[Marxism] Why civilizations rise and fall
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I think it has to do with the origin (emergence or dialectical evolution) of surplus labor time, due to one, yet due the other Cf ...dwelling in tents: Gen. 25 esp. panel 5, Hebrew myth of origin of social surplus Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net 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] Fwd: Drug and War
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Read this post from a high school friend in my inbox right after greg's from presscore. Thanks Greg for that URL Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net Begin forwarded message: From: H D HESSE henrydhe...@q.com Date: January 9, 2011 9:42:45 AM CST Subject: Drug and War Much has been said and written about drug usage during the Vietnam War..it was indeed horrific..just thought I'd share my experience. My drug of choice was Jim Beam bourban..my roommate's choice was Budweiser. I used all his bourban chits and he used all my beer chits, so we were even. In our air conditioned hootch we had two recliners and a TV to go along with the mini kitchen and bunks. Our afternoon ritual was to meet at a certain intersection of the sidewalks and then proceed to the hootch where we would Talk to Jim and Bud..sometimes we ate, sometimes not. We'd always set the alarm clock before we started in case we'd fall asleep in the recliners and just sleep there all night. I had to work hard when I got back home to break THAT habit, believe me. I guess it started when we were in different quarters close to the hospital, and we heard the choppers coming into the landing area..you just knew some poor folks were hurting really bad or had already given all in the defense of Americathat went on all night every night. I was assigned to a Security Police Squadron..we provided infantry support for Cam Ranh Air Base..a squadron of nearly 800 men. We had a K-9 unit..really worked well over there. The K-9 handlers were known as the pot-heads..they all smoked pot (hopefully only off duty)..we didn't care that they smoked pot, because it wasn't addictive like some other drugs of choice over there. On Saturday mornings the First Sgt and I would walk thru the hootches, kinda like an inspection..the K-9 handlers were just coming off their graveyard shift and were winding down..the hootches reeked with pot smoke..they were usually pretty relaxed and happy..and generally we were offered a hit or two. Trouble was, some of the pot sellers started lacing the smokes with heroin. That became a big mess. Heroin was indeed a major problem..we had special wards in a hospital annex just for de-toxing heroin users before they were shipped back to the States for final detox and removal from the Air Force. Perhaps some of my most painful memories were walking thru the wards, loaded with young, handsome, strong...you name it...men..crying like babies from the pain and agony of withdrawal..not a sight I wanted to remember, but I do. Within our squadron we had some of the worst pushers..one guy had false walls built into his hootch where he stored stuff..the legs of his bunk were stuffed full of the terrible white powder..it was estimated he had street value of a million bucks stored in his room..that was 1971 and 1972. We caught wind of his operation and went after him...when he saw me he asked for amnesty since he was addicted to drugs..that was the poliicy then...all we could do, instead of prosecuting him, was take him to the detox center, detox him and send him home. I guess that's why I'm not crazy about foreign wars anymore..if we are fighting a war where it is kill or be killed, we are too busy to get involved with such stuff...oh, well...I'll never be in a position to make a difference again... Why did this horrible memory from so many years ago come to mind?? Well, some of you know that my wife Pat has quit smoking..cold turkey...a full week with no smokes after smoking heavily for 60 years..and she is going thru withdrawals, of course...seeing her moan and groan and almost scream was a grim reminder of the guys in the detox ward..so, I don't mean to preach, but if you or yours are still smoking...PLEASE take a good look at yourself and shake the terrible addiction..you WILL feel better..henry/dave/flipper 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] Fwd: Joint ventures go global on Chinese terms
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net Begin forwarded message: From: Marv Gandall marvg...@gmail.com Date: December 30, 2010 5:16:34 AM CST To: peggy dobbins pegdobb...@gmail.com Subject: [Marxism] Joint ventures go global on Chinese terms Reply-To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == China Squeezes Foreigners for Share of Global Riches By SHAI OSTER, NORIHIKO SHIROUZU And PAUL GLADER Wall Street Journal December 28 2010 BEIJING—Foreign companies have been teaming up with Chinese ones for years to gain access to the giant Chinese market. Now some of the world's biggest companies are taking a risky but potentially rewarding second step—folding pieces of their world-wide operations into partnerships with Chinese companies to do business around the globe. General Electric Co. is finalizing plans for a 50-50 joint venture with a Chinese military-jet maker to produce avionics, the electronic brains of aircraft. The deal with Aviation Industry Corp. of China would give GE access to a Chinese government project aimed at challenging Boeing Co. and Airbus in the civilian-aircraft market. General Motors Co. established a joint venture this year with SAIC Motor Corp., its longtime partner in China, to produce and sell their no-frills Wuling-brand microvans in India, and eventually in Southeast Asia and other emerging markets as well. The two deals show China Inc.'s growing international ambitions, as well as its increasing leverage over foreign partners. To make the GE deal happen, GE Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt made an extraordinary concession, agreeing to fold into the venture all of GE's existing world-wide business in nonmilitary avionics. GM, in its deal, contributed technology, its manufacturing facilities in India and use of its Chevrolet brand name in that market. Several forces are motivating China's foreign partners to strike global deals that would have been unthinkable a few years back. China's big government-backed companies now have enormous financial resources and growing political clout, making them attractive partners outside China. In addition, the Chinese market has become so important to the success of multinational companies that Beijing has the ability to drive harder bargains. But such deals also carry risk. Several earlier joint ventures inside China have soured over concerns that Chinese partners, after gaining access to Western technology and know-how, have gone on to become potent new rivals to their partners. Foreign partners are seeing they will have to sometimes sacrifice or share the benefits of the global market with the Chinese partner, says Raymond Tsang, a China-based partner at consultancy Bain Co. Some of the [multinational corporations] are complaining. But given the changing market conditions, if you don't do it, your competitors will. Big energy companies, too, have been pursuing international deals with Chinese companies. China has supplanted the U.S. as the world's biggest energy consumer, making access to its market vital for global companies. Foreign firms hope that teaming up with Chinese companies abroad will help on that front. Foreign companies supply technology and experience, and their Chinese partners provide geopolitical clout, low-cost labor, and easy access to credit that China's government-backed companies enjoy. State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. was one of the first foreign oil companies to sign a major contract in Iraq. BP PLC teamed up with it last year for a $15 billion investment to increase output at the giant Rumaila field. Over the summer, Royal Dutch Shell PLC joined with PetroChina Co., a publicly traded subsidiary of China National Petroleum, on a $3.15 billion acquisition of assets from Australian energy company Arrow Energy Ltd. China has been gaining clout in some resource-rich parts of the developing world where U.S. companies don't have strong footholds, partly by spending lavishly on infrastructure projects, and it can help broker deals in places like Venezuela and Myanmar, where it has good relations. In financial services, foreign banks long have coveted access to China's fast-growing securities business. China has allowed a number of companies into the market in recent years through joint ventures, with their stakes capped at about 33%. Chinese regulators also restrict which parts
[Marxism] Untitled
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == This was forwarded from the china study group. A very thoughtful set of sum ups and questions by a leading Chinese theorist. Translated into English 3 years ago, it has achieved the status of a classic for many and deserves a serious read by living marxists of whatever preferred tendency http://chinastudygroup.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Wen_2007_Deconstructing_Modernization.pdf Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net 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] Loading. Wen's piece in english
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sorry. I misclicked the Chinese version. Here's the english http://chinastudygroup.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Wen_2007_Deconstructing_Modernization.pd Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net 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] I'm 72 and my liver is easy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Gary wrote But this Obama disgusts me at a very deep level. It is because he is a traitor that I especially dislike him. Thanks Gary,for the comradely reply. I often feel girled down on this list. I am not disgusted and don't feel betrayed because I didn't expect more than an opportunist whose rhetoric and skin color uplifted the general culture and my spirit so much more than the Clintons. I live in the time and place I do. In 1980, soon after Birmingham elected it's first black mayor, Flo Kennedy was in town and I invited some influential Women, to lunch with her. The black women were arguing vigorously, denigrating Arrington, for not having stood up to, stood down and fired the police chief he'd inherited. Flo said, if he were any better, you wouldn't have him. (Btw, he did later after-- but not perceptively causal -- I spent a night in jail arrested without charges on the way to perform a striptease in a Reagan mask over Charlie chaplin's hitler) I'd like to believe the barricades are going up and a critical mass with the decisive weapons is agglomerating (appropriate Verb I hope for post conveyor belt analogy) to make a decisive institutionalizing leap in the socialization of our species. IMHO, if any formulae emerges that unites those united in defense and appreciation of Assange around reducing the standard hours of labor required for the workers of the world to reproduce their labor power, I'll be satisfied in the words of MLK (whom we also wouldn't have had if he'd been any better and I certainly did my share of denigrating him when Bob Moses was a viable alternative mass leader)'s favorite song that 'my livin has not been in vain'. We will not be further along than as Jehu noted, the 30s which gave us FDR's WPA instead, but then we hadn't had Tim Berners-Lee who opted to Institutionalize the WWW rather than patent it. Maybe seen at a grander scale, WPA was one step backward that makes possible 2 toward freedom understood as paid time off secure full employment. But what is possible doesn't happen if the people fail to Make it So And what socialism in my lifetime looks like to me is not shared I suspect by those whom I'd categorize as romantic surf ace rs. I do consider access to this list a privilege for which I am grateful to workers who have read some of the same dead workers I have Peggy Powell Dobbins . Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net On Dec 7, 2010, at 8:25 PM, Gary MacLennan gary.maclenn...@gmail.com wrote: But this Obama disgusts me at a very deep level. It is because he is a traitor that I especially dislike him. That, I suppose 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] What to do about Obama's sellout
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I hope you sent this to the list. I thought your analyses reminded me of the days I distributed the People's Tribune and i credit their center with the best theoretical ed group study ive enjoyed I taught from the big blue intro at u of ala til Reagan. I don't spend as much time as I used to a cp comrade once said, organizing among workers who belong to unions to take the most progressive step the people can take at the time. Actually the comrade who said that Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net On Dec 8, 2010, at 2:36 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What progressives need to do about Obama's sellout What you think is a progressive program for change was only an attempt to head off real change during the Great Depression. After the stunning insult by the Messiah, no doubt progressives are feeling a bit bewildered and frustrated. There is an easy answer for this: Admit you are wrong and get it right this time. You are still immersed in the make-believe world of the 1930s, but life has moved on. The GOP and the Democratic Party mainstream are kicking your butt because they have dumped all their baggage from that period. Reply Obama is not the Messiah and those voting for him did not understand him as such. Really. Obama's sell out means he campaigned on a program of relief to the American people and to use government as a solution to economic crisis. The voting section of the American people voted for Obama because they believed he was a better choice than McCain and relief was possible and it is. The system cannot be fixed, but if the working class understood such we would not have to have this conversation. In fact the workers would already be class conscious and we would be in the first stage of economic/political communism. The question posed is the art of the agitation and where you choose to engage people in your various contact points. For propaganda and agitation I use a communist press, communist pamphlets and books in my daily life activity, rather than confine myself or make on line chat - (important for ones individual growth), my main political contribution. I suggest using the Peoples Tribune and Rally Comrades, but you might like other communist newspapers. I use these because they are not sectarian. II. Organize real people is the answer to confront Obama's sellouts. One must met people as individuals at their current level of understanding. Join a group fighting for a single payer health care system or working within the electoral arena pushing government to make specific concessions to the working class masses. Screaming about the ills of capital and how all minion of the ruling class work for the system will get you no where in a union meeting, health care forum or demonstration against the local energy provider. Teaching people how to fight and understand what they are fighting for is the art of agitation. Endless pontification about the Democrats being the party of slaveholder is not agitation or even communist propaganda when it is devoid of sharing the experience of striving and fighting together. Get popular communist literature into their hands, even if it means writing it yourself. I do not confuse agitation, which means engagement and sharing the experience of striving and fighting together for something as group activity pressuring government or an employer, with propaganda. Both intermingle but are not the same. Propaganda is the role of the communist communist literature and study circles. III. I agree, the epoch - (and I do not know what is hard to understand in the word epoch) of industrialism, industrial organization of labor, industrial time frames, industrial models of social life and industrial everything, as it arose out of manufacture and heavy manufacturing as a system, and took shape; specifically the electro-mechanical process as foundation and cutting edge of the technology regime, is long gone and has given way to a post industrial revolution. Society is undergoing an evolutionary leap from one mode of production to another based on a post industrial revolution in the means of production. What inaugurates the leap is revolution in the means of production rather than political revolution as the so-called socialist project. Politics cannot produce a new mode of production, which by definition
Re: [Marxism] A letter from a spurned lover
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == It had not occurred to me that president Obama might recognize he should not run for reelection and take himself out to assure election of someone further to the left. But that would be decent and shrewd, and in my opinion he is both.I will oppose this groundswell from the left that further weakens him until I'm convinced it is not a play in behalf of someone further right, Secretary Clinton or former President Clinton, or a trap quite worthy of Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich etal that smart people,too pure for the collective good of the human species, are falling into. Have people here read left wing communism, an infantile disorder? or the update of it by the Chairman of the CP in west Germany before the end of east Germany, named something like Steinbenner? 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] Spurned liver
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The spurned 'liver' above was a splendid typo for 'lover'. Do you really mean this? Louis wrote: We are trying to create a radical alternative to both the Democrats and the Republicans without worrying whether Palin will be elected because of our actions. Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net 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] A comment by Diana Johnstone on A Serbian film, Croats and Muslims, and the left
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Someone once pointed out to me, I think in re Eritrian national liberation'from Ethiopia, that Lenin advocated alliances with the national liberationistshe did as a revolutionary tactic, not as a strategy for realizing socialism. Since then, whenever presented with a case to sympathize with politics that undermine support of friends who consider themselves liberal-progressive-left-democratic-and/or-pro-socialist for a government I know a) has a socialist constitution and b) the NYT has printed stories I suspect of a beginning campaign to demonize it for on the ground it oppresses a national or ethnic or religious group especially if it seems to make a moral case for secession, I have a stock answer: what would Lincoln do? Of course there may be fellow listers whose extensive research suggests supporting lincoln back then was supporting a running dog bourgie tool. But on the other hand there's the direct oral history recounted by so many Umited Daughters of the Confederacy(to this day I have to say) of black and white union trash raping our white ancestresses. At least my friend who thought I had some nerve suggesting feminist lawyers at Center for Constitutional Law were being used to foment left sympathies for recarving up Yugoslavia got rape as a war crime on the world agenda Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net On Dec 2, 2010, at 10:58 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: those platitudes as regards self determination were at the heart of the best of what I learned in the movement way back when and the authors thereof, like George Breitman, would certainly have had confidence in explaining and defending their views and not just brushed this important issue off. I 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] Note to the left. Who hates you?
The Z guy writes as if he was a real participant in the movement in 1968. I don't remember him, but I do remember how effective agent lefter-than-thou provocateurs sabotaged us, feeding our resentment when leaders ignored our advice, took us for granted, and made mistakes, fomenting paranoia and dissension, splintering, bitterness and remember burn out?. By 1973 people with grants from the Ford Foundation et al who sort of looked and sort of sounded like we had, had usurped our popular influence and begun to effectively marginalize anyone serious about grounding the movement in Marxist theory, who had btw, been pretty dang effective at drawing the center toward the left. Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Note to the left. Who hates you?
Meant more merely innuendo Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net On Nov 29, 2010, at 3:16 PM, Doug Henwood dhenw...@panix.com wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 3:14 PM, Peggy Dobbins wrote: The Z guy writes as if he was a real participant in the movement in 1968. I don't remember him Wow, that's a conclusive argument! Doug ___ 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 ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marx on the proletariat as ruling class
Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net I don't really try to contribute to speculation about how the state withers into communist society with the disappearance of class antagonisms. I would never conflate the state with the people. I guess you are referring to the cpussr's line late in their bloom, not implying I confuse them. You will enjoy Mr I-phone's program: i had to back tap because it changed to voided when I tapped cpussr, and now for cpussr gives no replacement found in a, yes, pink balloon. I had more to say in reply to waistline, but art divinely intervenes: hold, enough as wasn't it someone's ghost who said? P Nov 27, 2010, at 1:07 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can only be answered scientifically, and one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the problem by a thousand-fold combination of the word 'people' with the word 'state'. ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Did Vladimir Lenin Predict The Banking Disaster Of 2008?
So am I to hope my children are less bamboozled by SW than we by SV? My son tells me Netflix is useful to him and has higher earnings(that's SV, right?) than USS financial products detached from value production. Valueless production of symbolic wealth. That is the changed quality in the new world of finance capital. WL. ___ 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 ___ 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
[Marxism] The Irish bailout and the necessity for the United Socialist States of Europe
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == They got my attention The progressive unification of Europe is possible only in the form of the United Socialist States of Europe. The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) is the only political organization worldwide which advances such a perspective. We call on working and young people to read and support the World Socialist Web Site, study the policies and programs of the sections of the ICFI, and join and build the world party of socialist revolution. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/pers-n24.shtml Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net 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] A new spectre haunts the WSJ
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I was just trying to contrast the attention to HIgh Speed Rail, which at best creates a few jobs for people who draw the pictures, write the reports, prepare the power points for bosses who are paid more but also have bosses who are paid more but also have bosses and on up the ladder of exploitation (til it starts descending again as endangered bankruptible securities in the pension funds of ordinary folks) vis a vis the lack of attention to where mass transit is really needed NOW and desperately by people who do depend on it. I really really think, in fact I KNOW, if the time and energy spent debating high tech new mass transit, went into supporting transit rider unions and transit driver unions, starting them where they don't exist, helping them get the data to make the cost case, and to agitate, agitate, agitate more Americans in bad shape would be in better shape sooner On Nov 21, 2010, at 11:54 AM, S. Artesian sartes...@earthlink. I thought that what Peggy was talking about was China recovery plan and HDR 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] What would a socialist do?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The question Tim Berners-Lee must have asked himself and therefore WWW came to be. The story back in the day was that when told he could make a jillion dollars off it, he replied, it won't work if you try to do it for profit. P By Tim Berners-Lee November 22, 2010 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web The world wide web went live, on my physical desktop in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 1990. It consisted of one Web site and one browser, which happened to be on the same computer. The simple setup demonstrated a profound concept: that any person could share information with anyone else, anywhere. In this spirit, the Web spread quickly from the grassroots up. Today, at its 20th anniversary, the Web is thoroughly integrated into our daily lives. We take it for granted, expecting it to be there at any instant, like electricity. The Web evolved into a powerful, ubiquitous tool because it was built on egalitarian principles and because thousands of individuals, universities and companies have worked, both independently and together as part of the World Wide Web Consortium, to expand its capabilities based on those principles. The Web as we know it, however, is being threatened in different ways. Some of its most successful inhabitants have begun to chip away at its principles. Large social-networking sites are walling off information posted by their users from the rest of the Web. Wireless Internet providers are being tempted to slow traffic to sites with which they have not made deals. Governments-totalitarian and democratic alike-are monitoring people's online habits, endangering important human rights. If we, the Web's users, allow these and other trends to proceed unchecked, the Web could be broken into fragmented islands. We could lose the freedom to connect with whichever Web sites we want. The ill effects could extend to smartphones and pads, which are also portals to the extensive information that the Web provides. Why should you care? Because the Web is yours. It is a public resource on which you, your business, your community and your government depend. The Web is also vital to democracy, a communications channel that makes possible a continuous worldwide conversation. The Web is now more critical to free speech than any other medium. It brings principles established in the U.S. Constitution, the British Magna Carta and other important documents into the network age: freedom from being snooped on, filtered, censored and disconnected. Yet people seem to think the Web is some sort of piece of nature, and if it starts to wither, well, that's just one of those unfortunate things we can't help. Not so. We create the Web, by designing computer protocols and software; this process is completely under our control. We choose what properties we want it to have and not have. It is by no means finished (and it's certainly not dead). If we want to track what government is doing, see what companies are doing, understand the true state of the planet, find a cure for Alzheimer's disease, not to mention easily share our photos with our friends, we the public, the scientific community and the press must make sure the Web's principles remain intact-not just to preserve what we have gained but to benefit from the great advances that are still to come. To read the rest of this article, go to http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web ___ Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it. Submit via email: ports...@portside.org Submit via the Web: http://portside.org/submittous3 Frequently asked questions: http://portside.org/faq Sub/Unsub: http://portside.org/subscribe-and-unsubscribe Search Portside archives: http://portside.org/archive Contribute to Portside: https://portside.org/donate 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] Sweden Issues Arrest Warrant for WikiLeaks' Assange
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I agree with Johansen 1000%. Assange is a hero, likely a martyr, thanks to the left as well as mainstream media failure to rally, really rally, to protect him. Nothing probably reveals the nadir of the liberal capitalist epoch so much as what the presumed opponents of censorship have let happen to Assange Peggy Powell Dobbins Sociology as an Art Form www.peggydobbins.net On Nov 19, 2010, at 11:58 PM, Ralph Johansen Here's a guy who has worked incessantly and against all odds to bring up these materials which outdo anything anyone has done since another very courageous person, Dan Ellsberg, brought us the Pentagon Papers. Assange has done this at serious risk of assassination, being chased all over the globe, eluding the many agents capable of doing him in, fearing for his life, also risking almost certain destruction of his credibility and reputation, which is now taking place in spades, while American journalists largely ignore what he has done and minimize its import, while like NYT's John Burns playing up the smear. 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 Keynesian Revival: a Marxian Critique
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I think the proposal below reflects theoretical lacunae that led to syndicalism on the one hand and utopianism on the other, 'tho lessons on the art of proletarian solidarity building were gleaned from both. For capitalist surplus value to be transformed into socialist social value*, State power remains necessary to tax a portion for the general welfare or human societal services the most productive proletariat (exchangers of their labor power for the means to reproduce it) may not consider essential, certainty not in the early stages of unconscious transition, especially where labor is slicing and dicing, manufacturing, packaging and delivering loans to sell lenders. As the president said, when running in March 2008, when the measure of our Gross Domestic PRODUCT is more determined by the sales of derivatives than steel I beams, you know something is wrong. Or words to that effect which persuaded me the man understands. Some of us might have preferred production of commodities we deem more humanizing, or more free time instead of triple over time in exchange for lay offs and declining union memberships, but we did not have state power nor determine use value. Limiting our understanding of surplus value to the context of the exploitation of labor to extract maximum growth in what we can see today may as well be called privatized monetized world average surplus time, social surplus, or social value and learning to explain it only in the context of organizing industrial workers' wages and projected sale prices of the products of their particular industry, was a function of the historic mode of production in which we organized and the form in which data were available to us. However it blinded us to fully utilizing what Marx and Engels bequeathed us to strive(much less stride) toward socialism. In mho that is, and based of course on my limited practice. I thought of going back and changing our us and we to I my and me so as to not appear to be speaking FOR others, but it is my opinion from the practice of all other, and far better than I, organizers I've observed. * definition of social surplus: difference between world average time we workers add to products of same kind minus that that others put in what we have to pay for to work another day cf: www.peggydobbins.net/dwellingintents/epilogue.HTML to tune of Solidarity On Nov 20, 2010, at 12:50 PM, Greg McDonald gregm...@gmail.com wrote: Instead of their typical capitalist structures that split employers from employees, a post-capitalist structure would position workers as, collectively, their enterprise's own board of directors -- Marx's associated workers. The era of capitalist employers (e.g., corporate boards selected by and responsible to major private shareholders) would then have come to an historic end. The capitalist class structure of production would have been superseded by such a collectivization of surplus appropriation inside enterprises (Wolff 2010). For example, consider enterprises newly structured such that the workers produce outputs in the usual way Mondays through Thursdays, but on Fridays, assembled in both plenaries and subgroups, they make decisions previously taken by boards of directors selected by (major) shareholders. That is, the workers democratically decide what, where, and how to produce and how to distribute their realized surpluses. They decide when and how to expand and contract. But they do not do that alone. They enter into co-respective power-sharing agreements with the local and regional communities where their physical production facilities are located. The workers participate in the residential communities’ decision-making processes and vice-versa.[8] 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] Fwd: Another Act in a Sad and Sick Comedy
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Another Act in Sad and Sick Comedy It's only comedy and then not sad not sick, if we bombard Congress to amend the budget item from 20 stealth bombers for Israel to 20 hour weeks at livable wage for x number lined up to enlist in the second Reconstruction Army -- reconstructing at home in the name of course of training to implement PetreUs' friending impirical de con strut Otherwise it's just trite tragedy The article I read said that the administration only promised Bibi to ask Congress for the bombers. On Nov 14, 2010, at 11:57 AM, Louis Proyect l...@panix.com wrote: From the desk of Reuven Kaminer November 14, 2010 This sliding scale of highly priced ‘freeze-time’ is particularly grotesque. The US, the world’s strongest and uncontested super power, buys ‘freeze time’, measured in days, from Israel in a transaction similar to many a shady bit of business. Give me 100 days of freeze-time and I will give you 20 F-35’s and a bunch of other murderous stuff and I promise never to ask for any more freeze-time and to organize full immunity from all charges and condemnation in all international forums. One can only wonder 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] role of the army
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I've cut and pasted Artesian's comments and reply in the other font Artesian wrote: We should not forget how this discussion started-- which was about discrimination in the military services and not the role of the army. Peg:You are right to bring us back to how the discussion started. Discrimination against those who wish to be honest about their sexual preference should be stopped. I would like to see an effort to bridge constituencies, those who support abolition of dont ask dont tell and those who support abolition of discrimination against qny American who wants to join the army and is not allowed to because of something they have done in the past, because they are too old, or can't pass one of the mental or physical tests. If you have ever known a kid busted for getting stoned who missed graduation because he was in jail, and who could not get a job at Walmart because of his record, and he and his mother wept with joy when you told them the DA said to tell him to go to the recruiting office and if they called he'd say his record was clean, then maybe you wouldn't, but I did, change my mind about absolutely tabooing relating to the military. I've lived in the South most of my adult life. I've known an awful lot of young people who 1) escaped viciously racist situations which would have led to years in and out of prison by enlisting (the guy in the most recent situation -- just described -- was however white) and 2) I can swear with confidence that none of the young people I'm thinking of, would fire on the people. And I thank Carol for raising this point in an earlier post. Artesian: I don't think there is any disagreement about the role of the army as an institution. I don't think that I disagree with Dan's characterization of the army as an enemy of the people.Certainly, as an institution, that is the military's role. Peg:We disagree on the definition of the military as an institution. I would not say it is an enemy of the people by definition That's why I began with Engels' definition of the state as the *laws* to defend and advance the interests of the ruling class and and *arms to enforce them. I do not think it a waste of time to struggle to quantitatively increase working class leverage vis a vis capital's while the interests of capital still dominate the state, a state, any state. * Artisian: The issue of contention was how best to crack the cohesiveness, the discipline that the military must have to function in that role. Peg: I agree the issue is cracking the cohesiveness, but I would stress cohesiveness of ideology and brain washing that divides those who sign up to escape poverty and prison from the objective class interests of others who are poor and in prison and not in the military. I said poor and in prison, rather than working class, because we are talking about Americans who would love to be working class, but are discriminated against by where they are at this time and place in the capitalist epoch Artisan: The suggestions by Peggy, IMO, are mistaken not because they are so utopian, but rather because they're so Proudhonian-- that old we want the capital, but without the capitalists idea. Here we want the military, without the miliarists-- we want the military to play a different role, to change its spots. Peg: I never studied Proudhon, mainly because I only ever heard of him denigratingly. But I will say if by capital, he means the difference between the accumulated exchangeable monetary form of the average labor time added and the world average labor time in the necessities the worker who adds them consumes, and if Proudhon understands this as the social surplus, or commonwealth, monetized and privatized, then I don't object to being characterized as wanting capital not even so radically as without the capitalists; but just without those allocating and reallocating it whatever they are called, being in a legal position to rip off most of the commonwealth as they see fit with no accountability to those who created that wealth (before its exchangeability for living labor is depreciated by leaps in productivity). And yes, I want the military to play a different role, but I understand it will not change its spots until made to do so. Artisan: That's not going to happen, and agitating for a million recruit increase is not going to crack that discipline.First off, we don't advocate the military as a way to reduce unemployment-- that's the military's line. We don't advocate it because that doesn't attack the class structure within the military, separate the ranks from the officer corps. We don't advocate it because it's all too close to the war is good for business, and what's good for business is good for labor argument.
[Marxism] Fwd: [SWT] Fifty-four hours
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: From: Tom Walker timew...@telus.net Date: November 7, 2010 4:02:27 PM EST To: SWT s...@lists.riseup.net Subject: [SWT] Fifty-four hours http://www.scribd.com/doc/41436595 At the above URL, I've uploaded my abridged and updated version of John Burnett's 1872 pamphlet on the Newcastle engineers' strike for the nine-hour day. The original pamphlet was over 50,000 words long and my version is less than 10,000 words also includes commentary and analysis from today's perspective. I can't emphasize strongly enough the importance of this strike and its documentation in the pamphlet. This is the mother lode. The strike began on May 29th, 1871, the day after the final defeat of the Paris Commune. In contrast to the Commune and its aftermath, the Newcastle strike was non-violent and ended in a historic victory for the workers. Everyone has heard of the Paris Commune but the Newcastle strike is a neglected footnote buried in a dusty archive. That needs to change. The strike and its context teaches many urgent lessons. I emphasize three of them in this paper. First is the connection with the Jevons Paradox, the curse of efficiency. Newcastle is synonymous with coal. Carrying coals to Newcastle is like selling refrigerators to Eskimos. Sir William Armstrong, the spokesman for the Newcastle employers during the strike first raised the question that led William Stanley Jevons to his examination of the coal question and discovery of the Jevons Paradox, which today dogs the technological optimists' faith of finding a technological fix, through radically increased energy efficiency, to carbon emissions and mitigation of climate change. In the course of a newspaper public relations battle between Armstrong and Burnett, Sir William presented a calculation, justifying the employers' position that clearly demonstrates the tendency to double counting error that arises in any superficial attempt at social accounting. Armstrong's percentage estimate of projected employers' loss from the move to a 54-hour week was off by an order of magnitude. It makes Senior's Last Hour look like it was calculated with the precision of a Swiss watch. Multiply Armstrong's category mistake by a few billion and you get an idea of the faulty architecture of national income accounting, such as the GDP. Jumping ahead to the analytical implications of Armstrong's Double Count, in place of the simpering, apologetic Pigouvian shoulder shrug of externalities, I propose the surgically-precise, Veblenian descriptor of predatory pecuniary trespass or PPT to describe what happens with a dominant accounting unit compels a subordinate one to expend ever greater time and energy resources just to stay in the same place. PPT is similar to John Ruskin's concept of illth, with one important distinction. While the quantification of illth would require myriads of subjective judgments about whether something or other is a good or a bad, quantifying PPT needs only the specification of the appropriate boundary condition in any given performance of social accounting. Armstrong's Double Count provides an elegantly clear template for drawing that line. Last but not least, our old friend, the lump-of-labor. In a newspaper dispatch filed on the day the strike ended (but anachronistically reporting that no end was in sight), the London correspondent for the New York Times invented what I am for now content to declare the locus classicus of the lump-of-labor fallacy claim. This version of the claim's claim to fame is that rather than an innocently-foolish populist delusion, the theory that the amount of work to be done is a fixed quantity represents the alleged core belief underlying the nefarious ulterior design by the Unionists to systematically strangle production, extort higher wages and thereby impose a tyrannical Socialist regime. Yes, folks, the mild-mannered oh-so-respectable and mainstream textbook fallacy claim made its debut as a wild-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth vast right-wing conspiracy theory with all the grace, subtlety and truthyness of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. It is a hoax, a slander and a plagiarism, which doesn't say much for the intellectual rigor and integrity of an economics profession that continues to dole out the fallacy claim to students as if it is the wisdom of Solomon (nor for that matter for the trade union officials who spout the slogan, supposedly to demonstrate their economic policy pragmatism). List-Unsubscribe: mailto:sy...@lists.riseup.net?subject=unsubscribe%20swt List-Post: mailto:s...@lists.riseup.net List-Owner:
Re: [Marxism] Role of the Army
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Accepting Engel's definition of The State as The Laws [that support the interests of the ruling class] and the Armed Forces that defend them, the class identity of the armed forces is central to the outcome of any class struggle. This is well understood by people who live where putsches and coups are familiar; and the interests of one set of financial backers backing one set of colonels are replaced by another. Altho we may not recognize battles to determine which set will control the oil fields or diamond mines, or Information Tech consumer AND/OR labor markets as class struggles, they are(as is clear from Andrew grove's quote on a portside post just read) struggles between social groups with different relations to the means of production that determine the quantity AND quality of power human masses affected by them can exercise. How much power, how exercised, by how many? How 'bout lobbying for, or at least modest proposaling here that ANY American citizen be allowed to join the US Armed Forces and trained to serve as best they can in a second Reconstruction Reparation Army. Rather than Eco-in-name recyclers ripping off unemployed vets who rip out copper wires in abandoned homes where they crash, Rather than Green Prison Inc contracting for their convict labor processing hazardous materials, after they are arrested for burglary, why not loyal American soldiers with one thing in common -- they can't find work -- trained to reconstruct devastated neighborhoods in the US in order to work side by side with iraqis, afganis (isn't this what Pettreus advocates?) reconstructing theirs?It might even cost the taxpayers less than the contracting out to war reconstruction frauds like the Louis Berger Group that just paid $70.3 million in criminal and civil penalties for overbilling on their reconstruction work in afganistan, Iraq, and Sudan in a settlement that allows them to continue working on gov contracts (nyt 11/6/10 p A 9; google war reconstruction fraud nyt for URL) 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] Role of the Army
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == 'twas as I said a modest proposal in the spirit of Cox's Army of unemployed in 1932 in the name of, but not only consisting of, Vets from WWI. Alert! Avert speeding warped minds to cyber sewers of cynicism: A beta test in the offing already has Rove scouring for the executive order left before taking off to ghandiland. Sent from my iPhone On Nov 7, 2010, at 5:33 PM, Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 4:59 PM, Peggy Dobbins pegdobb...@gmail.com wrote: How 'bout lobbying for, or at least modest proposaling here that ANY American citizen be allowed to join the US Armed Forces and trained to serve as best they can in a second Reconstruction Reparation Army. Oh, me, me, me, me, me. Better, I want to join the Space Corps and get on the Starship Enterprise (Well, if we're leaving reality behind us here, we might as well do it at warp speed, right?) ML Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/pegdobbins%40gmail.com 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] Role of the Army
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 6:26 PM, Dan d.koech...@wanadoo.fr wrote: The Army is the enemy of the people. For goodness sake, the armed forces are a pretty critical variable in any societal transformation, forward as well as backward, and stabilization whichever direction. The People have no hope if The Army is always and by definition the enemy of the people. Does someone think 'the proletarian state' is sans army? How then could they be for the working class as the ruling class? This is why trusting peace and justice to a spirit above or the spirit within is always just smelling the incense whoever buys it for or from the guru. -- Margaret Powell Dobbins www.PeggyDobbins.net Sociology a form of Art 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] Churchill vs Hitler
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Both were elected. Franco wasn't. The US midterm 2010 election is tomorrow. Not voting will not speed up nor increase the probability of any kind of American revolution but the reactive one for which masses have been mobilized. The more Democrats defeated by Republicans locally and nationally, the less Democrats with state civil authority over armed forces will be able to exercise it. The Spanish Revolution was not a revolution Socialists and Communists fought against a reactionary government. It was a revolution against a government socialists and Communists fought to defend. A government General Franco was called home by the priests and plutocrats to lead a successful-- and long lasting --Fascist revolution against. It is harder to tell left from right when it matters most, and the only constant is change Sent from my iPhone 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] Turning the Financial Question On Its Head--Is There An Answer Here?
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Trying again -- in re Manuel's q One approach to putting the world monetary system on a sound basis would be to mandate transparency on average labor time added to commodities between monetary transactions 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] Ecuador: Air Force and Navy Reluctantly Backed President
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == reading cops do not belong to the working class and later nor soldiers while in duty, I rewitnessed images imprinted from a range of times and places, of young men I known and their mothers at the moment they learned they could be cops and Sent from my iPhone On Oct 10, 2010, at 11:39 AM, Greg McDonald gregm...@gmail.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Sun, Oct 10, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Fred Feldman ffeld...@bellatlantic.net wrote: On 10/10/10 8:59 AM, Greg McDonald wrote: This article makes it crystal-clear, Fred, that the situation at the airport was indeed a labor dispute, and a labor dispute only, and was not infiltrated by putschist elements, in contradistinction (maybe) with the Police revolt. This does not mean I don't think there was an attempted coup (possibly), but rather that the Armed Forces were not involved. Louis Proyect replied: Cops do not belong to the working class. Greg replied (as I was pretty sure he would): Whatever. The folks at the airport are not cops to begin with, Louis, but members of the Air Force, thus the distinction between the military and the cops. Louis is right to say that cops are not workers. Also the air force and the Navy in Ecuador are not working-class institutions. And their members are not workers while they are serving. Greg continues to join -- while wobbling back and forth on whether there was a coup -- the propaganda campaign to portray the air force and cops and navy as militant labor fighting for decent wages and working conditions denied them by the Correa government, el enemigo de la humanidad. This is propaganda -- and I assume, indeed am almost awed by, Greg's total sincerity in putting forward this ruinous view -- for the next coup attempt, which will almost certainly be presented as the armed forces rescuing the nation from Correa's misrule. It is propaganda for the next coup wherever it is presented, whether on the Marxism List or the Latin American media. Greg now assures us that there is no threat of a US-backed coup because Correa doesn't present any problem for imperialism. I have heard this song from left critics many times before -- about Allende, Goulart, Isabel Peron, Aristide, and others. Let's just say it is not a prediction to be relied on. Of course, even if a coup happens, even if it is successful, Greg does not have to acknowledge this. He can always just tell himself and us that a bunch of underpaid workers in uniform just seized the presidential palace and rid us of the tyrant. I assume Greg will continue to pick up whatever he finds lying around and throw it at Correa in five or ten posts a day. He has a constitutional right to pursue this obsession. I plan to pay no further attention. Whatever I have lying around? You mean statements from the Ecuadorean press, and spokespersons of left-wing parties, as well as independent leftists such as Acosta and Larrea? As opposed to what? Sources in Venezuela? BTW, you're putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about decent wages and working conditions. That's your bullshit Fred. The Air force personnel were concerned about losing bonuses that traditionally go along with promotions. Ponce promised them the bonuses would be reinstated, and the dispute was over. period. Furthermore, I'm not waffling back and forth Fred. I honestly don't know what to think given the multitude of contradictory statements coming from sources on the left and the right. I certainly don't take at face-value anything coming out of Carondelet. My point in posting the Hoy article is to demonstrate that the dispute at the airport was, if not a labor dispute, a contractual dispute. There, does that sound better? As the article states, there were no calls for the president to resign, no calls for a new president, etc. There were simple calls for a restitution of paid bonuses, etc. And as the article further demonstrates, the entire situation was resolved in a 30 minute conversation between Ponce and the staff at the airport. Geez, what a big conspiracy that was. So, we can rule out the idea that this was a conspiracy involving more than one institution. As it stands now, we have some supposed group among the police that was stirring up trouble prior to the police revolt. I would urge you to look more closely at the MPD report, but I have more than just a sneaking suspicion that you don't read spanish, given the lack of depth to your remarks above. I have no doubt whatsoever there was murderous intent
Re: [Marxism] golinger's charges are true
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == When I was politically active and always paranoid, I learned to say two things: 1) it's AS IF there's an agent sowing confusion and division amongst us And Whether I have grounds for paranoia or not, when I feel it it's a sign a) to take the work more seriously, and redouble my effort. and b) to not say or do anything I wouldn't want my grandchildren or the FBI to know Oh, and a third, someone else taught(attributed to Lenin, but I couldn't cite): Keep your enemies close Sent from my iPhone 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 Mendacity of Hope
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I'll contribute $100.00 Sent from my iPhone On Oct 5, 2010, at 8:14 PM, waistli...@aol.com wrote: == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == But the fact is that James Madison and the American founders were very big on the idea of checking power. It's remarkable that, in this day and age, that very crucial aspect of their thought is simply neglected across the respectable political spectrum. ML Comment Madison was the man and father of the Bill of Rights, which I understand to mean the Bill of Rights of Citizens, counterpoised to serfs, slaves and colonial subjects, willing to assert their rights as citizens. All of us in our past 10 generations have experienced at least two of these categories if not all three. I understand Madison to have written about a third of the Federalist Papers - which I have still to read, but from what I do understand and believe, the Bill of Rights in America express what Marx called the struggle of the bourgeois and proletariat takes place in the democratic Republic. We - revolutionaries, can champion the Bill of Rights as a specialty group cause established for that purpose from a collectivist lens of public property. In our representative form of government where the President is head of government and head of state, concentrating political authority in the executive branch is at the expense of the legislative and judicial branch. This means an added impulse to the police state or as it is called, political fascism. Not being funny or anything, your self sacrifice and years of training, study and writings on these matters is a benefit to all. Ever think about a pamphlet from a Marxist lens? I would raise money for such, featuring Madison and the meaning of political democracy. Ain't nobody in this country a damn serf or slave. We free proletarian citizens. I commit to an initial donation toward such a pamphlet $300 in the here and now. I would love something under the heading: Third American Revolution. This is of course your call, and the donation stands period. WL. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/pegdobbins%40gmail.com 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] God materialism and bible Marxian take on Hebrew
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == I tried to reply to all the contributors to the very welcome string on god material and bible but didn't do it properly. I'd like to join this discussion by asking participants willing to give a read to the English performance text after the Arabic, Spanish and Chinese short versions (you have to scroll a bit) at http://peggydobbins.net/dwellingintents/5originsurpluslaborti.html Sent from my iPhone 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] Lasting Green success
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == In re who's been successful as a Green candidate?. Art Goodtimes has twice defeated challengers from Dem and Rep parties to hold his seat as a county commissioner in San Miguel county colo The county seat is Telluride Sent from my iPhone On Aug 13, 2010, at 2:00 PM, marxism-requ...@lists.econ.utah.edu wrote: Send Marxism mailing list submissions to marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to marxism-requ...@lists.econ.utah.edu You can reach the person managing the list at marxism-ow...@lists.econ.utah.edu When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than Re: Contents of Marxism digest... == Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Today's Topics: 1. Re: Grim Voter Mood Turns Grimmer (Mark Lause) 2. The Question for Third Party campaigns [was Grim Voter Mood...] (Mark Lause) 3. Critical support for the Islamic Republic of Iran! (Louis Proyect) 4. Will Ferrell's anti-capitalist comedy (Louis Proyect) 5. Churchill's Empire (Louis Proyect) 6. Re: Churchill's Empire (midhurs...@aol.com) 7. Re: self-indulgence (Andrew Pollack) 8. Re: Churchill's Empire (Matt) 9. Re: Churchill's Empire (midhurs...@aol.com) 10. Re: Churchill's Empire (Andrew Pollack) 11. Re: Churchill's Empire (midhurs...@aol.com) 12. Kucinich won't challenge Obama in 2012 primaries (Dan DiMaggio) 13. Re: self-indulgence (Shane Mage) 14. Veritas Handbook: a new guide puts Palestine history, debates in activists? hands (Dennis Brasky) 15. Re: self-indulgence (Tom Cod) 16. WYCLEF FOR PRESIDENT? (Dennis Brasky) -- Message: 1 Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:46:19 -0400 From: Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Marxism] Grim Voter Mood Turns Grimmer To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Message-ID: aanlktin5cf3hrtor3gbjbce1nz5pyuvpvk9_t4=6e...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 The most likely beneficiary of all this on the Left should be the Greens, but the larger state organizations on the coasts seem to be in decline. Some of the state parties, such as Illinois, seem to be showing some sparks of new life. Ohio remains self-mummified and accords leadership to people who openly Democrats or who believe that the party should consistently defer to the pro-Democrats. The main accomplishment of our state party has been red-baiting to keep anyone serious about an independent third party away from playing any role whatsoever in shaping its course What Ohio does now is to run exclusively in state and local races rather than to have to challenge Democrats over national issues. So we discuss regulations about recycling and saving forest preserves, but never discuss global warming, BP, etc. It varies from state to state, of course... This is a minor variant on the standard scenario for any third party with potential in U.S. history. If voters give you enough attention, you have people within the party coming up as would-be power brokers with a major party and if you're organized stupidly enough--where leaders are unaccountable--you get open Democrats coming in from the outside. ML -- Message: 2 Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 08:59:37 -0400 From: Mark Lause markala...@gmail.com Subject: [Marxism] The Question for Third Party campaigns [was Grim VoterMood...] To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Message-ID: aanlkti=jjjmt4q17hbbt_-=sekna3ampeo9sxbzrb...@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Running independent political campaigns are supposed to aim at more than getting out the ideas. That is, you could do that any number of ways and don't have to invest the time, energy and effort into a political campaign to do so. We run such campaigns in hopes of mobilizing people to do something beyond the election And I don't mean just joining the organization that's running the campaign What do you want to leave behind the campaign? The misleadership of the Greens has failed to do this consistently. McKinney and Nader, who have personally-centered campaign styles have failed to leave much of anything behind. Who's been successful at this? And how? ML
Re: [Marxism] Marxism Digest, Vol 81, Issue 7
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == What does it matter what Dellinger, a great leader of the anti-war movement who along with Fred Halstead played a critical role in organizing the big rallies (and whose grandson Seth, ironically, is currently a leader of the SWP) THOUGHT? What did Father Gapon think? HISTORY MATTERS. That leaders were more cautious than the masses they led in the US anti war movement of the 60s adds data to the generalizable premise that leaders of mass movements tend to be more cautious than the masses they lead. ps: when I hit reply. then try to delete, my computer jumps back to the list of incoming emails. looks like I need to cut and paste into a new email to marx...@lists..? 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] S Artesian Imperialism a new mode of production
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == S. Artesian replying to Barbera wrote: For example, the wage form mediates the dispossession of the laborer from the products of the total working day; the wage form mediates the estrangement of labor from the conditions of labor, the products of labor, and the time of labor by appearing as compensation paid to the worker for the entire working day. In fact, the mediation is compensation only for part of the day, hiding within itself the expropriation of unpaid labor, and yet reproducing on an ever larger scale the results of that expropriation. And Artesian quotes from Marx's draft of his proposed chapter 6 of Capital, entitled Results of the Direct Production Process ending with This perpetuation of the relation of capital as buyer and the worker as seller of labour is a form of mediation which is immanent in this mode of production; . It glosses over as a mere money relation the real transaction and the perpetual dependence, which is constantly renewed through this mediation of sale and purchase. I would like to read Artesian's original post. I welcome this focus on how wage labor allows for the appearance that the worker is being paid for a whole day's labor, when in fact the capital buying it is taking a portion. It is one of the most central contributions of Marx extrapolated over the years to explain the exploitation of those who have nothing to sell but their labor power by those who have accumulated these portions in money (not labor time) form, as surplus labor value, into stores (binomial digital ledger-esque entries nowadays) of money known as capital. Focusing on this alone however has distracted from understanding other aspects that I find mightily helpful in seeing the way forward from capitalist economics (nothing happens unless it makes a capital pile grow; and what is most likely to happen is what makes it grow the most the fastest) to socialist (where the difference between the world average labor time added to products of same kind MINUS that that other workers add to what we have to pay to work another day is the common wealth, monetized and privatized, we still see artistry of money changers steal cf epiloguehttp://www.peggydobbins.net/dwellingintents/epilogue.html Marx well understood and repeatedly noted that wages are the money form of the world average labor time embodied (by other workers) in the necessities, commodities produced by other workers similarly adding more labor time than they consume. Sometime in the '90s the UBS began publishing data on major cities that made it abundantly clear wages are pegged to the local purchasing price of commodities of necessity, those goods and services embodying the average labor time of some workers that other workers must purchase to get and hold their job. This certainly facilitated the targeting of global capital funds. I do not think we will advance civilization by abolishing this difference, between the labor time added and that consumed. Surplus Value transformed into Social Surplus may or may not be expropriated and exploited as we go forward. Certainly the enemies of socialism believe so. Whether elites screw the rest of us is more a function of political will and organization by masses of people, which will have to be internationally coordinated, and we do have a way to go. We need for people who are well familiar with Marx and Engels central contributions, those which differentiate them from others, to move us forward. I found it noteworthy that the Chinese character for 'commodity' looks like 3 packages and is interpreted as 'necessities of living.' Also that the character for corporation is translated as capital fund. cf pin and zihttp://international-behind-the-barcode.org/symbols.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] Reply to Jim re 1844 German journal
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Hi Jim Saw your query re 1844 journal I am a fairly good Marxian scholar but pretty ignorant about the German revolutionary context. Until now. I've just written a play around fictionalized letters from Agnes douai back home to Bettina Von arnim. I know Adolph Douai was a48er. Arrested several times in Germany and came to Texas where his anti slavery and pro socialist editing and agitating had his family-10 children- run out of Texas. He gave the eulogy at the memorial for Marx in ny. The play is not about the douais. But other things a proto anthropologist and socialist might have been interested in. I'd enjoy learning more about the German revolution the 40s and exchanges between Marx and others involved. 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] New Economic Something
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Just read a post about a Gathering of giants in Cambridge or maybe it's oxford catered by Soros to make a paradigm shift like Keynes'swas to the last empirical refutation of the _ ideology -- I think it most accurate to call anti-social than free market As seems to occur every decade--even without a major collapse, great men, and women for certainly ayn Rand and Hannah Arendt should be counted, set themselves to establishing their immortality by offering up a new goes-beyond-Marx-don't-bother-with-surplus-value-or-necessary- labor-they're-just-obsolete-terms. On the other hand this little old lady in indianola thinks we really need to define labor and work separately and specifically; money, value, exchange,universal equivalence, vis a vis labor time; and I am very big on emphasizing Time which is measured in universally accepted standard units whereas its abstracted monetized value varies not as a function of changes in thetechnological productivity of but financiers' creativity and politicians' 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
