[Biofuel] Article on Marx from www.commondreams.org

[Michael Redler]

I admire Marx as an analyst and philosopher (irrespective of whether or not communism is the best model of democracy).
 
This isn't meant to push a particular political ideology. Please know that the reason I posted this is because (IMO) it speaks to some of the discussions we've had about globalization, inequality, political corruption, monopolization, technical progress and a few other things.
 
See below.
 
I hope you find it interesting.
 
MikeAndy Capen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]From: Andy Capen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 21:53:14 -0700 (PDT)Subject: [isoinfo] Article on Marx from www.commondreams.org
Hi, all.
 
Interesting article on Marx's newfound significance in the world of economics.  Enjoy.  Happy summer!
 
Peace,
Andy
 





Published on Sunday, July 17, 2005 by the Observer/UK 


Why Marx is Man of the Moment He had globalization sussed 150 years ago


by Francis Wheen

 

A penniless asylum seeker in London was vilified across two pages of the Daily Mail last week. No surprises there, perhaps - except that the villain in question has been dead since 1883. 'Marx the Monster' was the Mail's furious reaction to the news that thousands of Radio 4 listeners had chosen Karl Marx as their favorite thinker. 'His genocidal disciples include Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot - and even Mugabe. So why has Karl Marx just been voted the greatest philosopher ever?' 
The puzzlement is understandable. Fifteen years ago, after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, there appeared to be a general assumption that Marx was now an ex-parrot. He had kicked the bucket, shuffled off his mortal coil and been buried forever under the rubble of the Berlin Wall. No one need think about him - still less read him - ever again. 
'What we are witnessing,' Francis Fukuyama proclaimed at the end of the Cold War, 'is not just the ... passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution.' 
But history soon returned with a vengeance. By August 1998, economic meltdown in Russia, currency collapses in Asia and market panic around the world prompted the Financial Times to wonder if we had moved 'from the triumph of global capitalism to its crisis in barely a decade'. The article was headlined 'Das Kapital Revisited'. 
Even those who gained most from the system began to question its viability. The billionaire speculator George Soros now warns that the herd instinct of capital-owners such as himself must be controlled before they trample everyone else underfoot. 'Marx and Engels gave a very good analysis of the capitalist system 150 years ago, better in some ways, I must say, than the equilibrium theory of classical economics,' he writes. 'The main reason why their dire predictions did not come true was because of countervailing political interventions in democratic countries. Unfortunately we are once again in danger of drawing the wrong conclusions from the lessons of history. This time the danger comes not from communism but from market fundamentalism.' 
In October 1997 the business correspondent of the New Yorker, John Cassidy, reported a conversation with an investment banker. 'The longer I spend on Wall Street, the more convinced I am that Marx was right,' the financier said. 'I am absolutely convinced that Marx's approach is the best way to look at capitalism.' His curiosity aroused, Cassidy read Marx for the first time. He found 'riveting passages about globalization, inequality, political corruption, monopolization, technical progress, the decline of high culture, and the enervating nature of modern existence - issues that economists are now confronting anew, sometimes without realizing that they are walking in Marx's footsteps'. 
Quoting the famous slogan coined by James Carville for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992 ('It's the economy, stupid'), Cassidy pointed out that 'Marx's own term for this theory was "the materialist conception of history", and it is now so widely accepted that analysts of all political views use it, like Carville, without any attribution.' 
Like Molière's bourgeois gentleman who discovered to his amazement that for more than 40 years he had been speaking prose without knowing it, much of the Western bourgeoisie absorbed Marx's ideas without ever noticing. It was a belated reading of Marx in the 1990s that inspired the financial journalist James Buchan to write his brilliant study Frozen Desire: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Money (1997). 
'Everybody I know now believes that their attitudes are to an extent a creation of their material circumstances,' he wrote, 'and that changes in the ways things are produced profoundly affect the affairs of humanity even outside the workshop or factory. It is largely through Marx, rather than political economy, that those notions have come down to us.' 
Even the Economist journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, eager ch

Re: [Biofuel] Article on Marx from www.commondreams.org

[Keith Addison]

Hi Mike

James Buchan's "brilliant study" - I'm pleased to hear it and not 
very surprised. I keep encountering old friends here. A few days ago 
it was Spencer Reiss, writing for Wired now, he was working for Time 
last I heard. Another bright spark.


I admire Marx as an analyst and philosopher (irrespective of whether 
or not communism is the best model of democracy).


This isn't meant to push a particular political ideology. Please 
know that the reason I posted this is because (IMO) it speaks to 
some of the discussions we've had about globalization, inequality, 
political corruption, monopolization, technical progress and a few 
other things.


I agree with you, and also with James Buchan and George Soros. And 
indeed with Marx. I'm glad you said that, but it won't stop people 
who label Marx along with communism and (aarghh!) socialism from 
labelling you too, and me too I guess. So what - one of the points of 
Francis Wheen's piece is not only that Marx has survived the 
labelling and all else, and no doubt so shall we, but also that maybe 
we should have listened to him in the first place. Well, I think we 
did, but *they* knew better, don't you know, and they had loads of 
money and guns and stuff and we didn't, and they've still got loads 
of money and guns and stuff and we don't but it's not going to help 
them much longer.


Interesting man, George Soros.


See below.

I hope you find it interesting.


Yes, thankyou. Why does it matter to us, in particular? What's it got 
to do with biofuels, LOL! We had a six-person team from a big 
industrial company here yesterday for another biodiesel seminar. The 
company makes high-tech furnaces, burners, heating systems, also 
waste-water treatments plants and environmental equipment, 
industry-level, not for your backyard. These six are part of the 
biomass energy team, among other things they run a large gasifier 
co-generation system using woodchips, advanced, very expensive. Their 
manager told me there's a need for small gasifiers, as we know. He 
said it doesn't make sense to spend energy and fossil fuels on 
transporting biomass energy from local forests to a central location 
to produce energy and then send the energy all the way back again.


A list member was talking of the need for local biofuels production, 
we often talk of it. But it just isn't going to happen under what 
Soros called "market fundamentalism", it needs a new paradigm, or a 
different one anyway. Growing biofuels crops has the same difficulty 
- if we leave it to "them" we'll have wall-to-wall industrialised GMO 
monocrops with huge fossil-fuel insputs, not exactly carbon neutral, 
nor sustainable, nor even "green".


I think Marx has much light to shed on all this. Nasty old man that 
he was. Heh! Some young revolutionary friends once asked me about 
Marx. They wanted some sort of statement from me, of ideological 
commitment or something. "I'm a Marxist," one said, definitely a 
challenge. "I'm a journalist," I answered, laughing. They were 
horrified and said I was a cynic. LOL!


Best wishes

Keith



Mike


Andy Capen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Andy Capen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2005 21:53:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [isoinfo] Article on Marx from www.commondreams.org

Hi, all.

Interesting article on Marx's newfound significance in the world of 
economics.  Enjoy.  Happy summer!


Peace,
Andy

Published on Sunday, July 17, 2005 by the 
Observer/UK

Why Marx is Man of the Moment
He had globalization sussed 150 years ago

by Francis Wheen
 A penniless asylum seeker in London was vilified across two pages 
of the Daily Mail last week. No surprises there, perhaps - except 
that the villain in question has been dead since 1883. 'Marx the 
Monster' was the Mail's furious reaction to the news that thousands 
of Radio 4 listeners had chosen Karl Marx as their favorite thinker. 
'His genocidal disciples include Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot - and even 
Mugabe. So why has Karl Marx just been voted the greatest 
philosopher ever?'


The puzzlement is understandable. Fifteen years ago, after the 
collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, there appeared to be a 
general assumption that Marx was now an ex-parrot. He had kicked the 
bucket, shuffled off his mortal coil and been buried forever under 
the rubble of the Berlin Wall. No one need think about him - still 
less read him - ever again.


'What we are witnessing,' Francis Fukuyama proclaimed at the end of 
the Cold War, 'is not just the ... passing of a particular period of 
postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end 
point of mankind's ideological evolution.'


But history soon returned with a vengeance. By August 1998, economic 
meltdown in Russia, currency collapses in Asia and market panic 
around the world prompted the Financial Times to wonder if we had 
moved 'from the triumph of global capitalism to its crisis in barely 
a decade'. T

Re: [Biofuel] Article on Marx from www.commondreams.org

[Michael Redler]

"'I'm a Marxist,' one said"
 
Maybe the next time you see this one, you can quote Marx for him. I'm thinking of one quote in particular:
 
"I'm not a Marxist"
 
LOL!
 
I may be wrong but, I think this might have been Marx's way of telling you to limit your commitments in order to preserve an open mind and prevent dogmas.
 
MikeKeith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi MikeJames Buchan's "brilliant study" - I'm pleased to hear it and not very surprised. I keep encountering old friends here. A few days ago it was Spencer Reiss, writing for Wired now, he was working for Time last I heard. Another bright spark.>I admire Marx as an analyst and philosopher (irrespective of whether >or not communism is the best model of democracy).>>This isn't meant to push a particular political ideology. Please >know that the reason I posted this is because (IMO) it speaks to >some of the discussions we've had about globalization, inequality, >political corruption, monopolization, technical progress and a few >other things.I agree with you, and also with James Buchan and George Soros. And indeed with Marx. I'm glad you said that, but it won't stop people who label Marx
 along with communism and (aarghh!) socialism from labelling you too, and me too I guess. So what - one of the points of Francis Wheen's piece is not only that Marx has survived the labelling and all else, and no doubt so shall we, but also that maybe we should have listened to him in the first place. Well, I think we did, but *they* knew better, don't you know, and they had loads of money and guns and stuff and we didn't, and they've still got loads of money and guns and stuff and we don't but it's not going to help them much longer.Interesting man, George Soros.>See below.>>I hope you find it interesting.Yes, thankyou. Why does it matter to us, in particular? What's it got to do with biofuels, LOL! We had a six-person team from a big industrial company here yesterday for another biodiesel seminar. The company makes high-tech furnaces, burners, heating systems, also waste-water treatments plants
 and environmental equipment, industry-level, not for your backyard. These six are part of the biomass energy team, among other things they run a large gasifier co-generation system using woodchips, advanced, very expensive. Their manager told me there's a need for small gasifiers, as we know. He said it doesn't make sense to spend energy and fossil fuels on transporting biomass energy from local forests to a central location to produce energy and then send the energy all the way back again.A list member was talking of the need for local biofuels production, we often talk of it. But it just isn't going to happen under what Soros called "market fundamentalism", it needs a new paradigm, or a different one anyway. Growing biofuels crops has the same difficulty - if we leave it to "them" we'll have wall-to-wall industrialised GMO monocrops with huge fossil-fuel insputs, not exactly carbon neutral, nor sustainable, nor even
 "green".I think Marx has much light to shed on all this. Nasty old man that he was. Heh! Some young revolutionary friends once asked me about Marx. They wanted some sort of statement from me, of ideological commitment or something. "I'm a Marxist," one said, definitely a challenge. "I'm a journalist," I answered, laughing. They were horrified and said I was a cynic. LOL!Best wishesKeith___
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Re: [Biofuel] Article on Marx from www.commondreams.org

[capt3d]

huh, that was a nice little piece (i liked that expression, "market 
fundamentalism").

truly, the best indicator of the relevance of socialist thought in general, 
and  the accuracy and penetrating insight of marx's thesis in particular, is 
the immense intellectual capital invested over decades--in fact, still being 
invested--to discredit and demonize him and deconstruct and "disprove" his 
analysis.  not to mention the vast human and financial capital invested in 
discrediting and disenfranchising, or if necessary eliminating those who 
espoused his 
'theory' (be they individuals, organizations, governments or whole economies).

and despite it all, this 'newfound relevance.'  a perfect example of the 
power of ideas.

>Growing biofuels crops has the same difficulty
>- if we leave it to "them" we'll have wall-to-wall industrialised GMO
>monocrops with huge fossil-fuel insputs. . . .

lol

and outputs if they can help it.  somehow i see "them" engineering (or trying 
their darnedest to engineer) a crop which synthesizes petroleum, rather than 
meddle with biofuels crops.

-chris b.

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Re: [Biofuel] Article on Marx from www.commondreams.org

[Keith Addison]

Hi Chris


huh, that was a nice little piece (i liked that expression, "market
fundamentalism").


So did I!


truly, the best indicator of the relevance of socialist thought in general,
and  the accuracy and penetrating insight of marx's thesis in particular, is
the immense intellectual capital invested over decades--in fact, still being
invested--to discredit and demonize him and deconstruct and "disprove" his
analysis.  not to mention the vast human and financial capital invested in
discrediting and disenfranchising, or if necessary eliminating those 
who espoused his

'theory' (be they individuals, organizations, governments or whole economies).


Not to mention Marxist Theology in Latin America (he said, mentioning 
it), and sod the poor.



and despite it all, this 'newfound relevance.'  a perfect example of the
power of ideas.


There's still a Marxist revolution going on, in Nepal, or a Maoist 
one anyway, but the largest party there is the United Marxist 
Leninist party.



>Growing biofuels crops has the same difficulty
>- if we leave it to "them" we'll have wall-to-wall industrialised GMO
>monocrops with huge fossil-fuel insputs. . . .

lol

and outputs if they can help it.  somehow i see "them" engineering (or trying
their darnedest to engineer) a crop which synthesizes petroleum, rather than
meddle with biofuels crops.


:-)

I think you've got them pegged.

It's said to be a reason VW and Daimler-Chrysler in Europe are going 
for "Sunfuel", Fischer-Tropsch process using biomass. Heavy 
investment required, keeps it all out of reach of scruffy 
uncontrollable loose-cannon like us.


Best

Keith




-chris b.



___
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