[Marxism] The MEGA Finally Online!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == So, it looks like steps have finally been taken to digitalize the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe! The first few available texts online are, appropriately enough, from Abteilung II, Das Kapital und Vorarbeiten (Capital and preliminary works). Strangely, Vol. I is not available yet, but the texts that are available are: the Grundrisse, The Results of the Immediate Process of Production (no stranger to English-language readers of the Penguin edition, but in Germany it has never been part of the MEW Vol. 23 offered by Dietz Verlag, and only finally was issued in a separate book a couple of years ago), three versions of Vol. II (manuscripts, edited manuscripts, and Engels' published version), and Part 1 of the economic manuscripts of 1863-1867. 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 MEGA Finally Online!
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sorry, so excited I forgot the link: http://telota.bbaw.de/mega/ --- On Sat, 1/22/11, Angelus Novus fuerdenkommunis...@yahoo.com wrote: From: Angelus Novus fuerdenkommunis...@yahoo.com Subject: The MEGA Finally Online! To: marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Cc: lbo-t...@lbo-talk.org, pe...@lists.csuchico.edu Date: Saturday, January 22, 2011, 4:15 PM So, it looks like steps have finally been taken to digitalize the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe! The first few available texts online are, appropriately enough, from Abteilung II, Das Kapital und Vorarbeiten (Capital and preliminary works). Strangely, Vol. I is not available yet, but the texts that are available are: the Grundrisse, The Results of the Immediate Process of Production (no stranger to English-language readers of the Penguin edition, but in Germany it has never been part of the MEW Vol. 23 offered by Dietz Verlag, and only finally was issued in a separate book a couple of years ago), three versions of Vol. II (manuscripts, edited manuscripts, and Engels' published version), and Part 1 of the economic manuscripts of 1863-1867. 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 Logic of Anti-Muslim Racism
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Richard wrote: It's hard to see a racist depiction of Muslims today that doesn't at least bear some similarities to certain aspects of antisemitic caricature. Anti-Semitism works with the characterization of Jews being cosmopolitan, rootless, manipulative, super-intelligent, not belonging to any culture, and personifying all negative characteristics of capitalism. Anti-Muslim Racism is more of a classical racism, in that, at least here in Germany, you don't see characterizations of Muslims as a super smart devious race controlling financial markets, but rather as inferior, shiftless, baby-producing demographic danger that threatens to undermine our superior culture. They aren't painted as rootless cosmopolitans. They have a culture, but it is distinctly not ours. The article rightly says that the role of Islamist political movements have to be taken seriously. But how can they be incorporated without understanding the context that produced them? Fair enough, though keep in mind that this is Germany, and the GSK intervention is meant more to attack the culturalization of political discourse in this country than offer a comprehensive history of Islam. It's difficult to convey how poisonous the political atmosphere here has become. The prominence and public applause for Thilo Sarrazin, combined with a quiescent trade union bureaucracy that subscribes to the neo-mercantile export strategy of the last few governments 100%, and finally an all-out communist witchhunt against DIE LINKE unleashed in the last week. Things are nasty. 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] Rammstein: heartbeat on the left?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I guess Rammstein are left in a mainstream, civil society sense of the term. I mean, in a nation where the former co-chair of the Left party can hold a speech attacking companies for hiring foreign workers, I think the bar is set pretty low for being left. During the third Gulf War, I remember Rammstein had a rather crudely anti-USA video for their song America. No word from them concerning the German-led destruction of Yugoslavia or Bundeswehr atrocities in Afghanistan, but plenty of ressentiments directed against fat burger-eating Americans and their idiot President. I'm sure their hearts are in the right place, but that sort of personalized, culturalist viewpoint is a result of failing to engage the critique of political economy. The left in the core industrialized countries today needs a basic Zimmerwaldist perspective, of consistent anti-nationalism directed at one's own rulers. So in that sense I suppose Rammstein fail the test of being left. 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] Haaretz - Shooter of Jewish Congresswoman listed 'Mein Kampf' as favorite book
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Shooter of Jewish Congresswoman listed 'Mein Kampf' as favorite book On his YouTube and MySpace pages, the Jared Lee Loughner posted masses of anti-government ramblings on his MySpace page and on a YouTube account Classitup10 that was linked to him. Jared Lee Loughner, the key suspect in the shooting attack that critically wounded Arizona Jewish Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday, listed Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto as two of his favorite books. On his YouTube and MySpace pages, the 22-year-old posted masses of anti-government ramblings on his MySpace page and on a YouYube account Classitup10 that was linked to him. The MySpace page, which was removed within minutes of the gunman being identified by U.S. officials, included a mysterious Goodbye friends message published hours before the shooting and exhorted to his friends: Please don't be mad at me. The YouTube account is still operational. His exact motivation was not immediately clear. Federal law enforcement officials were poring over captured versions of the MySpace page and over uploaded Youtube videos. Loughner, a Tucson resident, is currently being held in custody. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik described him as unstable but not insane. The sheriff told a news conference that the suspect was tackled to the ground after the shooting that left six people dead and 13 wounded. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/shooter-of-jewish-congresswoman-listed-mein-kampf-as-favorite-book-1.336025 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 end of the imperialist epoch
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: Wolf is a plagiarist. clip full: http://wsarch.ucr.edu/archive/papers/gunder/prefreor.htm Andre Gunder Frank at least has the consistency to abandon the very concept of capitalism, which I think is the only consistent position for opponents of the Brenner thesis to hold. 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] Party and Class in Revolutionary Crises
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It's nice to see the relatively obscure Paul Levi mentioned favorably in an English-language publication like this. It seems to me that there is a lot of lessons to be learned, especially concerning the course today for a structure like DIE LINKE. And it's maybe also useful considering the constant theme of Lenin vs. Zionevite Leninism on this list. Anyway, here's the link: http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/3119 Party and Class in Revolutionary Crises — Charlie Post The German Revolution, 1917-1923 By Pierre Broue Chicago: Haymarket Press, 2006, xvii +991, $50 paper. Lenin Rediscovered: What is to Be Done? in Context By Lars H. Lih Chicago: Haymarket Press, 2008, xvii + 867 pages, $50 paper. 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] First German Edition of Chapter 1 of Capital
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A while back, I received an email from someone asking whether an English translation of the First German Edition of Chapter 1 of Capital was available anywhere. It appears the hard working comrades at the Marxists Internet Archive have added it to the online version of Volume I: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm In form III (which is the reciprocal second form, and is therefore contained in it), the linen appears on the other hand as the general form of the Equivalent for all other commodities. It is as if alongside and external to lions, tigers, rabbits, and all other actual animals, which form when grouped together the various kinds, species, subspecies, families etc. of the animal kingdom, there existed also in addition the animal, the individual incarnation of the entire animal kingdom. Such a particular which contains within itself all really present species of the same entity is a universal (like animal, god, etc.). Just as linen consequently became an individual Equivalent by the fact that one other commodity related itself to it as form of appearance of value, that is the way linen becomes – as the form of appearance of value common to all commodities – the universal Equivalent universal value-body, universal materialization of abstract human labour. The specific labour materialized in it now thereby counts as universal form of realization of human labour, as universal labour. [...] Obviously, the analysis of the commodity yields all essential determinations of the value-form and the value-form itself in its contradictory vectors, yields the universal relative value-form, the universal Equivalent-form, and finally the never-ending sequence of simple relative value-expressions – which sequence forms at first a transitional phase in the development of the value-form, in order finally to suddenly shift into the specifically relative value-form of the universal Equivalent. But the analysis of the commodity yielded these forms as commodity-forms in general (which thus also apply to each and every commodity) in a contradictory manner, so that if commodity A finds itself to be in one of the contradictory form-determinations, then commodities B, C, etc. adopt the other in opposition to it. What was decisively important, however, was to discover the inner, necessary connection between value-form, value-substance, and value-amount; i.e., expressed conceptually, to prove that the value form arises out of the value-concept. 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] Globalizing Homophobia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == After September 11th, 2001, one of the liberal justifications for the military intervention against Afghanistan was the oppression of women, but also of gays, by the Taliban. People in Europe and the USA received with shock the news that same-sex couples were publicly executed in the Kabul Stadium by bringing down a wall upon them that was constructed solely for this purpose. Others, however, pointed out that not only in the countries comprising the Axis of Evil, but also among a few allies of the USA, the persecution of homosexuals has been elevated to a raison d'état. Horror reports from Saudi Arabia and Egypt tell of draconian measures against men who are suspected of same-sex activities. [...] are we not obligated to concede the unmistakable superiority of the imperialist West in matters concerning individual rights and sexual tolerance? Is it not simply true that the USA and Europe are the guarantors of civil freedom worldwide? In the following, I want to provide a few arguments as to why this view, at least from a long-term perspective, is fundamentally problematic. For, historically, it was the West itself that inspired by its own example these heteronormative relations of violence. Full article: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/klauda081210.html 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] The Horrible Swiss
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == And further proof, if any is needed, that naive calls for more direct democracy cannot be a demand of any real left. Calls for direct democracy under capitalist conditions means just one thing: mob rule. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11857438?print=true Swiss voters have accepted a referendum proposal for the automatic expulsion of non-Swiss citizens for certain crimes, an exit poll suggests. 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] Urgent Help Needed
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I need access to the following article: Ray, Gene. Reading the Lisbon Earthquake: Adorno, Lyotard, and the Contemporary Sublime The Yale Journal of Criticism - Volume 17, Number 1, Spring 2004, pp. 1-18 Available here: http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/yale_journal_of_criticism/v017/17.1ray.html Can somebody with access to Project Muse help me out? 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] Good take-down of John Holloway's latest book
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sorry, wrong list, this was intended for Marxmail. --- On Sat, 11/13/10, Angelus Novus fuerdenkommunis...@yahoo.com wrote: From: Angelus Novus fuerdenkommunis...@yahoo.com Subject: Re: Good take-down of John Holloway's latest book To: lbo-t...@lbo-talk.org Date: Saturday, November 13, 2010, 4:47 AM The problem, though, is that the reviewer makes exactly the same mistake as Holloway: namely in assuming that a form-analytical, fetish-critical approach to Marxism necessitates any specific political orientation. As Carrol and I have stated repeatedly both here and on lbo-talk, this is simply not the case. There is no immediate relationship between a rigorous understanding of Marx's analysis of the fetishistic mediation of social life in capitalism and good politics. One can have the squishy, New Left green politics of Postone. One can have Holloway's inchoate brand of autonomism. One can have Zizek's Neo-Bolshevism. Or the self-congratulatory armchair wankery of the Platypussies. I mean, does not Lenin's main contribution consist in stating the truth that there is a gap between Marx's critique of political economy and a political practice aimed at overturning capitalist social relations? We definitely need lots of people reading _Capital_ and the _Grundrisse_, but they are not guides to action. The mistake of Holloway and cohorts is in assuming that they are. 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 Moishe Postone
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The following is somewhat off-topic, but I read a rather enlightening piece recently by Gerhard Hanloser http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Hanloser criticizing some central points of Postone's landmark essay Anti-semitism and National Socialism. I think I'm going to translate the Hanloser critique into English because I think it does a good job of criticizing some of Postone's theoretical shortcuts, i.e. attempting to derive anti-semitic ideology directly from the commodity form. Ironically, Hanloser does so with the assistance of Adorno and Horkheimer's Elements of Anti-Semitism from Dialectic of Enlightenment, which tends to be one of the other central Marxist texts for understanding anti-Semitism which is often mentioned along with Postone's. Back on topic: Postone's statement in this interview is frustrating, because as much value as I find in his critique of regressive anti-imperialism on the left, he seems to have the same pick-and-choose attitude towards national liberation movements as his anti-imperialist opponents. Hence for Postone the Vietnamese NLF and the Algerian FLN were good, but Hamas is bad. Postone balks at carrying over his critique of reactionary nationalism into a critique of the nation-form itself. Ironically, we have to turn to anti-imperialist Marxists like Immanuel Wallerstein and Etienne Balibar in order to find a sustained theoretical critique of the nation-form. Nonetheless, Postone's more serious Marxology demands engagement from anyone interested in Marx. His theoretical work has little immediate bearing on his disappointingly New Left politics. A perfect illustration of Carrol's point that good praxis does not derive from particular theoretical insights. Back off topic: After the Platypus people offered me the opportunity to respond to that god-awful ISF piece they published, I threw down the gauntlet and told them they should run my translation of Bernhard Schmid's history of the Anti-German movement (which appeared in a volume edited by the above-mentioned Hanloser). Schmid is a former member of the Gruppe K that founded the magazine Bahamas (today a wreteched anti-Muslim racist Neo-Con rag), but broke with them in the mid-1990s, later become a member of the French LCR, and is now in the NPA. He has written the definitive insider history of the movement. Publishing it would give the Platypussies an opportunity to prove that they did not publish the ISF text out of agreement. 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] Why Semiotext(e) Are Reactionary Douchebags
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect wrote: The publisher was on Marxmail long ago. Maybe still is, but I doubt it. I swear, Semiotext(e) is like a parody of credulous North American radical chic academics who will lap up anything coming from the continent. I mean, Deleuze and Agamben are surely an acquired taste, not something likely to interest more classical Marxists, but certainly clearly on the left, and recognized as such over here as well. But Sloterdijk?! In addition to being a hardcore neo-liberal right-winger, he's also just boring. Trendy queer studies/post-structuralist types over here pay no attention to him; he's as staid and middlebrow as public intellectuals come. It's bizarre to see Semiotext(e) publishing him. 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] Platypus Review publishes Racists
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The latest issue of the Platypus Review has an article by the fanatical anti-Muslim racists of the Initiative Sozialistisches Forum of Freiburg. This is an organization that publishes nasty little racist tracts making claims about the psychopathology of Muslim males allegedly breast fed until the age of 8 (For a refutation of this filth, see here (in German): http://abdelkader.blogsport.de/2010/08/07/wird-der-islamische-junge-8-jahre-gestillt/ ) ISF also publishes book with covers that could be caricatures straight out of Der Stürmer: http://www.ca-ira.net/img/maul-sex.djihad.despotie.jpg The truly shameful thing is that ISF's publishing house finances this racist filth by also publishing the work of council communists like Anton Pannekoek, Cajo Brendel, and Johannes Agnoli, none of whom are alive anymore to defend themselves from this sort of association. I imagine the Platypus Review people will justify this shameful association by trying to claim that they don't actually share these views and are just trying to provide food for thought, but that just means they don't have the courage of conviction to stand behind their own racist associations. Anyway, here's the article: http://platypus1917.org/2010/10/08/communism-and-israel/ 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] Lenin Said
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Just out of curiosity, did Lenin ever say who the better artist of 1960s Marvel comics was: Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko? I think Kirby is generally considered the consummate cartoonist of the superhero genre, but personally I think Ditko was the much more gifted visual storyteller. So if anybody can come up with a Lenin quote to settle this, that would be really helpful. Also, maybe we could get a Lenin quote to confirm the age old question concerning swing-era tenor saxophonists: Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins? Or maybe Lenin would upset all expectations and say Ben Webster. 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] Lenin Said
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Les wrote: never heard any Lester Young. what do you recommend? I think the canonical choice would be the three disc set of the Basie Orchestra's Decca Recordings: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Decca-1937-39-Count-Basie/dp/B03N3G/ref=sr_1_1?s=gatewayie=UTF8qid=1284913736sr=8-1 although if you want something more than just the Basie material, the budget-priced box set from Proper Records UK, which offers a nice spread of material from the Basie Orchestra, the Billie Holiday stuff, and some of the Aladdin sides: http://www.amazon.com/Lester-Young-Story-Mini-Sleeve/dp/B4S2AW/ref=sr_1_1?s=gatewayie=UTF8qid=1284913669sr=8-1 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] Lenin Said
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Alan Bradley: CLR James collected comics. CLR James was also an admirer of Dick Tracy and Gasoline Alley. Neither strip was politically progressive. Both are masterpieces of the comic strip medium. Nonetheless, you have to draw a line somewhere. IDW has been reissuing a complete edition of Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie, but I don't buy it because Harold Gray's anti-union and anti-New Deal politics were so poisonous. I can't separate art from artist in that case since the strip was just a vehicle for Gray's political views. 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 (was Re: Cuba si ! Yanquee no !)
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Nestor wrote: Now YOU excuse ME, dear Adam. I wouldn´t accept anyone SCOURING any PEOPLE in a semicolonial country clip NOT EVEN NORTH KOREA, CHINA, ETC. China is a semicolonial country? Are we talking about Earth-Prime China, or some alternate universe China? The China I know has recently supplanted Germany as world export champion and has the ability to do some major fucking with Uncle Sam by dumping its T-Bills. 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] The Whole Cuba Discussion
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Before this tedious back and forth goes on forever, I want to point out that Carrol Cox had the best post on Cuba over on the LBO-Talk list. I reproduce it here because it makes the necessary points succintly: Cuba was a liberated zone; it still has _some_ independence of international capital. Lenin knew that building socialism outside the core of capitalism was a pipe dream -- he also knew one had to try. There's no counter-revolution, there is merely an attempt to keep Cuba as decent as possible. Calling USSR, China, Cuba Socialist societies is sheer dogmatism. The next step is to 'criticize' them for not conforming to some abstract blueprint. Long Live the Cuban Revolution -- but don't pretend it was or ever could have been socialism. 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] Stalinism and Maoism, Trotskyism and Conservatism (was Re: Irwin S
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I certainly have no use for people who derive their political identity from Dead Russians of the 20th Century, whether they're named Joseph or Leon, so I have no stake in this fight. Nonetheless: Tom Cod: right, and how many revolutions have trotskyists led? zero. Um, wasn't Trotsky elected leader of the Petrograd Soviet as well as the founder of the Red Army? And if you're going to get technical about it and make a conceptual distinction between Trotsky and Trotskyists, then it should also be pointed out that according to that very same conceptual distinction, Maoists and Stalinists haven't led any revolutions either. 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] Michael Heinrich on Capitalism and the State
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Shane Mage: What does performance of entrepreneurial capital mean? Investing in improved means of production. The performance of industrial capital. My god, you sound like a management consultant, or a television commercial. Let your money work for you, huh? 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] evolutionary psychology and socialism?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I am fairly agnostic-to-critical about the whole question of evolutionary psychology. Much of its claims seem to me to be true in an utterly banal and uninteresting way. Others of its claims strike me as mere speculation that would be hard to find conclusive evidence for in any case. What I do agree with though is that there is an often knee-jerk reaction by leftists against evolutionary psychology because they assume it must *necessarily* have reactionary political implications. Basically, leftists are embracing the naturalistic fallacy, the notion that because something exists in nature, it is necessarily desirable or correct. It strikes me as odd that leftists would so willingly concede this point to the political right, especially since advocates of evolutionary psychology themselves reject it. If the majority of claims of evolutionary psychologists were to be irrefutably proven true tomorrow, that would have absolutely *no practical bearing* upon the correctness or incorrectness of left political positions, one way or the other. The incorrect perception that this would be the case is already too much of a concession to the political right who would seek to incorrectly instrumentalize the claims of evolutionary psychology for political ends. 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] Israel, South Africa and the single-state non-solution
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Nestor Gorojovsky: [First of all, and though this is already known on this list, I would like to point out that Germany may probably be the country where a consequent Marxist defense of the Arab cause against the crimes committed by the State of Israel requires the highest degree of moral courage (and Austria, maybe). The moral equivalent, on the enemy side, would be that of someone in Hanoi defending the right of US to invade and storm Viet Nam in order to save the world from Communism.] Either Nestor didn't think before drawing this analogy, or he really is saying that Germany's position vis-a-vis Israel is analogous to Vietnam's position vis-a-vis the United States. So the major capitalist power in Europe, which pushes around it's southern and eastern neighbors, is second only to China in terms of being a major export economy, and which is responsible more than any other state for the vicious destruction of Yugoslavisa, is in fact merely subservient to a crappy little client state of the U.S. in the Middle East? 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] Israel, South Africa and the single-state non-solution
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Nestor Gorojovsky: I mean that given the fact of the Holocaust and the permanent drumbeat in favor of Israel in post WWII Germany, the position of someone attacking Israel in Germany is as difficult This notion is fairly widespread among leftists outside Germany, and seems plausible for obvious reasons, but it's actually just not true. One of the current governing parties, the CDU, does indeed make ritual professions of the Federal Republic's special responsibility for Israel during official state ceremonies and things of that nature, but that's mainly for the credulous international press and other states. The other governing party, the right-wing liberal FDP, has flirted openly with pro-Palestinian positions in the past through the now-deceased Jürgen Möllenmann. Nowadays it only keeps such positions burning on a low flame, though as the party of large capital, it obviously has more of an interest in expanding the sphere of influence of German capital in the Middle East, and hence is more open to flirting with pro-Arab policies or mild hints at anti-war positions with regard to Afghanistan, though obviously that's difficult given the current coalition partner. The mainstream bourgeois media, like Der Spiegel or the Süddeutsche Zeitung, are regularly full of reports of Isreali atrocities, and the Springer-owned Welt Online even regularly closes the comments feature for its articles on Israeli, because it nows the percentage of anti-Israel (and often enough anti-Semitic) comments will be quite high. What *is* true is that within the left in Germany, there is a fairly widespread anti-Israel sentiment, compared with the left in other countries. That sort of thing is the unfortunate consequence of a left that thinks the proper task of leftists is to get mixed up in the territorial claims of opposing national collectives. 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] Typographical error
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I wrote: What *is* true is that within the left in Germany, there is a fairly widespread anti-Israel sentiment That should read PRO and not anti, though of course the latter exists and well, and both are indeed the result of a compulsion to pick sides in nationalist conflicts. 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] Out of whack
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Leonardo Kosloff: I agree with Hans’ objections to Angelus Novus characterization of abstract labor. Of course, there isn’t much point in me commenting further since Novus is not in the list anymore. I am planning on giving Hans' post the reply it deserves tomorrow (and Charles over on lbo-talk). I have spent the weekend watching football and am too unconcentrated to respond now. I am glad that Hans and Charles take these issues seriously and don't write stuff like the following: Things like the Grundrisse, or any of Marx’s Talmudic concepts, as the ample evidence provided by the moderator has shown, are really only meant to distract workers and trade-unionists 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] Formulating a path to abolish the working class -isn't it already too late?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This will be for today my last post on the topic, since I am trying to stick to the five-post-per-day limit. So I will try to bundle a few responses here, and any other responses must wait until tomorrow. S. Artesian understands my point perfectly. And he also writes; not even I'm perfect when it comes to making all the connections between Marx's analysis and the concrete tasks ahead of us. And that is exactly why I thought Carrol's post was excellent. Because Carrol posits that there is a necessary disconnect between the critique of political economy, Marx's actual theory, on the one hand, and revolutionary praxis on the other hand. Marx's theory is not a theory of revolution, since there can be no theory of revolution. What Marx offers is a theory of the operation of capitalism, of the mediation forms of social life in bourgeois society. At best, the critique of political economy can explain why revolutions are so rare and difficult. It is not a user's manual for one. Louis Proyect: But Angelus is not interested in the transition period There can be no theory of the transition period, because whatever transition periods emerge will be the result of historical contingency under widely varying circumstances. In that sense, trying to take some historically-situated comments Marx made in the 19th century and apply them to the Post-Fordist era strikes me as a waste of time. Marx's political writings are _interventions_; they engage with the figures and events of his time. They are quite a different kettle of fish from his theoretical writings, which apply to capitalism as such. Lukewarm wrote: I want to read in YOUR words what YOU intend to do in order to abolish the working class But Marx speaks for me on this question. I can't say it any better than he does. No point in trying to improve upon Marx's prose, he says it better than anyone could. But really Lukewarm, you're just one of those sad old Icepick-head Trotskyites who never bothered to read Marx. Instead you probably got spoonfed George Novack popularizations of Engels' Dialectic of Nature or some other turgid crap. If so I can understand why you're resentful against people whose point of reference is _Capital_ or the _Grundrisse_ rather than the collected works of James Cannon. 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 Painful Birth of a German President
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == For the information of those on the list, Yoshie Furuhashi has actually been posting this and other regular bulletins by Victor Grossman at MRZine. They are always well written in Victor's witty and endearing style, and I think a very good source for people outside of Germany to get a good sense of German political reality. And for those who haven't read it, his memoir Crossing The River (University of Massachusetts Press) is a must read insider account of a participant in the noble but failed attempt to construct socialism in the German Democratic Republic. 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] Regarding the ISO and its (anti) Socialism 2010conferences
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Dan DiMaggio: What exactly is your vision for how a socialist movement will be built? I don't write recipes for the cookshops of the future. Should all active socialists just wrap things up and focus on re-publishing the great works of the past, rather than trying to implement them today I think you skipped over the part of my last post where I made a distinction between individuals and organizations. If no one actively tries to intervene and campaign for socialism today Campaigning for socialism is what I was advocating. Through engaging in communist critique, offering _Capital_ reading classes, maintaining a publishing apparatus of some kind. Doesn't taking positions on issues today help clarify fundamental issues relating to the method of Marxism? I think Adolph Reed's critique of the Obama phenomenon manages to clarify the issue just as much if not better than any micro-group taking positions, no? Yes, much better to just put forward criticisms from the sidelines, rather than try to take positions on real struggles Being engaged in struggles is not the same thing as formulating positions on them. 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] Regarding the ISO and its (anti) Socialism 2010conferences
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian: that ISO did not support Obama's election And all I said was that even if they had, it would make no difference to me, since any contribution they make to any future left in the United States will not consist of such windmill-tilting. no socialist organization, regardless of size, can break the continuum of oppression endorsing the presidential candidates of the Democratic Party. Any socialist organization big enough to make a difference wouldn't *have* to endorse presidential candidates of the Democratic Party. By the same token, any tiny socialist group that does make endorsements of the Democratic Party is engaging in sandbox politics, since the Democratic Party will get along just fine without the phantom endorsements of marginal groups. At a certain level of marginality, a socialist organization that leaves the realm of critique in order to take up positions is tilting at windmills. Note that I am talking about organizations qua organizations, and not about individual communists who might be engaged in concrete praxis. But even then, in social movements decisions tend to be made concerning concrete courses of action and the formulation of demands, not in taking positions. Positions are reserved for organizations with the weight to implement them. Otherwise, they are simply moral affirmations. 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] Communisation and Value-Form Theory
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == ehrbar, Chapters 1-3 of Capital Vol. 1 is not a historical account of the emergence of money. It is a logical derivation of money. The myth that these chapters are intended to act as a historical account of a mythical pre-monetary commodity production has been refuted by most Marx scholar. In fact, the notion of a non-monetary commodity exchange is precisely what Marx rakes Proudhon over the coals about! On this, see http://communism.blogsport.eu/2010/06/03/ingo-elbe-between-marx-marxism-and-marxisms-%E2%80%93-ways-of-reading-marx%E2%80%99s-theory-i-2-the-historicist-interpretation-of-the-form-genetic-method/ Also, more specifically on the myth of 'simple commodity production', see Chris Arthur's short piece here: http://marxmyths.org/chris-arthur/article2.htm 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] Is Imperialism a different mode of production?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Shane Mage: In asserting that the relationships are between *countries*, rather than among divergent and competing capitalist interests, aren't you begging the question, by asserting of the validity of the term imperialism as descriptive of geopolitical relations without reference to the categories of political economy defined and determined in Das Kapital? I think the problem is that Louis, like many Marxists, mixes up two different notions of 'imperialism', and thinks he is using the word in a coherent sense. The one sense is that used by Lenin, Bukharin, et al, which is a testable state of statements concerning actual developments in the world and the theory allegedly explaining these developments, with a claim to fealty to Marx's critique of political economy. The second sense is just a fancy way of expressing the fact that large and powerful nation states are in a position to exercise force and influence over smaller ones. Which is of course true, but also completely banal, and certainly does not constitute a 'theory of imperialism'. So it is often the case when someone is asked to justify and test their use of 'imperialism' in the first sense, they will simply point out some world even or development that conforms to the usage of imperialism in the second sense, as if it is entirely self-evident and that they are the same thing. I am convinced that Ellen Meiksins Wood's account of the 'empire of capital' is both a more coherent theory of global dynamics compatible with the critique of political economy, as well as a fairly accurate portrait of empirical reality. And as a bonus, moralists who derive a frisson of righteousness by deploying the term 'empire' can continue to do so. 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] Is Imperialism a different mode of production?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect: It is not too hard to figure out that he reflects confusion on the German left about the Middle East. This has absolutely *nothing* to do with the topic at hand. In fact, I don't even discuss the Middle East with leftists in English-speaking countries as a matter of principle, and haven't for years. So why try to cloud the issue of the coherency of the concept of imperialism by engaging in this sort of change of topic? (P.S. If it soothes your mind, I raked Kuentzel over the coals on my blog over the fact that he choose to be published by Telos. That still has nothing to do with the topic at hand, though). 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] Is Imperialism a different mode of production?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Louis Proyect quoted from: Karl Marx letter to Nikolai Danielson, 1881 To summarize: Britain exploits India, to the point of famine, revolt brewing as a result. All true. None of it in any way serves to support an argument for the coherency of Lenin's theory of imperialism. Again, using 'imperialism' to denote the fact that large nations exploit and coerce smaller ones is not the same thing as Lenins *theory* of imperialism, which entails a *lot* more, including a theory of monopoly capital, an instrumentalist theory of the state, the alleged melting together of industrial and finance capital, etc. It's impossible to discuss because Louis keeps switching back and forth between the two different meanings of the phrase 'imperialism', and regards the existence of the everyday meaning as an argument in favor of Lenin's theory. 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
