Re: [Marxism] Thoughts for Polanski apologists, by another woman raped at 13.
From: Pat Costello pt_coste...@yahoo.com I would have thought that indignation over the rape of a child would not be debatable. Racist attacks, rape, police brutalitythese are merely academic discussion for many on this list. Total and utter bullshit. Just that some (I would hope most, in terms of how I understand Marxism) think rational responses are more valuable than mere indignation. You could say exactly the same thing as you do about the murder of a child, in the case of, say, a debate about capital punishment. The tabloids and the right wing media will often respond exactly as you do in such situations, using emotive rhetoric to try and shut down debate on the subject. Solidarity, Ian YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] China's nationalized sector has key role in current gains
China's imperialist business partners were pushing for them to junk the remaining nationalized industry a few years ago. But that prospect is definitely off for now as the state sector plays a key role in helping China contain the effects of the world crisis and even make headway. Fred Feldman China's growth will continue John Ross Published 17 September 2009 China's successful economic policies are specifically Chinese. But they are made up of universal elements Deng Rong, Deng Xiaoping's daughter, commences a memoir of her father by noting that before he launched China's economic reform programme in 1978 policies had been adopted 'in violation of the laws of economics.' Deng Xiaoping, in contrast, restored policies respecting these. This relates to a highly topical question. Little under a year ago there was controversy over whether the stimulus programme launched by China to confront the international financial crisis would succeed. Today this is essentially settled. Not only will China achieve eight percent growth in 2009, a year when every other major economy will contract, but even a former sceptic, Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator of the Financial Times, concludes 'Is this growth surge sustainable? In a word, yes.' Such success comes after thirty years in which China has been the world's most rapidly expanding economy, with 9.8% annual average growth. China's urban investment is up over thirty percent in a year in which most other countries' investment is falling - and UK spending on infrastructure, such as housing and transport, has declined by the same amount. China is counter-cyclically expanding bank loans while lack of such lending throttles the UK and US economies. China is also responsible for one hundred percent of the reduction of world poverty in the last quarter century - as Professor Danny Quah of the London School of Economics recently point out. However, on the one hand China emphases that its economic system is with 'Chinese characteristics' - that is, it asserts its specifically Chinese character. China does not seek to promote its economic model to other countries and its authorities explain that their specific duty is to lead a country with more than 1.3 billion people to economic development. But simultaneously, as Deng Rong notes, China considers its policy since 1978 is guided by 'laws of economics'. Therefore to what degree are China's economic successes specific to that country, and without general lessons, and to what degree are they expressions of 'laws of economics', which are necessarily universal in character and from which others can draw lessons? The paradox is only apparent. China's specific combination of policies is, of course, strongly unique and indeed with 'Chinese characteristics' - it would be highly foolish to attempt to double guess such characteristics from outside. Another country mechanically applying them would suffer failure as every situation is specific. But China's success is understandable in terms of internationally recognised economics because the elements of which its specific economic model is constructed are universal. The fact that China does not seek to promote its economic model therefore does not mean that others cannot draw lessons. Such analysis show, first, that China has been successful in confronting the financial crisis because its policies are right not only practically but from the viewpoint of economic theory. Second, for other countries, that the elements of such economic policies are capable of being successfully applied in a parliamentary democracy. For these reasons it is worth setting out key elements of such policies not in terms those in China would necessarily use but in those of an economic discourse familiar in Europe and the US - classical and Keynesian economics. The first is the most classical economics imaginable. Adam Smith first demonstrated what modern econometrics confirms, that division of labour is decisive in raising the level of productivity. And division of labour in a modern economy is necessarily international. A high level of trade is the sole way to participate in this, as well as to benefit from advantages such as economies of scale. The high level of trade in China's economy is crucial to its opening process. Protectionist and import substitution strategies inevitably lead to inefficiency in capital use and low productivity. China's opposition to protectionism is integral to its economic model. Second, is China's high investment level. Again modern econometric research confirms that, after division of labour, the largest element in economic growth is growth of fixed investment not only in a developing economy such as China but also in developed economies. As Dale Jorgenson, probably the world's leading expert on productivity growth notes: investment in tangible assets is the most important source of economic growth in the G7 nations. The contribution of capital inputs exceeds that
[Marxism] [The Activist] N.W.A.’s Se cond Album, Track Two
http://theactivist.org/blog/n-w-a-s-second-album-track-two YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Sexual Assault
This was provided by a comrade who sometimes comments on list discussions: Hi Fred Jeff wrote at [Marxism], it is in the interests of society to increase enforcement of laws on sexual assault. It's also in the interests of society to get rid of capitalism and patriarchy, but I don't see it happening. In the '70s my girlfriend was a volunteer at a rape crisis center and one weekend a month she carried the beeper. I heard it go off many times. Women don't report sexual assault because they know they will be the ones put on trial and because the chances the offender will do ANY time are extremely low. My advice to my daughters: call the rape crisis center and call your sister and then call a personal injury lawyer, and refuse to talk to the cops. Cops use their badge and gun to force sex from the poor. They are some of the worst offenders. They don't give a shit about you. If the lawyer thinks you have a good case bring a civil suit against the asshole. In a civil suit there is a much higher chance the attacker will be exposed as a sexual predator and lose his bank account and all the rest of his stuff, instead of smirking as the criminal court judge says, case dismissed. Pat Costello is re-victimizing the victim when she says, The victim does not get to decide It's her body, it's her call, she is the only one who gets to decide. that's the way I see it Duen Canadian Law on Sexual Assault You have a choice, you can have your assailant charged criminally, and/or you can bring a civil suit against your assailant. Most survivors don't realize that you can sue your assailant for a monetary reward in civil court. Duen also provided this astonishing and horrifying statistic: openDemocracy28 - 11 - 2007/ ... across most of Europe the rape conviction rate has fallen continuously in the last thirty years. In the UK, in 1977 33.3% of all rapes reported to the police led to a conviction. In 2007, this figure has fallen to 5.7%. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Marek Edelman, antifascist fighter, dies
I sent this to the list of my group, Al-Awda-NY: Palestine Right to Return Coalition, thus the emphasis on his antiZionism. If you google his name you'll turn up lots of more general biographical detail on him, including his account of the ghetto uprising. Andy -- Forwarded Message -- Edelman was one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis. He died in Warsaw, where he stayed after the war, refusing to move to Israel. His political party, the Bund, was antiZionist. He referred to Israel as a historic failure, and was involved in a comradely dialogue with Palestinian liberation fighters about their tactics (he was mistaken tactically, but the point is he saw them as comrades). He and the Bund weren't the most revolutionary force among Jewish workers in Europe, but they were a far sight better than the Zionist quislings in Warsaw who counseled silence and practiced betrayal, all in pursuit of their hopes to eventually become colonizers in their own right. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Bernard-Henri Levy bandwagon
--- Roman Polanski Has a Lot of Friends KATHA POLLITT 10/01/2009 http://www.thenation.com/blogs/anotherthing/479379/roman_pola nski_has_a_lot_of_friends If a rapist escapes justice for long enough, should the world hand him a get-out-of-jail-free card? If you're Roman Polanski, world-famous director, a lot of famous and gifted people think the answer is yes. Polanski, who drugged and anally raped a thirteen-year-old girl in 1977 in Los Angeles, pled guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with a minor and fled to Europe before sentencing. Now, 32 years later, he's been arrested in Switzerland on his way to the Zurich film Festival, prompting outrage from international culture stars: Salman Rushdie, Milan Kundera, Martin Scorsese, Pedro Almodavar, Woody Allen (insert your own joke here), Isabelle Huppert, Diane von Furstenberg and many, many more. Bernard-Henri Levy, who's taken a leading role in rounding up support, has said that Polanski perhaps had committed a youthful error (he was 43). Debra Winger, president of the Zurich Film Festival jury, wearing a red Free Polanski badge, called the Swiss authorities action philistine collusion. Frederic Mitterand, the French cultural minister, said it showed the scary side of America and described Polanski as thrown to the lions because of ancient history. French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Doctors Without Borders, called the whole thing sinister. Closer to home, Whoopi Goldberg explained on The View that his crime wasn't 'rape rape,' just, you know, rape. Oh, that! Conservative columnist Anne Applebaum minimized the crime in the Washington Post. First, she overlooks the true nature of the crime (drugs, forced anal sex, etc), and then claims there is evidence Polanski did not know her real age. Talk about a desperate argument. Polanski, who went on to have an affair with 15-year old Nastassja Kinski, has spoken frankly of his taste for very young girls. (Nation editor-in-chief Katrina vanden Heuvel, who tweeted her surprise at finding herself on the same side as Applebaum, has had second thoughts: I disavow my original tweet supporting Applebaum. I believe that Polanski should not receive special treatment. Question now is how best to ensure that justice is served. Should he return to serve time? Are there other ways of seeing that justice is served? At same time, I believe that prosecutorial misconduct in this case should be investigated.) On the New York Times op-ed page, schlock novelist Robert Harris celebrated his great friendship with Polanski, who has just finished filming one of Harris' books: His past did not bother me. This tells us something about Harris' nonchalant view of sex crimes, but why is it an argument about what should happen in Polanski's legal case? I just don't get this. I understand that Polanski has had numerous tragedies in his life, that he's made some terrific movies, that he's 76, that a 2008 documentary raised questions about the fairness of the judge (see Bill Wyman in Salon, though, for a persuasive dismantling of its case.). I also understand that his victim, now 44, says she has forgiven Polanski and wants the case to be dropped because every time it comes up she is dragged through the mud all over again. Certainly that is what is happening now. On the Huffington Post, Polanski fan Joan Z. Shore, who describes herself as co-founder of Women Overseas for Equality (Belgium), writes: The 13-year-old model 'seduced' by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies. The girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (It's probably 13 by now!). Actually, in 1977 the age of consent in California was 16. Today it's 18, with exceptions for sex when one person is underage and the other is no more than three years older. Shore's view--that Polanski was the victim of a nymphet and her scheming mother--is all over the internet. Fact: What happened was not some gray, vague he said/she said Katie-Roiphe-style bad sex. A 43-year- old man got a 13-year-old girl alone, got her drunk, gave her a quaalude, and, after checking the date of her period, anally raped her, twice, while she protested; she submitted, she told the grand jury because I was afraid. Those facts are not in dispute--except by Polanski, who has pooh-poohed the whole business many times (You can read the grand jury transcripts here.) He was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge, like many accused rapists, to spare the victim the trauma of a trial and media hoopla. But that doesn't mean we should all pretend that what happened was some free-spirited Bohemian mix-up. The victim took years to recover. Fact: In February 2008, LA Superior Court Judge Peter Espinosa ruled that Polanski can challenge his conviction. All he has to do is come to the United States and subject himself to the rule of law. Why is that unfair? Were he not a world-famous director with
[Marxism] US bribe to Lockerbie witness?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/02/lockerbie-documents-witness-megrahi US paid reward to Lockerbie witness, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi papers claim Scottish detectives discussed secret payments of up to $3m made to witness and his brother, documents claim Two key figures in the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber were secretly given rewards of up to $3m (£1.9m) in a deal discussed by Scottish detectives and the US government, according to legal papers released today. The claims about the payments were revealed in a dossier of evidence that was intended to be used in an appeal by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of murdering 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988. Megrahi abandoned his appeal last month after the Libyan and Scottish governments struck a deal to free him on compassionate grounds because he is terminally ill with prostate cancer. Now in hospital in Tripoli, Megrahi said he wanted the public to see the evidence which he claims would have cleared him. I continue to protest my innocence – how could I fail to do so?, he said. I have no desire to add to the upset of many people I know are profoundly affected by what happened in Lockerbie. My intention is only for the truth to be made known. The documents published online by Megrahi's lawyers today show that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) was asked to pay $2m to Tony Gauci, the Maltese shopkeeper who gave crucial evidence at the trial suggesting that Megrahi had bought clothes later used in the suitcase that allegedly held the Lockerbie bomb. The DoJ was also asked to pay a further $1m to his brother, Paul Gauci, who did not give evidence but played a major role in identifying the clothing and in maintaining the resolve of his brother. The DoJ said their rewards could be increased and that the brothers were also eligible for the US witness protection programme, according to the documents. The previously secret payments were uncovered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC), which returned Megrahi's conviction to the court of appeal in 2007 as a suspected miscarriage of justice. Many references were in private diaries kept by the detectives involved, Megrahi's lawyers said, but not their official notebooks. The SCCRC was unable to establish exactly how much the brothers received under the DoJ's reward-for-justice programme but found it was after Megrahi's trial and his first appeal in 1992 was thrown out. A memo written by DI Dalgleish to ACC Graham in 2007 confirms the men received substantial payments from the American authorities. The inspector claims the rewards were engineered after Megrahi's trial and appeal were over, but said there was a real danger that if [the] SCCRC's statement of reasons is leaked to the media, Anthony Gauci could be portrayed as having given flawed evidence for financial reward. Instead, he claimed, the reward was intended to ensure the Gaucis could afford to leave Malta and start new lives to avoid media and other unwanted attention. However, the documents disclose that in 1989 the FBI told Dumfries and Galloway police that they wanted to offer Gauci unlimited money and $10,000 immediately. Gauci began talking of a possible reward in meetings with Dumfries and Galloway detectives in 1991, when a reward application was first made to the DoJ. The evidence, which was due to be heard by the appeal court next month, also discloses that Gauci was visited 50 times by Scottish detectives before the trial and new testimony contradicting the prosecution's claims that Megrahi bought the clothes on 7 December 1988 – the only day he was in Malta during the critical period. In 23 police interviews, Gauci gave contradictory evidence about who he believed bought the clothes, the person's age, appearance and the date of purchase. Two identification experts hired by Megrahi's appeal team said the police and prosecution breached the rules on witness interviews, using suggestive lines of questioning and allowing irregular identification line-ups. Two new witnesses also disproved the prosecution claim that Megrahi was in Gauci's shop on 7 December, his lawyers said. Gauci said the area's Christmas lights were not on when the clothes were bought. The current Maltese high commissioner to the UK, Michael Rufalo, then the local MP, told the SCCRC the lights were switched on on 6 December, raising further inconsistencies in the prosecution case. It has also emerged that Scottish police did not tell Megrahi's lawyers that another witness, David Wright, had seen two different Libyan men buying very similar clothes on a different day; evidence that psychologists believe may have confused Gauci and again clouded the prosecution case. Dumfries and Galloway police said only a court could properly consider this material, and supported previous criticism of Megrahi's decision to release his appeal papers by Elish Angiolini,
Re: [Marxism] Polanski
I've been reading this list on and off for a while now and have to say that I can't believe the amount of bandwidth that has been wasted discussing Roman Polanski. Why aren't you all discussing McKenzie Phillip's incestuous relationship with her father, too? I personally could care less what happens to Polanski since the question of innocence or guilt has already been answered by Polanski himself. His credentials do not excuse him from prosecution, nor should he be dealt with differently in terms of sentencing because of his Hollywood profile. My point is, what the hell does this have to do with Marxism beyond a passing interest? It certainly doesn't deserve the three-five days of debate among supposed Marxists that has already occurred on this list. -ron jacobs YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Polanski
Ron J wrote: I've been reading this list on and off for a while now and have to say that I can't believe the amount of bandwidth that has been wasted discussing Roman Polanski. Why aren't you all discussing McKenzie Phillip's incestuous relationship with her father, too? I personally could care less what happens to Polanski since the question of innocence or guilt has already been answered by Polanski himself. His credentials do not excuse him from prosecution, nor should he be dealt with differently in terms of sentencing because of his Hollywood profile. My point is, what the hell does this have to do with Marxism beyond a passing interest? It certainly doesn't deserve the three-five days of debate among supposed Marxists that has already occurred on this list. Okay, I've been persuaded by Ron and Fred to wind this down. I invite comrades to make one more statement, if they must, and then we move on. Btw, this issue consumed Doug's list as well, so much so that he had to blow the whistle to call a halt. When one person refused, he was unsubbed. So obviously there is a lot of passion about it. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Rosa Lichtenstein versus JB on dialectical contradictions
I should first say, I'm no philosopher. I've read Marx, Feuerbach, Hegel, Russell, Wittgenstein. Mostly Marx, then Hegel... Hegel brought me to tears, and not tears of joy. OK I'm no philosopher. Neither was Marx, although unlike Marx, I never studied the subject formally. My take on Rosa's debate is a little unusual, if not for others , certainly for me, being a partisan of dialectics-- at least I think I am-- or I think I am, therefore I am, or I might be. Anyway... First-- I am more than sympathetic of Rosa's argument that Marx did not create a dialectical materialism, I am in complete agreement. IMO, those who think there is a dialectical materialism to Marx's work are taking a giant step backward. Marx is not creating a new philosophy, a philsophy of the universe, a philosophy of science or nature or anything else. He is, in the beginning grappling with...he is grappling with what he and Engels call the rational kernel that he extracted from Hegel. And that core is the real content of human history. What Marx finds in Hegel, in the Hegel's presentation of spirit, consciousness making itself manifest in the world is an alienated expression for the real content of history. And what is the unalienated expression, what is that real content? For Marx, it is the social organization of labor. The materialism is history. The materialism is social. But my take is, as I said, unusual, in that I think Marx clearly takes over words, methods, tactics, from Hegel in his analyses of contradiction, necessity, immanence in capital's existence. What is the dialectical contradiction Marx explores? Philosophy has proven itself incapable of answering that, and we must, to be consistent with Marx find the answer in history, in the social organization of labor. That contradiction is the relation of capital and wage-labor. Each exists only in the organization of the other. Capital, to be capital, must organize labor in a specific form in order to access, appropriate surplus value. To do this, the means of production must be monopolized by the class of [emerging] capitalists-- but they are monopolized in a manner that makes them essentially useless when not yielding exchange-value and profit. For that to occur, labor itself must be organized as useless, as offering no mechanism for the laborer to subsist, save in the exchange of the ability to labor in return for the means of subsistence [or the medium for their purchase]. So while capital belongs to the capitalist as private property, the private property can only exist with a specific social organization of labor. Capital can go nowhere without dragging this, wage-labor, its complementary opposite with it. Now for capital to aggrandize greater portions of the source of the surplus value, it must not only organize, aggrandize labor as wage-labor, it must simultaneously aggrandize and expel such labor from the production process. The more capital accumulates, the more it exchanges itself with wage-labor, the less, relatively, of itself it exchanges with wage-labor. And it is this contradiction, dialectical contradiction, that leads to the overproduction of capital and the decline in the rate of profit. The more capitalist property expands, the less that property is capable of providing the return that is necessarily the end, and the beginning, the realization and the extinction of capital's circuits. Now these processes of capital are historical, material, social processes. Marx wasn't making philosophical inquiries, no more than he weas making a new political economy. Capital is no work of political economy. It is the history of capitalism's internal metabolism, almost like a teasing-apart of the strands of DNA to find the patterns of replication. Economics is nothing but concentrated history. History is the social organization of labor. Marx really is, or supposed to be, the end of philosophy and political economy. I think Marx makes this breakthrough most evident not so much in the Theses on Feuerbach, but in two later works, Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850, and, IMO, the 2nd greatest work of historical materialism ever produced, The 18th Brumaire... (Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution being number 1). And of course, there is Marx's preface to the 2nd edition of Vol 1, when he explicitly declares himself a dialectician YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] China's nationalized sector has key role in current gains
Think this article posted by Fred is a wee bit late to the party. It, the article, is an old on the one hand... But on the other more recent hand, we see tremendous overinvestment in fixed assets in China, we see tremendous overproduction in aluminum, cement, steel, The Financial Times and Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that China's State Council, warning of excess capacity, has set rules to limit investment in seven sectors of the economy and has banned, literally banned investment or construction in any new aluminum smelters for the next three years. We know that in the steel industry, overcapacity for the domestic market in China is around 25% with the export market severely impacted by the global contraction. China has 800 steel producers, with the largest BaoSteel producing about 35 million tons per year, just about 5% of total output, and producing an amount equivalent to that of Nippon Steel with 6-7 times the labor force. The aluminum market has become the model of a speculative play [almost as severe as the run up in oil prices a year ago], with spot prices rising from $1300 per ton to $2100 per ton while stocks on hand have nearly doubled from 2.4 million tons to 4.5 million tons between January and August of this year AND global consumption has declined 7 percent. That h.. you can barely hear behind the noise of the cash registers? That's the gas starting to slowly leak out of the Chinese balloon. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Columbia University Business School: toxic ideology dump
As part of the fall-out from the financial crisis, business schools are now seen as training grounds for what FDR once called malefactors of great wealth–the more prestigious the business school, the worse the malefaction obviously. Columbia University’s Business School Dean, R. Glenn Hubbard, served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush and has been one of the nation’s more intransigent defenders of free market fundamentalism. While it is difficult to rank people such as Hubbard in terms of the harm done to American workers, he surely is a finalist in the competition for evil economists. Hubbard is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, one of the country’s foulest neoconservative think-tanks, and a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal editorial page where he defended Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, scuttling the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and most recently defended the health insurance industry against even the mildest reforms. Apparently not content to ravage American society, he has donned a safari cap and penetrated the Dark Continent in order to help the benighted natives achieve prosperity. For those who follow the activities of a-list economists, it should be well understood that “helping the Africans out of poverty” is a must for those aspiring to the Nobel Prize and other honors bestowed by bourgeois society. read full article: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/columbia-business-school-toxic-ideology-dump/ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Rosa Lichtenstein versus JB on dialectical contradictions
Please note that more of this discussion concerning Rosa L can be found at: http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectics-and-political-t118934/index.html On Sat, 3 Oct 2009 11:05:10 -0400 S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink.net writes: I should first say, I'm no philosopher. I've read Marx, Feuerbach, Hegel, Russell, Wittgenstein. Mostly Marx, then Hegel... Hegel brought me to tears, and not tears of joy. OK I'm no philosopher. Neither was Marx, although unlike Marx, I never studied the subject formally. My take on Rosa's debate is a little unusual, if not for others , certainly for me, being a partisan of dialectics-- at least I think I am-- or I think Earn your accounting degree online. Free info. Click Now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTEP2pJe80fvI4Sl4Yj0owvWADLbc0NXwFkPpfrUBJcU8ICFp1a8OM/ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Rosa Lichtenstein versus JB on dialectical contradictions
I don’t have much time to comment on this, but I just wanted to make a point. It’s understandable that after the asinine vulgarities of dialectical materialism, some people, like Rosa here, should feel aversion for anything dialectical. But for all intents and purposes, Rosa, the Wittgenstenian-Trotskyist-Marxist, who is pretty avid at the quote-mongering game as long as the quotes ‘sound’ to her as something she (?) would agree with, wants to resuscitate a debate which Marx had already put in ash-heap of history in his twenties. The question for Rosa is ‘what is dialectical contradiction?’, she is looking for a higher rationality than that of formal contradiction, of course, leaving the whole presupposed metaphysic of formal logic totally unquestioned. A good critique of this blindness can be found in the Hegelian philosopher Errol Harris, surely that has all the caveats of him being a defender of some liberalized version of Hegel, with a bag-full of Spinozism on the side, but still, a pretty clear reference (see his ‘Formal, Transcendental and Dialectical Thinking’) if Hegel’s obscure style throws you off…the cliff. The question is not whether dialectical logic is more ‘rational’ than formal logic, the essence of the matter is in that both are LOGICS, they are a manifestation of alienated consciousness, which as external (‘out-there’) modes of thinking fail miserably in grasping the internal, truly historical (history being a process), dynamic of the human species’ appropriation of Nature. In this sense, as Alfred Sohn-Rethel (whose work, ‘Intellectual and Manual Labor’, I highly recommend,) puts it, that “social being determines consciousness” is something that a Marxist, beyond any –isms, should understand in its full literal sense. Why? Because the real question is: ‘what is the dialectic for?’ And, as crass as this may sound in this format, the dialectic is a method (and there is a whole lot to say about this obviously, though if I can recommend one more thing, the book by Jindrich Zeleny, ‘The Logic of Marx’, despite its tasteless title and that it’s more of a summary, has some good pearls on the methodological issue, as regards the analytical and synthetical stages, etc.) to ascertain the objectivity of the real process of subsumption of labor under capital, and it is superior to the formalized scientific method, in that it goes beyond any appearance by not hypostasizing the external immediacy of sense-data (itself a result of the fetishism of the commodity form), by, that is, penetrating the object which one is trying to appropriate consciously until one attains the objective knowledge of this object so as to fully deploy the necessity of one’s action. It is a method then to provide Marxists a scientific critique of science, science being ‘the’ modality of production of relative surplus-value, that is, the production of a scientific consciousness, wherein lies the revolutionary subjectivity of the working class. I’m not a big fan of Adorno -the fact that I haven’t read him enough might have something to do with that- but this quote of his rings very true to me: ‘If the Hegelian synthesis did work out, it would only be the wrong one.’ _ Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222986/direct/01/ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Sexual Assault
For what its worth, a felony criminal conviction by itself proves up a civil case based on the same conduct. From: ffeld...@bellatlantic.net Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2009 05:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Sexual Assault To: t...@hotmail.com If the lawyer thinks you have a good case bring a civil suit against the asshole. In a civil suit there is a much higher chance the attacker will be exposed as a sexual predator and lose his bank account and all the rest of his stuff, instead of smirking as the criminal court judge says, case dismissed. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tcod%40hotmail.com _ Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Sexual Assault
On Sat, 3 Oct 2009 22:30:37 + Tom Cod t...@hotmail.com writes: For what its worth, a felony criminal conviction by itself proves up a civil case based on the same conduct. But I think Fred's point is that very often rape victims have a better chance prevailing against their attackers in civil suits than they would in the criminal courts, where very often it is the victim who gets put on trial. Also, the standards of proof required to prevail in a civil suit differ from those that hold in the criminal courts. To get a criminal conviction, the prosecution is supposed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, whereas in a civil suit, the standard of proof is by a preponderance of the evidence. To take a couple of examples involving homicides rather than rape- O.J. Simpson was not convicted of murder, but he was successfully sued for wrongful death by the Goldmans. In my own state, Massachusetts, we had a doctor who was widely suspected of having murdered his girlfriend, a fellow physician. He not only was never convicted of murder, he was never even charged. But eventually, the family of his murdered girlfriend, successfully sued him for wrongful death. He got into criminal troouble because during his civil trial he attempted pay an acquaintance of his to provide perjured evidence on his behalf. For that he was criminally convicted of perjury and is doing time for that. Jim F. From: ffeld...@bellatlantic.net Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2009 05:57:33 -0400 Subject: [Marxism] Sexual Assault To: t...@hotmail.com If the lawyer thinks you have a good case bring a civil suit against the asshole. In a civil suit there is a much higher chance the attacker will be exposed as a sexual predator and lose his bank account and all the rest of his stuff, instead of smirking as the criminal court judge says, case dismissed. Click here for free info on Graduate Degrees. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTKKsqLbWa9zDYxY4qmMZyrNL96xjAYIZTUfHfnrb0ZPnhqCveatTC/ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] crime
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:09:09 +0200 From: d.koech...@wanadoo.fr Subject: [Marxism] crime To: t...@hotmail.com Are you sure that was all that Mao was about? Didn't he and the CCP have some involvement in the epochal social revolution that occurred in China in the last century? Just seems like a right wing comic book version of history papered over with leftist rhetoric. Was Mao a tyrant? could be? but what kind of a tyrant was he, what social forces were behind him and what was his historical role in Chinese history? What was his relationship with the masses of workers and peasants who could care less about the petty personal intrigues among leadership cliques. Henry VIII was a tyrant and a pig who had two of his wives killed (evidence Mao did that?), but to just disparage him on that basis without alluding to or appreciating his broader role in English history in terms of say expulsion of the Catholic Church would reflect an impoverished view of history. Mao was an awful tyrant. In order to reach the top of the Chinese Communist Party, he , either, betrayed his friends to the Kuomintang, or had them confess and executed them on trumped-up charges . He had four wives, two of which he cynically caused to be killed in order to re-marry. Mao was truly a despicable example of a human being. Preoccupied only by himself and how he could out-wit the other members of the Politburo. _ Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222984/direct/01/ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] crime
On Sat, 3 Oct 2009 22:57:57 + Tom Cod t...@hotmail.com writes: Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 22:09:09 +0200 From: d.koech...@wanadoo.fr Subject: [Marxism] crime To: t...@hotmail.com Are you sure that was all that Mao was about? Didn't he and the CCP have some involvement in the epochal social revolution that occurred in China in the last century? Just seems like a right wing comic book version of history papered over with leftist rhetoric. Was Mao a tyrant? could be? but what kind of a tyrant was he, what social forces were behind him and what was his historical role in Chinese history? What was his relationship with the masses of workers and peasants who could care less about the petty personal intrigues among leadership cliques. Henry VIII was a tyrant and a pig who had two of his wives killed (evidence Mao did that?), but to just disparage him on that basis without alluding to or appreciating his broader role in English history in terms of say expulsion of the Catholic Church would reflect an impoverished view of history. The British historian E.H. Carr, in his book, What is History? very effectively critiqued the kind of moralistic approach to the evaluationof political leaders that Dan seemed to take in his post. Jim F. Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTFoYdEBNJUwanFa0hCjz1I0sFJycQDIoaPbJjl7icp6euEXgVFUoY/ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Victim's Words: Samantha Geimer
the idea is that there are broader issues involved with crime that go beyond an individual victim's wishes. Thus her view should be considered but is not necessarily dispositive. We see this in domestic violence cases a lot. Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:23:35 -0700 From: adambrichm...@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [Marxism] The Victim's Words: Samantha Geimer To: t...@hotmail.com I am stunned that someone on this list would defend the rape Have I defended a rape? I have given the right of the victim of the crime to speak. You apparently disagree with her conclusions to have her own say in the matter for the greater good of the bourgeois courts. The judge proved his inability to honor the plea agreement. And a million dollars, or what ever she negotiated, probably helped her more that his jailing. The question here is who decides. Does the court deserve a second chance, despite the victim's opinion. Adam YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/tcod%40hotmail.com _ Hotmail: Powerful Free email with security by Microsoft. http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222986/direct/01/ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Rosa Lichtenstein versus JB on dialectical contradictions
That is a very incisive post, Leonardo, and just about condenses and resolves the entire issue, IMO. - Original Message - From: Leonardo Kosloff holmof...@hotmail.com To: David Schanoes sartes...@earthlink.net Sent: Saturday, October 03, 2009 5:12 PM Subject: [Marxism] Rosa Lichtenstein versus JB on dialectical contradictions I don’t have much time to comment on this, but I just wanted to make a point. It’s understandable that after the asinine vulgarities of dialectical materialism, some people, like Rosa here, should feel aversion for anything dialectical. But for all intents and purposes, Rosa, the Wittgenstenian-Trotskyist-Marxist, who is pretty avid at the quote-mongering game as long as the quotes ‘sound’ to her as something she (?) would agree with, wants to resuscitate a debate which Marx had already put in ash-heap of history in his twenties. The question for Rosa is ‘what is dialectical contradiction?’, she is looking for a higher rationality than that of formal contradiction, of course, leaving the whole presupposed metaphysic of formal logic totally unquestioned. A good critique of this blindness can be found in the Hegelian philosopher Errol Harris, surely that has all the caveats of him being a defender of some liberalized version of Hegel, with a bag-full of Spinozism on the side, but still, a pretty clear reference (see his ‘Formal, Transcendental and Dialectical Thinking’) if Hegel’s obscure style throws you off…the cliff. The question is not whether dialectical logic is more ‘rational’ than formal logic, the essence of the matter is in that both are LOGICS, they are a manifestation of alienated consciousness, which as external (‘out-there’) modes of thinking fail miserably in grasping the internal, truly historical (history being a process), dynamic of the human species’ appropriation of Nature. In this sense, as Alfred Sohn-Rethel (whose work, ‘Intellectual and Manual Labor’, I highly recommend,) puts it, that “social being determines consciousness” is something that a Marxist, beyond any –isms, should understand in its full literal sense. Why? Because the real question is: ‘what is the dialectic for?’ And, as crass as this may sound in this format, the dialectic is a method (and there is a whole lot to say about this obviously, though if I can recommend one more thing, the book by Jindrich Zeleny, ‘The Logic of Marx’, despite its tasteless title and that it’s more of a summary, has some good pearls on the methodological issue, as regards the analytical and synthetical stages, etc.) to ascertain the objectivity of the real process of subsumption of labor under capital, and it is superior to the formalized scientific method, in that it goes beyond any appearance by not hypostasizing the external immediacy of sense-data (itself a result of the fetishism of the commodity form), by, that is, penetrating the object which one is trying to appropriate consciously until one attains the objective knowledge of this object so as to fully deploy the necessity of one’s action. It is a method then to provide Marxists a scientific critique of science, science being ‘the’ modality of production of relative surplus-value, that is, the production of a scientific consciousness, wherein lies the revolutionary subjectivity of the working class. I’m not a big fan of Adorno -the fact that I haven’t read him enough might have something to do with that- but this quote of his rings very true to me: ‘If the Hegelian synthesis did work out, it would only be the wrong one.’ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Richard Greener letter to Alexander Cockburn
This appeared on the latest Counterpunch. Greener is a very old friend of mine from Bard College, a heart transplant recipient, and successful novelist who blogs at http://papadablogger.blogspot.com/. From: Richard Greener Subject: Obama's Ghost Ayers... (This was prompted by an item in last week’s Diary noting a claim made in Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage by Christopher Andersen, that in preparing Dreams from My Father Obama had made taped interviews with relatives about his family history, and, according to Andersen, those oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers.) As an author and novelist (The Knowland Retribution, The Lacey Confession), I know the process for deducting a writer's expenses when figuring taxable income rather than simply paying tax on gross advances and royalties. Obama's tax returns have been made public and they show no deduction for a ghostwriter and no future royalty payments to one either. Since Obama has now reported more than $8 million in book earnings, one would have to believe he has either paid his accused ghost - Ayers - nothing whatsoever, or that he has paid taxes on 100% of his earnings when he had a perfectly legal deduction for whatever he paid to a ghostwriter. As a point of comparison, look to John McCain who deducts 50% of his book earnings — the money he paid to Mark Salter - and Hillary Clinton who also reports deductions of more $2.5 million for her ghostwriter. It's more than just silly to say William Ayers wrote Obama's books. It's absurd. In addition to the financial evidence, I can tell you for certain that if Ayers was that good — he'd be cashing in to the tune of millions writing similar books for others. I'm sure my agent would love to have such a successful ghost on her client list. If the Birthers are idiots and morons... the Bookers are so stupid maybe they neglected to deduct things as simple as mortgage interest on their own IRS tax returns. Richard Greener Roswell, GA YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] question for discussion
We have to remember that the funders have increasingly insisted that standards in higher education mirror more closely those in the private sector, ie., the corporate world. For this reason, if no other, the answer to whether an administrator having been disbarred as a lawyer matters is almost surely the same as to the following related questions Does it matter if they lie to the search committee about their credentials? Does it matter if they claim on their c.v. to have written something that's actually available, in print and under someone else's name? Does it matter whether a certain portion of the funds they administer disappears as it passes through their fingers? Does it matter whether they regularly make decisions over people immensely more qualified than they are? Does it matter if they were essentially fired from their last job--but their former employer is giving them a good recommendation because they want to be rid of them without getting sued? Does it matter if they are the subject of a Federal investigation over civil rights violations? Over dummying statistics? Over the handling of public funds that has resulted in Federal criminal investigations? ML YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Polanski
That it is a class issue does warrant some Marxist attention, but beyond that, yes, let's move on. That Polanski should be tossed in the slammer as a sterling example to all and sundry _precisely_ because he is a member of the ruling liberal intelligentsia is the relevant principle in play here. -Matt I've been reading this list on and off for a while now and have to say that I can't believe the amount of bandwidth that has been wasted discussing Roman Polanski. Why aren't you all discussing McKenzie Phillip's incestuous relationship with her father, too? I personally could care less what happens to Polanski since the question of innocence or guilt has already been answered by Polanski himself. His credentials do not excuse him from prosecution, nor should he be dealt with differently in terms of sentencing because of his Hollywood profile. My point is, what the hell does this have to do with Marxism beyond a passing interest? It certainly doesn't deserve the three-five days of debate among supposed Marxists that has already occurred on this list. -ron jacobs YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] The Victim's Words: Samantha Geimer
Much of this discussion...if you can call it that.. has focused on the specific individuals in the case. The difference here is that the victim is discussing the case decades after the incident. She puts into a perspective no one else can. The domestic violence victims often are economically and emotionally tied to their tormentors. Geimer has distance. She also points out the other oppression: the exploitative media. YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] 15.1 Million unemployed in US!!,
You raise a good question. The problem is twofold: 1) the U.S. Left is largely petit-bourgeois and divorced from the working class (and its rising unemployment) and therefore gravitates to the Democratic Party as its natural political home, because 2) there is no independent - or even D.P.-dependent - mass working class movement in response to the economic crisis as of yet, and therefore no alternative force for middle class leftists to gravitate towards. The two conditions dialectically reinforce one another. Glum comparisons with conditions in the 1930's are in order, but don't overlook a positive flip-side of the absence of a substantial working class-oriented Left: the absence also of an organization such as the C.P. that was positioned to steer the working class movement back into the D.P., as well as the absence of the shining example of a bold bourgeois reformer to steer them towards: just compare the courageous FDR to the pathetically weak Obama. BTW, this latter difference is _not_ the product of an FDR urgently moving to head off the threat of an independent working class movement, whereas Obama does not face such an urgency; rather, it reflects the profound change in the resources (and subsequently historical character) of the U.S. ruling class that granted FDR tremendous room for maneuver - the U.S. ruling class had a lot of reserves as the stalinist line went in the old days. Indeed the U.S. bourgeoisie was the _only_ major ruling class capable of what we'd call progressive reform in what was otherwise a deeply reactionary decade everywhere else, including in Stalin's Soviet Union. OTOH Obama is incapable of enacting even reforms that would clearly benefit large sectors of the U.S. bourgeoisie such as lowering health care costs, for current example, a reform that would advance the competitive position of U.S. capital in the world market. FDR smashed the J.P. Morgan interest; Obama further strengthens Goldman Sachs and indeed the whole finance cartel. This is not because Obama does not face the threat of an independent working class movement, but because the finance cartel is absolutely essential to the maintenance of the outsized U.S. military apparatus and therefore the global geopolitical position of the U.S. The U.S. relies on this, rather than a mighty industrial base as it did in FDR's time. So do not expect a move towards reform even in the face of the emergence of the working class threat. Instead, expect just the opposite: intensified reaction. -Matt YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Chinastudygroup relaunch
China Study Group is pleased to announce the launch of its redesigned site: chinastudygroup.net http://chinastudygroup.net/ China Study Group is a global group of scholars and activists concerned with carrying on the critical tradition of China-focused analysis best exemplified by William Hinton. The site has been completely redesigned, and a raft of new bloggers have joined our ranks. China Study Group provides alternative perspectives on China — both its revolutionary past and today’s China in the context of globalization. Highlights of the new site: * reviews of Li Minqi's The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy and William Hinton's Through a Glass Darkly: U.S. Views of the Chinese Revolution * overview of recent workers' struggles in China * translations of important works by the Chinese left * daily China-related news updates * new bibliographies on China-related topics * much, much more! chinastudygroup.net http://chinastudygroup.net/ contact: chinastudygr...@gmail.com mailto:chinastudygr...@gmail.com YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism-Thaxis] Edgar Zilsel
Of the members of the Vienna Circle with Marxist leanings, Otto Neurath was the best known figure. Another member of the Circle with Marxist leanings was the historian and philosopher of science, Edgar Zilsel, who is probably best remembered today for what is known as the Zilsel Thesis, which attributes the rise of modern science in the 17th century to the rise of capitalism which created an environment in which two social groups that previously had little interaction - academically trained scholars, who were mainly from the upper classes, and skilled craftsmen, who were mainly from the lower orders. The former group were trained in rational analysis but had few practical skills while the latter generally had little formal education, but did possess practical skills and had a tradition of experimentation. The developing interactions between these two groups in the 17th century, in Zilsel's view led to the rise of modern experimental science, See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Zilsel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zilsel_Thesis www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research//projects/DeptIII_Wulz_Zilsel http://tinyurl.com/ydnrp7g Free Vinyl Siding Bids Find top-rated vinyl siding pros. Free estimates no obligation! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/c?cp=EhXX7HZTqRLMmJWKhs1EUAAAJ1AP8ttsZd_TbiVxkZxsC3mBAAQFACcxSD4AAANSABIXZQA= ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
