[Marxism] Fwd: Four Key Reasons to Understand the Irresistible Attraction of Radical Islam | Human Wrongs Watch

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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There are four historical reasons for jihadism that are easily forgotten.

First of all, all the Arab countries are artificial. In May 1916, 
Monsieur Picot for France and Lord Sykes for Britain met and agreed on a 
secret treaty, with the support of the Russian Empire and the Italian 
Kingdom, on how to carve up the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First 
World War.


Thus the Arab countries of today were born as the result of a division 
by France and Britain with no consideration for ethnic and religious 
realities or for history. A few of those countries, like Egypt, had an 
historical identity, but countries like  Iraq, Arabia Saudi, Jordan, or 
even the Emirates lacked even that.


It is worth remembering that the Kurdish issue of 30 million people 
divided among four countries was created by European powers.


As a consequence, the second reason. The colonial powers installed kings 
and sheiks in the countries that they created. To run these artificial 
countries, strong hands were required. So, from the very beginning, 
there was a total lack of participation of the people, with a political 
system which was totally out of sync with the process of democracy which 
was happening in Europe.


With a European blessing, these countries were frozen in feudal times.

As for the third reason, the European powers never made any investment 
in industrial development, or real development. The exploitation of 
petrol was in the hands of foreign companies and only after the end of 
the Second World War, and the ensuing process of decolonisation, did oil 
revenues really come into local hands.


When the colonial powers left, the Arab countries had no modern 
political system, no modern infrastructure, no local management. When 
Italy left Libya (it did not know that there was petrol), there were 
only three Libyans with university degree.


Finally, the fourth reason, which is closer to our days. In states which 
did not provide education and health for their citizens, Muslim piety 
took on the task of providing what the state was not. So large networks 
of religious schools and hospital were created, and when elections were 
finally permitted, these became the basis for legitimacy and the vote 
for Muslim parties.


This is why, just taking the example of two important countries, 
Islamist parties won in Egypt and Algeria, and how with the acquiescence 
of the West, military coups were the only resort to stop them.


This compression of so many decades into a few lines is of course 
superficial and leaves out many other issues. But this brutally abridged 
historical process is useful for understanding how anger and frustration 
is now all over the Muslim world, and how this leads to attraction to 
the Islamic State (IS) in poor sectors.


We should not forget that this historical background, even if remote for 
young people, is kept alive by Israel’s domination of the Palestinian 
people.


full: 
http://human-wrongs-watch.net/2014/11/04/the-irresistible-attraction-of-radical-islam/

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[Marxism] Fwd: Green Party rises, at the expense of Working Families | Capital New York

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/11/8556093/green-party-rises-expense-working-families
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[Marxism] Fwd: Green Party Is Now New York's Third Major Party - Howie Hawkins for NY

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.howiehawkins.org/green_party_is_now_new_york_s_third_major_party
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[Marxism] Aleppo: A Tale of Three Cities

[Michael Karadjis via Marxism]

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http://www.aljadid.com/content/aleppo-tale-three-cities
Aleppo: A Tale of Three Cities
By Yassin al-Haj Saleh
Aleppo Castle

(Yassin al-Hajj Saleh is considered one of the most important observers 
of Syrian politics. He spent 16 years in Syrian prison, an experience 
about which he recently wrote a book. One Syrian scholar rejected the 
description of Yassin al-Haj Saleh as a political observer or analyst 
and instead he considers him the ultimate historian of the Syrian 
Revolution. Recently he wrote a short essay on Aleppo, a city with which 
he had an intimate history. With his permission, I translated his 
contribution  about Aleppo. The title "Aleppo: A Tale of Three Cities" 
is mine. --Elie Chalala)


I lived in Aleppo for about seven years, in two periods separated by 
about 17 years; the late 1970s and the late 20th century.


The first Aleppo was a depressed city, heavily permeated by a harsh 
political/security presence, and a deadly impersonal system. The regime 
sought to establish itself as the only decisive personality in the city 
as a whole.  The city was also suffering from overpopulation, and rapid, 
expansive development without balanced growth in services, all 
influenced by increased widespread religiosity and an intensification of 
conflict.


As a non-native resident of Aleppo, I had never lived in a city that was 
so withdrawn.  At the university we formed a mixed group of students 
coming from different parts of the city, including its countryside, and 
from different religions and sects, Palestinians included.


And the city resisted the regime's infiltration. Its universities, trade 
unions, political activists, and religious groups were the most active 
in opposing the regime of Hafez al-Assad. Apart from the universities, 
the opposition was urban and mainly from Aleppo.


Aleppo was conquered in the spring of 1980, when all opposition groups 
were crushed. That era marked the end of an autonomous cultural life, 
the end of a relatively free debate on campus, and also of the cinema. 
This was the second Aleppo.


Like all Syrian cities, Aleppo was heading toward being soulless and 
impersonal.


Syria's second city is as large as Damascus, but it is like all of 
Syria: no opinion, no culture, no policy, no public sphere in which 
people associate with each other, no apparent religiosity, although 
everything implies its religiosity.


In the first Aleppo, my nomadic college life led me to move between 
seven homes, all in central neighborhoods unmentioned by the satellite 
TVs covering the revolution. In the second Aleppo, I lived in a 
peripheral neighborhood, Sheikh Maksoud, inhabited by Arabs, Kurds, 
Muslims and Christians.


When Hafez Assad died in June 2000, residents of major neighborhoods 
rushed to stock up on bread, canned food and vegetables, and human 
traffic on the streets slowed down. But none of this happened in the 
peripheral areas of Aleppo where the lives of the inhabitants rarely 
intersected with the lives of presidents and their deaths.


The third Aleppo, the one now in open revolt, started from the rural 
parts and from the most marginalized slums:  Salahuddin, Alsakhur, 
Alklaseh, Bab Alhadid, Al Shaar, Al Zabadieh As if these 
neighborhoods had retained their spirit and personality while the major 
districts had become devoid of them, with the state having sizable 
presence, capital and domesticated religiosity.


When it comes to the spirit and personality of a city, the regime 
exhausts itself trying to eliminate them and pursue their ghosts. When 
it feels endangered, it kills. It has already killed Homs, Deir ez-Zor, 
and nothing will deter it from killing Aleppo if it could. If left 
alive, this wild monster will kill all of Syria.


This is an edited translation from the Arabic by Elie Chalala. The 
Arabic version appeared in As Safir Cultural Supplement. Translation is 
by permission from the author.




This essay appears in Al Jadid, Vol. 17, no. 65

© Copyright 2012  AL JADID MAGAZINE
- See more at: 
http://www.aljadid.com/content/aleppo-tale-three-cities#sthash.nsYSE6U1.dpuf 


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[Marxism] The more things change, the more they stay the same

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, Nov. 8 2006
A Loud Message for Bush
By ROBIN TONER

Everything is different now for President Bush. The era of one-party 
Republican rule in Washington ended with a crash in yesterday’s midterm 
elections, putting a proudly unyielding president on notice that the 
voters want change, especially on the war in Iraq.


Mr. Bush now confronts the first Democratic majority in the House in 12 
years and a significantly bigger Democratic caucus in the Senate that 
were largely elected on the promise to act as a strong check on his 
administration. Almost any major initiative in his final two years in 
office will now, like it or not, have to be bipartisan to some degree.


full: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/us/politics/08assess.html
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[Marxism] Rojava's autonomous cantons: What a revolution looks like

[Marv Gandall via Marxism]

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Best concise summary I’ve read so far on the origins, ideology, and radical 
social experimentation of the left-wing Kurdish parties straddling the 
Turkey-Syria border, whose militias, notably the YPG/J in Kobane, are leading 
the fight against the reactionary barbarism of the Islamic State. These 
revolutionary democratic organizations, committed to gender and ethnic 
equality, are presently the only light in the darkness enveloping the Middle 
East.

http://links.org.au/node/4129


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Re: [Marxism] Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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Actually Trotsky was focused on the contradiction between the forces and
relations of production (and associated norms of distribution), i.e. how
the inadequacy of the former hamstrung efforts to move beyond bourgeois
forms of the latter
Re-read the paragraphs cited (which are at:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch09.htm )
That contradiction was also the main one pointed out by Mandel.

On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 11:41 PM, michael a. lebowitz via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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>
> Louis wrote:
>
> From "The Revolution Betrayed":
>
> 'The Soviet Union is a contradictory society halfway between capitalism
> and socialism, in which: (a) the productive forces are still far from
> adequate to give the state property a socialist character'
>
> On this matter, they clearly shared a focus on the primacy of the
> productive forces--- in contrast, eg, to an emphasis upon the relations of
> production.
> michael
>
> --
> -
> Michael A. Lebowitz
> Professor Emeritus
> Economics Department
> Simon Fraser University
>  University Drive
> Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
> Home:   Phone 604-689-9510
> Cell: 604-789-4803
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>
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Re: [Marxism] Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 11/5/14 9:41 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote:

Actually Trotsky was focused on the contradiction between the forces and
relations of production (and associated norms of distribution), i.e. how
the inadequacy of the former hamstrung efforts to move beyond bourgeois
forms of the latter
Re-read the paragraphs cited (which are at:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1936/revbet/ch09.htm )
That contradiction was also the main one pointed out by Mandel.



But there's another side of Trotsky that has to be acknowledged. He did 
emphasize the relations of production at certain points so strongly that 
there was some confusion over the differences between him and Stalin. 
After all, when Stalin moved against the kulaks and went full-blast 
toward industrialization, it led some to conclude that he had adopted 
the left opposition program.


Plus, there's that weird salute to atomic power and eugenics in "If 
America should go communist", plus his statement that capitalism will 
eventually make India the equal of Britain.


All that being said, he was unique in the late 30s for opposing the idea 
that the USSR was socialist. What we are dealing with today, as I 
pointed out in my original post, is a kind of neo-Stalinism in which 
nostalgia for the old USSR trumps the reality of what was really taking 
place in Eastern Ukraine, as if the preservation of Lenin statues was 
the main task facing socialists.


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Re: [Marxism] Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance

[DW via Marxism]

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On the relations of production...it was so much an "emphasis" on this that
confused people, rather it was placid: the Left Opposition wanted to see
the USSR industrialize as it was an increase in production and the forces
of production (Labor + capital investment) that could lay the basis for a
stronger collectivized economy, etc etc) which hitherto the country was not
doing "despite" the NEP. The LO wanted a 'balance' in production that
commodities could be traded, at least in kind, with the peasantry which
some sectors (Kulaks and others) had accumulated during NEP. The threat of
starvation of the cities was still there despite a generalized increase in
production in the countryside and this had to re resolved.

Stalin in his form of industrialization did so on steroids with an almost
exclusive focus on heavy industry. And in fact, it wasn't just "some" who
were confused, many Left Oppositionists went over to Stalin because they
thought, along with this new found 'revolutionary socialism right this
instant' under the "Third Period" analysis, thought that he had adopted the
LO program, if not in name, in effect. They were of course incorrect. (this
respresented the first wave of LOers capitulating to the Stalin faction).

Eugenics: Trotsky was fascinating with science as many Marxists were...in
fact Marxists generally were far more interested in science before the
1960s than afterward. So new theories that abounded were always taken
seriously and this was a true for Trotsky as for most intellectually
inclined communists. All this tied in with the need to increase the
productive forces so as to eventually create the material basis for
socialism (despite the current fad of 'anti-productivism' as excemplified
by writers like Chris Williams, such views run contrary to almost all of
Marxism at least historically). So science and technology were highly
emphasised in the new Soviet state and continued into the Stalinist
corruption of that state.

Trotsky in one article that Louis notes goes into the idea of humans
creating a 'new man'. Trotsky was no expert and was opining on the 'what
if?' as many a columnist does today outside of their own expertises. This
is no different. Read this in the essay Louis notes but here are the two
quotes from the article:


"One-year, five-year, ten-year plans of business development; schemes for
national education; construction of new basic lines of transportation; the
transformation of the farms; the program for improving the technological
and cultural equipment of Latin America; a program for stratosphere
communication; eugenics – all of these will arouse controversy, vigorous
electoral struggle and passionate debate in the newspapers and at public
meetings."

and

"While the romantic numskulls of Nazi Germany are dreaming of restoring the
old race of Europe’s Dark Forest to its original purity, or rather its
original filth, you Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic
machinery and your culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the
problem of eugenics. Within a century, out of your melting pot of races
there will come a new breed of men – the first worthy of the name of Man."

That's it. Now, there is another essay but I can't find it where he goes
into this a bit more.

Nuclear energy: the *entire* left was interested in nuclear power for
peaceful purposes. Both the Daily Worker, The Militant, New International,
Fourth International and Labor Action supported nuclear energy up until the
mid-1960s when the tie between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons appeared
to be locked at the hip. The first anti-nuclear stuff on the left didn't
deal with safety so much as over the question of the Bomb, but until then
the Bomb and energy were polemically separated in these articles and
counterpoised to each otherby the left (correctly IMO).

David
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Re: [Marxism] Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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Years of conflicting practices overlay differences on the USSR.  In the US,
at least, it seems to me that if there had never been a USSR, you would
still have what American Trotskyists have called "Stalinism."  It seems to
be in the nature of things that you would have currents that would see some
benefit in accommodating themselves to the capitalist system and coupling
it to Marxist terminology.  That would have happened if the Soviet Union
never existed, or it CP had never formed and early gone through
"Stalnization."  Indeed, "Stalinist" politics have survived the fall of the
USSR and shows little sign of fading.

As to the "Trotskyist" tradition, the old man has been dead now over 70
years.  Calling oneself a Trotskyist in the present context is as
informative as if someone would have described themselves in the 1960s as
Bellamyist or something.  But, most importantly, the very nature of
Trotskyism involves defining itself in relation to Stalinism rather than to
the wider class struggle.  This insight flickers on and off through the
history of American Trotskyism without having provided enough enlightenment
to have influenced the current situation.

ML
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Re: [Marxism] Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance

[Andrew Pollack via Marxism]

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I think Trotsky's encouragement of speculation on how socialist people
could use science (and not vice versa) is more relevant than ever with
climate change and its interaction with capitalism's waste, infrastructure,
etc.
As for Louis's point on latter day Stalinism, that's something a lot of us
have been wondering about -- especially the new lease on life of campism.
It's obviously not just a vestige of old-fashioned Stalinism. Nor is it
just social democracy in a new form. It draws on both in its own unique mix
which needs to be documented and analyzed.

On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 10:29 AM, DW via Marxism  wrote:

>   POSTING RULES & NOTES  
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> *
>
> On the relations of production...it was so much an "emphasis" on this that
> confused people, rather it was placid: the Left Opposition wanted to see
> the USSR industrialize as it was an increase in production and the forces
> of production (Labor + capital investment) that could lay the basis for a
> stronger collectivized economy, etc etc) which hitherto the country was not
> doing "despite" the NEP. The LO wanted a 'balance' in production that
> commodities could be traded, at least in kind, with the peasantry which
> some sectors (Kulaks and others) had accumulated during NEP. The threat of
> starvation of the cities was still there despite a generalized increase in
> production in the countryside and this had to re resolved.
>
> Stalin in his form of industrialization did so on steroids with an almost
> exclusive focus on heavy industry. And in fact, it wasn't just "some" who
> were confused, many Left Oppositionists went over to Stalin because they
> thought, along with this new found 'revolutionary socialism right this
> instant' under the "Third Period" analysis, thought that he had adopted the
> LO program, if not in name, in effect. They were of course incorrect. (this
> respresented the first wave of LOers capitulating to the Stalin faction).
>
> Eugenics: Trotsky was fascinating with science as many Marxists were...in
> fact Marxists generally were far more interested in science before the
> 1960s than afterward. So new theories that abounded were always taken
> seriously and this was a true for Trotsky as for most intellectually
> inclined communists. All this tied in with the need to increase the
> productive forces so as to eventually create the material basis for
> socialism (despite the current fad of 'anti-productivism' as excemplified
> by writers like Chris Williams, such views run contrary to almost all of
> Marxism at least historically). So science and technology were highly
> emphasised in the new Soviet state and continued into the Stalinist
> corruption of that state.
>
> Trotsky in one article that Louis notes goes into the idea of humans
> creating a 'new man'. Trotsky was no expert and was opining on the 'what
> if?' as many a columnist does today outside of their own expertises. This
> is no different. Read this in the essay Louis notes but here are the two
> quotes from the article:
>
>
> "One-year, five-year, ten-year plans of business development; schemes for
> national education; construction of new basic lines of transportation; the
> transformation of the farms; the program for improving the technological
> and cultural equipment of Latin America; a program for stratosphere
> communication; eugenics – all of these will arouse controversy, vigorous
> electoral struggle and passionate debate in the newspapers and at public
> meetings."
>
> and
>
> "While the romantic numskulls of Nazi Germany are dreaming of restoring the
> old race of Europe’s Dark Forest to its original purity, or rather its
> original filth, you Americans, after taking a firm grip on your economic
> machinery and your culture, will apply genuine scientific methods to the
> problem of eugenics. Within a century, out of your melting pot of races
> there will come a new breed of men – the first worthy of the name of Man."
>
> That's it. Now, there is another essay but I can't find it where he goes
> into this a bit more.
>
> Nuclear energy: the *entire* left was interested in nuclear power for
> peaceful purposes. Both the Daily Worker, The Militant, New International,
> Fourth International and Labor Action supported nuclear energy up until the
> mid-1960s when the tie between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons appeared
> to be locked at the hip. The fi

[Marxism] Fwd: Is Sweden a Model to Follow? | Socialist Alternative

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.socialistalternative.org/2014/03/22/13527/
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[Marxism] Fwd: "Red Father" film screening at Baruch College 11/17

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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RED FATHER

The Sandra Kahn Wasserman Jewish Studies Center at Baruch College 
cordially invites you to join us on November 17th, 2014, for a special 
film screening of Red Father, a documentary by Tova Beck-Friedman. A 
discussion panel will follow the film.


Thought-provoking and nuanced, Tova Beck-Friedman’s documentary Red 
Father offers a fascinating look at a politically turbulent era, and 
offers the viewer a close look at the legacy of a father’s impact on his 
family. In the documentary, “Red Diaper Baby”, Janet Ades scrutinizes 
her father’s Communist legacy. She admires the father who confronted 
legal racism, fought fascism in Spain and was repeatedly blacklisted. 
Nonetheless, she does not spare her criticism of the Communist Party’s 
conduct. Guest speakers at this event will include:


Janet Naava Ades Esq. – Daughter of Bernard Ades, the Baltimore-based 
civil rights attorney and communist party member whose life and deeds 
serve as the focal point of the film.


Maria Mitchell Esq. – Legal expert and Assistant HC Public Defender at 
Hennepin County Public Defender in Minnesota.


Joseph Moore – Maryland-based Attorney, Prosecutor, and Author.

Tova Beck-Friedman – Film’s director

Where: 55 Lexington Avenue, Engelman Theater
When: Monday, November 17th, from 6-8 p.m.

Admission is free but please reserve your seat for the event by emailing 
jewish.studies.cen...@baruch.cuny.edu.


We look forward to seeing you there!
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Re: [Marxism] Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance

[Shane Mage via Marxism]

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On Nov 5, 2014, at 9:41 AM, Andrew Pollack via Marxism wrote:


Actually Trotsky was focused on the contradiction between the forces  
and
relations of production (and associated norms of distribution), i.e.  
how
the inadequacy of the former hamstrung efforts to move beyond  
bourgeois

forms of the latter

Actually, no bolshevik (including Koba-Stalin, whose Okhranik/Petrine  
program for the reconstruction of the Empire was still carefully  
concealed)) could say that the "productive forces" (foremost among  
which was the abysmally low cultural/technical level of the laboring  
masses) inherited from the Czars were remotely close to the requisites  
for development of a socialist society.  Thus the total unanimity on  
the impossibility of constructing socialism in a single backward  
country like Russia. In 1918 Lenin went so far as to state that "for  
us, state capitalism would be a step forward." And by 1921, after  
three years of indescribably devastating civil war, soviet Russia's  
productive forces had deteriorated (deaths, destructions, emigration  
of the technical intelligentsia) far beyond their already miserable  
level.  For the bolsheviks the only hope for socialism in Russia was  
their incorporation into a European soviet republic.  Nevertheless,  
thanks to the enormous cultural impetus of the proletarian revolution,  
soviet Russia under NEP was in the 1920's able to advance as far as a  
relatively democratic state capitalism that equalled and even exceeded  
pre-revolution levels of economic output--a mixed economy with state- 
owned industrial trusts and banks alongside private businesses,  
commodity production for domestic and world markets, peasant-owned  
agriculture, and  generalization of waged labor with real trade unions  
defending the rights of workers. Thus along with the political  
relations characteristic of a bureaucratically-deformed workers' state  
(as Lenin characterized the USSR in 1922) went a set of entirely  
capitalist relations of *production*.  As the bureaucratic deformation  
of the bolshevik regime proceeded, thanks to the maleficent  
organizational genius of Koba-Stalin and the political incompetence of  
"old" bolsheviks like Zinoviev and Bukharin, by 1929 the Stalinist  
counterrevolution was able to emerge into full daylight.  Stalin sent  
NEP "To the Devil" with his total forced collectivization of  
agriculture and breakneck industrialization. Over the next nine years  
the necks broken included virtually all the remaining bolshevik cadre  
together with millions of workers, peasants, artists, writers, and  
technicians.  What remained at the end of the purges (when Yezhov was  
liquidated and Beria took over the secret police establishment from  
which the present Czar, Putin, was to emerge) was now a *totalitarian*  
state-capitalist regime (as Trotsky stated, "Stalinism and Fascism are  
symmetrical phenomena") with a new bureaucratic ruling class.  The  
state-capitalist relations of production that had existed under NEP  
were changed *in form* to those characteristic of fascism--wage labor,  
commodity production, managerial absolutism, all enforced by  
unremitting police-state repression.  The resulting monstrosity  
retained from soviet Russia only the brand name "USSR" (as a vampire  
state it had as much right to that brand as any of the Undead has to  
his predecease name).


When Trotsky was writing The Revolution Betrayed it was already a  
stretch to believe, as he did, in the possibility of a revived  
bolshevism.
By the time it had been published that hope was tenuous in the  
extreme.  Two years later it had been definitively murdered. But,  
entirely isolated from any contact inside Russia, Trotsky still  
refused to give up that dream.  That the "inevitable" defeat of Nazi  
Germany in the coming war might lead to a regeneration of the Russian  
workers' state, this was the slender reed  to which he clung when he  
wrote in 1939 that "The Nature of the Soviet Union is not yet Decided  
by History." Alas, the Decision had already been made.  The Stalinist  
state-capitalist form of Czarism, still with us today in somewhat more  
"Westernized" form, had become unshakeable.



By playing word games with phrases like "productive forces," "property  
forms," and "production relations" the Orthodox managed for fifty  
years to pretend that under the Stalinist "USSR" brand they were  
buying a "Degenerated Workers' State." Some  pretend that Russia even  
now is a "workers' state!" In the 1950s-1960's the dominant faction of  
the Fourth International even expected a socialist revolution to be  
introduced to west

Re: [Marxism] Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 11/5/14 11:36 AM, Shane Mage via Marxism wrote:



By playing word games with phrases like "productive forces," "property
forms," and "production relations" the Orthodox managed for fifty years
to pretend that under the Stalinist "USSR" brand they were buying a
"Degenerated Workers' State." Some  pretend that Russia even now is a
"workers' state!" In the 1950s-1960's the dominant faction of the Fourth
International even expected a socialist revolution to be introduced to
western Europe through invasion by the Russian Army (by the early 1960's
the same types, then as now, moved their trust onto a new brand--the
"Arab Revolution" of the Boumediennes and Qaddafis).


So weird to see Shane fulminating against the Fourth International for 
adapting to Stalinism when his primary role on Marxmail is to serve as a 
transmission belt for RT.com talking points.

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[Marxism] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] Histmat and the primacy of productive forces. WAS Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance

[michael a. lebowitz via Marxism]

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On 05/11/2014 6:41 AM, Andrew Pollack wrote:
Actually Trotsky was focused on the contradiction between the forces 
and relations of production (and associated norms of distribution), 
i.e. how the inadequacy of the former hamstrung efforts to move beyond 
bourgeois forms of the latter

Re-read the paragraphs cited (which are at:
http://secure-web.cisco.com/1T8fTAHyq5pV9brQIPkCoAZn95na5mki9nA_Eh_KQcJAzZjEZKE80xKsnEMJJbKx5NFoz7geXnQFbN03U_uvlLZgfhOYwttetL6wf2Be4522DKlvL7p4SLzHvXPEthZZvNTkh0qnf97fegmLZDLtS89VjWr6H_cR2_MuaQDLrBUG5U1IhXt1wBvNerlkHuLP05Ujq_CPWkqiG5jKO3y3XEw/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marxists.org%2Farchive%2Ftrotsky%2F1936%2Frevbet%2Fch09.htm
 )
That contradiction was also the main one pointed out by Mandel.


Hi Andrew,
Too busy to enter at this time the Good Trotsky, Bad Stalin swamp, 
and my brief comment was, of course, peripheral to Louis' interest in 
Ukrainian matters which started the thread. My point was very simple: 
both Stalinists and Trotskyists shared the Histmat perspective which 
focused upon primacy of the growth of [presumably neutral-- unlike those 
Marx stressed in Capital] productive forces as opposed to the character 
of the relations of production. As Marx knew, productive forces do not 
drop from the sky.
I'm in the process of completing a new book for Monthly Review 
Press ['The Socialist Imperative: From Gotha to Now'] in which I touch 
upon these matters. Here, eg, is a brief somewhat related passage from 
one of the chapters:


In the Histmat formula, subordination of the old relation of 
distribution focuses upon the development of the productive forces in 
socialism. Rather than talk explicitly about the character of the 
relations of production, that standard interpretation follows Lenin’s 
insistence in /State and Revolution/ that “an enormous development of 
productive forces” in the socialist stage is the prerequisite for the 
new relation of distribution. Until the labor of people has become “so 
productive that they will voluntarily work /according to their 
ability/,” the “socialist principle” of equivalent exchange must be 
safeguarded by the state and, indeed, requires “the /strictest/ control 
by society /and by the state/ of the measure of labour and the measure 
of consumption” (Lenin, 1965: 112-16).


Apparent here is the law of Histmat specific to socialism (Soc-law): 
/the law of necessary correspondence between the level of productive 
forces and the relation of distribution/. Those who cite this law, too, 
can draw upon Marx’s statement in the /Critique/ that “Right can never 
be higher than the economic structure of society and its cultural 
development conditioned thereby” because they misinterpret “economic 
structure” to mean the level of productive forces rather than the 
relations of production (Marx, 1962: 24).[1] <#_ftn1> The relations of 
production themselves? Conjured away. They are the missing term, the 
vanishing moment; and, accordingly, we are left with two inferences from 
Soc-law: (a) if distribution relations go beyond what the productive 
forces justify, there will be disaster and (b) reliance upon the 
existing distribution relations is essential for the development of the 
productive forces.





[1] <#_ftnref1> As one of many examples of this use of this sentence, 
see Francisco Soberon[then President of the Central Bank of Cuba] in 
December 2005 (Soberon, 2005).



And now, after that commercial break, back to the book!
in solidarity,
michael

--
-
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
 University Drive
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Home:   Phone 604-689-9510
Cell: 604-789-4803


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[Marxism] Thomas Sankara and the Black Spring in Burkina Faso

[jay rothermel via Marxism]

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http://convincingreasons.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/thomas-sankara-and-the-black-spring-in-burkina-faso/
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Re: [Marxism] Stalinist-Trotskyist bromance

[Shane Mage via Marxism]

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On Nov 5, 2014, at 11:44 AM, Louis Proyect wrote:




So weird to see Shane fulminating against the Fourth International  
for adapting to Stalinism when his primary role on Marxmail is to  
serve as a transmission belt for RT.com talking points.


I wonder where on "RT.com" (which, in fact, I have never even seen-- 
except maybe for occasional and unnoteworthy reposts on Johnson's  
Russia List) it describes Putin as a "Czar" or refers to his KGB  
status.  Louis and a few others posting on Syria and the Ukraine could  
perhaps more properly be described as "a transmission belt for  
Washington Post Editorial Board talking points," but since I refuse to  
accept slander as an acceptable element in political discussion I  
would never say any such thing.



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





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[Marxism] Revolutionary Emancipation and religion

[Ron Jacobs via Marxism]

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http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/11/revolutionary-emancipation-and-religion/
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[Marxism] Query

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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I thought that Trotsky wrote something like this in "If America Should 
go communist" but apparently not. It says that under communism we won't 
kill the ruling class but simply put it on an island (I remember it 
being Catalina) where they will live in luxury but unable to do any 
harm. Maybe it was a Fred Halstead or Peter Camejo speech. Any ideas?

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[Marxism] Never mind

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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It was James P. Cannon:

The little handful of recalcitrant capitalists who don’t like what is 
happening will not have to stay and watch if they don’t want to. The 
workers’ government of rich America could easily afford to give them an 
island or two, for their exclusive habitation, and pension them off and 
get them out of the way. How big is Catalina Island here? That might be 
just the place for them. It will not be necessary to kill them off. Just 
send them to Catalina. Let them take their bonds and stock certificates 
with them—as mementos of bygone days—and give them enough caviar and 
champagne to finish out their useless lives, while the workers go on 
with their work of constructing a new and better social order. That’s 
what Trotsky said.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1953/workersrule.htm
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Re: [Marxism] Query

[Jeff via Marxism]

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Unfortunately this isn't a burning issue yet, but still...

On Wed, November 5, 2014 20:27, Louis Proyect via Marxism wrote:
>  under communism we won't
> kill the ruling class but simply put it on an island (I remember it
> being Catalina) where they will live in luxury but unable to do any
> harm.

But living in luxery DOES do harm! As long as there is a worldwide
shortage of caviar and champagne, why should it go to the least deserving?

>How big is Catalina Island here?
I don't know. How big are the Galapagos islands? Maybe if they were
settled there, we could go back there in 1000 years and see if they've
evolved

- Jeff


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Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Is Sweden a Model to Follow? | Socialist Alternative

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 11/5/14 11:51 AM, Daniel Lindvall wrote:

This is how I summarized the last couple of decades of neoliberalism in
Sweden, in a piece on recent Swedish films for WorkingUSA last year.


My Swedish correspondent weighs on Daniel's article.


Thanks Louis.

 I can wholeheartedly endorse these two descriptions of Sweden. The 
ugly side of Sweden that's been withheld from the world.


Still today, much of the branding plays on the progressiveness of Sweden 
in the 70's. Volvo (now owned by Geely Automobile of China) launched a 
retro, Volvo-is-safe-but-that's-cool-not-dorky ad with specially invited 
journalists to cover "the creative side of the project". Jan Gradvall 
was the chosen one. [One of my favorite writers in Sweden. His writing 
flows beautifully. But he always appeared too bourgeois for my taste]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbvdzQ7uVPc

I can't even begin to go through all the wild symbolism and strange 
contradictions that happens in this ad. Zlatan, the inner city immigrant 
kid with a very pronounced blatte-svenska [Immigrant/arab slang and 
vocal style. Street talk in the suburbs. The way they sound in the worst 
ghetto in Sweden: Rosengård, Malmö, where Zlatan grew up] mixed with 
Skånska [a very potent dialect too, I might add].


Zlatan is now as far away from the elements associated with Zlatan as he 
could ever be. He's in way northern Sweden and hunting kronhjort [in 
an area where there is no kronhjort], taking... ehh, fuck it: it's 
totally bonkers the whole thing. And Zlatan keeps reciting the national 
anthem of Sweden. The first vers, of course, not the second, 
imperialistic verse. Scratch that, Zlatan recites a kind of mash-up of 
the verses that even include the troublesome line:



He also changes the phrase "I'd like to live and die in the North 
(Norden)" to "I'd like to live and die in Sweden". No one seemed to care 
that he blatantly changed the lyrics of the Swedish national anthem -- 
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_gamla,_du_fria


And the punchline is: "Made by Sweden". The concept of Sweden is now 
like a progressive free-flowing spirit that can infect smart and 
grounded people and make them really creative. Sweden transcends all the 
bitter realities of capitalism. It just happens. Magic!


Includes elements of personal branding for Zlatan himself. The nesting 
reassurance he gives his wife is true to the family values of Volvo.


--

The story about how the quint, little town of Malmö became synonymous 
with muslim takeover and rampant anti-sematism deserves a long 
walkthrough. I've already pitched the script idea to Fredrik Gertten. 
http://www.wgfilm.com/english/WGfilm_english/fredrik_gertten_english/. 
He was sympathetic to the idea but had too many projects at the moment.


//Johan


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Re: [Marxism] Revolutionary Emancipation and religion

[Jim Farmelant via Marxism]

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 See the essay that I co-authored, "Six Prominent American Freethinkers" 
(http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/fl161208.html).

Freethinker #6, Michael Harrington, had rather crappy politics IMO but he had a 
good analysis of the political roles of religion.

Jim Farmelant
http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
http://www.foxymath.com 
Learn or Review Basic Math


-- Original Message --
From: Ron Jacobs via Marxism 
Subject: [Marxism] Revolutionary Emancipation and religion
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 2014 14:08:23 -0500


http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/11/revolutionary-emancipation-and-religion/
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Fast, Secure, NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband. Try it.
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[Marxism] Lenin citation needed

[michael yates via Marxism]

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In volume 26 of LCW, there is an essay titled "Can the Bolsheviks retain state 
power." In this article Lenin writes:
 
"We are not utopians. We know that an unskilled labourer or a  cook cannot 
immediately get on with the job of state  administration. In this we agree 
with the Cadets, with  Breshkovskaya, and with Tsereteli. We differ, 
however, from  these citizens in that we demand an immediate break with the 
 prejudiced view that only the rich, or officials chosen from  rich 
families, are capable of administering the state,  of performing the 
ordinary, everyday work of administration. We  demand that training in the 
work of state  administration be conducted by class-conscious workers and   
   soldiers and that this training be begun at once, i.e., that a   
beginning be made at once in training all the working  people, all the 
poor, for this work."

I need the page number for this quote. I would deeply appreciate help here. 
Many thanks in advance.
 
Michael Yates 
  
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Re: [Marxism] Lenin citation needed

[Charlie via Marxism]

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Try this: http://www.marx2mao.com/PDFs/Lenin%20CW-Vol.%2026.pdf


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[Marxism] Fwd: The Inside Story Of Matt Taibbi's Departure From First Look Media - The Intercept

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/30/inside-story-matt-taibbis-departure-first-look-media/
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[Marxism] Greens become NY's third party after strong left campaign

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Green Party gubernatorial ticket in New York in the November 4 elections —
headed by left-wing activist Howie Hawkins  for
governor and International Socialist Organization activist Brian Jones
 for lieutenant governor — resulted in a
four-fold rise in the Green vote.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57704

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

“The free market is perfectly natural... do you think I am some kind of
dummy?” — Jarvis Cocker
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[Marxism] Against the Dictatorship of the Expertariat

[Leigh Phillips via Marxism]

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I've just had a piece in Jacobin on post-democracy, global governance and
existential threats.

It doesn't mention GMOs, so hopefully Louis won't mind my posting it here.
;)

---

In response to an array of 'existential threats', there has been an
explosion in post-democratic international decision-making structures
modelled on the IPCC/UNFCCC.

There's now an 'IPCC but for biodiversity', an 'IPCC but for
desertification', and a proposed 'IPCC but for antibiotic resistance'. As
with the EU, independent central banks, the WTO, the IMF, the UN Security
Council and the full metastasising panoply of post-democratic international
governance bodies and treaties, a range of policy decisions are steadily
being taken out of the hands of direct democratic control and placed in the
hands of 'experts'. I argue the solutions to all of these real problems are
ultimately not - or not only - scientific, but political.

The solution is not a 'time-out' for democracy as James Lovelock argues,
but much more democracy, global democracy.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/11/the-solution-is-democracy/

Cheers,

Leigh Phillips


Leigh Phillips
European Affairs Journalist & Science Writer
leigh.phill...@gmail.com
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(UK) +44 (0)75 282 17 335
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Re: [Marxism] Greens become NY's third party after strong left campaign

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 11/5/14 9:12 PM, Stuart Munckton via Marxism wrote:

Green Party gubernatorial ticket in New York in the November 4 elections —
headed by left-wing activist Howie Hawkins  for
governor and International Socialist Organization activist Brian Jones
  for lieutenant governor — resulted in a
four-fold rise in the Green vote.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/57704


I think that this matches the Sawant election in terms of importance. 
Let's hope that the Greens can recruit an important candidates for its 
run against Clinton and the Republican. A Cornel West-Chris Hedges 
ticket would be great. You listening, Howie?

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[Marxism] Lenin citation needed

[michael yates via Marxism]

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Thanks very much, Charlie. Just what I needed.  
  
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[Marxism] Fwd: Election 2014: President Obama Is Not a Happy Warrior - NYTimes.com

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Timesman Stephen Greenhouse weighs in on the midterm election. His 
dad was a Communist and it seems to have rubbed off on him.


What the White House doesn’t seem to appreciate is just how little a 
dent this has made in the devastating loss of wealth, security and 
opportunity so many Americans have experienced in the last few years. 
But this administration has also been afflicted almost from the start 
with the inability to decide just whom it is trying to appeal to.


Like Bill Clinton before him, this New Democrat president early on 
dismissed traditional liberals as “professional leftists” as his first 
press secretary once put it. But just a few months ago he also let his 
new F.C.C. chairman suggest an end to net neutrality, and his secretary 
of education heartily endorse the decision of a Republican judge ending 
teacher tenure, in which said judge claimed “there are a significant 
number of grossly ineffective teachers currently active in California 
classrooms.”


full: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/04/opinion/election-2014-president-obama-is-not-a-happy-warrior.html

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Re: [Marxism] Election 2014: President Obama Is Not a Happy Warrior - NYTimes.com

[Charlie via Marxism]

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The jibe at Stephen Greenhouse is insipid compared to your usual level 
of enormously clever insult. But the main thing is, the article in 
question is by Kevin Baker, not Stephen Greenhouse.


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[Marxism] grass roots activists defeat Chevron Oil in Richmond, CA elections

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Big money politics suffers big blow in Richmond as Chevron spending backfires


by Robert Rogers
Contra Costa Times [northern California]
November 5, 2014

RICHMOND -- What does $3.1 million in campaign spending by one of the
world's largest corporations buy in Richmond?

Boulevards studded with billboards, mailboxes stuffed with fliers and
fleets of campaign workers -- but no seats on the City Council.

Voters on Tuesday rejected the avalanche of spending by Chevron --
perhaps the most ever by a corporation in a local election -- in the
oil giant's effort to tilt the balance of power on a City Council that
has grown increasingly hostile toward its mammoth refinery here in
recent years. Instead, voters handed the energy Goliath an
embarrassing black eye, tapping a slate of progressive anti-Chevron
candidates who promise resolute oversight of the city's largest
taxpayer in the years ahead -- including a lawsuit stemming from the
August 2012 refinery fire that sent thousands to the hospital.

Chevron's campaign, which drew national scorn and was waged by a
phalanx of campaign committees steered by San Francisco public
relations firms, culminated in a stunning repudiation. Candidates
backed by the Richmond Progressive Alliance, a mostly volunteer
organization, emerged with a tighter grip than ever on local
government. Six of the seven council seats could soon be occupied by
progressive-leaning politicians critical of the refinery.

"As a political scientist, one has to look at this outcome with a
smile," said Robert Smith, a San Francisco State University professor
who followed the race. "People who believe in democracy got a boost;
this showed that people can organize and triumph, and over big money."

Longtime Councilman Tom Butt easily defeated Chevron-backed Nat Bates
for mayor, and "Team Richmond," comprising outgoing Mayor Gayle
McLaughlin, incumbent Jovanka Beckles and newcomer Eduardo Martinez,
appear to have nailed down the three full-term council seats, despite
relentless attacks by a Chevron-backed political action committee that
portrayed them as everything from absentee politicians to, in
McLaughlin's case, a lobbyist for Cuban spies.

With an undetermined number of mail-in and provisional ballots still
to be counted, Martinez led longtime incumbent Jim Rogers by 292 votes
for the third council seat.

The four candidates backed by Moving Forward, the committees into
which Chevron poured money, all lost.
. . .
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Re: [Marxism] Lenin citation needed

[RKOB via Marxism]

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Dear Michael,

It is page 113.

Yours,
Michael

Am 06.11.2014 um 00:42 schrieb michael yates via Marxism:

We are not utopians. We know that



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[Marxism] Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: American Politicians Are A Greater Threat to Democracy Than ISIS

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
American Politicians Are A Greater Threat to Democracy Than ISIS
Time magazine, November 2, 2014

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