Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] On history of Jews in USSR
This book changed my sense of the big story of Soviet history as well as the big story of the Jews in the modern world.* . . . In the top Party leadership of the 1920s, Jews were the largest single ethnic group . . . Within the Party leadership's relatively small contingent of ethnic Russians in the prewar period, a remarkably large number were married to Jewish women, . . . . Jews were an important presence not only in the Soviet political elite but also among the intelligentsia. This was a continuation of late imperial tendencies, . . . By 1939, Jews were by far the most educated national group in the Soviet population: under 2 per cent of the total population, they constituted a seventh of all Soviet citizens with higher education, second only to Russians in absolute numbers. In that same year, a third of young Jewish men and women in the 19-24 age group were college students compared to one in 20 of the age group as a whole; while in Leningrad (Moscow figures were roughly similar) around 70 per cent of dentists, 40 per cent of doctors, 30 per cent of writers, journalists and editors, and almost 20 per cent of scientists and university professors were Jews. The Great Purges of the late 1930s were a milestone but not yet a turning point in the history of Soviet Jews. Most of the victims of the Great Purges were members of an elite (especially the political elite), some minority nationalities, or those on the margins of society (tramps, beggars, runaways from the Gulag, habitual criminals). As a minority nationality, and one disproportionately represented in the Soviet elites, Jews look like prime potential targets, but the reality was more complicated. . . . .Jews in the Soviet cultural and intellectual elite . . . suffered along with non-Jews during the Great Purges, especially if they had close personal ties to purged Communist leaders. And no doubt many of them, . . . were interrogated by Jewish members of the security police, one of the Soviet institutions with a particularly high proportion of Jewish officers (almost 40 per cent of the NKVD's top officials at the beginning of 1937). . . .the case with regard to the intelligentsia, where Jews were still strongly over-represented and notable for their Soviet loyalties and high rate of Party membership at the outbreak of the Second World War. Comment I found this review to be extremely fascinating. The Jewish Century by Yuri Slezkine is a book I will probably purchase in hope that the information gathered from the review is indicative of the nuts and bolts of the historical curve of the social process - Jewish Diaspora, is more than less more accurately described. The Soviet experience is of course of interesting in regard to everything. What is fascinating for me is the intersecting of the Soviet political elite as communists, the growth of the industrial bureaucracy, the growth of the state authority on an industrial basis (as opposed to a feudal bureaucracy) not simply as armed bodies of men but also government agencies of all kinds, subordinate to the state power; the intellegencia as a political establishment and the party as an organization simultaneously standing outside and yet of all the above social functions in society. Praxis and our understanding, including what we imagine ourselves to think and understand . . . informs, no matter what philosophic terms one speaks in. The bureaucracy is by definition the enemy of the social process that becomes visible to all during period of revolution in the means of production and experience as the revolutionary leap or transition in society. Marx concept of the fetters facing onslaught by the more than less continuous revolution in the material power of production is generally located in/as the superstructure of the society in transition and he is the bottom line meaning of bureaucracy. The party or the state is not the bureaucracy but rather manifest the phenomenon of the bureaucracy as the state as state acts a meditator of society rent with class antagonism and contradictions. If one locates the bureaucracy as primarily the factor of the superstructure in history then it would seem that the bureaucracy is changed or recast on the basis of transitions in the mode of production as it is made social as a definable infrastructure relations. The actual infrastructure of a given society is the more mobile aspect calling forth social revolution. I of course cannot prove this more mobile aspect and why bureaucracy is what in the last instance is burst asunder as a period of social revolution. I can authenticate that I grew up in Detroit second generation autoworkers within the operation of a specific form of industrial bureaucracy stamped with the personality and organizational method associated with Alfred Sloan - the man of General Motors. Within the trade union organizations as a living component of the auto industry - (not
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Jim Craven on Ward Churchill
It is very simple: To really honor the victims of a given holocaust or event, the full magnitude and essential dimensions and causes must be discovered, exposed and used in concrete ways to prevent another holocaust or event and even more victims. So, for example, when some see the nazi Holocaust solely in terms of Jewish victims and/or see no nominally Jewish victimizers and accomplices, they are not only desecrating the memory and sufferings of the non-Jewish victims, they are also desecrating the memory and sufferings of the Jewish victims as well. Anyone who denies, equivocates, limits or covers-up the true and full dimensions, causes, effects and full accounting of all victims of a holocaust or event desecrates the memory of all the victims-colllectively and individually-- and helps to make the same easier and more acceptable in the future. Comment See comments on the History of Jews in America. The full dimensions of the process in and of the American Union is of course a good teacher. ___ 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] Emergence, Pierce pragmatism
Just stumbled onto this paper: CHARBEL NIÑO EL-HANI and SAMI PIHLSTRÖM Emergence Theories and Pragmatic Realism (Draft version, February 2002. Comments welcome. Please do not quote.) http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/papers/emergentism.pdf ___ 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] Virtual worlds, real exploitation
http://www.ericlee.me.uk/archive/000112.html March 13, 2005 Virtual worlds, real exploitation A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. -- Groucho Marx Seriously, if you were born before 1985, you might have some problems understanding this. So let me start at the beginning. There is a phenomenon called online gaming. Simply put, you combine computer games with the Internet, allowing you to interact with other people who are online at the same time. Many of these games are known as MMORPGs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmorpg , which stands for massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing games. Some of the more popular MMORPGs include Ultima Online, EverQuest, City of Heroes, Dark Age of Camelot, World of Warcraft, and Runescape. They often have magical themes involving wizards and monsters. Many of the games have hundreds of thousands of subscribed players who pay fees to use them. (Some of the games are free to play.) There are an estimated 27 million players of such games today, one third of them in South Korea. So far, you must be thinking: what possible connection could this have to the trade union movement? Be patient -- we're getting to that. In these games, as in many computer games, over time one acquires possessions, skills, rank and so on. Often, moving on in the game is a long, slow tedious process -- and many computer gamers look for short-cuts to get beyond the lower levels of the game. In MMORPGs, those shortcuts might involve getting hold of objects (including virtual money) from other players. Those objects can be traded. Which means that outside of the virtual worlds, trading can also take place. Many players seem willing to part with their cash (real-world cash, that is) in order to buy virtual objects in the games. This activity made headlines in December 2004 when a 22-year-old Australian gamer spent $26,500 (real money) to buy a virtual island in the online game Project Entropia. This was no ordinary island. According to the game developers, The island boasts beautiful beaches ripe for developing beachfront property, an old volcano with rumors of fierce creatures within, the outback is overrun with mutants, and an area with a high concentration of robotic miners guarded by heavily armed assault robots indicates interesting mining opportunities. This is a historic moment in gaming history, and this sale only goes to prove that massive multi-player online gaming has reached a new plateau, said a spokesman for the company behind the game. Meanwhile, eBay, the online auction service, is filled with people buying and selling virtual objects for use in online games. Some game companies, such as Sony, which is behind EverQuest, forbid players from buying or selling game characters, items, or currency -- and have moved to block the sale of such items on eBay. So far, it all sounds pretty crazy, but where's the relevance to trade unions? According to the BBC, the problem begins with something called grinding. This is a process in which gamers have to perform long-winded, mindless tasks, to bring up their levels and gain access to more adventure. And this problem has created a market, and an opportunity for profit. If you were to go online, join in one of these games, over time you'd advance, acquire objects, and these would have value to other players -- especially those who wanted to avoid those long-winded, mindless tasks. You could sell those objects, either to your friends or players you've met in the game, or to online brokers, or via eBay. In fact, you could hire people to play such games on your behalf for hours on end, and you could sell what they have acquired. If you employed those people in countries with very low incomes, in countries with weak or non-existent trade unions, you could make bigger profits. Get the idea? According to an article by Tim Guest in the Telegraph Magazine, in mainland China people are employed to play the games nine to five, scoring virtual booty which IGE [Internet Gaming Entertainment] can sell on at a profit to Western buyers. China, as is known, has no free trade unions which makes it easy to pay sweatshop wages. Tony Thompson, writing for The Observer, investigated a California-based company known as Gamersloot.net which employs Romanians to play MMORPGs for ten hours a day, earning $5.40 -- $0.54 per hour. That is the considerably less than what IGE claims to be paying Chinese workers. When you visit the website of gamersloot.net, you won't find any mention of virtual sweatshops in Romania, China or anywhere else. The site bills itself as a central location to purchase or trade online game cd-keys, accounts, gold, items, and powerleveling services, whatever that means. The company says very little about itself, except that it is soliciting investors -- and hopes to work with a children's charity. Not a word about the loot it has acquired, where it comes from, etc. Internet Gaming
[Marxism-Thaxis] Socialism and democracy
[Soc] Socialism and democracy Paul Cockshott wpc at dcs.gla.ac.uk mailto:socialism%40lists.econ.utah.edu?Subject=%5BSoc%5D%20Socialism%20and% 20democracyIn-Reply-To= Tue Mar 22 16:06:49 MST 2005 * Previous message: [Soc] Socialism and democracy http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/80.html * Next message: [Soc] Socialism and democracy http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/85.html * Messages sorted by: [ date ] http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/date.html#81 [ thread ] http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/thread.html#81 [ subject ] http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/subject.html#81 [ author ] http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/author.html#81 Paul C wrote The political influence exercised by Western European working classes in the 1950s to 1980s rested both on universal suffrage and on their indispensability to the process of capitalist economy. The availability of large well educated labour forces in India and China, employable at much lower wages undermined this economic indispensability. With the loss of economic power went a loss of political power. This has rendered the oligarchic character of the parliamentary system ever more evident. --- Choppa Morph replied Yes. If we don't understand this process -- the origin, growth and decline of the Welfare State -- then those of us in Western Europe particularly will be lost. I think Paul leaves out the most important factor in the origin of the Welfare State, the political one resting on the balance of forces between the working class and the bourgeoisie. Universal suffrage and indispensability won't cut it as reasons. Universal suffrage has been present during non-WS, nascent, mature and decaying WS societies, and the working class is *always* indispensable to the capitalist economy. The unique factor in the postwar period, and the one that stimulated the *bourgeois-liberal* designers of the Welfare State to move, was the fear of the bourgeoisie that it would not survive otherwise. -- Paul C continues I agree with what you say here. The fear of socialist revolution was a crucial factor in the late 40s. Subsequently the competition of the Bundesrepublik with the DDR, was critical to the estabilishment of the welfare state there. The competition posed within the framework of constitutional electoral politics by the Communist parties of France and Italy necessitated the extension of the welfare states there well after the immediate post WWII conjuncture. But to sustain a real revolutionary or at least militantly socialist working class movement, the examples of the the then 'actually existing socialisms' were critical. These established socialism as a really existing alternative economic model. Once these no longer existed, we were faced with Thatcher's slogan - There Is No Alternative. Once that was accepted and internalized by the social democratic parties, ideological weakness became conjoined with economic weakness. By the way, it is true that 'a' working class is necessary for capitalism. But it need not be 'this' working class, the one it had before. If this working class becomes too expensive then another is to be purchased. My estimate is that the time gap this gives the world bourgeoisie will tend to close around the 2030s to 2040s, by which stage the Chinese economy will have reached the stage of being a mature capitalist economy comparable to Japan 25 years ago. At this stage the relative balance of forces between the bourgeoisie and proletariat on a world scale will shift back towards the working class. ___ 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] Socialism and democracy
[Soc] Socialism and democracy Dave Zachariah davez at kth.se mailto:socialism%40lists.econ.utah.edu?Subject=%5BSoc%5D%20Socialism%20and% 20democracyIn-Reply-To=BED9D15F73EDDE48BF480604236A456001102DA1%40ex1.ad.dc s.gla.ac.uk Tue Mar 22 18:27:47 MST 2005 * Previous message: [Soc] Socialism and democracy http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/81.html * Next message: [Soc] Socialism and democracy http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/88.html * Messages sorted by: [ date ] http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/date.html#85 [ thread ] http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/thread.html#85 [ subject ] http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/subject.html#85 [ author ] http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/socialism/2005-March/author.html#85 [After I wrote this mail it appears that Paul already has answered some of it.] In one of the first posts Badili Jones asked how we would describe the crisis of socialist politics and its future possibilities. Paul Cockshott said that one should not rule out that a new period of a politically strong working class could again lead to a set of social democratic interventionist policies that would for a period provide full employment. These issues are also linked to the question of the prospects of socialism given the present class compositions around the world. Lacking a deeper historical analysis, I can only give a brief and speculative answer. The crisis of the socialist movement of the 20th century (mainly social-democratic, socialist or communist parties in the advanced capitalist countries) was caused by a) A decline in manufacturing sectors. The wage-laborers in these sectors were the movements base, at least in its traditional self-image. By the 1980 it had passed its peak b) Crisis in capital profitability and the rise of neoliberalism. Duménil and Lévy have written some excellent material on this. Not only did it in various ways weaken or reverse the advances made but its free market ideology, in combination with the economic inabilities of the Soviet economies, ultimately lead Europe's strong social-democratic parties to cut the ties to their socialist heritage. d) Sectarianism which seems to have plagued many smaller Left groups. The never-ending struggle between factions and the use of quotes from political figures for authority is what characterizes their dogmatism. Whatever the reason it effectively destroyed the possibilities for alternative socialist policies. One could also add the collapse of the Soviet bloc because bourgeois ideologists declared the end of history and the end of any possible alternative to capitalism. However its ideological effects on the socialist movement have also been positive. To answer Badili's question I think the solution to the crisis is underway through the wide variety of social movements and coalitions of left parties. At least there is a growing potential in terms of mass support as long as they are open and pluralistic. Sooner or later these social forces around the globe will have to go from mere anti-neoliberalism and protesting to face questions of direct politics via state power and democratic alternatives to the present political-economic system. At that point socialism is in effect (whatever people may call it) back on the political agenda. This seems to be the case in Venezuela, although I'm to poorly informed to draw any real conclusions. Will the working class in advanced capitalist countries regain its political strength as Paul suggests is possible? At present it seems improbable that it could become something similar to a social-democratic mass movement simply because the main form of wage-labor from which it gained its support is being outsourced to Asia. The trend in employment seems to result in a split between high-tech and low-paid service sectors. There is however a factor which unifies the class; unemployment. Demanding productive and useful work is class politics and a socialist demand because the capitalist market can obviously not organize this. Paul C wrote The political influence exercised by Western European working classes in the 1950s to 1980s rested both on universal suffrage and on their indispensability to the process of capitalist economy. The availability of large well educated labour forces in India and China, employable at much lower wages undermined this economic indispensability. With the loss of economic power went a loss of political power. This has rendered the oligarchic character of the parliamentary system ever more evident. --- Choppa Morph replied Yes. If we don't understand this process -- the origin, growth and decline of the Welfare State -- then those of us in Western Europe particularly will be lost. I think Paul leaves out the most important factor in the origin
