Re: Marxism and Native Americans
I liked Louis's probe. I am very interested in the struggles of NA and Aust Aboriginal to remain a culturally intact group. I guess he was suggesting that we have to see what the implications are of applying historical materialism in marx literally when perhaps such applications go counter to other objectives - as appear in michael's statements below. i will follow this debate and when i have thought more about it, I will contribute. the other related issue - is whether being green and pursuing an environmentally sustainable production system is violating the same urgency to get capitalism into the phase where subjective class consciousness is possible. again the literal application which challenges other objectives. kind regards bill I want to applaud Louis's inquiries into the struggles of indigenous peoples. I wonder what sort of radical it is who does not stand up forthrightly for the rights of indigenous peoples just to exist as independent cultures. And it is not as if we do not have much to learn (about egalitarian distribution, efficient use of the land and resources, about medicines, etc.) from the few indigneous peoples left on earth. And what exactly do indigenous peoples have to gain from an integration into the modern world? If they do choose to integrate, then should we not make sure that we are fighting to make it a world worth integrating into? michael yates ##William F. Mitchell ### Head of Economics Department # University of Newcastle New South Wales, Australia ###*E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ### Phone: +61 49 215065 # ## ### Fax: +61 49 216919 Mobile: 0419 422 410 ## WWW Home Page: http://econ-www.newcastle.edu.au/economics/bill/billeco.html
Re: Violence against women
Bill: You make three slightly several different claims here, none of which is persuasive. If sexist violence perpetrated by males against females "has its source in the nature of capitalist society", we should not expect to see it prior to the advent of capitalist relations. Rebecca: Of course you could. The last two world wars have their source in capitalism. Because wars existed prior to capitalism does not mean that wars dont have their source in capitalism. However that does not mean that all wars that ever existed have had their source in capitalism. Just as all male violence against women has not had it source in capitalism (male violence under feudalism etc). I am talking about make violence agasint women that is going on now in capitalist society. I am talking a real ongoing problem. I am talking about something that can be eliminated now. I am not talking about violence that has taken place in some society that preceeded capitalism. THis pastr canot be changed. Bill: This, plainly not the case, leaves this assertion empty. It also is logically flawed---there is no logical connection between capitalist relations and sexist relations, other than they are both unjustified relations of unequal power, hence both intolerable. The two can survive independently quite well, though at any particular time the two can be found together in cozy company, feeding off one another. In order for capitalism to survive, it requires only, by definition, that capitalist relations survive. Rebecca: The above asertions make little sense. The absurd upshot of this is that current relations, practices, institutions are not necessarily capitalist. Then if this is the case there is no capitalist society in any substnative sense of the word. Instead there is a capitalist society that exists alongside of a multitude of other societies or soccial phenomena that only exist in in an external relation to each other. Consequently their existence side by side is one of chance. Contingency is the prevalent form t hen. There is no systemic links between the varied social pehnomena. Rebecca
G-8 Jobs Conference: Behind The Doubletalk
Faced with massive unemployment rates and the disgrace of what is known as the jobless recovery, the countries which call themselves the Group of 8 (the former G-7 with the addition of Russia) held a "Jobs Conference" in Kobe, Japan on November 30. Like others of the same kind, this conference had nothing to do with sorting out the problem of joblessness or unemployment. The doubletalk contained in the statement issued following the conference was all aimed at 1) covering up the crisis of the capitalist system and its inability to provide for the people, and 2) giving credibility to the anti-social offensive being implemented by the G-8. These countries are using international fora such as this to adopt programs to continue the restructuring of all existing programs. The aim is to bring down all fetters which impede trade liberalization and the privatization of social programs so as to free funds in the state treasury to hand over to the rich. The very notion of a modern society which is responsible for guaranteeing the human rights of its members to a livelihood, health, education and well-being in the form of food, shelter and clothing and a standard of living commensurate with the standard society has attained is being thrown out the window by governments operating behind the backs of the people. The only thing the workers can hope to learn from such conferences is what lies in store for them as concerns the further attacks of the capitalists and their governments. News agency reports clearly reveal that the attempt is made to create the illusion that capitalism creates jobs, even though all the evidence shows this is not true. Japan's Minister of Labour Bunmei Ibuki said that the G-8 found "free initiatives in enterprises" a "remedy for balancing U.S.-style deregulation with traditional European social protection." He claimed that the "private-sector initiatives" would lead to "the creation of new industries to bring about quality jobs." The official view that workers must fend for themselves was expressed as follows by Ibuki: "Macroeconomic policies must be supported by structural reforms as well as active labour market policies to translate growth into jobs." British Employment Minister Andrew Smith talked about the importance of "balancing industrial productivity and job security," by which he also meant that the workers must fend for themselves. According to news agency reports, he called on the workforce to "face the challenges of change without fears." The statement issued by the G-8 called on workers to improve "employability through intensive training and educational programmes which allow workers to acquire the skills indispensable to perform in newly emerging sectors." "Human resource development is the responsibility of both companies and individuals, when appropriate, by governments," the statement pompously declared. The definition of "when appropriate" was conveniently left to the imagination. The statement also revealed its real aim: to sanction the reform of social programs which is taking place against the interests of the peoples. Again, it did this by hiding behind doubletalk about concern for jobs and the public interest. "We recognized the importance of adapting some social security systems in order to make them more employment friendly, and to moderate the public burden," the statement said. This is a blatant attempt to eliminate funding to social programs so as to hand over more money to the rich in the form of interest payments on the debt, but it is carried out under the cover of the public interest and concern about jobs. The next sentence carries this doubletalk further, this time in the name of "sustainable development." It reads: "This will set up a sustainable social security system and contribute to a strong economic base necessary for the maintenance and the creation of employment." It is serious enough that "ministers" get together to decide policies for sovereign countries without the peoples of those countries agreeing to anything they decide. The statement says that "for the first time trade union representatives joined the conference." This is designed to provide the conference decisions with legitimacy. Even though the entire agenda is against the working class and peoples of the G-8 countries, the statement declared the G-8s "commitment to observe internationally recognized core labour standards and looked forward to the outcome of the work on this currently underway at the International Labour Organization." The ILO is a tripartite body whose main aim is to reconcile the workers of all countries to the demands of big business and big government. Talk about "core" labour standards is like saying you can have the apple core but don't ask for the apple. You are supposed to be happy that at least you can plant the seed and perhaps grow a new apple which can be eaten somewhere down the line. The
Re: Native American land rights
James Heartfield: No I don't. And any way, what has the question of Nigeria got to do with land rights in the Americas in the last century? Everything. The same methodology you deployed to rationalize genocide against Native Americans is used in your attack on human rights groups defending the Ogoni. They are trying to preserve primitive peoples like "jam" or maintain "human zoos" for ecotourists. You view peoples like the Sioux and the Ogoni as obstacles in the path of "civilization". Louis Proyect
Re: Native American land rights
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2. Capitalist culture is very seductive. Almost every incident of contact subtly lures people to give up their ways. The only exception I know occured when some islanders gave Captain Cook back his metal axes because they did not know how to make the tools themselves. What fraction of Native Americans are willing to reject the casinos? Maybe we have already destroyed so many indigeneous cultures that they have already incorated the worst of what the West has to offer. Wasn't Russell Means running for the libertarian presidential nomination? "Seductive" is a very loaded word here - it implies something devious is going on. Had you used "attractive" instead, the rest of the paragraph might have been impossible. What's the point? That capitalist culture has lots of attractions that people should resist? If so, why? From what vantage point can you criticize people for "giv[ing] up their ways" to its "lures"? Maybe there are real positive attractions for most/many people that it would be impossible, and maybe even wrong, to resist. Is it possible to separate the "lures" - the positive aspects of capitalist modernization - from exploitation, polarization, and the destruction of nature? Doug
Reply to Louis P.
Louis Proyect wrote: In the green movement, there are "mainstream" groups which function within the ruling-class establishment and there are "alternative" groups which challenge it. For example, the Environmental Defense Fund supports pollution credits and was a cheerleader for NAFTA. It has a budget of $25.4 million and a staff of 160. The CEO has a $262,000 salary. It was George Bush's favorite environmental group. I disagree with EDF about 80% of the time. They are a convenient stamp of approval for terrible positions, including NAFTA and the trading of pollution rights. I hesitated writing my thought because I knew that they are far from an activist group, but I did approve of their making overtures to the insurance industry to open up a contradiction with the capitalist leadership. It is a matter of record that LM is politically opposed to groups like "Project Underground" and "Survival International". I did not mean to support the position of LM -- Only to say that the tactic of working with a reactionary group does not in itself constitute evidence of a bad policy. Bashing LM is no different than bashing the Cato Institute. If you want me to be more polite to capitalist ideologues, then I certainly will. I admit that I had not heard of LM except to read their article on Bosnia. They seemed to be on the right side on that one. Louis's original "bash" was useful, in pointing out the politics of this group. I was only suggesting that the bash was complete. I would not like to read more about LM unless it added to our understanding of the important thread that Louis opened. And, Michael, what in the world is a "global warming activist". Global Warming is a phenomenon that was first noticed by a NASA scientist by the name of James Hansen. He brought it to the attention of government officials, other scientists and the bourgeois media. Not quite. It had been theorized and noticed before. Hansen was the one who first brought evidence that was hard to refute. Perhaps Michael has better information than I do, but right now I can't figure out what he's talking about. Sorry about my lack of clarity. I was only trying to make the point about the possible legitimacy of LM's tactic, wanting to separate the tactic from the policy. Perhaps Dee Brown's "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" is a hoax, but the answer he gives to the question of the "seductiveness" of capitalist society is that it had almost none to peoples like the Apache and the Sioux. That is why the wars against them had a genocidal aspect, as did the wars against the Irish and Scottish clans. I would like to believe you here, Louis. The common people in Ireland and Scotland were never giventhe chance to try to enjoy capitalism. The lairds were. The just threw the people off the land. Many middle class people like Adam Smith embraced the move. I'd say that the Indians are much less of a spawning-ground for reaction than the university system. touche. Louis, I mostly agree with your post and appreciate it. My rambling note came down to two points: 1) the tactic/policy distinction; and 2) the complexity of supporting indigenous rights.Louis Proyect wrote: -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Native American land rights
On Sun, 21 Dec 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: I used the word, "seductive", intentionally. I think that outsiders see the glamor, the glitz, and the convenience long before they see the dark side of capitalist culture. For example, many immigrants who suffered great hardships to come to the U.S. returned disappointed. I don't have the data on hand, but the number was surprisingly large. Yes! In my research on Mexican migration to the United States, many migrants, as well as prospective migrants, express their strong reservations about life in the U.S., including crime, drug abuse, and what some of them see as our excessively permissive sexual mores. Steven Zahniser [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Native American land rights
I have resisted getting engaged in this discussion, but several thoughts dog me about which I would welcome further comment. First, without having to lay claim to any particular revolutionary theory or objectives, is it not sufficient on simple grounds of basic human rights that we defend American Indians against the genocidal practices employed against them throughout our history, and acknowledge that their rights to self-determination have been trampled by profit/power-hungry interests throughout U.S. history? It does not require that one be a Marxist to come to this conclusion, but certainly anyone who claims to embrace Marxism ought to do so. Second, without laying claim to any particular expertise, I seem to recall that long before Europeans drove the indigenous peoples from their lands, Indian tribes quite regularly engaged in pretty significant inter-tribal warfare over hunting grounds and resources. Capitalism brought horrific devastation to these tribes, but their pre-capitalist lives were not idyllic or free from conflict and human suffering as some who overly romanticize them would have us believe. Third, for the entire history of humankind, distant societies have influenced one another as they came into contact, borrowing technologies and culture from one another that in turn contributed to further transformation of social structures and practices, and cultural mores and ideas. This has been true of societies at the same relative level of social and economic development, as well as of those at widely different levels. It has been true on this continent as well as on every other. It is unavoidable that even the most remote and isolated Amazonian tribes will sooner or later touch and be touched by outsiders. The issue is not whether by on what basis this takes place. Perhaps there are some social anthropologists out there who can contribute more to these points. Bottom line, however, is that whatever the historical record may be, there is no turning back the clock. The challenge that confronts us and Indian peoples today is to chart the course ahead -- how to create a system that is more just, which respects peoples' rights to their cultural traditions, and which provides everyone in society with a sufficient standard of living, education, and social benefits to sustain and nurture their human dignity, intellectual and social development, and freedom from bigotry, racism, sexism and the other poisons that afflict the present order. Michael E.
Re: Marxism and Native Americans
James Heartfield: Whatever attitude we today might want to take towards the rights of indigenous peoples, it is difficult to find a case for them within the writings of Marx and Engels (whose attitude seems at times close to genocidal). Some examples: 'Just as each century has its own Nature, so it produces its own primitives.' Excellent, I can't wait till I get my hands on Marx's ethnological notebooks which repudiate this sort of misinterpretation of his immature thought. And watch Heartfield ignore the evidence. This is like using the Herald Tribune articles as a justification for the Vietnam war. Louis Proyect
Re: Native American land rights
In message l03102805b0c31f03af13@[166.84.250.86], Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes I don't know either, really, which is why I asked a lot of questions, instead of my usual mode of vigorous assertion. Terry Eagleton says in his little book on postmodernism that to a Marxist, capitalism is both the best and worst thing that ever happened to humanity. He's got a point. Doug I tend to agree with Doug and Terry Eagleton on this point. Capitalism does two things at the same time: 1. It develops social productivity to the point that it is possible to advance to a better society 2. It makes the persistence of private property relations intolerable for the majority making it necessary to advance to a better society. Beyond that it is necessary to distinguish between capitalism today and in Marx's day. In Marx's day it was still possible to talk of a progressive capitalism. Today, any advances that are made are more than offest by the destructive side of capital. In the main further development of social productivity can only be won in opposition to capital. There are notable exceptions. Real technological advances have taken place is SE Asia. What is not sensible in my view is to attack capitalism from the standpoint of more archaic social forms. This romantic critique, far from providing a secure alternative, is simply assimilated into political conservatism. Instead of capital being the enemy, development itself is seen as the problem. More to the point, it is not possible to identify any part of the world that is not already subsumed into capitalist social relations. The Indian Marxist Jairus Banaji made this point in relation to supposedly pre-capitalist economic formations in India. Banaji argues that th existnce of these is an illusion, by distinguishing between the formal subsumption of production relations into capital, which he says is ubiquitous, and the actual reordering of production relations, which he explains is patchy. All this meaning that uneven development is not evidence that capitalistic domination is not partial, but rather that uneven development is the form that capitalist domination takes. The quotation from LM that cultures cannot be preserved like jam might have been put precociously, but it seems unassailable to me. It reminds me of the story about president Marcos' delight that anthropologists had (mis) identified a prehistoric people in the Phillipines. Marcos was so made up about the academics' interest in his country that he sent his troops in to smash up these unfortunate people's cooking utensils and steal their clothes before each new anthropolgical visit was about to happen, to hide the knowledge that even this isolated group ahd established trade relations with others. In assessing indigenism as a political strategy today, it is necessary to understand it as a modern development, in contemporary circumstances, rather than a resistance to modernity. It is right that Marxists should defend people's rights against oppression. But that must mean that indigenous peoples' have a right to scure their own economic development, as well as a right to seek work. There really is no way forward but forward. -- James Heartfield
Re: Native American land rights
Forwarded message: From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Dec 21 22:42:13 1997 Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "'me'" [EMAIL PROTECTED], "'pen-l'" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Native American land rights Date: Sun, 21 Dec 97 14:38:00 PST Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Encoding: 83 TEXT James Heartfield wrote: Capitalism does two things at the same time: 1. It develops social productivity to the point that it is possible to advance to a better society Or does it? I am not convinced of the long term viability of capitalist development. 2. It makes the persistence of private property relations intolerable for the majority making it necessary to advance to a better society. Or does it tend to push the less fortunate into self-destructive that does little to advance societty? Beyond that it is necessary to distinguish between capitalism today and in Marx's day. In Marx's day it was still possible to talk of a progressive capitalism. Today, any advances that are made are more than offest by the destructive side of capital. In the main further development of social productivity can only be won in opposition to capital. There are notable exceptions. Real technological advances have taken place is SE Asia. ok. What is not sensible in my view is to attack capitalism from the standpoint of more archaic social forms. This romantic critique, far from providing a secure alternative, is simply assimilated into political conservatism. Instead of capital being the enemy, development itself is seen as the problem. Whoa! I did not hear anyone here making a romantic critique. Nor did I hear that development itself was the enemy. Start out from false premises like that, and you can come up with some wierd conclusions. The quotation from LM that cultures cannot be preserved like jam might have been put precociously, but it seems unassailable to me. It reminds me of the story about president Marcos' delight that anthropologists had (mis) identified a prehistoric people in the Phillipines. Marcos was so made up about the academics' interest in his country that he sent his troops in to smash up these unfortunate people's cooking utensils and steal their clothes before each new anthropolgical visit was about to happen, to hide the knowledge that even this isolated group ahd established trade relations with others. We have not been arguing for Marcos to preserve cultures; rather to offer the opportunity for peoples to maintain theirs. Big difference. In assessing indigenism as a political strategy today, it is necessary to understand it as a modern development, in contemporary circumstances, rather than a resistance to modernity. It is right that Marxists should defend people's rights against oppression. But that must mean that indigenous peoples' have a right to scure their own economic development, as well as a right to seek work. I did not hear anything different on this list. There really is no way forward but forward. Nice word play. What does forward mean? Nobody here seems confident that they have THE SOLUTION, so let me turn the question around. What indigeneous culture has enjoyed a significant advancement under capitalist development. From what I have seen, capitalism relegates such people to touristic relics (jam?), degrading low wages work, or eking out a living at the margins of society. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Native American land rights
James Heartfield wrote: Capitalism does two things at the same time: 1. It develops social productivity to the point that it is possible to advance to a better society Or does it? I am not convinced of the long term viability of capitalist development. 2. It makes the persistence of private property relations intolerable for the majority making it necessary to advance to a better society. Or does it tend to push the less fortunate into self-destructive that does little to advance societty? Beyond that it is necessary to distinguish between capitalism today and in Marx's day. In Marx's day it was still possible to talk of a progressive capitalism. Today, any advances that are made are more than offest by the destructive side of capital. In the main further development of social productivity can only be won in opposition to capital. There are notable exceptions. Real technological advances have taken place is SE Asia. ok. What is not sensible in my view is to attack capitalism from the standpoint of more archaic social forms. This romantic critique, far from providing a secure alternative, is simply assimilated into political conservatism. Instead of capital being the enemy, development itself is seen as the problem. Whoa! I did not hear anyone here making a romantic critique. Nor did I hear that development itself was the enemy. Start out from false premises like that, and you can come up with some wierd conclusions. The quotation from LM that cultures cannot be preserved like jam might have been put precociously, but it seems unassailable to me. It reminds me of the story about president Marcos' delight that anthropologists had (mis) identified a prehistoric people in the Phillipines. Marcos was so made up about the academics' interest in his country that he sent his troops in to smash up these unfortunate people's cooking utensils and steal their clothes before each new anthropolgical visit was about to happen, to hide the knowledge that even this isolated group ahd established trade relations with others. We have not been arguing for Marcos to preserve cultures; rather to offer the opportunity for peoples to maintain theirs. Big difference. In assessing indigenism as a political strategy today, it is necessary to understand it as a modern development, in contemporary circumstances, rather than a resistance to modernity. It is right that Marxists should defend people's rights against oppression. But that must mean that indigenous peoples' have a right to scure their own economic development, as well as a right to seek work. I did not hear anything different on this list. There really is no way forward but forward. Nice word play. What does forward mean? Nobody here seems confident that they have THE SOLUTION, so let me turn the question around. What indigeneous culture has enjoyed a significant advancement under capitalist development. From what I have seen, capitalism relegates such people to touristic relics (jam?), degrading low wages work, or eking out a living at the margins of society. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Native American land rights
On Sun, 21 Dec 1997, Michael Eisenscher wrote: Second, without laying claim to any particular expertise, I seem to recall that long before Europeans drove the indigenous peoples from their lands, Indian tribes quite regularly engaged in pretty significant inter-tribal warfare over hunting grounds and resources. Capitalism brought horrific devastation to these tribes, but their pre-capitalist lives were not idyllic or free from conflict and human suffering as some who overly romanticize them would have us believe. Even after setting romanticism aside, I suspect that a comprehensive assessment of the pre-conquest civilizations of the Americas would identify a number of characteristics that we might admire. Steven Zahniser [EMAIL PROTECTED] P.S. Happy Holidays!
Re: emigrants
At 18:16 21/12/97 -0600, you wrote: Quoth Doug, in part: Michael mentioned emigration from the U.S. I discovered when I did my State of the USA Atlas that exact numbers on this are very hard to come by. Counting emigrants, a demography librarian told me, is considered ^ embarrassing. But the best estimates are that 1/3 of the people who come to the U.S. eventually leave, mostly to return to the home country, and this has been true for a long time. Such embarrassment is a hangover from the "Macy's vs Gimbel's" competition of the Cold War. The fact is that many who come are incipient bourgeois intending to open a business in their native land. Some scrimping at even the most pedestrian American job for a year or two, in conjunction with the perks of the local ethnic network, can cut a decade or more off this process of accumulation. You could almost say that US immigration policy is a hidden form of small business aid. valis Exaclty. I know scores of people here who go to the US to drum up some cash and then come back. They hate the life there, live horribly while there, and save about $500/month (about 4-5 times waht they might gross here). So, for example, a driver crashes his car, what to do? Either run a bit base paste for cocaine production (very risky) or "do" Arlington, Virgina (where about 10,000 cochabambinos live) for 6-8 months. Tom Tom Kruse / Casilla 5869 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Native American land rights
Much of the discussion on Indian rights has been abstract. That is not good. Not good at all. We are confronted by concrete struggles. Review the position taken by Survival International below on land rights in Australia. LM attacks Survival International and similar groups with a passion that I find blood-curdling if not reactionary. Review Survival International's statement and try to figure out what a correct "Marxist" position would be? Defend the Australian government? Condemn Survival International like LM does? Quoting Marx is not much help on these matters. Marxism requires a heart as well as a brain and if we don't have the heart to confront these issues squarely and take a stance in favor of social justice, we have no possibility of changing the world in highly industrialized nations, let alone the rainforests and back countries of the world. Louis Proyect *** Australian government plans to legalise theft of Aboriginal land The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia have only had their land rights recognised since 1992. In that year the High Court finally overthrew the 200-year-old legal fiction of 'terra nullius' - that Australia was an uninhabited land that belonged to no one when it was colonised. The 1992 decision, known as Mabo, created for the first time in Australia the concept of 'native title'. A 1996 legal decision called 'Wik' clarified what native title meant. In particular, it was clear that native title could still exist on land that was covered by 'pastoral leases' - the huge sheep and cattle ranches which cover much of outback Australia, where many Aborigines continue to live. These two decisions, while still leaving Australia far behind many 'Third World' countries in its recognition of indigenous rights, have been fiercely opposed by the powerful farming and mining industries. As a result, the Australian government is trying to undermine the Aborigines' legal victories to such an extent as to render them almost meaningless. The prime minister, John Howard, has proposed a new piece of legislation called the Native Title Amendment Bill. Crucially, this will make native title on pastoral leases worthless, and would leave many Aborigines unable to claim native title in the first place. These measures would leave the huge majority of Aborigines with no meaningful rights over their land. In a report to the Australian parliament, the independent Australian Law Reform Commission called the Howard proposals unconstitutional and racially discriminatory. The government allegedly tried to suppress the report. The Aboriginal representative Mick Dodson has said, 'If you take our land, you take the ground of our culture. If you keep on taking there will be nothing left.'
Re: Native American land rights
The recent discussions on Native American land rights has prompted some ideas. Bear with me... First, for another view (from Means') on how one Native American might read Marx, look at Leslie Marmon Silko's wonderful novel _Almanac of the Dead_. There are some sections appropriately entitled "Vampire Capitalists" or something like that. Her character, a female Native American insurgent from Mexico is being indoctrinated, trained and "hit on" by a very orthodox male Cuban advisor (what we used to cal a "machista leninista"). She finds reading Marx impossible, until she gets to the rich descriptions of the factory system's ravages. Therein she finds a powerful affinity with Marx -- because he could see how the system literally ground people to a pulp, and he was able to call things by their rightful names. Second, in conversations about Polanyi's _Great Transformation_ some years ago it was brought up that his work after GT took him not "forward" to projections on the machinations/effects of disembedded markets and their imperatives, but "backwards" to pre-capitalist, non-market forms of exchange (reciprocity, redistribution, etc.), thus problematizing the market per se. If I'm not mistaken, the notion was a) markets are not the manifestation of some timeless essence (natural tendencies to truck and barer, etc.) but contingent, historical, etc., and so b) looking back at non-market forms of exchange might help us in envisioning a "re-embedded", less tyrannical mechanism. This is not too distant from the sentiment in: 4. Indigenous people often have wonderful technology, superior to our own in terms of the biological potential of their land. An empirical example from my corner of the world: the ayllu of the central Andes. Thanks to the work of John Murra and his many colleagues, we now have a pretty sophisticated picture of the forms of non market exchange that existed prior to the conquest in the Incan empire. The Incan system of surplus generation, extraction and redistribution had at it's center a strategy of risk aversion and not endless accumulation. The key objectives were to "domesticate" the harsh environment to allow for uninterrupted supplies of food to all. Bear in mind that the central Andes is a pretty harsh, dry, desolate, mountainous place. Note: The Incan "empire" was hardly free of domination and nastiness -- here I want to powerfully echo the point made to not romanticize the past. They were conquerors who exacted serious tribute. Conquered peoples by and large kept their community lands, forms of production, etc., but had to offer some of the surplus product -- though amounts would vary. In general, no one was taxed into starvation, traditional forms of cultural practice, language, etc. were "respected" (herein Zizek's idea of multiculturalism and Empire going hand in hand?), unlike later with the Spaniards. Yet the Incas, predictably, made some mighty enemies. Testimony to this is the collaboration of the Wanka (and others) with the Spaniards to trounce the Incas. The system that evolved, and the Incas ruled/administered, was based in largest part on the ayllu (pronounced "I-you"), an archipelago of connected territorially non-contiguous communities, organized along extended kinship lines, that were scattered over various agro-ecological "levels". Each agro-ecological level was endowed with resources and climates to produce certain necessary goods: corn and chiles in the lower lands, potatoes and meat in the highlands, etc. Thus, internal to each ayllu were lands apt for cultivation of complementary goods -- all necessary for a good diet, and a hedge against drought, etc. Non-market, ritualized/practical forms of exchange (without any $$ medium) flourished within and among ayllus. There were also numerous technological-dietary innovations, for example freeze drying of foods. Potatoes (carbohydrates) and meat (protein) could be naturally freeze dried in the violent temperature swings of the high, very arid plateau. (This incidentally is the origin of the word "jerky" -- in Quechua the term for freeze dried llama meat is charki.) Thus, food could be stockpiled literally for months and months. Foods were kept in tambos (depots) that were located about every 20km on the Incan highway system. The "spatial structures" of human settlement in the highlands still reflect this: about every 20 km there is a town. The Spaniards didn't really understand all this. When Viceroy Toledo arrived in the mid-16th century to whip the colonial enterprise into order, one of his first policies was to establish reducciones (reductions), which concentrated people into what we in Vietnam were called strategic hamlets. The objective was to establish effective control over a population of people to be mobilized for work in the silver mines, the real interest of the colonial admin., and secure control over hinterland food production to support life/work in the mines. Needless to say
Fixing on LM
On the assumption that some other list members were as totally ignorant of Living Marxism's existence as I was before John Heartfield's drop-in and the ensuing squabble, I did a little searching and found LM's current mission statement, hoping that its implications would prime the pump of useful analysis. valis The Point Is To Change It A MANIFESTO FOR A WORLD FIT FOR PEOPLE _ Manifesto We live in a world where excuses masquerade as knowledge and wisdom. It has become fashionable to inflate the slightest diffculty into a problem of cosmological dimensions. Routine problems are represented as portents of extinction. This obsession with risks and perils has served to justify restraint, austerity and low expectations. Terms like 'sustainable' and 'self-limiting' have come to symbolise a society which has accepted survival as an end in itself. It is ironic that capitalism, which has traditionally been associated with materialism and the promise of unlimited wealth creation, now finds refuge in the humble rhetoric of sustainable development. The lowering of expectations not just in the economy, but in every area of life reflects how insecure capitalists now feel about their own mission. Unfortunately, in the absence of any alternative, the lack of capitalist self-belief has been generalised as a failure of nerve throughout society as whole. At every level of society there is fear of change. Such fears are expressed through the contemporary obsession with personal health and safety and with preserving the environment. These concerns often appear as a critique of greed and excess - hence the popularity of dumping on the 'greedy eighties'. However such criticism of greed all too often turns out to be an attack on any human ambition for improvement. As Marxists we could go on about poverty, exploitation, and the lack of opportunities open to most people. We could talk about the system of imperialist domination which continues to run the world. There is little doubt that a system narrowly based on profit-creation conflicts with the interests of humanity as a whole. However, there is little point in rehearsing these arguments today. We face some new and far-reaching problems, the most important of which is humanity's lack of belief in itself - in its potential to solve the problems of society and in its unbounded power of creativity. To create a world fit for people we need to mobilise all those who are not prepared to accept today's culture of limits. To that end we need to wage a struggle of ideas against the conservative intellectual climate which influences the entire political spectrum. A hundred years ago, it was the forces of religion which sought to hold back humanity's progress. Today, the old religion has been discredited. Instead we have new philosophies that denounce 'man's arrogance'. Others question the role of science and knowledge and accuse humanity of going too far. Fashionable gurus advise that we should consume less and restrain our passions. Our reply to all of the pleas for caution and restraint is that until now humanity has only learned to crawl. We still live in a world that is not fit for people. Our problem is not that we are too ambitious, but that we continually hesitate about experimenting with new solutions. We need a revolution in outlook, so that we can continue to advance and give new scope to human creativity. What we face is not just a battle of ideas. Those who counsel restraint and moderation do not merely rely on words. The entire political system has been converted into an authoritarian mould where dissent is punished as surely as the heresies of the past. The state intervenes in areas of life hitherto left untouched. Alongside the battle of ideas, we will need to fight against all of the new rules and codes which are designed to regulate and constrain individual action. The enforcement of the culture of limits by the state demands a response that draws on the political and intellectual resources of all those who remain committed to the project of human progress. _
MAI again. Question for Max.
Business Week, the 15 December issue with the special advertising section on outsourcing, noted that Clinton will submit MAI as a treaty, thereby circumventing the House. Will it win. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Pen-l's Dannin writes!
On Sun, 21 Dec 1997, Tom Walker wrote: Ellen Dannin wrote, Suppose you were an employer whose employees were represented by a union. Now suppose that the labor laws you bargain under state that when the parties reach an impasse, you, the employer, get to impose your final offer. What would you do? -- snip -- The best that unions can do under this system is make concessions in an effort to show that the parties are not at an impasse. Ellen's article raises important questions about labor laws in the U.S. but it also begs important questions about union strategy in the face of those labor laws. I can think of at least two alternatives to making concessions: civil disobedience and organizing for insurrection. Actually, I (Ellen) can think of a lot more alternatives. But you have to realise that this was written to be an op-ed piece, not a treatise on ways to deal with this particular issue. The piece was geared to be readable and comprehensible (in 600-800 words) by a general audience. I write all sorts of pieces geared to all sorts of audiences. Each has its advantages and limits. Before you attack what I wrote in this very short piece with the assumption this is all there is, why don't you do me the kindness of either read the other more scholarly things I've written on this issue (there are 4-5 out there) and / or ask me what the rest of my thoughts are on it. I'll warn you, though, that each of these is also limited, even though some are at about 20,000 words. Admittedly, neither of these is easy or guarantees a favourable collective agreement. But doesn't compliance with bad law invite more of the same? The real problem in this area is not that there is compliance with bad law but that no one is writing about it or doing research on it or raising a ruckus about it or even recognising that it is a problem. We're at a very basic level with this issue. Tom Kochan of MIT is typical. He told me this problem doesn't exist. Look through every IR book out there and see how much space is dedicated to discussing this issue. The answer is 0. Even unions and others I know who deal with this problem in bargaining have yet to face up to its pernicious effect. That this is the case raises fascinating questions about why this is happening. Kind regards, e Ellen J. Dannin California Western School of Law 225 Cedar Street San Diego, CA 92101 Phone: 619-525-1449 Fax:619-696-
Re: emigrants
Quoth Doug, in part: Michael mentioned emigration from the U.S. I discovered when I did my State of the USA Atlas that exact numbers on this are very hard to come by. Counting emigrants, a demography librarian told me, is considered ^ embarrassing. But the best estimates are that 1/3 of the people who come to the U.S. eventually leave, mostly to return to the home country, and this has been true for a long time. Such embarrassment is a hangover from the "Macy's vs Gimbel's" competition of the Cold War. The fact is that many who come are incipient bourgeois intending to open a business in their native land. Some scrimping at even the most pedestrian American job for a year or two, in conjunction with the perks of the local ethnic network, can cut a decade or more off this process of accumulation. You could almost say that US immigration policy is a hidden form of small business aid. valis
Re: Pen-l's Dannin writes!
Ellen Dannin wrote, Suppose you were an employer whose employees were represented by a union. Now suppose that the labor laws you bargain under state that when the parties reach an impasse, you, the employer, get to impose your final offer. What would you do? -- snip -- The best that unions can do under this system is make concessions in an effort to show that the parties are not at an impasse. Ellen's article raises important questions about labor laws in the U.S. but it also begs important questions about union strategy in the face of those labor laws. I can think of at least two alternatives to making concessions: civil disobedience and organizing for insurrection. Admittedly, neither of these is easy or guarantees a favourable collective agreement. But doesn't compliance with bad law invite more of the same? Regards, Tom Walker ^^^ Know Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
Re: Native American land rights
Doug Henwood wrote: "Seductive" is a very loaded word here - it implies something devious is going on. Had you used "attractive" instead, the rest of the paragraph might have been impossible. I used the word, "seductive", intentionally. I think that outsiders see the glamor, the glitz, and the convenience long before they see the dark side of capitalist culture. For example, many immigrants who suffered great hardships to come to the U.S. returned disappointed. I don't have the data on hand, but the number was surprisingly large. What's the point? That capitalist culture has lots of attractions that people should resist? Maybe not resist, but they should see both sides. I remember when I was in Cuba along with Jim Devine. Young people that I met on the bus would tell me that they were communists but that they wanted to go to Miami because levis were so cheap there. They never seemed to ask about the higher costs of rent and medical care. If so, why? From what vantage point can you criticize people for "giv[ing] up their ways" to its "lures"? Not at all. If my posts are not clear on this subject, perhaps it is because I myself feel a great deal of confusion. I am sympathetic to the idea of reparations to blacks. I, like Louis, feel that we are incurring a great loss when a traditional people succombs to Coca Cola and Marlboroughs. I also realize that during the 19th century, many whites, who were kidnapped by the Native Americans, refused to be liberated when they had the chance. Franklin and Madison were upset by this reaction. Can such people survive today? I don't know. I would not want to be in the position of dening them the conveniences that I enjoy, but I would not want to enjoy those conveniences because their way of life is despoiled. Yet if the Maidu wanted to reclaim my house, I would not be overjoyed. Maybe there are real positive attractions for most/many people that it would be impossible, and maybe even wrong, to resist. Is it possible to separate the "lures" - the positive aspects of capitalist modernization - from exploitation, polarization, and the destruction of nature? I don't know exactly. I confess confusion on this point. For that reason, I appreciate this thread so that I can get a better handle on this matter. Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Native American land rights
Steven S. Zahniser wrote: Yes! In my research on Mexican migration to the United States, many migrants, as well as prospective migrants, express their strong reservations about life in the U.S., including crime, drug abuse, and what some of them see as our excessively permissive sexual mores. Yeah, but what about their kids? Michael mentioned emigration from the U.S. I discovered when I did my State of the USA Atlas that exact numbers on this are very hard to come by. Counting emigrants, a demography librarian told me, is considered embarrassing. But the best estimates are that 1/3 of the people who come to the U.S. eventually leave, mostly to return to the home country, and this has been true for a long time. Doug
Re: Native American land rights
Maybe not resist, but they should see both sides. I remember when I was in Cuba along with Jim Devine. Young people that I met on the bus would tell me that they were communists but that they wanted to go to Miami because levis were so cheap there. They never seemed to ask about the higher costs of rent and medical care. Michael, isn't the question whether or not there is an intrinsic link between cheap, serviceable pants and the absence of affordable rent and socially provided health care, and vice versa? Maybe there are real positive attractions for most/many people that it would be impossible, and maybe even wrong, to resist. Is it possible to separate the "lures" - the positive aspects of capitalist modernization - from exploitation, polarization, and the destruction of nature? Doug, please address this question yourself. If such a separation is not possible, your position becomes one of defending capitalism itself, no? Cheers, Sid Shniad
Re: Native American land rights
Michael Perelman wrote [responding to me]: Maybe there are real positive attractions for most/many people that it would be impossible, and maybe even wrong, to resist. Is it possible to separate the "lures" - the positive aspects of capitalist modernization - from exploitation, polarization, and the destruction of nature? I don't know exactly. I confess confusion on this point. For that reason, I appreciate this thread so that I can get a better handle on this matter. I don't know either, really, which is why I asked a lot of questions, instead of my usual mode of vigorous assertion. Terry Eagleton says in his little book on postmodernism that to a Marxist, capitalism is both the best and worst thing that ever happened to humanity. He's got a point. Doug
Re: Marxism and Native Americans
James H.'s citations are interesting. However, be careful. Marx's ideas on indigenous peoples evolved over time. He became much more sympathetic as he grew older. T. Shanin makes this same point. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Violence against women
On Sun, December 21, 1997 at 12:12:09 (-) Rebecca Peoples writes: Bill: You make three slightly several different claims here, none of which is persuasive. If sexist violence perpetrated by males against females "has its source in the nature of capitalist society", we should not expect to see it prior to the advent of capitalist relations. Rebecca: Of course you could. The last two world wars have their source in capitalism. Because wars existed prior to capitalism does not mean that wars dont have their source in capitalism. However that does not mean that all wars that ever existed have had their source in capitalism. Just as all male violence against women has not had it source in capitalism (male violence under feudalism etc). I am talking about make violence agasint women that is going on now in capitalist society. I am talking a real ongoing problem. I am talking about something that can be eliminated now. I am not talking about violence that has taken place in some society that preceeded capitalism. THis pastr canot be changed. Earlier, you write that "male violence against women has its source in the nature of capitalist society." Today you change it to "all male violence against women has not had it source in capitalism". If you meant violence today, you should have said so. I objected to your broad assertion that the only way to end male violence against women would be to end capitalism. I think that is nonsense. Capitalism is, as Michael Perelman pointed out, very seductive, and it is also tremendously flexible --- much more so than it is given credit for. I see no reason why capitalism need depend on sexist relations. I think that support for male violence against women in capitalist relations is not necessary for capitalism to survive, and that capitalism might indeed be strengthened in some ways by elimination of various social pathologies, sexist violence among them. Bill: This, plainly not the case, leaves this assertion empty. It also is logically flawed---there is no logical connection between capitalist relations and sexist relations, other than they are both unjustified relations of unequal power, hence both intolerable. The two can survive independently quite well, though at any particular time the two can be found together in cozy company, feeding off one another. In order for capitalism to survive, it requires only, by definition, that capitalist relations survive. Rebecca: The above asertions make little sense. The absurd upshot of this is that current relations, practices, institutions are not necessarily capitalist. It is indeed absurd that you think this follows from the above. My point is clearly not that there are "no systemic links", my point is that there are links, but that they are not strictly necessary. My point is that capitalism is not a rigid system which *needs* sexism, or racism, to exist. Bill
Pen-l's Dannin writes!
from today's L.A. TIMES, Dec. 21, 1997: Sunday, December 21, 1997 COLUMN LEFT / ELLEN J. DANNIN The System Is Stacked Against the Unions A method fairer than collective bargaining would meet the needs of employer and employee. By ELLEN J. DANNIN Suppose you were an employer whose employees were represented by a union. Now suppose that the labor laws you bargain under state that when the parties reach an impasse, you, the employer, get to impose your final offer. What would you do? When I asked my 12-year-old daughter this, she said, "Well, duh! I'd try to get to an impasse so I could impose whatever I wanted. Actually, I'd offer things I really wanted and that the union would hate. That way I'd get my way, and we'd be at an impasse." Then she asked if this was just some joke. In fact, this is the way U.S. labor laws work and have been working for the last couple of decades. There are some legal details, of course. The employer who bargains in bad faith can't implement his final offer. However, since the mid-1980s, the National Labor Relations Board has allowed employers to come to the table with a strong view as to what they want and make no movement. Employers can propose terms they know will be completely unacceptable and are certain to lead to an impasse. None of this is considered bad faith bargaining. As a result, it's not hard for an employer to do no real bargaining, but also not to have bargained in bad faith. The best that unions can do under this system is make concessions in an effort to show that the parties are not at an impasse. They know that if the workers strike, the employer can replace them. Although the law forbids firing strikers, it allows an employer to permanently replace them. As my labor law professor said back in school, "Query: Would you rather be fired or permanently replaced?" Implementation is now a common feature of U.S. bargaining. Among the employers that have implemented their final offers in recent years are Caterpillar, the Detroit News, the National Football League, Major League Baseball owners, Exxon, International Paper and Bridgestone/Firestone. The law that allows this practice makes a tremendous difference in how collective bargaining works in the U.S. and limits how effective unions can be. I recently gave my labor law class a mock bargaining exercise. The students were all given the same issues for bargaining but had to negotiate under three different legal systems. One was the U.S. system. In the second, strikes were illegal and if an impasse was reached, an arbitrator would pick the best offer. In the third, strikes and lockouts were legal, there could be no replacements, and no changes could be made until both sides agreed. I divided the students into management and union caucuses so that they could formulate their strategies and plan how to respond to the other side's tactics. The differences were stunning. Under the U.S. system, the management caucus tried to figure out how to make it appear that they were bargaining while trying to get to an impasse so they could implement. The union tried to decide what concessions they could make to stave off impasse and whether they dared risk a strike. No one was thinking about how to reach a bargain that would best meet the needs of all parties. Under the other systems, both sides realized that they would have to make concessions and narrow their differences. Both planned to engage in real bargaining. My students' reactions mirrored real life. A recent study I was involved in found that 50% of union negotiators were concerned about impasse and implementation; 30% said the union had made concessions solely to avoid impasse; 56% said that the employer had told them that impasse or implementation was likely and in 26% of the negotiations in which impasse was threatened, the employer did implement. In other words, implementation plays a destructive role in U.S. collective bargaining. It practically forces employers and unions not to bargain. It offers employers such a large reward for not bargaining that it would be an extraordinary employer who could resist the temptation by actually bargaining as the NLRB intended. The recent International Labor Organization's World Labor Report 1997-98 asks why unions have declined. The report points to economic issues and globalization but gives scant attention to the laws in each country. There can be no doubt that allowing implementation upon impasse is particularly pernicious. It has reduced U.S. collective bargaining to a shadow play in which the image of bargaining is projected onto a screen while behind the screen, the reality is only an effort to avoid or reach impasse. - - - Ellen J. Dannin Is Professor of Law at California Western School of Law in San Diego and the Author of a Book on New Zealand Labor Law Copyright Los Angeles Times in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine
Re: Marxism and Native Americans
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes James Heartfield: Whatever attitude we today might want to take towards the rights of indigenous peoples, it is difficult to find a case for them within the writings of Marx and Engels (whose attitude seems at times close to genocidal). Some examples: 'Just as each century has its own Nature, so it produces its own primitives.' Excellent, I can't wait till I get my hands on Marx's ethnological notebooks which repudiate this sort of misinterpretation of his immature thought. And watch Heartfield ignore the evidence. This is like using the Herald Tribune articles as a justification for the Vietnam war. Louis Proyect Never mind teaching Proyect to read Marx. Somebody should teach him to read. I post some examples of what Marx says, and he says that I am ignoring the evidence. But I do not even say that one should agree with Marx, only note what he says. Louis thinks that the Ethnological Notebooks will overturn Marx's 'immature thought'. By this standard Marx's immature thought extends from the early writings of 1840s right through the Grundrisse to Capital! Louis promises that he will be vindicated by the publication of the Ethnological Notebooks, apparently unaware that they were published in the 1970s, and contain no substantial departure from Marx's mature insight that human development corresponds to the development of society's productive forces. In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes James Heartfield: No I don't. And any way, what has the question of Nigeria got to do with land rights in the Americas in the last century? Everything. The same methodology you deployed to rationalize genocide against Native Americans is used in your attack on human rights groups defending the Ogoni. They are trying to preserve primitive peoples like "jam" or maintain "human zoos" for ecotourists. You view peoples like the Sioux and the Ogoni as obstacles in the path of "civilization". Louis Proyect Surreal. All history in this post is reduced to moralistic precepts, as though the differences between the nineteenth and late twentieth century's were a mere debating point. Kenya is America to Louis P. I'll have a pint of whatever he's been drinking. A government health warning: I do not stand by any of the positions that Louis Proyect attributes to me. -- James Heartfield
Re: Native American land rights
Michael Perelman: I will ignore my own advice and raise an issue about the Cato Institute. For those outside of the U.S. it is a fightful libertarian "think tank/ideological factory". I did not mind at all when the Greens made common cause with Cato to fight government subsidies for big business. Nor did I mind that the Global Warming activists joined with the insurance lobby. This paragraph needs to be fleshed out or else it falls into the trap that the LM libertarians have set. It lumps all greens together which is like lumping all socialsts together. Would we say that the socialists made common cause with the US war-machine in Vietnam? Yes, Albert Shanker and Bayard Rustin did support the war, but the Trotskyists and the CPUSA did not. All social movements have class divisions and as socialists or progressives, we have to strengthen the more grass-roots or "proletarian" tendencies. In the green movement, there are "mainstream" groups which function within the ruling-class establishment and there are "alternative" groups which challenge it. For example, the Environmental Defense Fund supports pollution credits and was a cheerleader for NAFTA. It has a budget of $25.4 million and a staff of 160. The CEO has a $262,000 salary. It was George Bush's favorite environmental group. "Project Underground" is an example of an alternative group. It stands up for human rights being threatened by mining and oil companies. When a mainstream green group, the World Wildlife Fund, was giving an award to Shell Oil, this Berkeley-based group was exposing the ties of the oil company to Nigerian death-squads. So when you talk about "green" groups without making distinctions, Michael, you are only helping to confusing things. It is a matter of record that LM is politically opposed to groups like "Project Underground" and "Survival International". This opposition was at one point connected ideologically to a extremely vulgar version of Marxian "productivism". They no longer claim any ties to Marxism at all. The group's head guy told the British Guardian newspaper that he was no Marxist at all, just a libertarian. I am not sect-bashing when I attack this group. The Spartacist League, with all its warts, is oriented to the working-class. LM is oriented to the bourgeoisie. Bashing LM is no different than bashing the Cato Institute. If you want me to be more polite to capitalist ideologues, then I certainly will. I have lots of respect for you even when I disagree with you. And, Michael, what in the world is a "global warming activist". Global Warming is a phenomenon that was first noticed by a NASA scientist by the name of James Hansen. He brought it to the attention of government officials, other scientists and the bourgeois media. When the evidence became unmistakable that such a phenomenon was real, governments convened through the auspices of the United Nations a decision-making body that could mitigate the effects of global warming. The decisions that they reached are a band-aid and do not attack capitalist property relations which are the root of global warming. There were no activists at Kyoto, to my knowledge unless you consider Albert Gore an activist. Now it is a fact that activists in the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) have taken the Kyoto conference as an opportunity to campaign for protection of the rainforests. But RAN has not consulted with insurance companies. Perhaps Michael has better information than I do, but right now I can't figure out what he's talking about. I do not think that the program, as it was described served any good purpose, but if it did, working to expose contradictions within capitalism seems worthwhile. Their TV show exposed contradictions within the capitalist system as much as a visit to the Cato or Hudson web sites does. Go visit them and see for yourself. Find all references to the environment and you will find the same exact thing that is found on the channel 4 documentary. Now to a few unrelated questions: 1. Can we speak of native americans or indigenous people as a whole? It depends on what you mean as "a whole". The key element to people like us, I suppose, is their relationship to the means of production. I am aware of attempts of some historians like Simon Schama to categorize the Incas as a class society which exploited "lower" tribal formations. This is part of a reactionary attempt to justify what the Europeans did to *all* Indians, including the Incas. Schama says that genocide and slavery preceded the Europeans, so why make a fuss. 2. Capitalist culture is very seductive. Almost every incident of contact subtly lures people to give up their ways. The only exception I know occured when some islanders gave Captain Cook back his metal axes because they did not know how to make the tools themselves. What fraction of Native Americans are willing to reject the casinos? Maybe we have already destroyed so many indigeneous cultures that they have already
Re: Native American land rights
In message [EMAIL PROTECTED], Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes James has a similar analysis of the "Odonis" in Nigeria, No I don't. And any way, what has the question of Nigeria got to do with land rights in the Americas in the last century? Louis' combination of misrepresentation, ahistoricism, insult and an inability to stick to the point is an example of his Absolutely loathsome stuff and antithetical to Marxism as I will prove. You already have proved it. -- James Heartfield
Re: Marxism and Native Americans
Whatever attitude we today might want to take towards the rights of indigenous peoples, it is difficult to find a case for them within the writings of Marx and Engels (whose attitude seems at times close to genocidal). Some examples: 'Just as each century has its own Nature, so it produces its own primitives.' The Philosophical Manifesto of the South German Historical School of Law, p 61 --- the reproduction of presupposed social relations - more or less naturally arisen or historic as well, but become traditional - of the individual to his commune, together with a specific objective existence predetermined for the individual, of his relations both to the conditions of labour and to his co-workers, fellow tribesmen, etc - are the foundations of development, which is therefore from teh outset restricted ... The individuals may appear great. But thre can b no conception here of a free and full development either of the individual or of the society, since such development stands in contradiction to the original relation. Grundrisse p487 Penguin 1973 '[Primitive communism was an] 'abstract negation of the entire world of culture and civilisation, and the return to the unnatural simplicity of the poor unrefined man who has no needs and who has not even reached the stage of private property, let alone gone beyond it.' Economic and Philosophical Manuscriptsp346 Penguin 1975 'Sickening as it must be to human feeling to witness those myriads of industrious patriarchal and inoffensive social organisations disorganized and dissolved into their units, thrown into a sea of woes, and their individual members losing at the same time their ancient form of civilisation and their hereditary means of subsistence, we must not forget that those idyllic village communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving it beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies.' British Rule in India P 306. Marx changed his assessment of the positive role of British Imperialism, but not of the restrictive character of traditional communities. 'Those ancient social organisms of production are, as compared with bourgeois society, extremely simple and transparent. But they are founded either on the immature development of man individually, who has not yet severed the umbilical cord that unites him with his fellowmen in a primitive tribal community, or upon direct relations of subjection. They can arise and exist only when the development of the productive power of labour has not risen beyond a low stage, and when, therefore, the social relations within the material life, between man and man, and between man and Nature are correspondingly narrow. This narrowness is refelcted in the ancient worship of Nature...' Capital, p84 And then there is this from Engels: 'There is no country in Europe that does not possess, in some remote corner, one or more ruins of peoples, left over from an earlier population, forced back and subjugated by the nation which later became the repository of historical dvelopment. These remnants of a nation, mercilessly crushd, as Hegel said, by the course of history, this national refuse, is always the fanatical representative of the counter- revolution and remains so until it is completely exterminated or de- nationalised, as its whole existence is in itself a protest against a great historical rvolution. In Scotland, for example, the Gaels, supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745. In France, the Bretons, supporters of the Bourbons from 1792 to 1800. In Spain the Basques, supporters of Don Carlos. In Austria the pan-Slav South Slavs...' Revolutions of 1848, quoted in Engels and the Non-Historic Peoples, Roman Rosdolsky, Critique Books 1987 -- James Heartfield
Re: Native American land rights
The Indians supported the reactionaries, so they got what they deserved. I don't recall anyone on pen-l making that assertion. Who was the original author of the above? Jerry
