of a fair deal while 39 percent say everyone has an equal shot to advance. In recent weeks, public attention to the rich-poor gap has mounted. Obama gave a speech last week saying economic trends have “jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain, that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead.” That address followed the pope’s Nov. 26 criticism of inequality. “Such an economy kills,” the pontiff said. Obama’s rise from humble origins to become the first black U.S. president has done nothing to ease public concern. “More people who are of color get opportunities now than they did,” but a lack of education holds too many back, says David Bakker, 56, a model-train builder in Baltimore. In the Bloomberg poll, 68 percent of Americans say the income gap is growing, while 18 percent say it is unchanged and 10 percent say it’s shrinking. Public Divided While the public is divided over whether the government should take steps to close the income gap, support for greater action is strongest among lower-income Americans, with 52 percent saying officials should do something and 35 percent putting their faith in the market. The U.S. does less to reduce inequality through tax and transfer policies than most advanced nations, including the U.K., Ireland or Spain, according to Janet Gornick, a professor of political science and sociology at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Before taking into account government policies, U.S. inequality isn’t much different than countries such as Denmark and Sweden, she says. Bakker says the 1950s was “a golden age in the U.S.,” when the top marginal tax rates exceeded 90 percent. He says the government could do more to provide greater educational opportunities for low-income Americans. “You’re not going to kill the economy by increasing the tax rate on those who benefit the most from the country’s infrastructure,” he says. Little Faith High-income respondents split almost evenly on the need for government action. Middle-income Americans, those making $50,000 to $100,000, favor relying on the market by 54 percent to 39 percent. Some have little faith that either the government or the free market will bring them relief. Diane Kraft, 54, a homemaker in Denton, Texas, says she recently quit her job as a grocery cashier after her employer reduced her hours because of the new health-care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Now, as she searches for a new job, she says she finds herself competing with Mexican immigrants who will work for less. “The government keeps taking and taking and taking from us,” she says. “Eventually, people are going to strike back.” Remarks Resonate The pope’s recent remarks have resonated with Catholics and non-Catholics alike. By 64 percent to 27 percent, poll respondents agree that government leaders should pay more attention to income inequality and less to the needs of the market. By 56 percent to 35 percent, they
Re: [Marxism] Is Paul Krugman cribbing from Monthly Review?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Nov 18, 2013, at 1:16 PM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: Marv, I don't know if you had a 401K when you were on the staff of that trade union you worked for in Canada, but you really don't understand how a typical worker thinks. I was also a shop steward in a Steelworkers local, an SEIU organizer, and a negotiator for the Newspaper Guild but, as usual, this is all beside the point. 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] Mondragon feels effects of capitalist crisis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Mondragon, the largest cooperative movement in the world, which has long served as a model for leftists wishing to emulate its success, is being buffeted by the Eurozone crisis. In a break with past practice and principles, some of its constituent firms - themselves faced with a loss of their markets and burdened by debt - have refused to rescue Fagor, Spain's largest appliance maker and a flagship of the Mondragon network. Fagor owes more than a billion dollars to its creditors. Ostensibly under workers control, the firm's managers tried unsuccessfully to stave off bankruptcy by inviting outside investment, securing a 20% pay cut from its workers, and shifting production to Poland. Now, Fagor's factories are shuttered, the workers have lost their jobs and ownership shares, and other Mondragon enterprises are exposed to losses from Fagor's default on previous loans. Trouble in workers’ paradise Mondragon The collapse of Spain’s Fagor tests the world’s largest group of co-operatives The Economist November 9 2013 Madrid NEWS that Spain’s largest appliance-maker is heading for bankruptcy will not come as a complete shock in the crisis-ridden country. Yet Fagor is a special case. It is part of Mondragon, the world’s biggest group of worker-owned co-operatives. Nestled in the green hillsides of the town of the same name, in the Basque country, Mondragon has won many awards and much praise as a shining alternative to shareholder capitalism and a bastion of workplace democracy during its six decades of history. Now, one of the group’s key principles—of solidarity among its 110 constituent co-ops—has found its limit. Fagor has lost money for five years and has run up debts of €850m ($1.2 billion). Its sales have fallen sharply because of Spain’s property bust and low-cost competition from Asia. Even pay cuts of over 20% have not been enough to turn it around. Its factories all ceased production three weeks ago. In the past, losses in one part of the group have been covered by the others, but this time Fagor’s pleas for a €170m lifeline were rejected, even though the Spanish and Basque governments were ready to step in as part of the rescue. Eroski, another co-operative in the Mondragon group and one of Spain’s largest retailers, is also struggling in the face of stiff competition, and it and two other co-ops vetoed Fagor’s plan. This was a blow to Sergio Treviño, Fagor’s boss since April. He had planned to move the bulk of production to Poland and to turn Fagor into an ordinary company with outside shareholders. Its Polish unit has now filed for creditor protection and the French unit will follow, triggering cross-default clauses in Spain. As we went to press Fagor looked likely to file for bankruptcy imminently. Politicians have accused both Fagor and Mondragon of doing too little, too late. Mondragon’s managers continue to defend the worker-ownership model, and insist that the bulk of the group’s operations are competitive. It employs 80,000 people in 27 countries in businesses that range from finance to car parts to high-end bicycles. The group’s most senior manager earns no more than eight times the lowest-paid worker in the co-operative. Fagor, with 5,600 workers, is a relatively small part of the whole. Even so, Mr Treviño warns that its fall “will have an uncontrollable domino effect on the rest of the group with major social implications.” He believes Fagor’s liquidation would create a €480m hole at Mondragon, including inter-group loans and payments the group’s insurance arm would have to make on Fagor workers’ unemployment policies. Mondragon has promised to find new jobs or offer early-retirement terms for as many as it can of Fagor’s Spanish workers, but this is a tall order in a country with 27% unemployment. Besides their jobs, workers stand to lose the money they had invested in the co-op if it is liquidated. Britain’s even older co-operative movement (founded in 1844 and nominally owned by its customers rather than its employees) is undergoing a similarly harsh encounter with economic realities. Its banking arm, hit by huge bad debts after taking over another mutual lender, is having to bring in American hedge funds as outside shareholders, because its parent movement was unable to rescue it alone. The co-operative model has its virtues, but there are times when those nasty, money-obsessed capitalists have their uses too. Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The psychological toll on invading armies
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Nearly one million active service members have been diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder since 2000; nearly half of those have been diagnosed with two or more. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, an estimated 22 veterans take their own lives each day. http://www.democracynow.org/2013/11/11/the_untold_story_of_war_us I was surprised to learn that PTTSD, brain injuries, addictions, depression, and especially the incidence of suicide was this high. I doubt veterans of revolutionary civil wars or wars of national liberation would exhibit the same symptoms to this extent, but that's strictly an impression. Anyone know more? 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] Syria crisis: Saudi Arabia to spend millions to train new rebel force
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2013-11-08, at 3:35 AM, Michael Karadjis wrote: It is somewhat difficult to see where al this will lead. One thing for sure however is that, while some of what I write may be wrong, and some may disagree with various details, the best way to deal with complex issues is to actually do some research, write something substantial, rather than trying to reduce incredibly complex situations to the absurd certainties of the anti-imperialist left. A version of this will shortly go up on my blog; and a longer, very detailed analysis is under preparation. Meantime, for background on some of these issues there are many articles there at http://mkaradjis.wordpress.com Thanks again. An outstanding disentangling of, as you say, a very complex and fluid situation. 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] How Teddy Roosevelt saved football
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On 2013-11-07, at 12:56 PM, annette gagne adgagn...@gmail.com wrote: Oh horrors! Potentially major changes in football. Yer breakin' my heart! But few football fans can match the support offered to the game by the mayor of Toronto: Ford is also a big football fan, enough of one that he invited his high-school football coach David Price to join his team at City Hall, inventing an estimated $130,000 per year position in his office (“director of operations and logistics”) that he would not describe to the media — Price later repaid Ford by making a series of supportive calls to Ford’s radio show claiming to be different people. Though he was dismissed as head coach of Etobicoke’s Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School’s football team following the initial rush of crack accusations in May, Ford had by that time already hired a former drug enforcer with a history of violent crimes to coach the team. http://www.salon.com/2013/11/07/butt_groping_bachelorette_parties_and_rape_threats_rob_fords_non_crack_scandals/ Best Wishes, - A On Nov 7, 2013 9:05 AM, Jim Farmelant farmela...@juno.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The NFL, I think, could easily weather any lawsuits concerning either hazing or brain damage from concussion, but what could lead to major changes in American football might be lawsuits directed against high schools over brain damage suffered by players. Even one or two successful lawsuits could have the effect of driving up the rates for liability insurance, that schools have to carry, to prohibitively high levels. In the US, most football players start out as high school players, then they go on to become college players, then if they're good enough, they go into the NFL. If the supply of players should get choked off at the high school level, that will eventually impact the NFL. Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant http://www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math -- Original Message -- From: Louis Proyect l...@panix.com Subject: [Marxism] How Teddy Roosevelt saved football Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 08:50:51 -0500 This controversy over bullying at the Miami Dolphins and that Tony Dorsett, a Dallas Cowboys running back from the 1980s, has brain damage makes me think that a leftist history of football in the USA is long overdue. This is just the kind of thing that Dave Zirin could write. Fundamentally, we are dealing with a new form of gladiator combat--something that is pretty obvious--but that requires fleshing out. The book reviewed below was written by a rightwing dickwad (superfluous, no?) but the events themselves sound deserving of a leftist take. Extended Stay America Get Fantastic Amenities, low rates! Kitchen, Ample Workspace, Free WIFI http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/527b9dd0e4b441dd02d26st03vuc Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/adgagneri%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/marvgand2%40gmail.com Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Yet another peace plan destined for the dustbin
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A Palestinian state isn't viable without unrestricted access to the resources of what the occupying Israelis designate as Area C. But Area C is where the largest bloc of Israeli settlements is located. Successive Israeli governments have made it clear any peace treaty would have to recognize this settlement bloc as belonging to Israel. The Palestinian leadership and nascent bourgeoisie might be be persuaded to surrender Area C in exchange for some form of limited access to it, with or without statehood. But the ascendent Israeli far right rejects any suggestion of even a Palestinian Bantustan or any access by Palestinian firms to the settlement bloc's resources. In this context, recent promises of billions of dollars of reconstruction aid to the Palestinians - the so-called Economic Initiative for Palestine - is just more empty chatter by John Kerry, Tony Blair, and other US and European politicians long frustrated by the costly and destabilizing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. * * * The Palestinian economy’s hard road out of isolation By John Reed Political uncertainty looms large over a $4bn plan to revive the economy Financial Times November 6 2013 Taybeh, a Palestinian brewer owned by the Khourys, a Christian family, makes a crisp and flavoursome tipple much loved by residents and expats in Jerusalem and the West Bank. With light and dark beers, the company describes its product as “the finest in the Middle East”, hosts a popular Oktoberfest and exports small quantities as far as Japan. But the brewery’s path to markets – even down the road to Jerusalem – is a tortuous one. Delays at Israeli checkpoints can add hours to delivery times and expose the beer to long waits in the sun. The West Bank has no port, so Taybeh’s imported Czech and Bavarian hops, Belgian malt and English yeast arrive in the Israeli port of Ashdod, where the bags are subject to security checks at a cost of about 2,000 shekels ($566) a delivery, and are sometimes sliced open. Exporting beer involves hauling the barrels by Palestinian truck through land under Palestinian Authority control, then shifting it on to an Israeli one. David Khoury, who co-founded Taybeh Brewery with his brother Nadim after returning to the West Bank in 1994, after the Oslo Accords were signed, says it costs about $1,200 to move a container about 75km from Taybeh village to Ashdod – the same as it costs to ship it from Ashdod to Japan. “We are looking forward to stability and peace, and hopefully we will have a better opportunity to grow,” he says. Private companies such as Taybeh are the subject of intense international attention ahead of the unveiling of the Economic Initiative for Palestine, a $4bn plan launched by John Kerry, US secretary of state, in parallel with Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that began in late July. The plan, due to be launched in coming days or weeks, gets to the heart of whether the Palestinians can build the economic underpinnings of a viable state and – perhaps more crucially – whether Israel will ever allow them to. It came to life from a realisation among the foreign governments that bankroll the Palestinian Authority that the economic status quo of chronic budget deficits, widespread poverty and unemployment of about 25 per cent – and more than 40 per cent among young people – is unsustainable. The past two decades’ rounds of failed peace talks – interrupted by the violence of the second intifada a decade ago – have done little to build an independent Palestinian economy that can break free of Israel and pay its way when and if independence comes. Among a section of the Palestinian political and business elite too, there is a desire to pursue economic statebuilding alongside the political track. “We need to support the political process with an economic process that would reduce hardship and build the basis of a Palestinian state,” says Mohammad Mustafa, the Palestinian deputy prime minister and senior official responsible for implementing the plan. “We want a sovereign state, but we want it to be economically strong.” An executive summary released at a donors’ meeting in September said that the aim was to support the Palestinian Authority in “engendering transformative change in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip”. Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who represents the Middle East Quartet, comprising the US, EU, Russia and the UN, is overseeing its implementation, in consultation with Palestinian officials and with advice from McKinsey, the consultancy. The plan proposes big new projects across eight industrial sectors, to be supported by foreign investors and lenders. They range from the pumping of natural
[Marxism] Israel's energy bonanza
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Israel set to become major gas exporter By John Reed in Tel Aviv Financial Times November 6, 2013 Israel is on the threshold of becoming a major energy power in the Middle East – with potentially game-changing consequences for geopolitics and economic relations in a volatile region – after a court decision unlocked the path to exports. Executives at Delek and Noble told the Financial Times they are fast-tracking discussions on a range of export options for the much larger, still undeveloped Leviathan field, which lies about 30km to Tamar’s west, and holds an estimated 19tn cubic feet of gas – one of the industry’s biggest recent deepwater finds of its kind. They are moving forward following a decision by Israel’s supreme court in late October to reject petitions brought by civil society groups and opposition politicians who questioned the right of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to set aside 40 per cent of Israel’s gas windfall for exports without having consulted the Knesset, Israel’s legislature. When Mr Netanyahu’s government set export policy in June, it estimated that gas sales outside Israel could bring the small, traditionally resource-poor economy a windfall of $60bn over 20 years. “I think that now, after the Supreme Court made its ruling, the door is open,” says Gideon Tadmor, Delek Drilling chairman. “I am quite optimistic that we will fast-track the project.” Delek and Noble are looking at a range of export options that could see total investments by the companies and their partners of $5bn to $15bn in developing Leviathan and possible pipelines or liquefied natural gas facilities needed to export its output. The two companies say the export options they are considering include piping gas to Turkey, Greece, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, or even Egypt, which is suffering gas shortages after the political unrest of the past two years. Delek and Noble are also deliberating over big-ticket investments in LNG, which would open up markets as far away as Asia. “Many countries in the region, by using Leviathan gas, could reduce their electricity tariffs between 40 to 50 per cent,” says Yossi Abu, Delek Drillings chief executive. “This is a win-win situation for Israel and the neighbouring countries.” One option they may pursue is a state of the art floating facility moored directly over the Leviathan field. Another is onshore LNG production either in Israel or in Cyprus, where Delek and Noble have rights to the Aphrodite field, and could pool its gas with Leviathan’s. One of the most ambitious export projects being considered is an undersea pipeline from Leviathan to energy hungry Turkey, which would entail an investment of $2bn to $3bn. Noble and Delek have been sounding out potential Turkish customers and Taner Yildiz, Turkey’s energy minister, said at a conference in Istanbul last week: “Turkey is interested in Israeli gas.” To transport Israeli gas to Egypt, Noble and Delek have studied options including reversing the flow in the Egyptian export pipeline that crosses the restive Sinai peninsula, or sending it via a new undersea pipeline to its neighbour’s two onshore LNG facilities. Israel’s government is supportive of the notion of exporting, not only because of the royalties and revenues it will collect from the industry, but because of potential positive knock-on effects on traditionally strained relations with its neighbours. However, Delek and Noble are reticent about the status of their negotiations because of the political sensitivities elsewhere in the Middle East around buying anything from Israel. Political relations with Turkey have not recovered from a diplomatic fracture caused by Israel’s fatal storming of the Turkish Mavi Marmara flotilla heading to Gaza in 2010. Despite Mr Netanyahu’s apology in March, brokered by US President Barack Obama, political rhetoric on both sides remains rancorous, even if commercial relations are improving. Inside Israel, the mood among members of the Knesset elected in January is deeply sceptical of big business and Mr Netanyahu’s rightwing government’s shepherding of the gas finds. Lingering resentments remain over the speed and manner in whichhis cabinet decided to export up to 40 per cent of Israel’s gas. “The entire decision of the future of Israel’s natural gas was made behind closed doors, without transparency,” says Stav Shaffir, an MP with the leftwing Labour party, which supported the supreme court challenge. “It’s not a decision that can be made like that,” she says, snapping her fingers. Delek and Noble still need to negotiate a lease for Leviathan. Another obstacle to developing the field is an antitrust probe into the two companies’ powerful position in the
[Marxism] Anti-intellectualism in American life
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == NFL Bullying Sees Intellectuals as Prey, Ex-Patriots Tackle Says By Eben Novy-Williams Bloomberg News Nov 6, 2013 Brian Holloway said he was one week into his National Football League career when he learned that his Stanford University education and academic interests would make him a target. To cope with verbal abuse from his New England Patriots teammates that often took a racial turn, Holloway set aside his true character to become a better, more enraged football player, he said. It was a person he didn’t particularly like. “I tapped into a dark side,” Holloway, 54, said yesterday in a telephone interview. “The command to contain your anger and aggression, that dam broke for me. And as an intellectual, it feels extremely uncomfortable allowing that side of human nature to come out.” His experience from 1981 has made Holloway an admirer of Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Jonathan Martin, 24, who showed a different response to bullying when he walked out of the team’s practice facility last week. After Martin’s representatives told the Dolphins of alleged workplace misconduct, Miami suspended offensive lineman Richie Incognito and asked the NFL to conduct a review of the workplace. Martin’s departure and Incognito’s suspension show that bullying can occur even in an environment where 300-pound men are paid millions of dollars to impose their physical strength, sports psychologists said. “His status as a football player and adept athlete does not make him immune to needing treatment to overcome the trauma of abuse,” Leah Lagos, a New York-based sports psychologist, said in a telephone interview. “He’s human.” Holloway said he was fined about $1,500 during his rookie season with the Patriots for reading a legal textbook that the team said was a distraction. He was also ridiculed by teammates for typing LSAT notes during plane rides. The offensive tackle, who listened to opera for pregame inspiration, said there is an alliance that forms in locker rooms to ostracize players with elite academic backgrounds or eccentric interests. “When they sense an intellectual is present, they will see that as prey,” Holloway said. To avoid becoming the hunted, Holloway said he made a conscious change. “I discovered that I could use that anger and that aggression on the field,” he said. “What was difficult was saying to myself, ‘If this is how and who I need to be in this business, should this business really be part of my future?’” The Patriots are now under different ownership. Spokesman Stacey James did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Isaiah Kacyvenski, a former Harvard linebacker who played seven NFL seasons, said he also can relate to Martin through events from his own pro career. The 36-year-old, who played for the Seattle Seahawks and St. Louis Rams, said he worked to avoid confirming a “preconceived notion of what a Harvard grad was,” and often angered teammates by raising his hand during meetings to ask questions about the way things were being done. “In no way should a Stanford or Harvard degree get held against you,” said Kacyvenski, who now directs sports business at the biomedical technology company MC10 Inc. in Cambridge,Massachusetts. The son of two Harvard graduates, Martin left the Dolphins practice facility on Oct. 28 after other offensive linemen stood up and walked away from the lunch table when he sat down with his food, according NFL.com. ESPN reported that Incognito, 30, asked Martin to contribute financially last summer to an unofficial team trip to Las Vegas that Martin did not attend. The network also said the Dolphins and the NFL have a copy of a voice message from April in which Incognito used a racial slur and threatened Martin’s life. David Dunn, Incognito’s agent, has not responded to multiple e-mails and a message left at his office seeking comment on the ESPN reports. The league has not commented outside of saying it is reviewing the matter. The NFL players’ union said it will insist on a fair investigation for all involved. The reaction around the NFL has varied. New York Giants safety Antrel Rolle told WFAN, a New York sports radio station, that Martin could have done more to prevent the bullying. “Was Richie Incognito wrong? Absolutely, but I think the other guy is just as much to blame as Richie, because he allowed it to happen,” he said. “At this level, you’re a man. You’re not a little boy. You’re not a freshman in college.” Other former players, such as ESPN analysts Tim Hasselbeck and Cris Carter, have said that while hazing is a part of any locker room, the alleged harassment in Miami went too far. “What they must understand is that hazing, while often portrayed as harmless and a rite of
