Ted Winslow wrote:
As I've said before, I think this view of the
development of rational
self-consciousness is mistaken. In general, I think
Marx
underestimates the tenaciousness of irrationality
and misunderstands
its roots in social relations. Misogynist
patriarchalism, for
instance,
Look, I don't think it's any great mystery why the USSR fell apart.
The USSR was probably the most multicultural, multiethnic country in the world,
containing everyone from Balts to Tajiks. The CPSU instituted glastnost' and
perestroika in attempt to develop the country. Perestroika created an
Mike Ballard wrote:
Marx and many
others thought that the French--espeically the workers
of Paris--had reached at least a level of class
consciousness sufficient to begin to junk the old
State machinery and to attempt to create a class
dictatorship of their own: the Paris Commune of 1871.
Of
Uh, the US _opposed_ the collapse of the Soviet Union. Remember when Bush I got booed
off the stage by Ukrainian nationalists?
If this was the plan, it sure boomeranged.
Can you explain how: 1) US manipulated oil prices and 2) how this manipulation of
oil prices lead (in part) to the
BTW, here's another addition to the list of why the old USSR fell: Chernoble.
JD
-Original Message-
From: Chris Doss [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sat 4/24/2004 5:20 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc:
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism
--- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
BTW, here's another addition to the list of why the
old USSR fell: Chernoble.
JD
*
I think it was the straw which broke the camel's back.
I was in Berlin when the plant blew up on April 26,
Why did it NOT fall in 1918?
Why did it NOT fall in 1921?
Why did it NOT fall in 1925?
Why did it NOT fall in 1931?
Why did it NOT fall in 1937?
Why did it NOT fall in 1942?
Why did it NOT fall in 1949?
Why did it NOT fall in 1953?
But you get the idea. This thread has been asking the
Mike Ballard:
I agree with most of your observations and I'm not
trying to play one-upsmanship here; but Marx and many
others thought that the French--espeically the workers
of Paris--had reached at least a level of class
consciousness sufficient to begin to junk the old
State machinery and to
Hi Hari,
Marx and Engels supported the Paris Commune. The work
I cited in my post gives ample evidence of this. For
others, here is the relevant web site on what became
known as Marx's Civil War in France:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/
Marx wrote that if
Ultimately, the USSR stepped in the direction of
capitalism and I'd contend that it was because
Marxist-Leninist ruling parties have a tendency to use
wage-labour and commodity prodution as a transitional
measures.
Mike B)
--- Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
The USSR was not socialist
Michael,
Can you explain how: 1) US manipulated oil prices and 2) how this manipulation of oil
prices lead (in part) to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Fabian
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/22/04 14:19 PM
It might help if we could get a good picture of what collapsed the
Soviet Union. Several
From: Michael Perelman
It might help if we could get a good picture of what collapsed the
Soviet Union. Several factors quickly come to mind in no particular
Order ...1) -clip-
***
Yes in terms of immediate causes. In terms of history, I'm tending toward
the dreadful conclusion that over
Just because I said the issue of enlightenment was normative doesn't mean that I don't
think it's important. However, my reading of Marx wouldn't emphasize individual
enlightenment and capacity for judgment as much as collective (class) consciousness
(enlightenment, capacity for judgment). The
Schweizer, Peter. 1994. Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That
Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union (NY: Atlantic Monthly Press).
31: William Casey met with Prince Turki of Saudi Arabia. He showed him raw
intelligence reports to make him fearful about Saudi security.
Jim wrote:
Just because I said the issue of enlightenment was normative doesn't
mean that I don't think it's important. However, my reading of Marx
wouldn't emphasize individual enlightenment and capacity for judgment
as much as collective (class) consciousness (enlightenment, capacity
for
--- Ted Winslow [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
My initial point was that there is an internal
relation between
self-consciousness, social relations and state
power. This relation is
such that where the requisite self-consciousness
can't develop within
existing social relatons, social relations
5. Gorbachev opening up the criticism of the system before he started
fixing it.
--
Well, the IMMEDIATE cause of the collapse of the USSR was the need to get rid of
Gorbachev by depriving him of his country. It was a coup, really. Most of the
population was against it.
True. I think they probably spent a lot of time avoiding their drunk and violent
husbands too. :)
It's possible that men sat around on their asses while women
collected water, prepared food, tended to their little ones all day.
:-)
--
Yoshie
it's more than possible. It's likely.
Jim D.
Well, I think that is part of it. There is only so much you can get people to do by
yelling davai! (come on!) at them. For the life of me I can't think of why the
Soviet government didn't start to increase wages in reaction to performance of the
employee. (There was the so-called ceiling that
They are accurate descriptions of contemporary Russian rural life, I would say, or at
least broad swathes of it. I mean, I don't want to say that every single Russian male
peasant is an alcoholic wife-beater, but an awful lot of them are.
There's been a good deal of historical reasearch into
The big growth was during the NEP and then under Stalin's forced modernization (i.e.,
in the latter, work was motivated through 1) threats of violence and 2) appeals to
ideology). By Brezhnev time, the ideology has lost its appeal to most people and
nobody was getting shipped off to Siberia for
Chris wrote: Russian peasants in the quasi-feudal
tsarist era would
work intensively for the three months or so of the
year when the
ground was usuable for agriculture, and then sit
around on their
asses the rest of the year, in any case.
Chris this can't possibly be true, unless
Good point. I remember reading somewhere that the poor land and the dependence of
produce on the short growing cycle led to poor health of livestock (because there was
little to feed them with). Wasn't grain something like 80% of the peasant diet? Meat
was something of a luxury.
Chris this
PROTECTED]
Sent: Thu 4/22/2004 3:15 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc:
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive?
Well, I think that is part of it. There is only so much you can get people to
do by yelling davai! (come on!) at them
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re:
Oh yeah. But there is little question as far as I know that=20
the Russian peasantry worked in a cycle of frenzied activity=20
alternating with relative lethargy. Actually there has been a=20
lot of speculation that this is the reason for
, 22 Apr 2004 07:18:48 -0700
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive?
one reason why (money) wages weren't increased was that consumer-goods shortages
meant that there was nothing to buy with the extra wages, right? people hoarded a
lot of cash since there wasn't much to buy.
Jim Devine
- Original Message -
From: Chris Doss [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2004 11:06 AM
Subject: Re: capitalism = progressive?
I am no expert, but I believe this to be the case. One of Gorbachev's many
blunders was to increase wages a great deal without
My two cents. Certainly, centuries of progress followed by the
devastation of World War I and a Civil War with the gap with only a few
decades before an even more devastating World War II put the Soviet
Union in a decisively negative economic position.
I should also mention that the Soviet Union
Michael Perelman writes that the Soviet Union stands as a real economic miracle.
In his most recent book, pen-l's Mike Yates points to a problem with this rhetoric: it
seems that all of the popularly-declared economic miracles eventually collapse. The
same thing happened to the USSR, no?
Jim
It might help if we could get a good picture of what collapsed the
Soviet Union. Several factors quickly come to mind in no particular
order.
1. Excessive defense requirements coupled with the belief that Star Wars
really worked.
2. US manipulation of oil prices.
3. Dissatisfaction with the
11:19 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc:
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive?
It might help if we could get a good picture of what collapsed the
Soviet Union. Several factors quickly come to mind in no particular
order
Michael Perelman wrote:
the
Soviet Union had the advantage of (a relatively crude) socialist
organization of production.
Was it socialist in a sense derivable from Marx?
Marx claims at the start of the passage from the 18th Brumaire I quoted
recently that the state power is not suspended in the
Ted Winslow wrote:
Doesn't socialism in his sense require for its creation and
continuing existence that the vast majority of individuals have already
developed a quite high degree of enlightenment and capacity for
judgment (a degree that, though not high enough to permit the
actualization of the
-Original Message-
From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
4. Here I am guessing: Probably an excessive believe in the affluence of
the United States system.
Yes yes yes. They assumed reports of poverty in the West were Communist propaganda.
5. Gorbachev opening up the criticism of
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc:
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive?
Michael Perelman wrote:
the
Soviet Union had the advantage of (a relatively crude) socialist
organization of production
Jim wrote:
I don't think arguing about the meaning of words is useful.
Why isn't it useful (i.e. essential to understanding the phenomena
involved) to distinguish social relations that presuppose a high degree
of enlightenment and capacity for judgment on the part of the related
individuals from
with me if they do
so.
JD
-Original Message-
From: Ted Winslow [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thu 4/22/2004 3:23 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc:
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive?
Jim wrote
Jim wrote:
When you write of social relations that presuppose a high degree of
enlightenment and capacity for judgment on the part of the related
individuals from those that presuppose significant superstition and
prejudice you help define what socialists are in favor of. That kind
of normative
The USSR was not socialist as we would like to see socialism. It was a first step in
that direction. You probably remember as well as anyway here that Marx said that the
first stage would be crude.
On Thu, Apr 22, 2004 at 04:17:48PM -0400, Ted Winslow wrote:
Michael Perelman wrote:
the
Russian peasants in the quasi-feudal tsarist era would work intensively for the three
months or so of the year when the ground was usuable for agriculture, and then sit
around on their asses the rest of the year, in any case.
Capitalism may be more progressive than feudalism, but then I
Chris Doss wrote:
Russian peasants in the quasi-feudal tsarist era would work
intensively for the three months or so of the year when the ground was
usuable for agriculture, and then sit around on their asses the rest
of the year, in any case.
Did they just sit around on their asses? What, for
Chris wrote: Russian peasants in the quasi-feudal tsarist era would work intensively
for the three months or so of the year when the ground was usuable for agriculture,
and then sit around on their asses the rest of the year, in any case.
I bet that during the 9 months off they spent a lot fo
I bet that during the 9 months off they spent a lot fo their time fixing equipment, making clothes, salting food, etc. Of course, it was at a much more leisurely pace than during the 3 months on.
Jim D.
There is a big difference between farming under feudalism and farming in
typically communal
drinking at 10 a.m.
I don't think peasantry is really the right word to use for Russian farmers in 2004,
but I'll let that stand.
-Original Message-
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 06:40:53 -0700
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism
Near as I can tell, there was a lot of hard drinking and fist-fighting going on. :) Of
course you could always get drafted to do whatever the tsar wanted you to do.
Who knows? That way of life is dead. But in any case it was determined by the
conditions of agrarian life in a climate in which
for Russian farmers in 2004, but I'll let that stand.
-Original Message-
From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 06:40:53 -0700
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive?
Chris wrote: Russian peasants in the quasi-feudal tsarist era would work
Oh yeah. But there is little question as far as I know that
the Russian peasantry worked in a cycle of frenzied activity
alternating with relative lethargy. Actually there has been a
lot of speculation that this is the reason for Russian
culture's non-existent work ethic ...
don't a lot
How then did those lazy commies manage to make the Soviet Union grow as fast as it did?
Devine, James wrote:
Oh yeah. But there is little question as far as I know that
the Russian peasantry worked in a cycle of frenzied activity
alternating with relative lethargy. Actually there has been
: michael perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wed 4/21/2004 9:51 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc:
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive?
How then did those lazy commies manage to make the Soviet Union grow as fast
as it did
On Apr 21, 2004, at 10:33 AM, Chris Doss wrote:
Who knows? That way of life is dead. But in any case it was determined
by the conditions of agrarian life in a climate in which the ground is
only arable for 3-4 months out of the year. As is contemporary Russian
rural life. BTW Russia had its
Chris wrote: Russian peasants in the quasi-feudal tsarist era would
work intensively for the three months or so of the year when the
ground was usuable for agriculture, and then sit around on their
asses the rest of the year, in any case.
I bet that during the 9 months off they spent a lot fo
Devine, James wrote:
Chris wrote: Russian peasants in the quasi-feudal tsarist era would
work intensively for the three months or so of the year when the
ground was usuable for agriculture, and then sit around on their
asses the rest of the year, in any case.
I bet that during the 9 months
Chris wrote: Russian peasants in the quasi-feudal tsarist era would
work intensively for the three months or so of the year when the
ground was usuable for agriculture, and then sit around on their
asses the rest of the year, in any case.
I bet that during the 9 months off they spent a lot fo
I was hoping some expert would answer this message, but it didn't happen. So here's my
effort. If I am incorrect in any interpretation (especially concerning China or
India), please correct me.
{was: RE: [PEN-L] Profit making under capitalism}
MICHAEL YATES wrote:
What exactly about
Capitalism may be more progressive than feudalism, but then I don't know a lot about
how live was then.
On Tue, Apr 20, 2004 at 01:45:54PM -0700, Devine, James wrote:
I was hoping some expert would answer this message, but it didn't happen. So here's
my effort. If I am incorrect in any
Capitalism may be more progressive than feudalism, but then I don't know a
lot about
how live was then.
--
Michael Perelman
Although their standard of living may not have been particularly lavish,
the people of precapitalistic northern Europe, like most traditional
people, enjoyed a great deal
] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
-Original Message-
From: Michael Perelman [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 2:37 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] capitalism = progressive?
Capitalism may be more progressive than feudalism, but then I
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