The Soviet Union
There are many who say that the fall of the Soviet Union was the consequence of bad policy. That is the sum total of their political analysis explaining why the Soviet Union collapsed. Some people blame the policies of Gorbachov, some people blame Khrushchev. They even make a fetish of pinpointing the exact time of the betrayal of socialism, when bad policies began to destroy socialism. Reciting the policies and the results of policies of the former Soviet regime is not a scientific reflection of what occurred there, or anywhere else for that matter. Policy is a very definite formulation by a group of people who want to advocate certain things. However, if the internal basis for those certain things is not present, no amount of good or bad policies will bring them about. If the internal basis for the destruction of the Soviet Union had not existed, the policies of Khrushchev, Gorbachov and all the other revisionists would not have resulted in the destruction of the Soviet Union. The reasons, the internal basis, is much more profound than that. There is the simple example of the egg that is kept at a certain temperature until it hatches. If a stone were placed there instead of the egg, it doesn't matter what temperature or conditions are employed it will not hatch. By the 1950s the Soviet Union had developed to the initial stage of socialism. The socialist journey had barely begun. Even the economy was far from fully socialized. All the fundamental questions were yet to be resolved: in the spheres of philosophy, and economic and political theory, and all other spheres of thought. Instead of dealing with these problems of the socialist system and finding a way forward; in place of making a contribution to resolve the problems that had arisen in the relationship of human beings to the socialist society and amongst themselves, in the relations among the individuals, collectives and society; the problems of consciousness and being; and other issues that needed answers; there was capitulation to the old, to the old way of thinking and doing things. Objectively, there was in existence two groups of people which consolidated the old and together constituted the anti-human factor for the restoration of capitalism: the overthrown classes were still very strong, they had connections both within the Soviet Union and abroad and they carried out extensive activities to serve their interests; secondly, there were degenerate elements within the state structures, within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the mass organizations and military. These elements were primed to be bought out by imperialism and capitulate to the pressure for the restoration of capitalism. Externally there was the pressure of the imperialist countries, especially the U.S. All this together constitutes an objective basis for the destruction of socialism and the restoration of capitalism. However, having said this, the situation was far from disastrous. These problems were a result of the successes of socialism and the leadership of J. V. Stalin: socialist industrialization, collectivization of the peasantry; the defeat of Nazism and fascism; the spread of communist parties throughout the world. These successes cried out to be consolidated in victory. If the Soviet Union after the death of Comrade Stalin had still been led by a genuine Communist Party, and if that Party had persisted in a stepwise way on the same socialist road of opposing those elements who were for the restoration of capitalism, those reactionary elements who were inside the Communist Party and the state structures; if the CPSU had sorted out the problems of theory that had emerged, the Soviet Union would have triumphed; it would not have collapsed but would have moved socialism to an entirely new stage. They would have accomplished this even if the U.S. imperialists had unleashed all-out war on them. In the 1970's, Brezhnev introduced a massive program of militarization of the Soviet Union. He fully committed the country to the arms race. It was openly stated that the military might of the Soviet Union was the way to protect the Soviet Union. Superiority of arms would guarantee the survival of socialism and the Soviet Union, Brezhnev stated. He also presented the imperialist thesis of "limited sovereignty" to justify the conversion of the countries of eastern-Europe into satellites of the Soviet Union, and justify the existence of the Warsaw Pact as an aggressive military alliance in contention with NATO. All of this talk to promote the arms race was merely the gibberish of those who were fully engaged in restoring capitalism. Even a simple comparison with the 1930s shows the difference of who was in control. Stalin stood against those who insisted on militarizing in the face of the Nazi threat. This was a big accusation against Stalin, that he was deliberately keeping the Soviet Union militarily weak and a sitting duck for the im
Re: old USSR
Hey, Jim, nice post, you took the words right out of my mouth (and then added depth and clarity). I was going to say that 1) it is absurd to talk about the USSR and other authoritarian state socialisms as "state capitalist" when the very bedrock of capitalism, commodified labor-power, did not exist, and 2) it is equally absurd to assert that USSR and other authoritarian state socialisms were non-class societies that, however imperfectly, catered to meeting "social needs." John Gulick At 05:34 PM 10/8/97 -0700, you wrote: >Louis writes: >News and Letters shares the Johnson-Forest "state capitalist" >theory >which, if anything, is a completely undialectical understanding of states >like Cuba and the former Soviet Union. This theory won't accept anything as >deserving of the name socialism unless it is blemish-free. There has to be >full democracy, worker's control of the economy, equality of income, etc. >The problem is that these societies come into being when there are a million >mitigating circumstances. Whatever flaws they had, they did not produce on >the basis of profit, but social need.< > >I don't have any brief to make in defense of the Johnson-Forest tendency or >News and Letters. I can't say whether the "state cap" analysis is >"undialectical" or not (though simply asserting that it is "completely >dialectical" doesn't make it so). > >To me, however, it just doesn't make sense to lump the old USSR in the same >category as Algeria or the US TVA, a clear "state capitalist" enterprise. >There really is a difference between a planned economy with the vast >majority of the means of production owned by the state, on the one hand, and >an unplanned capitalist economy with some means of production owned by the >state (state capitalism), on the other. > >It also doesn't much make sense to simply assert that the old USSR was >"socialist" and then ignore how the lack of full democracy, workers' control >of the economy, etc. affect the _nature_ of that socialism, the goals of the >central plan, and the definition of what is meant by "social need." We can >see a thoroughly corrupt socialism with a central plan aimed at serving a >small minority that defines "social need" as preserving their rule. We have >to remember that when Marx and Engels used the word "socialism" in THE >COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, it did not always refer to something good. (In fact, it >may have never referred to something good, since they described themselves >as communists.) > >The News & Letters folks, despite their obvious limitations, were and are >concerned with the key issue of _state power_ in the old USSR. This issue is >expecially important when the state owns the vast majority of the means of >production and employs the vast majority of the workers (as in the old USSR). > >Who "owned" the state? Absent workers' democracy, the only obvious owner is >the party bureaucracy. This party became as entrenched as the mandarins of >Imperial China, even if individual party bureaucrats never were secure in >their tenure. Somewhere Lenin wrote that classes define themselves in >struggle with each other. Even if he never said it (and there's little point >in citing his tarnished authority), it seems to be a valid point. There are >many examples where the state's party bureaucracy fought like hell with >military force to maintain its power. The party bureaucracy defined itself >as a ruling class, one not that different from the theocratic rulers of >Pharoanic Egypt. > >Maybe "mitigating circumstances" explain the rise of this type of class >society (what I call "bureaucratic socialism," BS). But we have to face the >fact that it was a class society. > >Jim Devine John Gulick Ph. D. Candidate Sociology Graduate Program University of California-Santa Cruz (415) 643-8568 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lenin and Hegel
At 01:57 PM 10/8/97 -0700, Bill Burgess wrote: > I'd also be interested in whether >the Johnson-Forest tendency (Anderson's political pedigree) agreed with >Trotsky's emphasis on dialectics in opposing the characterization of the >USSR as capitalist (see_In Defence of Marxism_), since Anderson lumps >Trotsky in with all the others who forgot the Hegel in Marx. > News and Letters shares the Johnson-Forest "state capitalist" theory which, if anything, is a completely undialectical understanding of states like Cuba and the former Soviet Union. This theory won't accept anything as deserving of the name socialism unless it is blemish-free. There has to be full democracy, worker's control of the economy, equality of income, etc. The problem is that these societies come into being when there are a million mitigating circumstances. Whatever flaws they had, they did not produce on the basis of profit, but social need. One more thought on the question of the need to read and understand Lenin in order to avoid disasters like WWI. This is really the wrong way to understand the socialist vote for war credits in 1914. Philosophy was not the problem, it was the accomodation to their bourgeois milieu. Parliamentarians and trade union officials had begun to see the world the way the bourgeoisie did because it was a privileged layer. This, and not vulgar Marxism, was the problem. Trotsky made the same sort of error in his fight with James Burnham in the SWP in 1938. Burnham's philosophy--a mixture of Marxism and John Dewey--did not have the disorienting effect on the Schachtman group that Trotsky predicted. The Schachtmanites were the most militant defender of trade union rights on the left during WWII. What accounted for this was their proletarian composition and fighting spirit. Louis Proyect
old USSR
Louis writes: >News and Letters shares the Johnson-Forest "state capitalist" theory which, if anything, is a completely undialectical understanding of states like Cuba and the former Soviet Union. This theory won't accept anything as deserving of the name socialism unless it is blemish-free. There has to be full democracy, worker's control of the economy, equality of income, etc. The problem is that these societies come into being when there are a million mitigating circumstances. Whatever flaws they had, they did not produce on the basis of profit, but social need.< I don't have any brief to make in defense of the Johnson-Forest tendency or News and Letters. I can't say whether the "state cap" analysis is "undialectical" or not (though simply asserting that it is "completely dialectical" doesn't make it so). To me, however, it just doesn't make sense to lump the old USSR in the same category as Algeria or the US TVA, a clear "state capitalist" enterprise. There really is a difference between a planned economy with the vast majority of the means of production owned by the state, on the one hand, and an unplanned capitalist economy with some means of production owned by the state (state capitalism), on the other. It also doesn't much make sense to simply assert that the old USSR was "socialist" and then ignore how the lack of full democracy, workers' control of the economy, etc. affect the _nature_ of that socialism, the goals of the central plan, and the definition of what is meant by "social need." We can see a thoroughly corrupt socialism with a central plan aimed at serving a small minority that defines "social need" as preserving their rule. We have to remember that when Marx and Engels used the word "socialism" in THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, it did not always refer to something good. (In fact, it may have never referred to something good, since they described themselves as communists.) The News & Letters folks, despite their obvious limitations, were and are concerned with the key issue of _state power_ in the old USSR. This issue is expecially important when the state owns the vast majority of the means of production and employs the vast majority of the workers (as in the old USSR). Who "owned" the state? Absent workers' democracy, the only obvious owner is the party bureaucracy. This party became as entrenched as the mandarins of Imperial China, even if individual party bureaucrats never were secure in their tenure. Somewhere Lenin wrote that classes define themselves in struggle with each other. Even if he never said it (and there's little point in citing his tarnished authority), it seems to be a valid point. There are many examples where the state's party bureaucracy fought like hell with military force to maintain its power. The party bureaucracy defined itself as a ruling class, one not that different from the theocratic rulers of Pharoanic Egypt. Maybe "mitigating circumstances" explain the rise of this type of class society (what I call "bureaucratic socialism," BS). But we have to face the fact that it was a class society. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html "Peace will come to the world when L.A. has a professional football team again." -- Sports for the Millenium.
Re: Truth
Ricardo asked me to forward this to pen-l. Since I'm in great rush right now, I would be responding to all my critics in a few days. Till then take care, ajit >If you meant to say outright that all truths are "arbitrary", then >Devine's criticism (and now Doug's as well) apply. > >Truth-claims are arbitrary only if they are not open to critical >(rational) examination by your peers, at which point they may either >be rejected or accepted. Now, it is true that this rationalist >attitute involves FAITH in reason, which is what led me to say >previously that, since the first principles of a >philosophy cannot be proven true, they are arbitrary: faith in >reason is arbitrary. > >But then I added that: > >> >Hegel >> >>abandoned this attempt to BEGIN philosophy with a set of "first" >> >>principles. First principles will always lie exterior to reason. >> >>Reason can only justify itself through its own experience; it has no >> >>need of another principle except its own act of reasoning. To seek a >> >>firm foundation apart from the act of reasoning is like trying >> >>to swim without getting into the water. >> >___ >> > > >Ajit responded: > >> >But do you think Hegel succeeded in his attempt. I think there are lots >> >of ideas in Hegel which are simply posited. And then of course the >> >logicians think that dialectics is all mumbo zumbo anyway, but I'm not >> >saying that. >> > > >Without getting into a debate about Hegel, he posited the truths of >his time: Post-Kantian and Post-revolutionary Europe. He did not >concoct these truth (ex nihilo) out of his head... > >Ajit continues: > > Again the question is not that whether the >> native Americans' sense of individuality is in conflict with the >> predominant cultural norms of "individual rights and cultural liberties" in >> America. Even if it did conflict, the multiculturalist must protect and >> respect the predominant American cultural norms. It is a part of the >> multicultural fabric. The problem arises when one culture, usually the >> dominant culture, argues that it is the only "reasonable" way to live and >> the other cultures must 'assimilate', i.e. accept a cultural genocide. >> >> I do think that the question of justice for all requires to be thought >> through seriously though. On what principle a sense of justice could be >> built? Cheers, ajit sinha >> > > That's the problem: in the name of multiculturalism you may very >well find yourself protecting every crime in the book! By the >way, I am not against multiculturalism; my point is that - in this >age of "modernity", of which you are a participant - there are no >simple solutions, such as those which simply celebrate all cultural >practices. ricardo > >
Re: Truth?
Paul Z. wrote: > > Bill, I haven't seen the Anderson work (have others?), but it sounds > curious. Why would Stalinism promote 1908 Lenin except as part of the > Lenin cult it wanted? just as it used Marx when useful. Paul > Louis P. added some useful detail on the political background to Anderson's book. I think I would agree with him that the emphasis on Hegel can be taken too far, but I do think it is a tonic against 'vulgar materialism' (Lenin, 1914), thus important to identifying the real record of Marxism on the philosophical points discussed relative to pomoists and others. As I think Paul suggests above, "even the devil can quote the scriptures for his own purposes". It seems that 1914 Lenin was very inconvenient for Stalinism, where a kind of mechanical, party-dictated philosophy is a tool for sectarian political ends. It is similarly the preferred foil for opponents of Marxism. Louis already noted that in 1980 Lenin's specific purpose was to oppose Bogdanov. Since I don't know enough on all this I would be interested in any comments on whether this 1908 position is as crude as Louis suggests. Anderson certainly suggests Lenin in 1914 was admitting he was a vulgar materialist in 1908, but this is an example of where I wonder if he does not go too far. I'd also be interested in whether the Johnson-Forest tendency (Anderson's political pedigree) agreed with Trotsky's emphasis on dialectics in opposing the characterization of the USSR as capitalist (see_In Defence of Marxism_), since Anderson lumps Trotsky in with all the others who forgot the Hegel in Marx. An example of how attention to Hegel helps is Mike Lebowitz's _Beyond Capital_, which is a very convincing and important demonstration of how many understandings of Marx's project are so one-sided, and the need to develop the 'political economy of workers' that Marx had projected as part of _Capital_ but was not able to get to. Lebowitz also refers to 1914 Lenin, and the latter's aphorism to the effect that as a result of not reading Hegel's _Science of Logic_ 'Marxism' had not understood Marx for the previous 50 years. James Devine has frequently recommended this book on Pen-L and it really is unfortunate how little attention it has received. Bill Burgess
Cuba's new economic policy
(This was posted on the Spoons Marxism-International list in response to some Maoists who argue that Cuba is "capitalist" or even "fascist". I must apologize for the savagery of the polemics that are par for the course over there. I will remain as mild as a lamb over here. Baaah.) On December 30, 1990 Cuba and the USSR announced that their trade treaties would last for one year only, rather than the five year periods of the past. Prices would be based on hard currency at world market levels, except for sugar. Even though sugar was still subsidized, the 1991 price would be $500 per ton rather than $800 per ton. This means that right off the bat Cuban revenues would be cut nearly in half. Soviet delivery of oil would be cut from 13 million barrels to 10. Due to the fuel shortages that this caused, truck and tractor imports were cut to the bare minimum as 1991 began. Just 10 months later, on October 10, 1991, Castro announced that only 26 percent of Soviet goods had been shipped to Cuba under the terms of the December 30, 1990 agreement. For example, only 7 percent of lard and 16 percent of vegetable oil had been shipped. Without cooking oil, it is very difficult to prepare food. It is also difficult to start a cooking oil industry from scratch. In addition, the USSR stopped shipping household goods. Cuba received no detergent and less than 5 percent of the promised soap. There were shortfalls in capital goods as well. Only 16 percent of fertilizer was received, 2 percent of paper, 1.6 percent of tires, and 1.9 percent of laminated steel. (These statistics come from Frank T. Fitzgerald's "The Cuban Revolution in Crisis", Monthly Review Press.) Things then went from bad to worse. After the fall of Gorbachev, what had been a trickle dried up completely as the faucet was turned off. Gorbachev only tolerated socialist Cuba, while Yeltsin would prefer to see it destroyed. In 1992, Cuba's total trade with Soviet bloc partners fell to 7 percent of what it had been in 1989. From Yeltsin's former Soviet Union he received only 1.8 million tons of oil, around 13 percent of what it had received in 1989. All this adds up to collapse of infrastructure, which no amount of study circles devoted to Mao and Stalin could overcome. My readings of Stalin have given me gas in the past, but no oil. What was the response of the Cuban Communist Party to this economic crisis, which was among the greatest to befall any nation in the twentieth century? First of all, they have not sold state property to foreign investors, as is currently taking place in the former Soviet Union. Not a single acre of Cuban sugar fields have been sold to the imperialists. What Cuba has done is liberalize its foreign investment codes. The results are well-known. As I pointed out yesterday, one Canadian firm is doing business in Cuba but not in the same way that it does business in Mexico or other places. Cuba workers may not receive high wages, but they are not treated like dirt the way they are in Indonesia. Or in Vietnam, where Korean managers have them run in place as a "motivational" tool. The arrangement with foreign corporations is based on a quid pro quo arrangement. They get a highly reliable and well-educated work force, while the Cuban government gets hard currency from the products that are sold on the open market. This hard currency allows the purchase of cooking oil, petroleum, steel, medical supplies, guns and other essential items. Without this arrangement with foreign corporations, Cuba would be destroyed. And what would our super-Stalinist and Maoist comrades recommend as an alternative? Should Cuba start up its own steel industry? Since there is no coal or iron ore in Cuba to speak of, some type of synthetic steel would have to be produced, made of recycled sugar cane I suppose. Cuba has also expanded on tourism to get access to foreign currency. This has been a painful choice because the Cuban revolution was made partly to liberate it from the status of colonial brothel. It has been successful to a high degree. Cuba had 243,026 tourists in 1985 and about 480,000 in 1992. The influx of tourists has brought on prostitution unfortunately. If some Cubans are driven to desperation because they can not get their hands on household goods, it is no surprise that they will exchange sex for European currency that can be used in special shops. The Cuban government can not prevent this. As long as there is deep poverty, there will be prostitution. Of course, if everybody in Cuba was reading Mao and Stalin, such social ills would not occur. If the RED BOOK or FOUNDATIONS OF LENINISM were best-sellers, a purified population would rather endure hunger than sell their bodies. This, when you really get down to it, is the "Marxist" analysis of Cuba's problems coming from the Olaechea, Joseph Green and their fans. Now, as it turns out, the Cuban government is already beginning to pull back from some of the excesses of this emergency period, as to
Re: computers and socialism
> From: Andy Pollack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: computers and socialism > Date: Wednesday, October 08, 1997 5:45 AM > > I've started a GeoCities homepage on which I'll be updating on a regular basis > the arguments I laid out in my article in the October Monthly Review on > "Information Technology and Socialist Self-Management." I'd very much like > participation and feedback from progressive economists. > The address is www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/4603. > My email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Please let me know what you think. > In solidarity, > Andy Pollack
San Francisco Bay Area:Phone/Fax against Union-Busting Hotel
> **URGENT ACTION ALERT** > > The John Muir Hospital Foundation is cosponsoring an event this Thursday, > October 9th, at the UNION-BUSTING LAFAYETTE PARK HOTEL, which is under > boycott for violating workers' rights to organize. WE NEED YOUR HELP! > > 1)Please contact William Tanner from the John Muir Hospital Foundation. Tell > him to relocate this event and stop supporting lawbreakers like the > Lafayette Park! > *Phone: (510)947-4449 > *FAX:(510)938-4907 > > 2)Contact Attorney Shela Camenisch, who is also cosponsoring the event. > *Phone: (510)253-1330 > *FAX:(510)254-0413 > > 3)Join the picket! There will be a picket at the Lafayette Park Hotel that > morning, Thursday, October 9th, from 8:30am to 9:30am. > > For more information, please call Elaine at (510)893-3181 ext. 122. > Thank you for your support and solidarity! >
Re: Deleuze-Guattari
At 07:26 PM 10/7/97 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote: l >Mann is a "neo-Weberian" supposedly who also finds Marx useful. Max Weber >tried to explain the growth of capitalism as a consequence of the >"Protestant ethic". Another minor comment: I do not think it is an accurate reflection of Weber's argument; he argued for the existence of 'elective affinity' between protestant ethic and the interest of the mercantile class; in other words: protestantism gained popularity because it was appealing to the class gaining substantial economic power, and then it was used as the means to legitimate the interests of that class. This is an essentially materialist argument that breaks with a rather mechanistic interpretation of the relationship between economy and culture without falling into an idealistic trap -- economy is not a consequence of mental phenomena (protestant ethic, rat-choice and what not). regards, wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS THIS IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE. - John Dewey
Cuba on CNN
CNN, the Only U.S.-Based News Organization In Cuba, to Air First Special from Havana Rare and Exclusive Interviews Highlight Half-Hour Special "Cuba: The Struggling Revolution" Airs Wednesday, Oct. 8, 6:30- 7 p.m. (ET) CNN, the only U.S.-based news organization with a bureau in Cuba, will air its first special from that country on Oct. 8. Havana bureau chief and the network's senior Latin American correspondent Lucia Newman will anchor the half-hour special, "Cuba: The Struggling Revolution," beginning at 6:30 p.m. (all times Eastern) which airs on the day Cuba's long ruling Communist Party convenes. The special looks at the state of Cuba today as the country struggles with its identity and survival. Included in the special is a rare interview with Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage and the first-ever television interview with Manuel Pineiro, alias "Red Beard," who was instrumental in Cuba's support for revolutionary groups around the world. Pineiro talks for the first time about his comrade in arms and revolutionary icon Che Guevara. In addition to Newman, Miami bureau chief John Zarrella and national correspondent Larry Woods contribute reports to the special. In addition to the Lage and Pineiro interviews, other reports in the program will include: * The revolution: Newman takes an in-depth look at the state of the revolution with a look at the history of the revolution including the involvement of Che Guevara and a present-day look at Cuban President Fidel Castro. * Cuba's economy: Newman reports on the country's attempt to develop a new economy designed to deal with the many challenges facing the island nation today. * U.S. embargo: Newman looks at the effect the U.S. embargo is having on Cubans getting medical supplies and food stuffs. * Passion and politics: From daily conversations held with Cuban-Americans, Zarrella explains how a small but influential lobby group is largely responsible for shaping much of Washington's foreign policy toward Cuba. * From the heartland: Woods travels to small towns in central Cuba to see if people there believe the revolution is living up to its promises. CNN was granted permission by both the U.S. and the Cuban governments to operate a bureau in Havana earlier this year. CNN opened its bureau there on March 11. Newman has been the Havana bureau chief since March. Prior to her responsibilities there, Newman served as the CNN bureau chief in Mexico City since 1993. She has also been CNN bureau chief in Santiago, Chile (1989-1993), Managua, Nicaragua (1985-1989) and Panama City (1987). Woods traveled to Cuba in 1996 with baseball great Hank Aaron to report on Cuba's unparalleled passion for baseball which aired as part of CNN Presents...CUBA's BOYS OF SUMMER. Zarrella has reported from Cuba numerous times, most recently in July where he filed several reports from that country. CNN International (CNNI) will also air "Cuba: The Struggling Revolution," at 10:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 8. It will also replay the special on Thursday, Oct. 9 at 12:30 a.m.
Re: Deleuze-Guattari
At 05:40 PM 10/7/97 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote, inter alia: >The important question for Marxists is why these irrational ideologies get >a mass following. I explain this in terms of economic crisis. Fascism >arises at a time when there is great unemployment and/or hyperinflation and >in societies that have a rather well-developed working-class movement, such >as Italy, Spain and Germany. The fascist movement gains a middle-class base >because it stresses a "national socialism", one that rises above the class >antagonisms of Bolshevism. This message has an enormous appeal to the >shopkeeper and farmer, who were ruined by the capitalist class and >inconvenienced by working-class militancy. Just a minor comment in support. Not long ago I did number crunching for someone who's researching the emergence of Nazism between 1925 and 1930 (his idea is that the success of Nazism lies in its clever network building strategy), trying to find a pattern among the themes of Nazi public speeches (based on archival data) in that period. Although no clear-cut patterns emerged thus far, one thing is pretty clear: Jew and Bolshevik bashing were never a central theme (in terms of incidence) of Nazi speeches; moreover, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the incidence of Jew bashing and the popularity of the movement, and a positive relationship between Bolshevik bashing and the movement's popularity. Thus, anti-semitism featured in 6.2% of the sample (N=1,052 events), broken down by the period: 7.9% between 1925 and mid 1927; 5.3% between mid 1927 and mid 1929; and 4% between mid 1929 and end 1930 -- a nearly 50% drop as the movement popularity grew. Anti-communism featured in 8.7% of the sample, broken down by the period: 7.1% between 1925 and mid 1927; 9% between mid 1927 and mis 1929; and 11.3% between mis 1929 and end 1930 -- a hefty increase as the nazi popularity grew. Moreover, as the Nazi movement started gaining popularity in early 1930, the themes of the economy and the prospects of the feature became most salient. This seems to suggest that Nazis become popular not because of their Kulturkampf and Jew hating, but because they were able to offer a more appealing vision of the economic development than that of the Left at that time. A lesson for the 1990s: identity politics, either ethnicity- or ideology-based, is a cul de sac, a losing proposition; a winning proposition is a sexy vision of the economic future. wojtek sokolowski institute for policy studies johns hopkins university baltimore, md 21218 [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (410) 516-4056 fax: (410) 516-8233 POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS THIS IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE. - John Dewey
Ralph Nader "Appraising Microsoft" Conference
Ralph Nader Announces "Appraising Microsoft" Conference October 6, 1997 Contacts: Caroline Jonah or John Richard at (202)387-8030 Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader announced today plans for the "Appraising Microsoft and Its Global Strategies" Conference to be held on November 13 and 14 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. Scheduled participants include Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, Former Federal Trade Commissioner Christine Varney, Gary Reback of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati and Roberta Katz, General Counsel of Netscape Communications and others. In separate letters to Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and Vice President Al Gore, Nader invited both to attend the conference and make presentations. In his letter to Gates, Nader urged the Microsoft executive to share his insights "as one of the dominant corporate architects and philosophers of the information highway" and to dialogue with the conference participants who are among the few still willing to speak publically of their concerns, findings and recommendations. Nader also noted serious concerns raised by Microsoft's overwhelming market power. "Self-censorship brought on by the detailed fear of Microsoft retaliation - itself seen as a many pronged cluster- is not healthy in any economy," he wrote. The two-day conference aims to bring together industry leaders, academic specialists, writers, consumer activists and government officials to discuss and debate the business practices of Microsoft and the impact of those practices on our society. Conference topics to be discussed include: The Microsoft Antitrust Decree, A Consumer Framework for the Digital Age, The Federal Government and Antitrust Enforcement, The Digital Commerce Toll Road and The Theory of Increasing Returns. Conference participants include Garth Saloner of Stanford University, Morgan Chu Esq. of Irell & Manella, Vice President for Huntington Bancshares William Randle, CEO & President of NetChannel Philip Monego, Caldera CEO Bryan Sparks, Audrie Krause of NetAction, Bill Wendle of The Real Estate Cafe, Ralph Palumbo Esq. of The Summit Law Group and Steve Susman Esq. of Susman and Godfrey among others. For more information about the conference and registration materials, go to www.essential.org/appraising/microsoft Contact the Conference Coordinator at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"This computer kills fascists: #24
"This computer kills fascists: #24: Sunday 14 Sep 1997" CYBERFASCIST ACTIVISM: FROM USENET TO THE WEB / FROM ANTI-SEMITISM TO HOMOPHOBIA I was originally scheduled to give a presentation at the recent International Symposium on Fighting Hate on the Internet sponsored by the League For Human Rights in Toronto on grassroots organizing. Unfortunately, I had to cancel since I did not think my health permitted me to *guarantee* that I could make it. This meant that it would have been unfair to the organizers to try to attend and then cancel at the last minute. I have been expanding my planned presentation on grassroots anti- hate organizing to deal with our need to have a net free from control by cops, courts, corporations, chairmen, or commissars (C5C). Working on the presentation led me to catch up on some research about what the cyberfascists are doing after last year's defeat of . You probably remember that the group was smashed by a 33,000-500 vote in the biggest turnout in Internet history. This significantly demoralized the fascists and caused many to give up on Usenet news groups as a prime focus of action. But there are other areas of the net they still use. There are also other issues besides Holocaust Revisionism. Denying the reality of the Nazi genocide against Jews is the most powerful way of revitalizing fascist ideology; it is not the only way. Classical fascist anti-Semitism has a dual role. It first scapegoats the Jews and lets dissatisfied social elements project onto the Jews all of society's problems. Anti-Semitism also serves as a focus or training for a broader hate-based activism. This means that one learns from pogroms and then moves to gay bashing or smashing labor unions. It may be easier to scapegoat Jews than gays or lesbians as responsible for social problems, but it is just as easy to start attacking lesbian couples with baseball bats and then move to desecrating Torahs than the other way around. As I tracked cyberfascist behavior since the white-power music debate, I discovered that some fascist behavior had shifted from the previous concentration on overt anti-Semitism to a heavily homophobic orientation. This is, of course, only my conclusion. But in the next post or two I'll provide some pointers to fascist web sites and documents. These will let you examine the data and reach your own conclusions. That is a key reason why we need an uncontrolled net where data can flow freely without being blocked by the C5C forces I mentioned earlier. Technology aside, there is but a slim difference between burning books and blocking the data stream so nobody can access it. But all of this is the basis for more posts in the future. We resist hate to make life more joyous; there's little purpose in letting the conflict get you down. So remember when you're hard at work fighting fascists (or only have time to express occasional displeasure) to always keep a smile on your lips and a song in your heart. --tallpaul Fascism: We have no ethical right to forgive, no historical right to forget. (No permission required for noncommercial reproduction.)
FW: BLS Daily Reportboundary="---- =_NextPart_000_01BCD3C9.6EAD7540"
This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. -- =_NextPart_000_01BCD3C9.6EAD7540 charset="iso-8859-1" BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1997 The turnover rate rises to the highest level in nearly a decade, says The Wall Street Journal's Work Week column (page A1). At midyear, employee turnover was up sharply from a year before, with 1.2 percent of work forces leaving each month, a report by the Bureau of National Affairs shows. Unhappy employees now can switch jobs more easily, given the booming economy, personnel consultants say. Turnover is highest at call centers, where employees talk to customers on the phone all day, and in certain high-tech jobs, where some computer specialists in demand leave about every six months, on average. To hold workers, employers are offering more job sharing and flexible hours Replacing an employee costs one to one-and-a-half times the departed workers' annual salary, says Hewitt Associates, a Lincolnshire, Ill., management-consulting firm. Employee attacks on bosses make up 17 percent of workplace violence, while employee attacks on one another account for 57 percent, says the Work Week column of The Wall Street Journal (page A1) The three major minority groups are purchasing homes, starting businesses, and attaining college degrees at such a rapid pace they could reach parity with whites over the next 10 years, according to initial findings of a study to be released today. The survey also found that whites still have substantially greater household income than African Americans and Hispanics, although less than the third minority group, Asian Americans, and that the annual rate at which minorities are increasing their incomes is virtually equal to that of whites. Conducted jointly by three firms specializing in minority marketing and demographic research, the study examines minorities' progress in the areas they say are components of the commonly held notion of the "American Dream." Members of minority groups, including immigrants, will make major strides in these categories over the next decade, provided the economy remains healthy, say researchers, who based their projections on U.S. Census and Federal Reserve data and reports from the Conference Board Conducting the analysis is the Graham Gregory Bozell company, MSR Consulting of New York, and DemoGraph Corp. of Miami .(Wall Street Journal, page A2). The Census Bureau announced last week that the median income of American households rose in 1996 for the third year in a row, even after allowing for inflation. At last, the economic expansion appears to be lifting a lot of boats, says Louis Uchitelle in The New York Times (Oct. 5, page WK4) But there's a less sanguine explanation buried in the Census report and in other government data. Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters are working longer hours for roughly the same hourly pay. It is not higher wages but extra time on the job that is the main source of the rising household income. That is a precarious affluence. When the economy weakens, as it inevitably will, the extra work can disappear abruptly, as it did in the aftermath of the last recession. Raises are harder to reverse DUE OUT TOMORROW: Extended Mass Layoffs in the Second Quarter of 1997 -- =_NextPart_000_01BCD3C9.6EAD7540 b3NvZnQgTWFpbC5Ob3RlADEIAQWAAwAOzQcKAAgACQAHADcAAwAwAQEggAMADgAAAM0HCgAI AAkABgANAAMABQEBCYABACEyOUEzNDE0MEJDM0ZEMTExODg4RTAwMjBBRjlDMDMwOAD6BgEE gAEAFQAAAEZXOiBCTFMgRGFpbHkgUmVwb3J0AIcGAQ2ABAACAgACAAEDkAYAvAsAAB0D AC4AAEAAOQBwDycx69O8AR4AcAABDQAAAERhaWx5IFJlcG9ydAACAXEAAQAAACAA AAABvNNO96NvhoBdPw8R0ZUGAmCM22AqAAUBhmAAIgKuwR4AMUABDQAAAFJJQ0hBUkRTT05f RAADABpAAB4AMEABDQAAAFJJQ0hBUkRTT05fRAADABlAAAIBCRAB 7AgAAOgIAADUDQAATFpGdXdcwxX/AAoBDwIVAqQD5AXrAoMAUBMDVAIAY2gKwHNldO4yBgAGwwKD MgPGBxMCg8YzA8UCAHBycRIgE4X+fQqACM8J2QKACoENsQtg4G5nMTAzFCALChQiMwwBFMBvdAWQ BUBCTEEF8ERBSUxZB/BFAFBPUlQsIFRVFEVTGnBZGzBPQ1SAT0JFUiAgNxswMDE5OTcKhQqFVGiI ZSB0CHBub3YEkHggcmEZ4B6ABAAHkXRGbx3wHdFoaWcd0HM5BUBsZR5QAyALgCBugmUKwGx5IGEg BYHGYQ2wGzBzYXkEIB3CZlcHQAMgU3QJ0QVASlUIYW4HQCcEIFcFsGtPIlAJ4CPwFdF1bQOgKIUK sGcd4EExKS4cUMJBBUBtaWR5INEbMDRlbQtQbyXwHel3YfkEIHVwIcARwQtQIRADUvMhISXyIGIN wAWwIaED8KsfcByQLhIgcASQYwnw+QVAb2YnYCPSKUEqYAQg6SAwYXYLgGcmQADQKdC7BGACMGgb MCEwFmBwFgG3KRAhEB9yQghwINB1KqL6Th6gaQIgB0ATcA3QC3AjEeAn0W93cyVhVW75EcBwcCEQ JlYEIB4wB+AXIXADoAPhdCxBam9ifwQgBGAWYCwRAJAhABswZ/5pHlADoB9yBuADcCvjBaDtHjBt MxEqMXMCICDAAyDxNHFzdWwBkAIwL3Eh4P0lYVQeFgQAH6ceoDFhIoF/KmI1ASmBHdAykjCnAZBs JQA2gh9QL6BsPKB/KuI4syZVL2EKwB3gKrBm/wZxK/EyczIhJ9Mr4jyCF+B4ZXhpAmAfkQhhBCEn 8Dg1LlItEAtgP+BHI78mSAWgQDI7sh9BO7EtPIH1SzAtEcBsKsAd8AdzH3IvDbAKsRngRCcnPHFu dd8u4SHQC2BCACG1SAfQKbD1BUBvP+EZ4DjRITC+TAuAFdEAgB+wKWJJIoC+LhswA4Ek8QeA AjAtNZW1K+JmL1BtJWEc7EUmZvMeoAGQY2s7AwbgBBAHkecAwERwJ6IxNyouSPId4P8r0AbwCfAq YDjiAxA5SFTKvzuz
Dave McReynolds on PK's (From Committees of Correspondencemail-list)
I have read the posts and realize it is easy for all of us to jump too quickly. If we go back to the Million Man March, I never saw so much white guilt in my life. I was really happy when Charlene Mitchell was one of the few on the Left to raise solid questions about why folks weren't asking about the role of women. And there were some very sound reasons to question Farrahkan (I rarely saw such nonsense as his numerology, which I watched live). But . . . in fact the MMM was more complex than any of us had really understood. It was middle class, it wasn't anti-White, it was - in its own way (and without trying to equate them) touching some of the things the Promise Keepers are touching. The likely impact of MMM will not be to strengthen the hand of the black separatist elements in society, and the impact of the Promise Keepers is not going to be men beating up on gays and their wives. I say this as a "gay man" (I really do hate that word gay - I vastly prefer homosexual or even queer, but what can I do!) who should have all my fears aroused by watching Christian men marching together. Damn it, they did more to get blacks involved than the Socialist Party (or the War Resisters League) or a lot of our groups. And if we stand back and take a long long historic look, America has always had waves of "fundamentalism" which, instead of leading to reaction, often led to social reform. There were very strong elements of this grassroots fundamentalism in the Debsian movement, and the the "red tent meetings" out on the plains of Kansas, etc. What isn't helping with the PK's, anymore than it did with the MMM (where I was slow in seeing beyond my own political preconceptions) is to lump everyone together. In the case of the MMM, to see it as anti-women, or anti-white, or, worst of all, as pro-Nation of Islam. And what we have seen here is much too complex to jump to conclusions. No, of course these folks aren't "left", but if we are ever to build a Left we have to find a way to reach them. Ditto those who marched in the MMM. Both movements are too fluid, too empty of a clear political agenda, for us to "define them by our reactions to them". Fraternally, David McReynolds
Lenin, Hegel
Anderson is a member of "News and Letters" and a rather sharp thinker. The group is basically a benign cult around the deceased Trotskyist Raya Duneskaya, who was co-leader of the Johson-Forrest tendency in the SWP during the 1950s. Johnson was CLR James and she was Forrest. This political current believes that the Hegelian influence on Marx has been pushed into the background and this has led to dogmatic errors time and again. If you suppress dialectics, you lose the ability to see change going on in society. Hence, you will miss new phenomena like black nationalism, feminism, etc. The importance of Lenin's study of Hegel should be obvious given this context. When Lenin battled Bogdanov's empiro-criticism in 1908, he invoked a version of Marxist philosophy that was rather schematic, to be generous about it. The polemics are a rather stultifying version of dialectical materialism that fits right in with official Stalinist philosophy and politics. When WWI began, Lenin was shocked to see the Socialist parliamentarians vote for war credits. He wanted to understand why Karl Kautsky, the most respected thinker of Social Democracy, would jump on the chauvinist bandwagon. Thus he devoted himself to a study of Hegel. His notebooks on Hegel run into hundreds of pages and they are the subject of Anderson's book. I myself am a little skeptical about the need to study Hegel. I took a seminar on Hegel in graduate school in 1967 and read "Phenomenology of Spirit." Not a bad book, but a bit long-winded. When I read Marx a few months later as part of my indoctrination into American Trotskyism, I found that there was just enough Hegel there to give the whole thing the power that it needed to understand change and process. Hegel without tears, so to speak. So I have never really understood the Hegel fetish of CLR James, Raya Duneskaya and their disciples. Louis Proyect At 10:25 PM 10/7/97 EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >Addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >** Reply to note from [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tue, 7 Oct 1997 14:38:38 -0700 (PDT) >> >> I just happened to skim through Kevin Anderson's _Lenin, Hegel, and >> Western Marxism (U of Ill. Press, 1995) who argues Lenin's position in >> his 1908 Empirocriticism shifted by 1914 when he re-read Hegel to try to >> come to grips with Social Democracy's support for war. Thus the >> Philosphical Notebooks are Lenin's more mature view on such questions, >> and Andersons also tries to illustrate this in later debates like over >> trade unions. Anderson suggests Stalinism has upheld Lenin in 1908 >> and suppressed his later and more nuanced, dialectical approach. Engels >> also gets a few boots. > >Bill, I haven't seen the Anderson work (have others?), but it sounds >curious. Why would Stalinism promote 1908 Lenin except as part of the >Lenin cult it wanted? just as it used Marx when useful. Paul > > >* >Paul Zarembka, supporting the RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY Web site at >http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka and using OS/2 Warp. >* > >
