[Marxism] Fwd: “How the West Came to Rule”: a work for the ages | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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When Jim Blaut succumbed to pancreatic cancer in 2000, he was denied the 
possibility of completing the third and final installment in a series of 
books about Eurocentrism. The first two—“The Colonizer’s Model of the 
World” and “Eight Eurocentric Historians”—were polemical but scholarly 
rebuttals to a wide range of thinkers, including Robert Brenner. The 
third was intended to demonstrate that a different kind of history could 
be written, one that gave the “people without history”—as Hegel put 
it—their proper due. When I finished reading Alexander Anievas and Kerem 
Nisancioglu’s “How the West Came to Rule: the Geopolitical Origins of 
Capitalism” this week, I was left with the feeling that Blaut’s book had 
finally been written.


full: 
http://louisproyect.org/2016/01/31/how-the-west-came-to-rule-a-work-for-the-ages/

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[Marxism] Fwd: Mario Batali must pay $5.25M for skimming tips - NY Daily News

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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These celebrity chefs are all a bunch of scumbags.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/eats/celebrity-chef-mario-batali-ordered-pay-5-25-million-skimming-tips-restaurant-article-1.1035001
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[Marxism] Paul Krugman Reviews ‘The Rise and Fall of American Growth’ by Robert J. Gordon

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times Sunday Book Review, Jan. 30 2016
Paul Krugman Reviews ‘The Rise and Fall of American Growth’ by Robert J. 
Gordon

By PAUL KRUGMAN

THE RISE AND FALL OF AMERICAN GROWTH
The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War
By Robert J. Gordon
Illustrated. 762 pp. Princeton University Press. $39.95.

Back in the 1960s there was a briefly popular wave of “futurism,” of 
books and articles attempting to predict the changes ahead. One of the 
best-known, and certainly the most detailed, of these works was Herman 
Kahn and Anthony J. Wiener’s “The Year 2000” (1967), which offered, 
among other things, a systematic list of technological innovations Kahn 
and Wiener considered “very likely in the last third of the 20th century.”


Unfortunately, the two authors were mostly wrong. They didn’t miss much, 
foreseeing developments that recognizably correspond to all the main 
elements of the information technology revolution, including smartphones 
and the Internet. But a majority of their predicted innovations 
(“individual flying platforms”) hadn’t arrived by 2000 — and still 
haven’t arrived, a decade and a half later.


The truth is that if you step back from the headlines about the latest 
gadget, it becomes obvious that we’ve made much less progress since 1970 
— and experienced much less alteration in the fundamentals of life — 
than almost anyone expected. Why?


Robert J. Gordon, a distinguished macro­economist and economic historian 
at Northwestern, has been arguing for a long time against the 
techno-optimism that saturates our culture, with its constant assertion 
that we’re in the midst of revolutionary change. Starting at the height 
of the dot-com frenzy, he has repeatedly called for perspective: 
Developments in information and communication technology, he has 
insisted, just don’t measure up to past achievements. Specifically, he 
has argued that the I.T. revolution is less important than any one of 
the five Great Inventions that powered economic growth from 1870 to 
1970: electricity, urban sanitation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the 
internal combustion engine and modern communication.


In “The Rise and Fall of American Growth,” Gordon doubles down on that 
theme, declaring that the kind of rapid economic growth we still 
consider our due, and expect to continue forever, was in fact a 
one-time-only event. First came the Great Inventions, almost all dating 
from the late 19th century. Then came refinement and exploitation of 
those inventions — a process that took time, and exerted its peak effect 
on economic growth between 1920 and 1970. Everything since has at best 
been a faint echo of that great wave, and Gordon doesn’t expect us ever 
to see anything similar.


Is he right? My answer is a definite maybe. But whether or not you end 
up agreeing with Gordon’s thesis, this is a book well worth reading — a 
magisterial combination of deep technological history, vivid portraits 
of daily life over the past six generations and careful economic 
analysis. Non-economists may find some of the charts and tables heavy 
going, but Gordon never loses sight of the real people and real lives 
behind those charts. This book will challenge your views about the 
future; it will definitely transform how you see the past.


Indeed, almost half the book is devoted to changes that took place 
before World War II. Others have covered this ground — most notably 
Daniel Boorstin in “The Americans: The Democratic Experience.” Even 
knowing this literature, however, I was fascinated by Gordon’s account 
of the changes wrought by his Great Inventions. As he says, “Except in 
the rural South, daily life for every American changed beyond 
recognition between 1870 and 1940.” Electric lights replaced candles and 
whale oil, flush toilets replaced outhouses, cars and electric trains 
replaced horses. (In the 1880s, parts of New York’s financial district 
were seven feet deep in manure.)


Meanwhile, backbreaking toil both in the workplace and in the home was 
for the most part replaced by far less onerous employment. This is a 
point all too often missed by economists, who tend to think only about 
how much purchasing power people have, not about what they have to do to 
get it, and Gordon does an important service by reminding us that the 
conditions under which men and women labor are as important as the 
amount they get paid.


Aside from its being an interesting story, however, why is it important 
to study this transformation? Mainly, Gordon suggests — although these 
are my words, not his — to provide a baseline. What happened between 
1870 and 1940, he argues, and I would agree, is what real 

[Marxism] Assad drops 87 barrel bombs on the first day of "the peace process"

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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Idrees Ahmad on Facebook - The Syrian regime signals its intentions on the
first day of the UN "peace process" by dropping 87 barrel bombs on
Moadamiya and launching a new chemical attack


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRYqAkDCJq8
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[Marxism] brutal repression in Egypt "worse than under Mubarack"

[Dennis Brasky via Marxism]

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http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content=view=31=74=15527
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[Marxism] Iglesias: 'Spain needs government of change'; Spanish establishment panicked by Podemos

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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The article below is by *Pablo Iglesias*, secretary-general of the radical
Spanish political force Podemos. It abridged from the January 24 *El Pais* and
was translated from Spanish by Dick Nichols.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/60983


Since Spain's December 20 elections produced no clear majority, debate has
raged over what sort of government should be formed.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/60982

-- 
“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] Ecuador: Chevron's 'rainforest Chernobyl' – victims fight for compensation

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Across the world, in Latin America, the company is guilty of a far greater
crime – the pollution of vast swathes of Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest and
devastation of thousands of indigenous and peasant communities in the area.
The victims of Chevron have united into the “Union of those affected by the
petroleum operations of Texaco-Chevron”, who have been fighting one of the
longest-running legal cases for justice and compensation since 1993.
Chevron bought out Texaco in 2001, thus assuming responsibility for its
28-year history of operations in the country.

One of the leaders is *Pablo Fajardo* – a humble 42-year old lawyer of
Cofán descent who grew up in the contaminated region and is now
representing 30,000 victims of the oil giant's operations. The company has
repeatedly accused him of dishonesty and greed in its publicity campaigns.

*Green Left Weekly*'s *Denis Rogatyuk* spoke with Fajardo in his office in
Quito, Ecuador, about the latest developments surrounding the legal case.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/60984


-- 
“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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Re: [Marxism] Spain: Amid tangle over new government, Podemos 'threat' sends establishment into frenzy

[Stuart Munckton via Marxism]

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Pablo Iglesias: 'Spain need a government of change'

he article below is by *Pablo Iglesias*, secretary-general of the radical
Spanish political force Podemos. It abridged from the January 24 *El Pais*


https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/60983

On 31 January 2016 at 23:17, Stuart Munckton 
wrote:

> Since Spain's December 20 elections produced no clear majority, debate has
> raged over what sort of government should be formed.
>
> https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/60982
>
>
>
> --
> “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
>
>


-- 
“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] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] The Australian of the year and veterans

[John Passant via Marxism]

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The Australian of the year and veterans

As socialists we should argue for more money for the support of veterans 
and of course for the support of all people suffering mental illness, 
domestic violence , homelessness, poverty etc. Aborigines, victims of 
domestic violence, gays and lesbians, especially young gays and 
lesbians, refugees locked up in Australia's concentration camps, for 
example, all have high levels of stress and anxiety, with PTSD and 
suicide rates well above average. Fund adequate services for them all. 
Make big business pay a fair share of tax to pay for these services.


Ultimately however the only way to end war and its rotten consequences 
for all the combatants and all the peoples of the countries the West has 
invaded is to end the system that creates war - capitalism.


http://secure-web.cisco.com/16sg5aGQn_TXvEYeCHVcXh3POoT6qrV-PDNDaIOfF1ZYe00axweZvhiryWvls4AFqtW1jsUhw9UfDXpYmmLjhKsswW4mZqCZSc5kJ_POh-PDUqvTvKAyyQQPqI0jjE-qfwmWwhGbGjjXI_5y4OYZ12QnHgjFUeOobvjjvjBwvbSVeJ5Y-uvVDmCXnvmzRZWNgRuM_9qIlt0LecRCxtUNQaXNG6maAREBrzR6zUxr0Dh05ksgDQAjCSX8tEato4fTnjrVhBT-Ez4LQOTKAenRKtYwjMhIxbTczNkbTcfGjasOWFdAwzqEQsrWjLtvK8aDftbssCjO7Fgrl6XTKLalb3A/http%3A%2F%2Fenpassant.com.au%2F2016%2F01%2F31%2Fthe-australian-of-the-year-and-veterans%2F



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Re: [Marxism] Stalin nostalgia

[Glauber Ataide via Marxism]

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"Stalin’s murderous rule": this is a huge lie defended only by the
bourgeoisie and some Trotskyists. The main goal of attacking Stalin is to
demoralize communism as a whole. See Losurdo's "*Stalin: The History and
Critique of a Black Legend". *In this book Stalin is put in context, and
he's shown just to be taking the same actions other leaders of his time -
in France, USA and England - took. Besides that, these huge numbers of
"mass murders" are shown to be just a Cold War fabrication. I recommend
also "*Life and terror in Stalin's Russia*", by Robert Thurston (this
author is not a Marxist, and this makes his book even more interesting).

*G.A.*
*Brazil*


2016-01-30 16:30 GMT-08:00 Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu>:

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>
> KEN LIVINGSTONE has recently set the cat among the pigeons by suggesting
> that Joseph Stalin the Soviet dictator was not all bad. His crimes and
> aggressions much exaggerated. Ken is evidently at one with Anatoly Utkin, a
> former director of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the editor of a
> teachers‘ manual on modern Russian history, who went so far as to compare
> Joseph Stalin’s erudition to the tardy efforts of those in the West: “Can
> you tell me”, Utkin asked in 2008, “of any other leader, an American
> president, for example, who read 10,000 books?” Utkin was drawing attention
> to the fact that Stalin, when he wasn’t initialling lists of people to be
> shot, got through at least one book every day between 1924 and 1953.
>
> Vladimir Putin is also backing the drift towards a revision of Stalin’s
> record with regard to both his victory over Hitler, and the
> industrialisation of the country during the nineteen thirties. Putin,
> despite much evidence to the contrary, favourably contrasts Joseph Stalin’s
> centralism to the dastardly ‘federalism’ of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, which he
> thinks explains the fragmentation of the Russian empire. It seems that
> Stalin, despite many errors and at times, excessive severity, ensured that
> Russian workers and peasants made the sacrifices necessary for the founding
> of modern industry and the consolidation of a great state.
>
> full: http://www.donmilligan.net/OTC_Column.html
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[Marxism] Alexander Reznik, "Back to the Future: Why Putin Criticizes Lenin"

[Thomas Campbell via Marxism]

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Published at:
https://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/why-putin-criticizes-lenin/

Alexander Reznik
Back to the Future: Why Putin Criticizes Lenin
RBC
January 26, 2016

Vladimir Putin has condemned Lenin for ideas that, in the president’s
opinion, led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact, the ideas were
those of Stalin, whom the head of state has avoided criticizing.

The Flow of Thought
On January 21, 2016, Vladimir Putin gave rise to another round of
quasi-historical debate. Summarizing a discussion on reforming the Russian
Academy of Sciences at a session of the Council for Science and Education,
the president reacted to an excerpt from a poem by Pasternak, as quoted by
the head of the Kurchatov Institute:  “He managed the flow of thought[s]
and, only thus, the country.”

Pasternak was writing about Lenin, and the president ventured his opinion
of Lenin, too.

“It is right to manage the flow of thought. Only it is important that the
thought leads to the desired result, not as it did in the case of Vladimir
Ilyich. But the idea itself is correct. Ultimately, the idea led to the
Soviet Union’s collapse, that is what. There were many such thoughts:
autonomization and so on. They planted an atomic bomb under the edifice
known as Russia. It did, in fact, blow up later. And we had no need of
world revolution.”

Thus, consciously or not, the president marked the anniversary of the death
of the Soviet Union’s founder. Many observers were quick to detect a hidden
message in his remarks and once again raised the question of burying
Lenin’s body. (Dmitry Peskov, the president’s press secretary, had to
quickly announce that this issue “was not on the agenda.”) It is more
likely that the remarks, delivered as the curtain was falling on a boring
meeting, were  made on the spur of the moment.

Putin had obviously specially prepared for his speech at the January 25
interregional forum of the Russian Popular Front in order to smooth over
the impression made by his previous remarks. Replying to a question about
Lenin’s reburial, he outlined his views on socialism in more detail. He
admitted he had always “liked communist and socialist ideas,” and he
compared the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism to the Bible. Later,
the president mentioned mass repressions, including the “most egregious
example,” the execution of the tsarist family, the “breakdown of the front”
during the First World War, and the inefficiency of the planned economy.
Finally, Putin separately addressed the question of why, from his
viewpoint, Lenin had been wrong in his dispute with Stalin over the
nationalities question: Lenin had wanted “full equality, with the right to
secede from the Soviet Union” for the republics.

“And that [was like] a time bomb under the edifice of our state,” said
Putin, literally repeating what he had said in an 1991 interview. To
strengthen the effect, he mentioned the transfer of Donbass to Ukraine.

Who Planted the Bomb and What Kind of Bomb Was It
Historians will find it difficult to ignore that in the first instance
Putin has mistakenly attributed to Lenin the idea of autonomization, which
meant the inclusion of territorial entities in the Russian Soviet
Federative Socialist Republic. In reality, on December 30 and 31, 1922,
Lenin dictated a few notes, which were included in the leader’s so-called
political testament.

“I suppose I have been very remiss with respect to the workers of Russia
for not having intervened energetically and decisively enough in the
notorious question of autonomization, which, it appears, is officially
called the question of the Soviet socialist republics,” wrote Lenin.

His secretaries called these notes a “bomb,” so evident was their explosive
effect, since they were directed against the general secretary of the
Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Joseph
Stalin, who was accused of a “Great-Russian nationalist campaign.” As a
centralist principle, Lenin wrote, autonomization was “radically wrong and
badly timed.” It was necessary to “maintain and strengthen the union of
socialist republics” and be more sensitive to the nationalism of “oppressed
peoples.” The union’s republics were granted the constitutional right to
secede from the Soviet Union.

Formally, Lenin’s policy was approved, and thanks to the policy of
indigenization, which historian Terry Martin has christened “affirmative
action,” the 1920s were the heyday of national cultures. But by bypassing
the Constitution and Party Congress resolutions, Stalin’s project gradually
emerged victorious. By the late 1980s, the federal principles of Soviet
power had been discredited as 

Re: [Marxism] Stalin nostalgia

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/31/16 7:16 AM, Glauber Ataide wrote:


"Stalin’s murderous rule": this is a huge lie defended only by the
bourgeoisie and some Trotskyists. The main goal of attacking Stalin is
to demoralize communism as a whole. See Losurdo's "/Stalin: The History
and Critique of a Black Legend". /In this book Stalin is put in context,
and he's shown just to be taking the same actions other leaders of his
time - in France, USA and England - took. Besides that, these huge
numbers of "mass murders" are shown to be just a Cold War fabrication. I
recommend also "/Life and terror in Stalin's Russia/", by Robert
Thurston (this author is not a Marxist, and this makes his book
even more interesting).

/G.A./
/Brazil/



Don't worry too much about items praising/denigrating Stalin/Trotsky 
here. Most of us are preoccupied with the problems facing us now rather 
than those that divided the left a half-century ago.



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[Marxism] Fwd: Q A: The terrible illusion of the Arab Spring - Al Jazeera English

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Al Jazeera: In your book and in your analyses in general, you do not 
refer to what happened in 2011 as the "Arab Spring" or a revolution. Why?


Gilbert Achcar: Most people have used the term "revolution" to refer to 
the initial sequence of events, like when speaking of the "25 January 
Revolution" in Egypt as one that ends on February 11, or even naming the 
"revolution" by the day the autocrat fell, like in referring to the "14 
January Revolution" in Tunis. What I have been emphasising since 2011 is 
that we were only at the beginning of a long-term revolutionary process 
that will go on for years and decades. As in every such historical 
process, there will be ups and downs, revolutions and 
counter-revolutions, upsurges and backlashes. My view of the events is 
predicated on my analysis of the real issues at the heart of this 
revolutionary process, which are issues that I have been studying and 
teaching for several years.


I saw the explosion not primarily as the result of a political crisis, 
as it has been widely portrayed, or as one provoked by a thirst for 
political freedom. This was an important dimension of the uprising, to 
be sure. However, the deepest roots of the explosion were socioeconomic, 
in my view. For several decades, the Arab world has had the lowest rates 
of economic growth of all regions of Asia and Africa and the highest 
rates of unemployment in the world, especially youth and female 
unemployment.


Those were the crucial ingredients of the big explosion. And they are 
not issues that can be settled with a new constitution or a mere change 
of president. They can only be settled through a radical change of the 
social, political, and economic structures. They request a real social 
revolution, one that cannot be merely political.


The problem is that there were no organised forces representing such a 
radical goal and pursuing it with a coherent strategy. That is why it 
was obvious to me that it would take a long time before the process 
comes to conclusion. And there is no certainty whatsoever that the 
process will end up with the required progressive kind of change. What 
is certain is that, short of such a change, the region will keep living 
through turmoil and violence.



full: 
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/qa-terrible-illusion-arab-spring-160126105954308.html

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[Marxism] The re-emergence of social cleansing in El Salvador

[Allen Ruff via Marxism]

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“...Since 2014, Salvadoran human rights activists have been denouncing that 
death squads with possible connections with the police have been waging a 
campaign of “social cleansing” against gangs and suspected gangs members. These 
allegations suggest that the security forces may be reviving an ill-conceived 
practice from the country’s past for dealing with political turmoil. 

This Central American nation has a long and bitter history related to death 
squad practices. During El Salvador twelve-year internal armed conflict 
(1980-1992), the country developed a notorious reputation for extra-judicial 
killings, torture, disappearances, and paramilitary death squads that killed 
tens of thousands of people.

Following the war, a new generation of death squads emerged targeting gangs, 
politicians, human rights defenders and judicial officials. The most famous of 
these death squads was the Sombra Negra, or Black Shadow, which was active in 
the early to mid-1990s but that has resurfaced periodically over the last 
decade. The Salvadoran media reported in 2014 on Sombra Negra graffiti 
appearing in several communities as well as on the opening of a Sombra 
Negraanti-gang web page….”

https://www.opendemocracy.net/democraciaabierta/carlos-rosales-ana-leonor-morales/emergence-of-social-cleansing-in-el-salvador
 
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