Re: [Marxism] A Mini-Dictionary of Neoliberalism?
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Hi Michael I love words and so enjoyed your post a lot. There are of course other words which are crucial to the struggle at the moment. I have to get round to a proper study of David Mair's work *Ruling the Void.* I only know it through the Streeck article in NLR, from whom I learned that Mair put a lot of emphasis on the dialectic between the words *responsible *and* respon*sive. If you add a deal of political economy to the word *responsible* and understand that it is defined, largely by News Ltd, in the interests of capital, then one can understand, I believe, the decay of parliamentary democracy in the West. The capitalist class have succeeded, through intimidation and bribery, in convincing Western politicians that if they are *responsive* to the wishes of their members and the public, then they are not being *responsible* To get elected one has to signal to News Ltd that one is *responsible*. If one does not do that, one becomes *unelectable*. This is another key word, especially in the UK context, where the battle for the leadership of the Labour Party is being fought out on the terrain of electable or *unelectable*, at present. comradely Gary On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 3:22 AM, michael perelman via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > POSTING RULES & NOTES > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > * > > Richard Parker coined the word "neglectorate" to describe the public's > alienation from the current dysfunctional political system. Now that > economists have, for the most part relegated John Maynard Keynes to the > dustbin of history, the term Dickenysian seems to be appropriate for the > present conditions, which are becoming increasingly similar to Charles > Dickens' portrayal of the world he lived in. The power of the bond market > in imposing its will on supposedly independent states, suggests that > bondage may be appropriate for expressing the power of capital. Finally, > we could describe the current economic system as Crapitalism, which treats > ordinary people as crap. > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA > 95929 > > 530 898 5321 > fax 530 898 5901 > http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com > _ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/gary.maclennan1%40gmail.com > _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] A Mini-Dictionary of Neoliberalism?
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Richard Parker coined the word "neglectorate" to describe the public's alienation from the current dysfunctional political system. Now that economists have, for the most part relegated John Maynard Keynes to the dustbin of history, the term Dickenysian seems to be appropriate for the present conditions, which are becoming increasingly similar to Charles Dickens' portrayal of the world he lived in. The power of the bond market in imposing its will on supposedly independent states, suggests that bondage may be appropriate for expressing the power of capital. Finally, we could describe the current economic system as Crapitalism, which treats ordinary people as crap. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Fwd: Why the Greek government had to accept the EU's austerity plan - Home | The Sunday Edition | CBC Radio
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Whaat? Unbelievable, that guy is lying through his teeth! The claim that: a) there is any longer term debt restructuring or resolution; b) this is a smaller austerity package than all previous packages, and only amounts to €8bn; c) there is currently €35bn for investment; is just a pack of lies. This, the ninth austerity package, contains €13bn total austerity measures. It also includes the creation of €50bn fund for the banks paid for out of privatisation. The so-called €35bn for investment was a figure given by Juncker, and it is a myth. The funding is not new. It comes from existing structural and investment funds that are available to all countries to draw upon, and these monies had already been requested by Greece. In the period that it is supposed to apply up to 2020, there will also be a significant reduction in EU aid, with a total reduction of €6bn. There is also no debt restructuring, at all. Merkel made this clear. The point of this package is that it will force Syriza to implement far deeper neoliberal reforms, recessionary, anti-growth measures to boot, than the last government had to implement, and it will still leave Greece in dire straits. It’s one thing for the government to say it had to implement a deal it didn’t like. But now its publicity people are spinning lies, and lies that even the EU aren’t bothering to spin. It’s crazy. > On 28 Jul 2015, at 16:39, Louis Proyect via Marxism > wrote: > > http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/greece-at-the-crossroads-too-much-sitting-can-be-bad-for-you-utopia-on-the-prairie-amy-winehouse-1.3157555/why-the-greek-government-had-to-accept-the-eu-s-austerity-plan-1.3165516 > _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Why the Greek government had to accept the EU's austerity plan - Home | The Sunday Edition | CBC Radio
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/greece-at-the-crossroads-too-much-sitting-can-be-bad-for-you-utopia-on-the-prairie-amy-winehouse-1.3157555/why-the-greek-government-had-to-accept-the-eu-s-austerity-plan-1.3165516 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Continuing the conversation about IT and the Grexit | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://louisproyect.org/2015/07/28/continuing-the-conversation-about-it-and-the-grexit/ _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Cellular ‘Cheaters’ Give Rise to Cancer
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * (By the author of "Cancer Chronicles", a book I reviewed a while back: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/29/cancer-politics-and-capitalism/) NY Times, July 28 2015 Cellular ‘Cheaters’ Give Rise to Cancer by George Johnson Maybe it was in “some warm little pond,” Charles Darwin speculated in 1871, that life on Earth began. A few simple chemicals sloshed together and formed complex molecules. These, over great stretches of time, joined in various combinations, eventually giving rise to the first living cell: a self-sustaining bag of chemistry capable of dividing and spawning copies of itself. While scientists still debate the specifics, most subscribe to some version of what Darwin suggested — genesis as a fortuitous chemical happenstance. But the story of how living protoplasm emerged from lifeless matter may also help explain something darker: the origin of cancer. As the primordial cells mutated and evolved, ruthlessly competing for nutrients, some stumbled upon a different course. They cooperated instead, sharing resources and responsibilities and so giving rise to multicellular creatures — plants, animals and eventually us. Each of these collectives is held together by a delicate web of biological compromises. By surrendering some of its autonomy, each cell prospers with the whole. But inevitably, there are cheaters: A cell breaks loose from the interlocking constraints and begins selfishly multiplying and expanding its territory, reverting to the free-for-all of Darwin’s pond. And so cancer begins. Although we are getting better at preventing or controlling these rebellions, cancer is an inescapable consequence of multicellularity. A fascinating review, published last month in Philosophical Transactions B, shows how cancer and similar kinds of cellular cheating arise not only in mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects and other animals, but also in plants, fungi — in most, if not all, multicellular organisms. In “Cancer Across the Tree of Life: Cooperation and Cheating in Multicellularity,” researchers at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin show how maverick cells in species after species engage in the kind of pathological behavior that can bring down any society. In a healthy organism, a cell replicates only as frequently as needed to maintain the population and allow for modest growth. Cancer cells begin reproducing wildly, consuming more than their share of resources and spewing poisons that degrade the environment and reshape it to their own advantage. Through a process called differentiation, normal cells specialize, becoming skin cells, nerve cells, bone cells and so forth. There is a division of labor. But cancer cells “dedifferentiate,” abandoning their assigned roles and pursuing a course beneficial only to themselves. Under normal circumstances, a cell that goes berserk is quickly eliminated through a mechanism called programmed cell death, or cellular suicide. Cancer cells defeat this safeguard. They refuse to die. No wonder cancer has become a metaphor for human excess — overpopulation and consumption, environmental pollution, the concentration of resources among a hyperacquisitive 1 percent. The paper in Philosophical Transactions describes cancerlike phenomena in almost every niche of the biosphere. There is even a kind of growth, calicoblastic epithelioma, occurring among colonies of corals. A photograph included in the paper shows a tumorous protrusion on the mushroom Agaricus bisporus. In another image, the top of a saguaro cactus erupts in elaborate curlicues of uncontrolled growth called fasciations — pathological but so visually arresting that “crested cacti” are valued by collectors. The writhing distortions reminded me of those I’ve induced in weeds I sprayed with an herbicide called triclopyr. According to the manufacturer’s literature, the chemical is believed to work by mimicking growth hormones called auxins, causing plant cells to crazily multiply. It’s like chemotherapy in reverse, inducing something akin to cancer. Not all biologists would agree that every instance described in the paper should be classified as cancerlike. What is clear from the abundance of examples is that multicellular life is a continual struggle between competition and cooperation. Tip the balance too far, and the result might be a malignancy. In the long run of evolution, the trade-offs between cellular freedom and communalism have frequently paid off. Multicellularity, imperfect as it must be, can be so advantageous that it has evolved independently a number of times during the history of t
[Marxism] Fwd: Corbyn, Tsipras, Maggie and TINA
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I don't care if Corbyn is unelectable. I don't care about his views on the Middle East. I don't care if his economic plan is not costed. I don't care about a tweet he once sent. I don't really give a fuck if he is an alien lizard in a human suit. Already, even the mere prospect of him as Leader of the Opposition is causing the establishment (on both sides of the House) to spin out of control. That's good enough for me. https://www.byline.com/column/11/article/209 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] [UCE] American racism "in the white frame" - NY Times
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/27/american-racism-in-the-white-frame/?emc=edit_th_20150728&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=34832082&_r=0 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] WSJ: A Personal War - America’s Marxist Allies Against ISIS
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * In related news, it was a very awkward day at the State Department press briefing: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/07/245313.htm#TURKEY On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 12:15 AM, Shalva Eliava via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: http://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-marxist-allies-against-isis-1437747949 -- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað." _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Yanis Varoufakis defends ‘Plan B’ tax hack
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Financial Times, July 28 2015 Yanis Varoufakis defends ‘Plan B’ tax hack Peter Spiegel in Brussels and Kerin Hope in Athens Yanis Varoufakis has insisted he did nothing improper as part of a five-month clandestine project he ran as Greek finance minister that prepared for his country’s possible exit from the euro. The scheme, which was almost completed but not fully implemented, involved hacking into Greece’s independent tax service to set up a parallel payment system — accessing individuals’ private identification numbers and copying them on to a computer controlled by a “childhood friend” of Mr Varoufakis. Mr Varoufakis described the project in a 25-minute teleconference with private investors on July 16. A tape of the call was released on Monday by the London-based Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, which hosted the session, after portions were published at the weekend by the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. “We decided to hack into my minister’s own software programme in order to be able to bring it all, to just copy, just copy the codes of the tax systems’ website on to a large computer in his office, so he can work out how to design and implement this parallel payment system,” Mr Varoufakis said on the call. “We were ready to get the green light from the prime minister when the banks closed in order to move into the general secretariat of public revenues, which was not controlled by us but is controlled by Brussels, and to plug this laptop in and to energise the system.” Political opponents expressed outrage at the plan. Greek media reported that 24 MPs from New Democracy, the largest opposition party, had asked Alexis Tsipras, prime minister, whether Mr Varoufakis should face a judicial inquiry. In a statement, Mr Varoufakis’s office said the project was conducted by a working group he was authorised to establish in order to prepare contingency plans in case Greece was forced out of the eurozone by creditors. The working group broke no laws, the statement said. “The ministry of finance’s working group worked exclusively within the framework of government policy and its recommendations were always aimed at serving the public interest, at respecting the laws of the land, and at keeping the country in the eurozone,” said Mr Varoufakis’s office. The disclosures about Mr Varoufakis’s “Plan B” come on the heels of revelations by the Financial Times and other media organisations that far-left members of the governing Syriza party were contemplating a far more radical plan to seize government reserves and take over the country’s central bank in a transition to a new currency. James K Galbraith, the University of Texas economist and a longtime Varoufakis associate who worked on the finance ministry plan, issued his own statement saying their efforts never overlapped with the more radical efforts other than an “inconclusive” phone call he had with an MP from the Left Platform. “We had no co-ordination with the Left Platform and our working group’s ideas had little in common with theirs,” said Mr Galbraith. In his taped remarks, Mr Varoufakis said Mr Tsipras authorised him to prepare for a possible “Grexit”, even before Syriza won January’s parliamentary elections. “I assembled a very able team, a small team, as it had to be, because that had to be kept completely under wraps, for obvious reasons,” said Mr Varoufakis. “The difficulty was going from the five people who planned it to the 1,000 that would be implementing it. For that, I had to receive another authorisation that never came.” The revelations were shrugged off by government officials, who said Mr Tsipras never gave Mr Varoufakis the go-ahead to activate his plan. “I can’t imagine this [happened],” said Dimitris Mardas, the deputy finance minister in charge of revenues. “But what a government minister’s team proposes doesn’t constitute government policy.” Mr Tsipras is known to have grown wary of some of Mr Varoufakis’s ideas, a concern that contributed to his decision to replace the outspoken finance minister with Euclid Tsakalotos, a more low-key loyalist, earlier this month. Mr Varoufakis’s Plan B involved creating reserve accounts “surreptitiously” attached to every taxpayer’s ID that could be used to make payments to other taxpayers when the European Central Bank forced the shutdown of Greece’s banking system, as it did last month. “That would have created a parallel banking system while the banks were shut as a result of the ECB’s aggressive action, to give us some breathing space,” said Mr Varoufakis. That would have created
Re: [Marxism] Borotba Stalinist Aleksey Albu claims there are European leftists fighting with the separatists in the Donbass
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 28/07/2015 3:34, Shalva Eliava via Marxism wrote: > This guy is seriously deluded (or a complete hack - maybe both). I > wonder whether there is any truth to his claims about European > leftists coming in to fight with these outlaw bands. I know Die Linke > is particularly deluded by Russian propaganda, but I can't imagine > what other European leftists would possibly be taken in by this > bullshit... Epithets aside, I know for a fact there are Spanish communists involved. Example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJl26ssBcTQ --David. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] WSJ: A Personal War - America’s Marxist Allies Against ISIS
POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * > > > http://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-marxist-allies-against-isis-1437747949 Democratic Confederalism is an offshoot of Marxism? hahahahahaha Poor Murray Bookchin must be spinning in his grave. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
