the U.S.A, the key for real change worldwide.

[danyboy27]

i put this in the learning section, but that could go into politics, i dont know.

this discussion is about the us, and its dominant role in changing the current system.

From all the countries, the U.S.A is probably the one that have the most military base worldwide, and have access to cutting edge technology for its military forces.

all those assets are controled by the us governement, and the governement use it in order to keep his economy going, wich mean, they are gonna pin down any system that might put the market economy at risk.

beccause of those factors, the possibility for a switch to a more marxian system is almost inconceavable. History show us that every country that tried to switch to a different system was overthrown, attacked, blackmailed etc etc.

Many people here focus a lot on India, nepal, venezuela, but what about the U.S?

I think its should be our main priority beccause Unless the state get overthrown by its own population, or at least reverse back and start to get a grip on their corporation like some european countries do, we are doomed to see history repeat itself, and see all our efforts made in asia and south america wasted by a b-22 or a tomahawk.

hey, i might be wrong in my thinking, but if for exemple we want to bring change to canada, its inevitable that the us change first, otherwise we all know what will happen; rable rable, coup d'etat/invasion/sanction.

[Dimentio]

Actually, the Old Soviet Union - how strangely it sounds - has a better position. The USA is actually a very geographically peripheral world power. If it succumbed to a collapse or a revolution, China and the EU would probably replace it as a world power.

If the EU + Russia formed a socialist bloc, it would probably have a direct impact for a greater amount of people as that would dominate the coasts and landmass of Eurasia. And Eurasia + Africa is the largest landmass on Earth.

[danyboy27]

Actually, the Old Soviet Union - how strangely it sounds - has a better position. The USA is actually a very geographically peripheral world power. If it succumbed to a collapse or a revolution, China and the EU would probably replace it as a world power.

If the EU + Russia formed a socialist bloc, it would probably have a direct impact for a greater amount of people as that would dominate the coasts and landmass of Eurasia. And Eurasia + Africa is the largest landmass on Earth.

i am not so sure about that, the EU have a strong working class elements, and the power of those state on their corporation is still 10 time stronger than the us, radical changes and revolution are more likely to happen in europe. if the us would come to fall, then the same would probably happen in europe. Russia alone wouldnt be able to do much and would probably fall in the same path than the rest of europe if multiple revolution would occur.

anyway, has a canadian, i can safely say that any plan to actually change my country is dead in the water until america change/collapse.

we are too big and useful for them.

[Proletarian Ultra]

Actually, the Old Soviet Union - how strangely it sounds - has a better position. The USA is actually a very geographically peripheral world power. If it succumbed to a collapse or a revolution, China and the EU would probably replace it as a world power.

If the EU + Russia formed a socialist bloc, it would probably have a direct impact for a greater amount of people as that would dominate the coasts and landmass of Eurasia. And Eurasia + Africa is the largest landmass on Earth.

OP is right.

Because sea power > land power. Having the North Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Atlantic coast is pretty good. But it's nothing compared to the Pacific coast, the Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Alaska and the Mississippi.

Trying to do anything strategically useful with the trans-Eurasian landmass is a fool's errand, as Napoleon and Hitler discovered, and as we're discovering in Afghanistan.

[Psy]

The issue is not that the US has be dealt with first by the revolution must not stop till capitalist forces has been crushed. We are not going to put on the breaks just because only one city is revolting instead when only one city revolts we need the revolution to spread like wild fire around the world so the capitalists can't concentrate their forces.

[GPDP]

The issue is not that the US has be dealt with first by the revolution must not stop till capitalist forces has been crushed. We are not going to put on the breaks just because only one city is revolting instead when only one city revolts we need the revolution to spread like wild fire around the world so the capitalists can't concentrate their forces.

I don't think anyone is contending otherwise. What OP is trying to say is, the best chance for a world-wide revolution to actually succeed is if it starts with the U.S. first.

[bricolage]

I've always been interested in the idea that the key area is now probably China. It has (I assume) the largest working class of any one country and is central to global economic production.
Any takers?

[Who?]

I have to agree with bricolage, China is key. Let's not kid ourselves, the U.S. is in a sharp decline. A revolution in Canada should not be discouraged on account of their southern neighbors.

[RadioRaheem84]

The US is a dying superpower. While it still holds the key to many of the financial interests around the world, China would be the country that could change the world, right now. China has so many workers and if China even went the least bit socialist and started funding national liberation struggles around the world, it would be over, checkmate (well maybe).

[Dimentio]

OP is right.

Because sea power > land power. Having the North Sea, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Atlantic coast is pretty good. But it's nothing compared to the Pacific coast, the Atlantic coast, the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Alaska and the Mississippi.

Trying to do anything strategically useful with the trans-Eurasian landmass is a fool's errand, as Napoleon and Hitler discovered, and as we're discovering in Afghanistan.

The USA is at the same time useless if it isn't for its bases in Japan and Western Europe.

As for Canada. If a revolutionary Canadian government got nukes, it would stand a fighting chance against America.

[Psy]

The US is a dying superpower. While it still holds the key to many of the financial interests around the world, China would be the country that could change the world, right now. China has so many workers and if China even went the least bit socialist and started funding national liberation struggles around the world, it would be over, checkmate (well maybe).
Yet it is that decline that opens the US up for the possibility of revolution.

[RadioRaheem84]

Yet it is that decline that opens the US up for the possibility of revolution.

In the US? I would hope so. But I do not see the US going down without a huge fight. It's sad but I see military dictatorship before socialist revolution in the US.

[Rusty Shackleford]

even if the US as an empire is in decline it still have one hell of a nuclear arsenal, airforce, and navy. it is still the strong arm of world imperialism and it must be dealt with.

[Blackscare]

Trying to do anything strategically useful with the trans-Eurasian landmass is a fool's errand, as Napoleon and Hitler discovered, and as we're discovering in Afghanistan.

You're right, the best tactic is to hole up in Australia, seeing how you get a +2 bonus AND you can only be attacked from one point.

[Pretty Flaco]

You're right, the best tactic is to hole up in Australia, seeing how you get a +2 bonus AND you can only be attacked from one point.
RISK? :rolleyes:

Honestly, America's chances of being revolutionary or even progressively socialist are slim and I could see the right being very reactionary even to reform.

Socialism has a better chance to grow and succeed in Europe, Africa, and Asia.

[RadioRaheem84]

Exactly. I am sorry to be so grim about the States, but it's more likely that the country will descend into reactionary right wing rule rather than socialism. I am not going to give up advocating for it in the States but I just do not see it growing past a shoddy misrepresentation in the media.

The reactionaries will most likely resort to some reforms to appease the public but will be adamant in crushing the left.

What is needed is a deterrent to the US in the chance that it should severely decline. I am hoping for China to have enough of capitalism and at least go somewhat social democratic and start supporting national liberation movements, but I am not hold my breath.

The other option is for the working classes in Europe to really raise hell.

[Rusty Shackleford]

China right now is pretty much communist endoresed capitalist development. Im really hoping the CPC shifts to the left though. Capital has been very successfully accumulated in china.

The US left must grow though because if there is a slide into soem serious reaction then we must oppose it.

[Psy]

RISK? :rolleyes:

Honestly, America's chances of being revolutionary or even progressively socialist are slim and I could see the right being very reactionary even to reform.

Socialism has a better chance to grow and succeed in Europe, Africa, and Asia.
The problem is the right has no solutions and little room to maneuver. The rate of profit is falling, there are no new regions to exploit, and the public are not currently impressed with the capitalist class with the environmental disaster in the gulf of Mexico. A right wing coup could trigger a strong reaction from the workers that could include a workers revolution.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The problem is the right has no solutions and little room to maneuver. The rate of profit is falling, there are no new regions to exploit, and the public are not currently impressed with the capitalist class with the environmental disaster in the gulf of Mexico. A right wing coup could trigger a strong reaction from the workers that could include a workers revolution.


a decent portion of the working class and the majority of the petty-bourgeoisie are already on the side of reaction though.

[Psy]

a decent portion of the working class and the majority of the petty-bourgeoisie are already on the side of reaction though.
The reaction has no realistic solution though as the US ruling class is stuck in a lose-lose situation where no mater what they do their power will continue to decline.

[danyboy27]

i dont think china is the key. if china really become a communist society tomorow, the us will make a sweet deal with russia against china, and china will fall in the same isolationist situation that russia have endured when the us started to make deal with the chinese governement.

dont fool yourselves, even if the us governement power is in decay, its still controled by the corporation and the market economy.

that precisely why i focus so much on the us, beccause its governement is the armed wing of capitalism, and unless you find a way to stop the us interference into the world affair, nothing will change.

IF there is a revolution in canada, well you can be sure the american governement will do whatever it take to sabotage it.

[RadioRaheem84]

The reaction has no realistic solution though as the US ruling class is stuck in a lose-lose situation where no mater what they do their power will continue to decline.


What if the reactionaries incorporate some modest reforms to help the working class? That would certainly help to foster support for a reactionary government. But you're right that I could not see a reactionary government last too long if it did not implement some modest reforms to aid the ailing lower classes.

Nationalism over socialism in the States is more likely to happen.


that precisely why i focus so much on the us, beccause its governement is the armed wing of capitalism, and unless you find a way to stop the us interference into the world affair, nothing will change.

But the USSR offered some deterrent to that and that's why a powerhouse is needed to do that again. Venezuela and the ALBA nations are too weak. China is the only one that can offer anything to struggling national liberation movements it were to tilt left.

[danyboy27]

.
But the USSR offered some deterrent to that and that's why a powerhouse is needed to do that again. Venezuela and the ALBA nations are too weak. China is the only one that can offer anything to struggling national liberation movements it were to tilt left.

Some deterrent? last time i checked, they didnt offered any real deterent to Pinochet, Guatemala contras, the colombian death squads, and the numerous african coup d'etat, the anti-communist repression in western europe and america.

the U.S is the biggest player in all that, think about how 1970 if the U.S wouldnt have interfered in every little thing that was happening in the world.

i got the feeling that a lot of people here try to just fully ignore the us beccause they think its hopeless and impossible to do anything about it.

i think that, no matter how desesperate taking the us over might sound, its worth the try. it might take a lot of time but i guess patience is te key.

[Psy]

What if the reactionaries incorporate some modest reforms to help the working class? That would certainly help to foster support for a reactionary government. But you're right that I could not see a reactionary government last too long if it did not implement some modest reforms to aid the ailing lower classes.

And how would they pay for that with a falling rate of profit? The capitalist class wants to squeeze the working class to counter the downward trend of profits.

[Proletarian Ultra]

This is your classic Stalin vs. Trotsky debate.

Obviously it would be the optimal thing for world revolution if the US went immediately commie. Great geostrategic position, lots of resources, cultural hegemony etc. Look at the recent constitutional referendum in Kenya, or the "kill the gays" law in Uganda to see how US domestic politics spills overseas.

Still that's not terribly likely. A huge part of the US work force is employed in military, security, police, corrections, defense contracting, debt collection, supervisory and other class traitor occupations. I don't mean to be all Third Worldist because these are not 'aristocracy' jobs for the most part - shit pay and condititions etc. - but they do get paid to directly surveill and oppress other workers. When you factor in the self-employed and retirees and people in jail, the core of non-class-traitor wage workers in America is not that overwhelming. We're like the drunks in those Bumfights! videos that were hot a few years back.

[Magón]

I think the best way to really get the US to become leftist, at least for the most part, leftist-leftist, not leftist-center, is by "choking" the US economy from the outside. By either destroying or taking over the resources that fuel the US as it is today, and has been for many, many years. I'm not sure China's the answer to this, but it could be if they took over US Jobs and refused to give them back in a way that would make it so the US Economy plummeted even more. But then again, to me, you're just replacing one State with another State that's just as problematic.

But the US is definitely not the answer to real change in the world. The world itself, is the answer to real change. You just have to make it so. :thumbup1:

[Psy]

This is your classic Stalin vs. Trotsky debate.

Obviously it would be the optimal thing for world revolution if the US went immediately commie. Great geostrategic position, lots of resources, cultural hegemony etc. Look at the recent constitutional referendum in Kenya, or the "kill the gays" law in Uganda to see how US domestic politics spills overseas.

That and inheriting part of the US military would make the world revolutionary army very powerful, a revolution army coming for a US workers state would have the power to air lift reinforces to support uprisings anywhere on Earth.



Still that's not terribly likely. A huge part of the US work force is employed in military, security, police, corrections, defense contracting, debt collection, supervisory and other class traitor occupations.

Which have defected to the side of proletariat in America's past in times of armed revolution like Baltimore National Guard in 1877.

[BLACKPLATES]

The geograhic isolation of the US is half the reason it became what it is..North America is a giant fortress sorrounded on 3 sides by nearly impasable oceans, and on the fourth by a long strech of mountainous, arid desert and scrub that narrows into a tiny isthmus..a giant natural castle...the other reason is its resources mineral and agricultural.Its the best place in the world to project power from-as long as the fossil fuel holds out..after that it goes back to being peripheral

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I have to agree with bricolage, China is key. Let's not kid ourselves, the U.S. is in a sharp decline. A revolution in Canada should not be discouraged on account of their southern neighbors.
How is the U.S. in decline? We're the wealthiest nation by far with probably the biggest economy, we control the seas, we are a huge producer of energy, the U.S. is basically the center of the international capitalist system. Just because the U.S. has a crises once in a while does not mean much, so does much of the world, it's part of capitalism as we know. Just because we're not really accomplishing much in Afghanistan does not mean much either, we lost to the Vietnamese and in the end came up as the superpower of the world.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I think the best way to really get the US to become leftist, at least for the most part, leftist-leftist, not leftist-center, is by "choking" the US economy from the outside. By either destroying or taking over the resources that fuel the US as it is today, and has been for many, many years. I'm not sure China's the answer to this, but it could be if they took over US Jobs and refused to give them back in a way that would make it so the US Economy plummeted even more. But then again, to me, you're just replacing one State with another State that's just as problematic.

But the US is definitely not the answer to real change in the world. The world itself, is the answer to real change. You just have to make it so. :thumbup1:
"Choking" the U.S. economy from the outside would be more like choking the rest of the world without our economy. If everybody sanctioned us the U.S. could probably be self-reliant, we have some of the best land for agriculture, we know we could be self-reliant when it comes to energy, we have technology in the bag, etc, etc. But before you begin even thinking about "choking" the U.S. economy you have to realize the U.S. has a pretty good stranglehold on the seas, something which many people seem to think is not very significant. Who would do this anyways?

[Thirsty Crow]

OP is right.



Trying to do anything strategically useful with the trans-Eurasian landmass is a fool's errand, as Napoleon and Hitler discovered, and as we're discovering in Afghanistan.
Oh really? Despite the rich natural resources, i.e. natural gas and oil?
For example, entire Europe is dependant on Russian gas supplies. Five EU members, if I recall correctly, are 100% dependant on this import.
Which is an argument for the following thesis: those who control the resources needed for keeping this oil driven economy alivve will also control the fate of the world.

[danyboy27]

I think the best way to really get the US to become leftist, at least for the most part, leftist-leftist, not leftist-center, is by "choking" the US economy from the outside. By either destroying or taking over the resources that fuel the US as it is today, and has been for many, many years. I'm not sure China's the answer to this, but it could be if they took over US Jobs and refused to give them back in a way that would make it so the US Economy plummeted even more. But then again, to me, you're just replacing one State with another State that's just as problematic.

But the US is definitely not the answer to real change in the world. The world itself, is the answer to real change. You just have to make it so. :thumbup1:
it wont work, when push come to shove, the us governement in an ultimate act of self preservation will beat the shit out of anyone holding those ressources back, see japanese invasion of philipine for further detail.

america can only change from within, that out only way out.

[S.Artesian]

Oh really? Despite the rich natural resources, i.e. natural gas and oil?
For example, entire Europe is dependant on Russian gas supplies. Five EU members, if I recall correctly, are 100% dependant on this import.
Which is an argument for the following thesis: those who control the resources needed for keeping this oil driven economy alivve will also control the fate of the world.


And Russia is totally dependent upon capitalism, which means geo-politics aren't the issue.

[danyboy27]

i also would like to say that i do not diminish the progress and effort many group worldwide who are actually making tremendous erffort to make their world better, just to be clear i am not north american centric.

its not about supremacy, its about where the trouble come from, its about where the system itself come from.

the american state have become a mere puppet of the corporation living under its wing, this is a pretty unique situation that i dont think we can see worldwide. this is where most of the attack and bullying against the geniune revolutionaries movements come from, to me its just natural that we shoud focus on that issue.

[RadioRaheem84]

How is the U.S. in decline? We're the wealthiest nation by far with probably the biggest economy, we control the seas, we are a huge producer of energy, the U.S. is basically the center of the international capitalist system. Just because the U.S. has a crises once in a while does not mean much, so does much of the world, it's part of capitalism as we know. Just because we're not really accomplishing much in Afghanistan does not mean much either, we lost to the Vietnamese and in the end came up as the superpower of the world.

The US has been in decline since the late 70s and 80s. Have you not seen our infrastructure? Especially in the smaller towns? Some areas look like they haven't been touched up since the 80s. Workers wages haven't risen or adjusted for inflations since 75, we have record deficits, rely on exports like a junkie, and are caught up in imperial warfare on two separate fronts again. I mean I am surprised the US has held on this long and it's mostly been because of the Military. The other thing that was holding us up; monopoly finance capital is crumbling.

Our best hope is for a popular leftist front to hold back a reactionary movement from gaining control of the government in case of serious collapse. The other is to hope for radical left change in Europe or for China to swing left.

[Thirsty Crow]

And Russia is totally dependent upon capitalism, which means geo-politics aren't the issue.
There isn't a single country that is totally dependant upon capitalism as a socioeconomic formation since that would practically imply that a meaningful and successful organization of production is quite impossible outside the cionfines of this one. In my view, production is rather dependant on natural factors, such as basic resources which are used to fuel most of the productive structures (factories etc.).
What I'm trying to say is that if there were another "opposing blocs" scenario, which is the most realistic one, any bloc that would be in relative control over the most of these natural factors would have a significant advantage.

If you think that I'm misrepresenting the problem, feel free to point it out to me!

[S.Artesian]

There isn't a single country that is totally dependant upon capitalism as a socioeconomic formation since that would practically imply that a meaningful and successful organization of production is quite impossible outside the cionfines of this one. In my view, production is rather dependant on natural factors, such as basic resources which are used to fuel most of the productive structures (factories etc.).
What I'm trying to say is that if there were another "opposing blocs" scenario, which is the most realistic one, any bloc that would be in relative control over the most of these natural factors would have a significant advantage.

If you think that I'm misrepresenting the problem, feel free to point it out to me!

No? Then what are they dependent upon for the social reproduction of the classes that make up that society? Feudalism? Socialism? Yes, capitalist states are dependent upon capitalism. It really is just that simple.

If you look at the "gas monopoly" Russia supposedly has, you see in 2009 receipts for gas plummeting as use was cut back in the world-wide capitalist economic contraction. You also see massive new supplies coming online, with new pipelines in the works-- competition for the supposed monopoly.

Years ago, Japan was going to replace the US; then it was the EU; then it was Brazil, except Brazil was going to be the pre-China next China; and then it was the BRICs-- Brazil, Russia, India, and China blah blah blah, and when push comes to shove? The Fed has initiate open-ended currency swap lines with Brazil, the EU, Japan so that worldwide international trade doesn't come to a halt; FDI in China drops, and China begins to allow the renminbi to rise, cutting the already thin margins its homegrown export industries operate on [as opposed to those resulting from FDI], Russia comes perilously close to default again, and has to drain about 1/3-40% of its rainy day fun to keep afloat, etc. etc. etc.

Sorry, take all that geo-political crap, that "emerging tiger" mythology, that BRIC, Mercosur, ASEAN, EU, ALBA nonsense out with the rest of the garbage.

Follow the money. Or, in the mortal words of Wreckless Eric, TAKE THE K.A.S.H.

[RadioRaheem84]

http://www.workers.org/2010/world/china_0805/


Articles with headlines like “China Is Coming Under Fire” (Wall Street Journal, July 20) and “China’s Summer of Labor Unrest” (Forbes.com, July 23) say that corporate investors in Europe and the U.S. are worried that the stability foreign firms have enjoyed in China may be coming to an end.

China supporting workers demands against foreign business?

Anyone else have any info on a possible left tilt by China?

[S.Artesian]

The US has been in decline since the late 70s and 80s. Have you not seen our infrastructure? Especially in the smaller towns? Some areas look like they haven't been touched up since the 80s. Workers wages haven't risen or adjusted for inflations since 75, we have record deficits, rely on exports like a junkie, and are caught up in imperial warfare on two separate fronts again. I mean I am surprised the US has held on this long and it's mostly been because of the Military. The other thing that was holding us up; monopoly finance capital is crumbling.

Our best hope is for a popular leftist front to hold back a reactionary movement from gaining control of the government in case of serious collapse. The other is to hope for radical left change in Europe or for China to swing left.


Small towns may be decimated, wages held down, infrastructure deteriorating, but that doesn't mean the bourgeoisie, or capitalism, is crumbling. It means, on the contrary, they're managing this quite well, thank you, and making everybody else pay.

The US has held on this long, and probably longer, because for about 35 years now, it's been knocking the snot out the working class with a ferocity that the bourgeoisie of Europe and Asia only wish they could emulate.

A popular front government has NEVER successfully held back a reactionary movement. Rather, as proven in Spain long ago, and Chile not so long ago, the popular front disorganizes the working class, prevents revolutionary action, and disarms workers in the face of reactionary onslaught.

[RadioRaheem84]

Small towns may be decimated, wages held down, infrastructure deteriorating, but that doesn't mean the bourgeoisie, or capitalism, is crumbling. It means, on the contrary, they're managing this quite well, thank you, and making everybody else pay.

The US has held on this long, and probably longer, because for about 35 years now, it's been knocking the snot out the working class with a ferocity that the bourgeoisie of Europe and Asia only wish they could emulate.

A popular front government has NEVER successfully held back a reactionary movement. Rather, as proven in Spain long ago, and Chile not so long ago, the popular front disorganizes the working class, prevents revolutionary action, and disarms workers in the face of reactionary onslaught.

Even if the bourgeoisie grew stronger because of their anti-working class stance, that doesn't mean that it made the nation any stronger. I never insisted that they were crumbling but to line their own pockets they're willing to let the rest of the nation decline. This would lead to either unrest from the public or reactionary rule.

A popular front usually does not work, I am in agreement with you. Usually we always end up subsiding for social democrats to take the reigns, but it would be preferable than reactionary rule. It doesn't mean a popular front shouldn't try.

[S.Artesian]

Even if the bourgeoisie grew stronger because of their anti-working class stance, that doesn't mean that it made the nation any stronger. I never insisted that they were crumbling but to line their own pockets they're willing to let the rest of the nation decline. This would lead to either unrest from the public or reactionary rule.

A popular front usually does not work, I am in agreement with you. Usually we always end up subsiding for social democrats to take the reigns, but it would be preferable than reactionary rule. It doesn't mean a popular front shouldn't try.

Yeah, but they don't care about a nation, they care about class rule. And by that measure, the US bourgeoisie is still number one with a bullet, and I do mean bullet.

As for the popular front-- it's not a question of it being preferable. Popular fronts arise when the class struggle is exceeding the boundaries of the established mechanisms for control-- when the economy can't go on as before, and the workers won't go on as before. Popular fronts arise to prevent, not to protect, a social revolution. In so doing, they pave the way for reaction. No popular fronts are not fascism, and social democrats are not fascism, but in a class struggle, the class collaboration of the popular front, as opposed to the class unity of the working class in a united front does pave the way for reaction. That is exactly what happened in Chile in 1973.

[Dimentio]

Exactly. I am sorry to be so grim about the States, but it's more likely that the country will descend into reactionary right wing rule rather than socialism. I am not going to give up advocating for it in the States but I just do not see it growing past a shoddy misrepresentation in the media.

The reactionaries will most likely resort to some reforms to appease the public but will be adamant in crushing the left.

What is needed is a deterrent to the US in the chance that it should severely decline. I am hoping for China to have enough of capitalism and at least go somewhat social democratic and start supporting national liberation movements, but I am not hold my breath.

The other option is for the working classes in Europe to really raise hell.

The US reactionaries are probably even more stupid than the French aristocracy prior to the revolution.

I believe that Europe is the key. The European Union is the world's largest economy, one of the most diverse regions on Earth and is located on the Eurasian landmass. With Russia in the fold, it would be completely self-sufficient and could really establish whatever it would want within its borders.

[danyboy27]

The US has been in decline since the late 70s and 80s. Have you not seen our infrastructure? Especially in the smaller towns? Some areas look like they haven't been touched up since the 80s. Workers wages haven't risen or adjusted for inflations since 75, we have record deficits, rely on exports like a junkie, and are caught up in imperial warfare on two separate fronts again. I mean I am surprised the US has held on this long and it's mostly been because of the Military. The other thing that was holding us up; monopoly finance capital is crumbling.

Our best hope is for a popular leftist front to hold back a reactionary movement from gaining control of the government in case of serious collapse. The other is to hope for radical left change in Europe or for China to swing left.

but the whole thing is not necessarly about the infrastructures or industrial potential of the U.S, its about the influence it have over the countries it relies on. the fact that the bulk of the us supply is coming from oversea is actually making the situation even more dangerous for any social movement to happen.

[S.Artesian]

The US reactionaries are probably even more stupid than the French aristocracy prior to the revolution.

I believe that Europe is the key. The European Union is the world's largest economy, one of the most diverse regions on Earth and is located on the Eurasian landmass. With Russia in the fold, it would be completely self-sufficient and could really establish whatever it would want within its borders.

Well then you've got a big disappointment coming as the European Union is conspicuous as a union only in its absence. You've got the Eurozone economies, and then you have the "outsiders" making up the 27, the countries that were supposed to play the role that Latin America plays to the US.

If the conditions in Greece prove anything, they prove that the EU isn't a union at all.

What counts is class struggle. Where ever it occurs. So if the European working class, with a history of struggle a bit more advanced than the US takes the lead, then that will make Europe the "most important." If it occurs in the US, then that will make the US most important.

And... if it occurs in Brazil, or China, or even Russia, then the most important thing is making sure the class struggle spreads, and overtakes the US and Europe, and Japan.

It's the class struggle that will settle these matters, not the resources of the extant capitalisms.

[RadioRaheem84]

It's the class struggle that will settle these matters, not the resources of the extant capitalisms.


True. :thumbup1:

[Psy]

Small towns may be decimated, wages held down, infrastructure deteriorating, but that doesn't mean the bourgeoisie, or capitalism, is crumbling. It means, on the contrary, they're managing this quite well, thank you, and making everybody else pay.

You think the ruling class wanted countless liters of oil to spill into the gulf requiring huge investment of labor value just to stop the leak? Do you the ruling class wants freight trains loaded with commodities to derail, becoming useless and again large amount of labor required to clean up the mess? The raise in large scale accidents that does massive damage commodities shows just how desperate capitalists are becoming to extract surplus value as it means they are willing to make huge gambles that they will beat the odds and they personally won't have to pay the results of not investing labor in protecting dead labor like ensuring oil rigs and railways don't have fatal failures that does massive damage to the economy as a whole.

[hardlinecommunist]

The USA is at the same time useless if it isn't for its bases in Japan and Western Europe.

As for Canada. If a revolutionary Canadian government got nukes, it would stand a fighting chance against America. are you Canadian

[S.Artesian]

You think the ruling class wanted countless liters of oil to spill into the gulf requiring huge investment of labor value just to stop the leak? Do you the ruling class wants freight trains loaded with commodities to derail, becoming useless and again large amount of labor required to clean up the mess? The raise in large scale accidents that does massive damage commodities shows just how desperate capitalists are becoming to extract surplus value as it means they are willing to make huge gambles that they will beat the odds and they personally won't have to pay the results of not investing labor in protecting dead labor like ensuring oil rigs and railways don't have fatal failures that does massive damage to the economy as a whole.

It would help if you knew what you were talking about. Like freight trains. The accident rates, and injury rates, on US railroads has declined steadily over the past decade. Dollar amounts for derailment damages per ton-mile operated are at all time lows. I know a little bit about the industry, having worked in it for 36 years, most recently as the chief of operations for one.

I don't think the bourgeoisie wanted BP to cut every corner and risk safety at every critical juncture in order to bring in an over-budget and out of time well, but I don't think it matters what the bourgeoisie want. What matters is what profit dictates.

Next you'll ask me if I think Bear Stearns wanted to go bankrupt; if Lehman Brothers wanted to leverage itself right out of existence. Doesn't fucking matter what they want. What matters is how they rule. And they still do. And they're not going to pollute themselves, or off-balance sheet investment vehicle themselves as a class out of that rule. That's why they have to be overthrown.

And you can talk about how weak they are, theoretically, but practically? Capitalism? I don't mean to rain on your parade, but the fSU collapsed and what was left of a proletarian revolution was swept away. China thinks it can play with the big boys with an agricultural sector that traps half the population. Vietnam is busy marketing itself as the low cost alternative to China.

So what exactly was your point again? I mean other than to read your own post?

[Psy]

It would help if you knew what you were talking about. Like freight trains. The accident rates, and injury rates, on US railroads has declined steadily over the past decade. Dollar amounts for derailment damages per ton-mile operated are at all time lows. I know a little bit about the industry, having worked in it for 36 years, most recently as the chief of operations for one.

It has sky rocketed in denationalized railways like in Canada and Japan, and CN freight trains going through the US are in far worse shape then when they were CNR trains owned and operatred by the Canadian government.

CN also does a crappy job looking after their track in the US http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x31jK-eNVU




I don't think the bourgeoisie wanted BP to cut every corner and risk safety at every critical juncture in order to bring in an over-budget and out of time well, but I don't think it matters what the bourgeoisie want. What matters is what profit dictates.

That is the point they couldn't afford to take precautions in the event of such a disaster because of the fall in the rate of profit.



And you can talk about how weak they are, theoretically, but practically? Capitalism? I don't mean to rain on your parade, but the fSU collapsed and what was left of a proletarian revolution was swept away. China thinks it can play with the big boys with an agricultural sector that traps half the population. Vietnam is busy marketing itself as the low cost alternative to China.

Practically their infrastructure will erode causing their labor costs to rise that already are higher due to older fixed capital.

[S.Artesian]

It has sky rocketed in denationalized railways like in Canada and Japan, and CN freight trains going through the US are in far worse shape then when they were CNR trains owned and operatred by the Canadian government.

Really? Can you provide a link, some source for that claim. Besides, I thought we were talking about the US. Sure hasn't "skyrocketed in the US, where the CN and CP also operate.

Here's my link, from the US Federal Railroad Administration:
Hit the link, request the report and look at the 10 year trend:

http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/officeofsafety/publicsite/Query/tenyr1a.aspx


CN also does a crappy job looking after their track in the US

Come on, fucking You Tube does not make a trend. Where is this section of track? How many million gross tons operate over it every year? What is the max authorized speed? What speed was the train operating at when it derailed. Looks to me that there was a heavy rainstorm in the area if this is supposed to show conditions prior to a derailment. Heavy rainstorms can undermine track, undermining and washing away ballast that secures the track structures without out leaving visible external evidence, in an hour or two, with . I can't tell anything from that video, and neither can anybody else who know anything about railroading.


That is the point they couldn't afford to take precautions in the event of such a disaster because of the fall in the rate of profit..

Except BP is not the entire industry, not to mention the entirety of capitalism so if you want to prophesize the self-immolation of capitalism, you're going to have to provide more than one You Tube clip, and one incident of criminal negligence dictated by a bottom line. Moreso since BP utilized techniques and procedures that are not industry standard for drilling in deepwater.



Practically their infrastructure will erode causing their labor costs to rise that already are higher due to older fixed capital.You know what-- nobody knows how to beat down labor costs like the US bourgeoisie. They've made a mint doing it. I don't see labor costs rising in the US significantly anytime since 1979, not even during the "golden years" of the Clinton era when the decline in wages actually slowed down a bit.


The bourgeoisie are not going to topple over because of their own dead weight resting on a decaying infrastructure.

Like I said, it would help, a little bit, if you knew what you were talking about.

[Dimentio]

are you Canadian

No. But Canada has a small population compared to its size. Socialist policies and distribution of resources there and living standards would increase for everyone. The only thing which Canada really is lacking are nukes, to deter America.

[Psy]

Really? Can you provide a link, some source for that claim. Besides, I thought we were talking about the US. Sure hasn't "skyrocketed in the US, where the CN and CP also operate.

This has been public knowledge in Canada for years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C09txsoT1V0

For Japan you'd have to look at their militant labor union. http://www.doro-chiba.org/english/dc_en_07/dc_en_07_01.htm



Here's my link, from the US Federal Railroad Administration:
Hit the link, request the report and look at the 10 year trend:

http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/officeofsafety/publicsite/Query/tenyr1a.aspx



Come on, fucking You Tube does not make a trend.

CN employees far less track crews and works those it kept far harder, gone are the regular track inspections and problem track/equipment being dealt with in a timely manner.



Except BP is not the entire industry, not to mention the entirety of capitalism so if you want to prophesize the self-immolation of capitalism, you're going to have to provide more than one You Tube clip, and one incident of criminal negligence dictated by a bottom line.

But what happened in BP is what happened to CNR and JNR, when they were privitized they cut back on maintaince to increase profits. Meaning BP, CNR and JNR are simply where all capitalists are heading with the falling rate of profit being solved with cutting back on maitaince.



You know what-- nobody knows how to beat down labor costs like the US bourgeoisie. They've made a mint doing it. I don't see labor costs rising in the US significantly anytime since 1979, not even during the "golden years" of the Clinton era when the decline in wages actually slowed down a bit.

It is already higher then average due to most fixed captial in the US being obsolete as labor is spread across fewer units of a commodity.



The bourgeoisie are not going to topple over because of their own dead weight resting on a decaying infrastructure.

If the decay in infrastructure results in the US losing fixed capital it will as it would mean the US bourgeoisie would no longer be able to compete with other capitalists.

[S.Artesian]

Practically their infrastructure will erode causing their labor costs to rise that already are higher due to older fixed capital.

Uh... no, again would you care to provide some data on this? In the US manufacturing productivity, output per unit of labor input, [hours and dollars] increased at annual rate of of 4.1% every year 2001-2007, well ahead of the 1995-2001 rate of 2.7%. Amounts of fixed and constant capital animated per worker in the US are well above that of most countries, particularly well ahead of the BRIC countries.

Average of fixed capital.... got any information on that or is this too just your "sense" of things?

Value output per worker in the US is about 4 times that estimated for workers in equivalent industries in Brazil [that estimate comes from the US National Associationof Manufacturers], so exactly WTF are you talking about?

The US is not England between the two world wars, nor is it England after WW2, or the England of Thatcher with an outmoded industrial plant and excessive labor costs.

You know what percentage of costs production workers' wages in the US semiconductor industry are? 2%-- and for the really advanced semiconductor fabrication processes its 1%.

Productivity in US freight rail operations is the highest in the world, way ahead of anywhere else.

That's exactly what gets the bourgeoisie into the predicament-- the overproduction of the means of production of capital. That's what causes the rate of profit to tend to decline.

[Psy]

Uh... no, again would you care to provide some data on this? In the US manufacturing productivity, output per unit of labor input, [hours and dollars] increased at annual rate of of 4.1% every year 2001-2007, well ahead of the 1995-2001 rate of 2.7%. Amounts of fixed and constant capital animated per worker in the US are well above that of most countries, particularly well ahead of the BRIC countries.

Average of fixed capital.... got any information on that or is this too just your "sense" of things?

Value output per worker in the US is about 4 times that estimated for workers in equivalent industries in Brazil [that estimate comes from the US National Associationof Manufacturers], so exactly WTF are you talking about?

The US is not England between the two world wars, nor is it England after WW2, or the England of Thatcher with an outmoded industrial plant and excessive labor costs.

You know what percentage of costs production workers' wages in the US semiconductor industry are? 2%-- and for the really advanced semiconductor fabrication processes its 1%.

Productivity in US freight rail operations is the highest in the world, way ahead of anywhere else.

That's exactly what gets the bourgeoisie into the predicament-- the overproduction of the means of production of capital. That's what causes the rate of profit to tend to decline.
But they are not maintaining the means of production as well as they did during the long boom, yes there is modern means of production but the whole system is dependent on aging means of production from the long boom that is being neglected more and more.

[S.Artesian]

This has been public knowledge in Canada for years

So if it's public knowledge, where is it documented? Transport Canada has a rather sophisticated database. Is it there? Have you even bothered to look, or do your investigations begin and end at You Tube?


CN employees far less track crews and works those it kept far harder, gone are the regular track inspections and problem track/equipment being dealt with in a timely manner.

Track inspections are required by regulation. The reduction in employees is based on the increasing applicability of technology to track geometry and track inspections. Working crews "harder," meaning scheduling more miles of inspection in the same time period is what the bourgeoisie always do. It's what keeps them in business.



But what happened in BP is what happened to CNR and JNR, when they were privitized they cut back on maintaince to increase profits. Meaning BP, CNR and JNR are simply where all capitalists are heading with the falling rate of profit being solved with cutting back on maitaince. .

Really? Care to back that up? I keep asking that and you keep posting You Tube clips. Can you document a decline in maintenance as evidenced by declining performance parameters-- like accidents per train mile, derailments per gross ton mile, injuries per 200,000 employee hours. How about tie replacement programs? Have the number of railroad ties [sleepers in UK parlance] requiring replacement been allowed to creep up requiring the issuance of "slow orders"? How about rail replacement and continuous welded rail installation. Have those programs been cut back with damaging results? Rail grinding to remove cracks? Weed spraying?



It is already higher then average due to most fixed captial in the US being obsolete as labor is spread across fewer units of a commodity.

Bullshit again. Care to back that up with any documentation like say on the semiconductor industry; on railroads; on say petroleum and mining; agriculture? Yeah, let's try agriculture.



If the decay in infrastructure results in the US losing fixed capital it will as it would mean the US bourgeoisie would no longer be able to compete with other capitalists.

Assuming, of course, other capitalists are immune to the very same forces that would make such a debilitating decay impossible for the US bourgeoisie to remedy.

You need to stop the You Tube and quit making things up.

[RadioRaheem84]

A revolution in the USA would change the world. Has anyone read "when america goes communist" by Trotsky? He knew what a great country like America could achieve with real communism

Great?

[Psy]

So if it's public knowledge, where is it documented? Transport Canada has a rather sophisticated database. Is it there? Have you even bothered to look, or do your investigations begin and end at You Tube?

You are watching a clip from Canadian government's TV network saying there is a spike in derailments according to the Canadian safety board. Or do you distrust nationalized bourgeois Canadian media when they are saying according to the government derailments are up in Canada?



Track inspections are required by regulation.

Yes but there is less inspection.



The reduction in employees is based on the increasing applicability of technology to track geometry and track inspections.

Working crews "harder," meaning scheduling more miles of inspection in the same time period is what the bourgeoisie always do. It's what keeps them in business.

It also means problem track and equipment being ignored as standards are lowered, and workers have enough work just reacting to failures then doing much preventive maintenance.



Really? Care to back that up? I keep asking that and you keep posting You Tube clips. Can you document a decline in maintenance as evidenced by declining performance parameters-- like accidents per train mile, derailments per gross ton mile, injuries per 200,000 employee hours. How about tie replacement programs? Have the number of railroad ties [sleepers in UK parlance] requiring replacement been allowed to creep up requiring the issuance of "slow orders"? How about rail replacement and continuous welded rail installation. Have those programs been cut back with damaging results? Rail grinding to remove cracks? Weed spraying?

So you distrust the CBC saying derailments are up according to government statistics?

And militant Japanese railway workers are not creditable when talking about safety issues ?

http://www.doro-chiba.org/english/dc_en_07/dc_en_07_01.htm


For BP look at the article Deepwater Horizon - one more legacy of Thatcherism (http://www.marxist.com/deepwater-horizon-legacy-of-thatcherism.htm) or do you distrust when it quoted

"The Occupational Safety and Health Authority today announced that it had since issued 270 notifications to BP for failure to correct hazards and that it had found 439 new ‘willful violations" from the Guardian newspaper



Bullshit again. Care to back that up with any documentation like say on the semiconductor industry; on railroads; on say petroleum and mining; agriculture? Yeah, let's try agriculture.

Why do you think production is going overseas? Capitalists want to produce where labor is the cheapest if it is the cheapest in the USA then most manufacturing would be done in the USA.




Assuming, of course, other capitalists are immune to the very same forces that would make such a debilitating decay impossible for the US bourgeoisie to remedy.

Some of the other capitalists have a advantage of a lower labor value, which is why production migrates away from the US.

[Adil3tr]

If the US fell, Europe could hardly stand for long, and with a humanitarian approach, much of the third world could fall. I don;t see a successful revolution without the US being the first Socialist country

[S.Artesian]

You are watching a clip from Canadian government's TV network saying there is a spike in derailments according to the Canadian safety board. Or do you distrust nationalized bourgeois Canadian media when they are saying according to the government derailments are up in Canada?

I don't think the media knows what it's talking about. If you check Transport Canada's [the body charged with regulating railroads in Canada] database, you see the rate of accidents essentially flat from 2002-2005, then beginning a downward trend-- meaning less accidents per million train miles-- in 2006 with the absolute numbers of accidents also trending down.

It's not on You Tube, and it doesn't come with crayons, so you probably wouldn't be interested.



Yes but there is less inspection.Saying it's so, doesn't make it so. Provide some evidence.


It also means problem track and equipment being ignored as standards are lowered, and workers have enough work just reacting to failures then doing much preventive maintenance. Where in Canada or the US, has Transport Canada or FRA lowered standards for track and equipment maintenance?



So you distrust the CBC saying derailments are up according to government statistics? Maybe they're up. Maybe they're not. Maybe it's a blip. But you have yet to show that the increase in derailments is caused by a reduction in maintenance and/or maintenance standards.


And militant Japanese railway workers are not creditable when talking about safety issues ?

http://www.doro-chiba.org/english/dc_en_07/dc_en_07_01.htm .

Again, we're talking about a trend of incidents over a national system. The cite you link to makes no such claims.



"The Occupational Safety and Health Authority today announced that it had since issued 270 notifications to BP for failure to correct hazards and that it had found 439 new ‘willful violations" from the Guardian newspaper.

Excuse me, who said BP is not as fucked up as we know BP to be, as we knew BP was 4 years ago when it blew up its Texas City chemical plant?



Why do you think production is going overseas? Capitalists want to produce where labor is the cheapest if it is the cheapest in the USA then most manufacturing would be done in the USA. Never said labor in the US was cheapest. Said it was the most productive and it is that very productivity of labor that drives down the rate of profit.And so capital goes some where, where the preponderant weight of fixed capital can be offset by really cheap labor in at the start, low value, high labor intensity operations-- like China.

Here's another reason capital migrates overseas-- no taxes. In the US profits of overseas subsidiaries are not taxed unless they are returned to the US. You know all those big foreign reserves China has invested in US Treasuries, that are supposed to give China such leverage over the US? Where do you think they come from? US and other Foreign Direct Investment companies keeping their profits outside the home country for ready use, if required in Asia.


You might want to take a break from being a jerk and revealing how little you actually know about Marx, and try reading him. Just for a change.

Probably not.

[Psy]

I don't think the media knows what it's talking about. If you check Transport Canada's [the body charged with regulating railroads in Canada] database, you see the rate of accidents essentially flat from 2002-2005, then beginning a downward trend-- meaning less accidents per million train miles-- in 2006 with the absolute numbers of accidents also trending down.

The news report was talking about approximately 1992-2005, all the statistics from 2002-2005 show is CN's safety leveled off and from 2006 on they were able to get a bit better but no where close to their safety level prior to 1992.



Saying it's so, doesn't make it so. Provide some evidence.

Same news report had a ex-employee saying maintenance is no longer a priority of CN



Where in Canada or the US, has Transport Canada or FRA lowered standards for track and equipment maintenance?

You are talking about minimal legal standards, CNR had standards above that of Transport Canada when it was a state run company, CPR while private also had standards above the minimal legal standard.



Again, we're talking about a trend of incidents over a national system. The cite you link to makes no such claims.

It cities problems with tracks




Excuse me, who said BP is not as fucked up as we know BP to be, as we knew BP was 4 years ago when it blew up its Texas City chemical plant?

And BP is not capitalist because? Other capitalists won't follow in BP's footsteps because?



Never said labor in the US was cheapest. Said it was the most productive and it is that very productivity of labor that drives down the rate of profit.

Then why does Asia and Europe have more efficient factories? You are ignoring that the US has older fixed capital then the newer industrialized nations like Japan. For example the peak of the US semi-conducter industry was in the 1980's those factories were replaced by more productive semi-conducter factories in Asia.



And so capital goes some where, where the preponderant weight of fixed capital can be offset by really cheap labor in at the start, low value, high labor intensity operations-- like China.

Then explain Japan before its stagnation, it has massive fixed capital far more modern the the average in the USA.



Here's another reason capital migrates overseas-- no taxes. In the US profits of overseas subsidiaries are not taxed unless they are returned to the US. You know all those big foreign reserves China has invested in US Treasuries, that are supposed to give China such leverage over the US? Where do you think they come from? US and other Foreign Direct Investment companies keeping their profits outside the home country for ready use, if required in Asia.

That is not the largest reason for manufacturing moving as it costs alot of money to relocate manufacturing.

[S.Artesian]

You simply don't know what you're talking about. US semiconductor fabrication companies did NOT move their most advanced fab plants offshore. As a matter of fact, the plants Intel is building in China are of an "older" generation of technology, while its most advanced technology operations are centered in the US.

But the real isn't location, it's ownership. Intel controls 80-85% of the market for microprocessors, with AMD adding another 5%-- those are US companies controlling a world market.

The rest of the world, particularly Asia, is forced into producing lower-value DRAM and NAND chips, and doing so on a bulk, commodity basis where reduced labor costs can provide a profit while the profitability of the production itself is less than what Intel aggrandizes.

As for CN-- we were talking about the last decade. Actually we were talking about the US in the last decade, but be that as it may, the trend line for CN is down, absolute numbers are down which doesn't square with your notion of linear, progressive, inflexible decay.

Ex employees can say anything they want. Journalists can pick which ex employees they will give air time to. Where is the increase in "slow orders," the reduction in average train speeds, the increased out-of-service ratios that your supposed decline in maintenance must produce in railroad operations.

What about budgets? What has been the trend for CN in its operating maintenance budget; in its capital improvement budget?

Yes, CN, and most railroads operate above minimum standards in many aspects of day to day transportation. But minimum standards are the ones designed to keep a railroad from derailing, from breaking down, from accidents. So.... if you have any evidence of CN operating below standard, of reducing its standards, just produce it. Anecdotes do not count as data.

What countries have more efficient factories in Asia? South Korea is generally considered to have the most efficient steel-making operations in the world, no doubt about it. Not much migration of US steel production to South Korea, is there? Japan has marginally more efficient auto production facilities, around 1-2 hours less required per auto production than in the US, but Japan is moving more of its production offshore to countries like China, and the US.

The US has older fixed capital? Really? I asked you to provide some evidence of that? What is the average age of the US capital equipment in US manufacturing operations? How does that compare to the average age of capital equipment in manufacturing operations elsewhere?

Explain Japan before the stagnation? Why do that? You're argument is that the US is crumbling based on its aged fixed capital, its outmoded industrial plant, its higher labor costs. You need to explain, based on your argument Japan's stagnation, Japan's enduring stagnation, given its modern, younger fixed capital with its lower labor costs.

The reason for manufacturing moves is the reason capital does anything-- profit. That means profit after taxes, retained profits. You go tell all those states and localities in the US offering tax rebates to businesses that businesses don't weigh that in when making decisions about relocation.

Most of all, you need to stop making up shit and pretending it's some sort of understanding of the impacts of fixed capital and the tendency of the rate of profit to decline.

[S.Artesian]

Since Psy can't get beyond You Tube, I went into the Transport Canada website database and found its 2 part report on Target Inspections of CN operations. The report was completed in August 2005 after a number of catastrophic derailments on CN.

The picture that emerges is indeed one of CN "shorting" maintenance procedures and enforcing a "culture of fear" among employees reporting safety concerns.

The report cites the following issues:

"Equipment:
· high safety defect rates of CN rolling-stock (Locomotive and Freight Cars)
· mechanical personnel following non-compliant processes in performing safety
inspections
Operations:
· inaccurate Train Consists
· operating crews following an incorrect process in performing Brake Tests
· non-compliance to securement of equipment requirements (CROR 112)
· necessity for Rules for Transfer Movements and Remote Control Locomotive
Operations
· non-compliance to the Canada Labour Code Part II, On Board Train Regulations
Engineering:
· non-compliance to Track Safety Rules, in the areas of track inspection, testing and
maintenance
· deviations to the Track Safety Rules during inspections conducted by track
geometry car and rail flaw detector car
· non-compliance with Crossing Warning Signal inspection, testing, and
maintenance requirements
· non-compliance with crossing surface, sightline and signage requirements"


It certainly is no way to run a railroad safely, and there is little doubt that when these things occur in rail operations, it's because management at the top sets the tone-- and the tone is money, no doubt about it.

[Die Neue Zeit]

As for the popular front-- it's not a question of it being preferable. Popular fronts arise when the class struggle is exceeding the boundaries of the established mechanisms for control-- when the economy can't go on as before, and the workers won't go on as before. Popular fronts arise to prevent, not to protect, a social revolution. In so doing, they pave the way for reaction. No popular fronts are not fascism, and social democrats are not fascism, but in a class struggle, the class collaboration of the popular front, as opposed to the class unity of the working class in a united front does pave the way for reaction. That is exactly what happened in Chile in 1973.

United fronts are a false alternative as well.

Communitarian Populist Fronts? They're a different story. ;)

[AK]

You're right, the best tactic is to hole up in Australia, seeing how you get a +2 bonus AND you can only be attacked from one point.
Geography fail.
http://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/underattack/images/maps/attacks.gif

[S.Artesian]

United fronts are a false alternative as well.

Communitarian Populist Fronts? They're a different story. ;)

WTF is a communitarian populist front? Where has one ever existed?

[Thirsty Crow]

No? Then what are they dependent upon for the social reproduction of the classes that make up that society? Feudalism? Socialism? Yes, capitalist states are dependent upon capitalism. It really is just that simple.

What I wanted to say is that no "nation", no group of people inhabiting certain area, is ahistorically dependant on the capitalist mode of production in order that they produce their means of livelihood.
Of course that capitalist states are dependant on capitalism since they are primarily concenred with satisfying the interests of their national capitalist class.

Tho other thing I wanted to communicate is my concern for a hypothetical socialist bloc which would not "cover" some important natural resources and thus be at risk of "economic blackmail" (of course, this hypothesis includes another: that "alternative" energy techonologies are insufficiently developed).
I have to admit that I do not possess sufficient knowledge, so my concern is just that, a concenr, an "instinct". I don't know if it is founded or not. If you can point me in the right direction I'd be grateful.

[S.Artesian]

What I wanted to say is that no "nation", no group of people inhabiting certain area, is ahistorically dependant on the capitalist mode of production in order that they produce their means of livelihood.
Of course that capitalist states are dependant on capitalism since they are primarily concenred with satisfying the interests of their national capitalist class.

Tho other thing I wanted to communicate is my concern for a hypothetical socialist bloc which would not "cover" some important natural resources and thus be at risk of "economic blackmail" (of course, this hypothesis includes another: that "alternative" energy techonologies are insufficiently developed).
I have to admit that I do not possess sufficient knowledge, so my concern is just that, a concenr, an "instinct". I don't know if it is founded or not. If you can point me in the right direction I'd be grateful.

I understand your point, but where it is, and it is globally, capitalism is there by its ability to reproduce dependence upon capitalist relations of production.

I don't think "resources" per se are the issue, if we mean by that natural resources. A successful proletarian revolution in Germany, devoid of natural reserves of petroleum will encounter some form of embargo, etc. initially, but the real issue is the class struggle that assumes the form of an embargo.

To the degree that the class struggle advances, the embargo or threat of embargo weakens, recedes, collapses. To the extent that the international extension of class struggle recedes-- everybody is hostage to the depredations of value and valorisation.

[Thirsty Crow]

I don't think "resources" per se are the issue, if we mean by that natural resources. A successful proletarian revolution in Germany, devoid of natural reserves of petroleum will encounter some form of embargo, etc. initially, but the real issue is the class struggle that assumes the form of an embargo.

To the degree that the class struggle advances, the embargo or threat of embargo weakens, recedes, collapses. To the extent that the international extension of class struggle recedes-- everybody is hostage to the depredations of value and valorisation.
Yes, I agree that natural resources in themselves are not the issue, and I agree that the international continuity of class struggle is crucial.
I was just calculating, like an amateur that I am when it comes to geography and the notorious geopolitics, which area would be less prone to "being hostage" to capital. But on the other hand, maybe such musings lead to a dangerous tolerance towards the doctrine of socialism in one country...:confused:

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

But what happened in BP is what happened to CNR and JNR, when they were privitized they cut back on maintaince to increase profits. Meaning BP, CNR and JNR are simply where all capitalists are heading with the falling rate of profit being solved with cutting back on maitaince.

To be fair, what was done with JNR, crime as it was, was not to cut back on maintenance (though some low-profit routes indeed saw cut in maintenance, those that were not sold off to private investment companies owned by local cities served or private enterprises), but a shift of debt. This was how the JR Group became profitable; the majority of the enormous debt incurred by investment projects of the JNR was transferred to a separate entity (and later to the central government), allowing the companies that took over to return to profitability by decreasing interest payments.

It's just more of the state propping up private industry. Similar thing was done with the JHC; in addition to considerable hike in tolls, this helped return to profitability.

[Die Neue Zeit]

WTF is a communitarian populist front? Where has one ever existed?

The Paris Commune was the first Communitarian Populist Front:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=552

[S.Artesian]

The Paris Commune was the first Communitarian Populist Front:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=552

Swell. That clarifies ever so much.

[S.Artesian]

Not interested in the "third period." It was a disaster. This romance with "left fascism" is like lining up to be the main course at a gathering of sharks.

[DunyaGongrenKomRevolyutsi]

This thread has some really weird replies. What is it with this idea that the USA will never have a revolution?


Originally Posted by Proletarian Ultra
Still that's not terribly likely. A huge part of the US work force is employed in military, security, police, corrections, defense contracting, debt collection, supervisory and other class traitor occupations.

And roughly 7m out of 70m people are employed in the public sector in the UK too, jobs as varied as secret intelligence service operatives to cops to prison wardens to other class traitor occupations too. Some countries have an even higher rate, the USA doesnt even have mandatory conscription unlike a massive number of countries etc.

When it comes to 'reactionary countries', the EU as an economic bloc is probably to the right of both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, so again we see that the countries that would unite under a bloc banner to crush a socialist uprising, would do so with ruthlessly neoliberal policies. Hungary is the next one in the pipeline for a shitstorm from the EU.

It's overly speculative and silly to suggest where a revolution should start or what superpowers need to fall before a revolution is successful, I don't think immediate conditions suggest that there is anywhere particularly, at the moment, where a revolution could successfully spread from, of course that can all change very quickly but it is not so at the moment.

[Psy]

To be fair, what was done with JNR, crime as it was, was not to cut back on maintenance (though some low-profit routes indeed saw cut in maintenance, those that were not sold off to private investment companies owned by local cities served or private enterprises), but a shift of debt. This was how the JR Group became profitable; the majority of the enormous debt incurred by investment projects of the JNR was transferred to a separate entity (and later to the central government), allowing the companies that took over to return to profitability by decreasing interest payments.

It's just more of the state propping up private industry. Similar thing was done with the JHC; in addition to considerable hike in tolls, this helped return to profitability.
Yet this was due to the long boom being over which caused surplus value to be squeezed and austerity measures implemented.


You simply don't know what you're talking about. US semiconductor fabrication companies did NOT move their most advanced fab plants offshore. As a matter of fact, the plants Intel is building in China are of an "older" generation of technology, while its most advanced technology operations are centered in the US.

AMD's chips are made in German while Nvidia and ATI chips are produced in Taiwan so you were saying?




But the real isn't location, it's ownership. Intel controls 80-85% of the market for microprocessors, with AMD adding another 5%-- those are US companies controlling a world market.

Location does matter for the US economy as it is the exploitation of US labor that allows US consumers to consume.



The rest of the world, particularly Asia, is forced into producing lower-value DRAM and NAND chips, and doing so on a bulk, commodity basis where reduced labor costs can provide a profit while the profitability of the production itself is less than what Intel aggrandizes.

GPUs are for more then DRAM and NAND chips.




As for CN-- we were talking about the last decade. Actually we were talking about the US in the last decade, but be that as it may, the trend line for CN is down, absolute numbers are down which doesn't square with your notion of linear, progressive, inflexible decay.

When did the long boom end? When was the last crisis of capital? Do you honestly think this crisis won't put pressure on railways to cut costs?



What about budgets? What has been the trend for CN in its operating maintenance budget; in its capital improvement budget?

Compared to when it was during the long boom insignificant since most infrastructure went in during the long boom and upgrades are far less frequent and CN goes for cheaper equipment where CNR did run expensive equipment and even customized some of its equipment inhouse for example CNR customized its UAC Turbo Trains to solve some maintaince issues.



What countries have more efficient factories in Asia? South Korea is generally considered to have the most efficient steel-making operations in the world, no doubt about it. Not much migration of US steel production to South Korea, is there? Japan has marginally more efficient auto production facilities, around 1-2 hours less required per auto production than in the US, but Japan is moving more of its production offshore to countries like China, and the US.

Japan also has marginally more efficient electronics factories



The US has older fixed capital? Really? I asked you to provide some evidence of that? What is the average age of the US capital equipment in US manufacturing operations? How does that compare to the average age of capital equipment in manufacturing operations elsewhere?

Here is a easy comparision how many kilometers of US raillines are electrified compared to Europe and Asia.

Yes US capitalists do modernize but not all of the fixed capital can practically be modernized due to capital investment required espically during times when surplus value is hard to get as it does not always pay off.




Explain Japan before the stagnation? Why do that? You're argument is that the US is crumbling based on its aged fixed capital, its outmoded industrial plant, its higher labor costs. You need to explain, based on your argument Japan's stagnation, Japan's enduring stagnation, given its modern, younger fixed capital with its lower labor costs.

Over production, Japan succeded in increasing production but not so much in extracting more surplus value due to devaluation of commodities caused by greater productive forces. Japan was able to grab a sizable share of the US market due to its more modern means of production lowering production costs but prices fell as they were also competing with themselves plus other new comers tried to get their share.



The reason for manufacturing moves is the reason capital does anything-- profit. That means profit after taxes, retained profits. You go tell all those states and localities in the US offering tax rebates to businesses that businesses don't weigh that in when making decisions about relocation.

It plays a part but if your fixed capital in the US is obsolete you'd have more incentive to look elswhere to build you new factory, somewhere where labor is cheaper.



Most of all, you need to stop making up shit and pretending it's some sort of understanding of the impacts of fixed capital and the tendency of the rate of profit to decline.
It is simple fixed capital does tie a capitalist down for example if a capitalist has modern means of production it has less incentive to seak cheaper labor elsewhere as it can't easily move its fixed capital as moving equipment long distance is very costly.

Capitalists tend to more willing to relocate when their means of production is getting old and making it more costly to produce.

Falling rate of profit makes it harder for captialists to invest in newer means of production and to maintain what htey got.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Not interested in the "third period." It was a disaster. This romance with "left fascism" is like lining up to be the main course at a gathering of sharks.

Who said it was a romance? Like Lassalle, the left-nationalists (to call them fascists, despite their questionable symbolism, is absurd) had no imperialist ambitions - unlike Hitler or Mussolini - and neither did they have isolationist ambitions like today's far-right.

The Paris Commune banned games of chance. I'm sure there were other socially conservative measures passed, at least not ones impeding on women's rights, LGBT rights, and ethnic minority rights. "Tough on crime" stances for outright wage theft, other labour violations, and white-collar corporate crime can also be considered.

The core program of the Communitarian Populist Front was and remains the political DOTP.

[NGNM85]

The United States, as the sole global hyperpower, could have an enormous poisitive impact on the world. If we were to take very small simple steps, like acceptin the judgement of the World Court and the ICC, comply with the Kyoto accords, join the global consensus on Israel/Palestine, and actually use genuine diplomacy, instead of the sword, as our primary method of dealing with the rest of the world. These simple steps would have an enormous impact.

[S.Artesian]

Who said it was a romance? Like Lassalle, the left-nationalists (to call them fascists, despite their questionable symbolism, is absurd) had no imperialist ambitions - unlike Hitler or Mussolini - and neither did they have isolationist ambitions like today's far-right.

The Paris Commune banned games of chance. I'm sure there were other socially conservative measures passed, at least not ones impeding on women's rights, LGBT rights, and ethnic minority rights. "Tough on crime" stances for outright wage theft, other labour violations, and white-collar corporate crime can also be considered.

The core program of the Communitarian Populist Front was and remains the political DOTP.


Despite their "questionable" symbolism? It's a bit more than symbolism. There's real ethnocentrism involved; real racism; real crushing of independent workers organizations.

This baloney about the "revolutionary content" of left... populism, nationalism, bonapartism, whatever-ism gets thrown around a lot... and it all means the same thing, whether it's Peronism in Argentina or Ron Paulism in the US etc-- it means defeat of the workers' struggle to take power as a class to overthrown capitalism.

Communitarian Populist Front? What a mouthful of junk that is.

[NGNM85]

This baloney about the "revolutionary content" of left... populism, nationalism, bonapartism, whatever-ism gets thrown around a lot... and it all means the same thing, whether it's Peronism in Argentina or Ron Paulism in the US etc-- it means defeat of the workers' struggle to take power as a class to overthrown capitalism.

Ron Paul isn't a leftist.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Who said it was a romance? Like Lassalle, the left-nationalists (to call them fascists, despite their questionable symbolism, is absurd) had no imperialist ambitions - unlike Hitler or Mussolini - and neither did they have isolationist ambitions like today's far-right.

The Paris Commune banned games of chance. I'm sure there were other socially conservative measures passed, at least not ones impeding on women's rights, LGBT rights, and ethnic minority rights. "Tough on crime" stances for outright wage theft, other labour violations, and white-collar corporate crime can also be considered.

The core program of the Communitarian Populist Front was and remains the political DOTP.

I don't understand. What did the Third Period, the KPD flirtation w/the far right, and nationalist regimes like Peron have to do with the Paris Commune?

My understanding is that the KPD alliance with the Nazis was a huge disaster. Today it makes for a somewhat bizarre historical footnote.

Third world nationalist regimes-from Nasser to Peron do have some ideological descent from Lasalle and before him from Bismark. Rather than socialism Third World nationalism represented national development states, a model pioneered by Bismark.

[S.Artesian]

No one's arguing that there is not a tendency of the rate of profit to fall and that this drives the bourgeoisie to "extreme measures." That's not an issue. The issues are 1) is the US experiencing this "crisis" at a rate and or to a degree that other capitalist countries are not? 2) is the crisis itself essential to reproduction of capital and to offsetting the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. 3) Has the US manufacturing capability been eroded to the benefit of supposedly "newer" "younger" capitals.

Your first post in these areas alluded to some sort of crisis of decay in US railroads. No such crisis exists. After deregulation in 1981, which sanctioned vicious downsizing, spin offs, changes in work rules, etc., and in particular after the recovery from the 1991 recession, reorganization of US railroads has been, in bourgeois terms, spectacularly successful with no decay in infrastructure, a sustained trend of improved safety, and with adequate returns on capital other than in periods of general recession.

Is there pressure to cut costs on railroads? Of course. I spent years cutting them. Every operating decision is a financial decision and vice versa. But cutting costs does not equate to debilitating the system.

Doesn't mean railroads won't experience decay. It does mean that is not what happened in US railroads since 1973. On the contrary, capital budgets have increased remarkably, and except for the UP's totally mismanaged takeover of the Missouri Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Western Pacific, average train speeds, average yard dwell times of freight cars etc etc etc have shown improvement.

Signal systems have been improved; locomotive efficiency is almost incomparably higher than it was 35 years; axle loads have been increased; yard cars dispatched per yard crew hour are way up; accidents and injuries are down.

Can you explain that according to your theory of constant, progressive decay?

CN's history since privatization certainly is different and there is no doubt that short-term profit demands drove those decisions, but that is not the pattern of US railroads since at least 1992.

As for your "easy measure" regarding kilometers of electrified rail lines-- first off I asked the question about age of physical plant and its relation to productivity-- in responding with some supposed "productivity" measure based on rail electrification, you're completely missing the point and the meaning of productivity-- productivity is a measure of value, not some technology which you think is more efficient, it's an index to value output per cost input. We can use physical quantities to describe, to proxy, to indicate that, but we cannot use a simple physical quantity that is not a ratio of value, of in essence time spent in production to give us that comparison

So, since US railroads are concerned with making money and not providing a service, look at freight operations in the US vs. freight rail operations in Europe, Asia, Russia, anywhere in the world. So we can look at ton-miles operated per employee; look at train miles per employee; look at ton-miles per train; look at revenues per employee . Look at those and then tell me again how US railways are unproductive, outmoded in comparison to Japan, Asia, Europe, Russia, anywhere. Then tell me one more time what the fuck rail electrification has to do with the actual input/output relations of value?
Like I said, you need to stop making shit up.

But you offered your "take" after I said the very things pointed out as indexes to a "crisis" of capital, of the bourgeoisie, indicate how successful the bourgeoisie have been in forcing those costs onto the working class, which is one of the functions of crisis-- to reduce the strength, the numbers, the wages of labor.

Does this reduction make the US "decrepit"-- hollow it out so to speak? Not hardly, and certainly not in relation to the rest of the capitalist world. Some, those who look at something other than You Tube, might recall that the US Fed had to initiate open ended currency swap lines with the ECB, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss Central Bank, Brazil's central bank after commercial banks in those countries pulled their funds from letters of credit, and the guarantees that allow international trade to be conducted. The Fed in essence had to become the lender of first resort for global trade. That's some helluva a decrepit US capitalism that can, and was called upon, to singlehandedly sustain global trade.

Some also might recall how the US has been eating Europe's lunch for years through a combination of dollar devaluation, oil price increases, and reduced labor costs.

Some might also, if they care to investigate, discover that the US trade deficit, that supposedly almighty index to the dollar and US decline isn't really that much of a deficit once it is adjusted for related party trading, related parties being trade between foreign subsidiaries of the US based corporations. As a matter of fact, if you adjust the numbers for related party trading, between 2002 and 2006, the trade deficit practically collapses and the remaining amount can be accounted for completely and solely by the increase in costs of a single commodity-- imported oil.

As for overall industrial output, the US is still the global leader accounting for 21% of world industrial output on its home territory, down significantly from the 31% in the mid 1990s.

As for AMD, after purchasing ATI, AMD decided to spin off all its manufacturing operations into a company called Global Foundries, a joint venture with Abu Dhabi.

That's what the bourgeoisie do-- they shed assets, fixed costs when they can to increase rates of return. That's why the US bourgeoisie have been so successful, relatively, in the period since the peaking in the rate of profit in 1969, the beating back of the strike wave in 1974, the "Volcker Recession" actually 2 recessions, the capital spending boomlet of 1994-2000, the 2003-2007 recovery from the 2001-2003 recession.

The point is simply, capitalism is not crumbling, and will not fall over dead because of its own contradictions when those contradictions are essential to the reproduction of capital itself. The bourgeoisie may wind up exterminating marine life, polluting the air and land, slaughtering millions of people, but capitalism will not collapse because of its age, the age of its fixed plant [ US manufacturing, averages a replacement cycle I believe of around 9-10 years-- you can check on the US Bureau of Economic Analysis website] etc. Doesn't work that way, hasn't worked that way.

It is precisely the expansion, the improvement of the productivity of labor that brings about the driver of revolution, the conflict between the means and relations of production. And for those interested, it is actually the resumption of capital spending by US industry in 2005-2006-2007 that brings about the peaking in the rate of profit in 2006 and triggers the ensuing contraction.

As for location being so critical to the US bourgeoisie because exploitation of US labor allows the US population to "consume," the bourgeoisie exploit US labor and any other labor not because it allows anybody to consume, but because the exploitation of labor allows them to accumulate value, to reproduce capital, to valorise the already accumulated capital. Ownership matters to the bourgeoisie. Certainly there's a home market the bourgeoisie love to protect, but you're arguing that the US economy has been in essence, scrapped by the bourgeoisie due to the pressures of fixed costs, and declining rates of return.

No, the economy has not been scrapped. Assets have been liquidated, labor costs have been reduced, "welfare" costs have been attacked, poverty has increased, the social basis for what we call human reproduction-- education, medical care, transport is under sustained assault, but capital is still reproducing capital-- in the US and abroad.

In answer to some of your other points-- the long boom usually refers to the period after 1945 and ending at various points; some say 1969, others 1970, others 1973. Rates of growth for capital, profitability, and capital investment in the period 1945-1973 were all higher than in the post 1973 period. No one denies that the "golden period" for post-WW2 capitalism ended [although people in Vietnam, Latin America, Africa, might be excused for not thinking it was so golden to begin with], but within that overall slowing or downturn, capital still functions in cycles, and part of that cycle is the restoration of capital's rate of profit.

This:


It is simple fixed capital does tie a capitalist down for example if a capitalist has modern means of production it has less incentive to seak cheaper labor elsewhere as it can't easily move its fixed capital as moving equipment long distance is very costly.

is bullshit. It is not that simple. Migration of capital takes place at all points in capitalist development. US capital, particularly railway capital began its move into Mexico in the 1880s. Does that mean US railway capital was obsolete, less modern? German capital moved into Russia too beginning in the 1880s and 90s. Was German capital obsolete at home?

Capital migrates to where it can achieve a profit. That doesn't mean its fixed plant in any location is obsolete. It might mean just the opposite.

[S.Artesian]

Ron Paul isn't a leftist.


Exactly. And neither were the SA in Germany, despite the illusions of some who saw them as "radicals" and "reds" in brown shirts.

[Psy]

No one's arguing that there is not a tendency of the rate of profit to fall and that this drives the bourgeoisie to "extreme measures." That's not an issue. The issues are 1) is the US experiencing this "crisis" at a rate and or to a degree that other capitalist countries are not?

Of course to say otherwise would be to say there is no such thing as unequal development within capitalism.



2) is the crisis itself essential to reproduction of capital and to offsetting the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

There is nowhere left for capitalism to offset the crisis to thus devaluation of fixed capital is not as helpful as it was in previous crises.



3) Has the US manufacturing capability been eroded to the benefit of supposedly "newer" "younger" capitals.

Looking at the rust belt would suggest that is the case to a point. Sure some US manufacturing has been able to modernize but not all US manufacturing was able to find the capital to modernize.



Your first post in these areas alluded to some sort of crisis of decay in US railroads. No such crisis exists. After deregulation in 1981, which sanctioned vicious downsizing, spin offs, changes in work rules, etc., and in particular after the recovery from the 1991 recession, reorganization of US railroads has been, in bourgeois terms, spectacularly successful with no decay in infrastructure, a sustained trend of improved safety, and with adequate returns on capital other than in periods of general recession.

Not in long range terms, how many upgrades has been done to US railroads since 1991? Capitalism is about perpetual growth meaning if railways are not perpetually expanding their capacity it means rail infrastructure is falling behind in relation to the rest of the economy.



Is there pressure to cut costs on railroads? Of course. I spent years cutting them. Every operating decision is a financial decision and vice versa. But cutting costs does not equate to debilitating the system.

Doesn't mean railroads won't experience decay. It does mean that is not what happened in US railroads since 1973. On the contrary, capital budgets have increased remarkably, and except for the UP's totally mismanaged takeover of the Missouri Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Western Pacific, average train speeds, average yard dwell times of freight cars etc etc etc have shown improvement.

Signal systems have been improved; locomotive efficiency is almost incomparably higher than it was 35 years; axle loads have been increased; yard cars dispatched per yard crew hour are way up; accidents and injuries are down.

Can you explain that according to your theory of constant, progressive decay?

How does that compare to economic growth?



CN's history since privatization certainly is different and there is no doubt that short-term profit demands drove those decisions, but that is not the pattern of US railroads since at least 1992.

That does not mean US railroads are immune to pressure to cut expenses so deep they can't maintain their line.



As for your "easy measure" regarding kilometers of electrified rail lines-- first off I asked the question about age of physical plant and its relation to productivity-- in responding with some supposed "productivity" measure based on rail electrification, you're completely missing the point and the meaning of productivity-- productivity is a measure of value, not some technology which you think is more efficient, it's an index to value output per cost input. We can use physical quantities to describe, to proxy, to indicate that, but we cannot use a simple physical quantity that is not a ratio of value, of in essence time spent in production to give us that comparison

Eletrification of lines offers far better power to weight ratios meaning you can move the same cargo weight with less energy. The reason Europe and Asian lines are more eletrified is most rail lines there were rebuilt after WWII along with the rebuilding of most of the means of production there.



So, since US railroads are concerned with making money and not providing a service, look at freight operations in the US vs. freight rail operations in Europe, Asia, Russia, anywhere in the world. So we can look at ton-miles operated per employee; look at train miles per employee; look at ton-miles per train; look at revenues per employee . Look at those and then tell me again how US railways are unproductive, outmoded in comparison to Japan, Asia, Europe, Russia, anywhere. Then tell me one more time what the fuck rail electrification has to do with the actual input/output relations of value?

I'm saying their infrasturue is older as US railways are stuck with a less efficent method of powering trains that results in worse power to weight ratios.

Also you said a bit back locomotive efficiency is almost incomparably higher than it was 35 years while many electric locomotives from 35 years ago are still in regular service and still offer good efficiency meaning they had longer productive lives as fixed capital.




But you offered your "take" after I said the very things pointed out as indexes to a "crisis" of capital, of the bourgeoisie, indicate how successful the bourgeoisie have been in forcing those costs onto the working class, which is one of the functions of crisis-- to reduce the strength, the numbers, the wages of labor.

Does this reduction make the US "decrepit"-- hollow it out so to speak? Not hardly, and certainly not in relation to the rest of the capitalist world. Some, those who look at something other than You Tube, might recall that the US Fed had to initiate open ended currency swap lines with the ECB, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss Central Bank, Brazil's central bank after commercial banks in those countries pulled their funds from letters of credit, and the guarantees that allow international trade to be conducted. The Fed in essence had to become the lender of first resort for global trade. That's some helluva a decrepit US capitalism that can, and was called upon, to singlehandedly sustain global trade.

Some also might recall how the US has been eating Europe's lunch for years through a combination of dollar devaluation, oil price increases, and reduced labor costs.

Some might also, if they care to investigate, discover that the US trade deficit, that supposedly almighty index to the dollar and US decline isn't really that much of a deficit once it is adjusted for related party trading, related parties being trade between foreign subsidiaries of the US based corporations. As a matter of fact, if you adjust the numbers for related party trading, between 2002 and 2006, the trade deficit practically collapses and the remaining amount can be accounted for completely and solely by the increase in costs of a single commodity-- imported oil.

As for overall industrial output, the US is still the global leader accounting for 21% of world industrial output on its home territory, down significantly from the 31% in the mid 1990s.

You do know the name of the game in capitalism is growth right. That if the US economy can't grow it can't mop up the extra capital generated from profits and if the world economy doesn't grow they can't mop it up either.



As for AMD, after purchasing ATI, AMD decided to spin off all its manufacturing operations into a company called Global Foundries, a joint venture with Abu Dhabi.

That's what the bourgeoisie do-- they shed assets, fixed costs when they can to increase rates of return. That's why the US bourgeoisie have been so successful, relatively, in the period since the peaking in the rate of profit in 1969, the beating back of the strike wave in 1974, the "Volcker Recession" actually 2 recessions, the capital spending boomlet of 1994-2000, the 2003-2007 recovery from the 2001-2003 recession.

The point is simply, capitalism is not crumbling, and will not fall over dead because of its own contradictions when those contradictions are essential to the reproduction of capital itself. The bourgeoisie may wind up exterminating marine life, polluting the air and land, slaughtering millions of people, but capitalism will not collapse because of its age, the age of its fixed plant [ US manufacturing, averages a replacement cycle I believe of around 9-10 years-- you can check on the US Bureau of Economic Analysis website] etc. Doesn't work that way, hasn't worked that way.

It is precisely the expansion, the improvement of the productivity of labor that brings about the driver of revolution, the conflict between the means and relations of production. And for those interested, it is actually the resumption of capital spending by US industry in 2005-2006-2007 that brings about the peaking in the rate of profit in 2006 and triggers the ensuing contraction.

Previously capitalism has solved its crises through expansion but where is capitalism going to expand now? What untapped market is still unexploited? How is capitalism going to displace over production through time and space this time? If capitalism goes throw a period of a long decay how will it maintain its fixed capital?



As for location being so critical to the US bourgeoisie because exploitation of US labor allows the US population to "consume," the bourgeoisie exploit US labor and any other labor not because it allows anybody to consume, but because the exploitation of labor allows them to accumulate value, to reproduce capital, to valorise the already accumulated capital. Ownership matters to the bourgeoisie. Certainly there's a home market the bourgeoisie love to protect, but you're arguing that the US economy has been in essence, scrapped by the bourgeoisie due to the pressures of fixed costs, and declining rates of return.

The capitalists have to transform its commodities back into money thus it need consumers. And yes I'm saying US capitalists have been shifting production due to aging fixed capital and declining rates of profits.



No, the economy has not been scrapped. Assets have been liquidated, labor costs have been reduced, "welfare" costs have been attacked, poverty has increased, the social basis for what we call human reproduction-- education, medical care, transport is under sustained assault, but capital is still reproducing capital-- in the US and abroad.

Again look at the rust belt, US capitalists are not intrested in modernizing all of the fixed capital in the US.



In answer to some of your other points-- the long boom usually refers to the period after 1945 and ending at various points; some say 1969, others 1970, others 1973. Rates of growth for capital, profitability, and capital investment in the period 1945-1973 were all higher than in the post 1973 period. No one denies that the "golden period" for post-WW2 capitalism ended [although people in Vietnam, Latin America, Africa, might be excused for not thinking it was so golden to begin with], but within that overall slowing or downturn, capital still functions in cycles, and part of that cycle is the restoration of capital's rate of profit.

The restoration of capital depends on expansion yet where is capitalism going to expand?



is bullshit. It is not that simple. Migration of capital takes place at all points in capitalist development. US capital, particularly railway capital began its move into Mexico in the 1880s. Does that mean US railway capital was obsolete, less modern? German capital moved into Russia too beginning in the 1880s and 90s. Was German capital obsolete at home?

It should be pointed out there was no contraction of means of production in the USA or German at the time, it was simply expanding into new markets.




Capital migrates to where it can achieve a profit. That doesn't mean its fixed plant in any location is obsolete. It might mean just the opposite.
Again rust belt, when capitalists gut factories and sell equipment at a fraction of its cost it means the factory was obsolete.

[RadioRaheem84]

The United States, as the sole global hyperpower, could have an enormous poisitive impact on the world. If we were to take very small simple steps, like acceptin the judgement of the World Court and the ICC, comply with the Kyoto accords, join the global consensus on Israel/Palestine, and actually use genuine diplomacy, instead of the sword, as our primary method of dealing with the rest of the world. These simple steps would have an enormous impact.

Say what? Do you mean after a revolution or as of now? That stuff won't mean Jack if it continues it's economic policy. It can't happen without major economic/political change first. Damn, you are a liberal.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Not in long range terms, how many upgrades has been done to US railroads since 1991? Capitalism is about perpetual growth meaning if railways are not perpetually expanding their capacity it means rail infrastructure is falling behind in relation to the rest of the economy.

Eletrification of lines offers far better power to weight ratios meaning you can move the same cargo weight with less energy. The reason Europe and Asian lines are more eletrified is most rail lines there were rebuilt after WWII along with the rebuilding of most of the means of production there.

I'm saying their infrasturue is older as US railways are stuck with a less efficent method of powering trains that results in worse power to weight ratios.


Some improvements have been made, cost of capital infrastructure improvements have however increased considerably more than the rate of inflation, so it's not easy to get funds. There have been a major drive to expand and lengthen passing track sections for example during the last few years to improve reliability and capacity.

And although electrification of railways is desirable, the enormous cost of such an endeavour - especially in the U.S. that has a lot of old single-track segments that do not allow for high speeds and also a lot of very long and redundant detours from the old days of competitive establishment - is very high and therefore uneconomical in the context of capitalism. Instead of improving lines to increase speed considerably, the freight operators have increased the carrying capacity of the trains to make up for this lack of speed.

The general length of the network, and the general lack of stations as well as the economic state of the U.S. private railway companies following the 1940's and the U.S. governments interventions on behalf of the car industry prevented any investments in electrification on a large scale.

[S.Artesian]

The name of the game for capitalism is not growth, it is valorisation, it is profitable reproduction. If the bourgeoisie or capitalism is in a "long decline" post 1973 then we have to acknowledge that they sure have managed that decline to their advantage. They've managed to maintain that profitability, albeit at a lower rate, by transferring wealth up the social ladder and forcing costs down the social ladder. That's the name of their game called capitalism, that the bourgeoisie force everybody to play with a stacked decked of marked cards and at the house odds.

That's why they don't crumble, but have to be overthrown.

As for your hypothetical decrepitude of fixed capital driving up labor costs and costs of production, I suggest you take a look at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics information on labor costs and productivity in the USA compared to costs in Europe, Japan, Brazil etc.

We should see US labor costs soaring, and the price of US exports uncompetitive in international markets. Instead we see unit labor costs declining, or steady, or growing at a far slower rate than occurs in Europe. We see capital good exports of the US increasing their penetration of European and world markets-- besides Intel there's those old rustbelt companies like Caterpillar, Navistar, etc.



As far as electrification of railroads, the issue isn't weight/power, but rather how those ratios translate into value equivalents. So if you use life-cycle costs-- which include capital outlays, and life-cycle maintenance and operating costs, you find over great distances and for long haul service, diesel electric is far less costly, far more efficient for capital. In areas of dense population where you need to provide passenger service, and commuter service, requiring rapid rates of acceleration because of numerous station stops, electrification provides a far better service. But if you knew anything about railroads you would realize how little freight business is carried proportionately on European railroads vs. US railroads. You might realize how European railroads are organized as a service to the public, providing passenger transport, and the large difficulties European railroads have trying to make their freight operations profitable. You might realize that almost all European railroads, all the infrastructure is owned by the state, funded by the state, even where privatization has been attempted.

In the UK, the Brits first tried to spin off operations and infrastructure maintenance to separate companies, which led literally to disaster-- derailments of passenger trains at speed due to improper and faulty maintenance, including allowing cracks to proliferate in rail on curves. The remedy for the Brits was to "re-nationalize" maintenance, but as a pseudo-profit driven company called Network Rail, responsible for all maintenance systemwide.

Right, capitalists are not interested in modernizing all their fixed capital. Capitalists are never interested in modernizing all their fixed capital. Their only interest is in doing what has to be done, including modernizing, expanding the fixed asset base, to generate adequate profit. That's why they do everything they do.

You think previously capital sought to remedy its crises through expansion? Since when has that expansion every been separated from destruction? Look at the US expansion after the Civil War-- the bankruptcies, the overproduction, the abandonment of industries, consolidation etc.

And precisely what would you call WW1 and WW 2? Resolution through expansion?

As for where capitalism can expand-- it's not a question of where, of geography. It's a question of how. And it does that by destroying means of production which embody accumulated value, by driving down costs, by transferring wealth up the social ladder, by a bit more than just a bit of arson on the international level-- by doing on a grand, and acute scale, what it does daily everywhere on a small scale. And again, that's why it won't collapse, but has to be overthrown.

Oh... and those 35 year old locomotives... well those that haven't been rebuilt and overhauled to include the latest fuel control systems, adhesion monitoring, emissions control, tractive effort enhancements... those other 35 year old locomotives are usually leased out or sold to short lines, secondary systems, or used in yard switching and local service, where the efficiencies of traction control, adhesion, etc are not of such critical importance.

Show me one Class 1 railroad in the US that uses GP 35s and 38s as its scheduled motive power on its unit coal trains, on its land-bridge service of container trains.

And upgrades to US railroads? Every year on every class 1 railroad numerous upgrades are made to mainlines and yards. That's what capital program are all about. Putting in continuous welded rail is an upgrade. Centralized traffic control is an upgrade. Purchasing 4400 HP locomotives is an upgrade.

[Psy]

Some improvements have been made, cost of capital infrastructure improvements have however increased considerably more than the rate of inflation, so it's not easy to get funds. There have been a major drive to expand and lengthen passing track sections for example during the last few years to improve reliability and capacity.


And although electrification of railways is desirable, the enormous cost of such an endeavour - especially in the U.S. that has a lot of old single-track segments that do not allow for high speeds and also a lot of very long and redundant detours from the old days of competitive establishment - is very high and therefore uneconomical in the context of capitalism. Instead of improving lines to increase speed considerably, the freight operators have increased the carrying capacity of the trains to make up for this lack of speed.

Right, while Europe and Asia at the end of WWII rebuilt their rail infrastructure thus already made consideration for faster trains of the time.



The general length of the network, and the general lack of stations as well as the economic state of the U.S. private railway companies following the 1940's and the U.S. governments interventions on behalf of the car industry prevented any investments in electrification on a large scale.
Right leaving US railways moving more bulk goods then European and Asian railways that also move lighter less profitable goods but was able to thanks to electrification lowering the cost to move light freight and allowing faster speeds of lighter freight thus lighter freight trains can clear blocks of track faster.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Right, while Europe and Asia at the end of WWII rebuilt their rail infrastructure thus already made consideration for faster trains of the time.


Right leaving US railways moving more bulk goods then European and Asian railways that also move lighter less profitable goods but was able to thanks to electrification lowering the cost to move light freight and allowing faster speeds of lighter freight thus lighter freight trains can clear blocks of track faster.

One of the reasons it is more profitable to move large amounts (mostly containerised freight) in the U.S. by railway as opposed to in Western Europe is that there are many opportunities for long-distance handling, whereas goods destinations in western Europe are more dispersed and shorter.

If I remember correctly also, the Soviet Union's freight handling by railway in the 1980's was at least twice the volume of the United States, although it's lower today, what with the closure of many local feeder and distribution lines and so on;

On the European vs. U.S. railways, European railways were almost all nationalised and reconstructed following the war, upgraded and so on; whereas in the U.S., this was not attempted, and the infrastructure gradually declined through years of neglect and minimal maintenence until the collapse of the railway industry and the subsequent reformation, which has returned some quality to the network.

It should also be noted that, similar to what was done with the JNR, European Union has enforced a system of privatisation (EU Directive 91/440) that entails the government subsidising private industry by requiring national railway maintenance - generally by the state - but allowing free "competitive" operation in freight and passenger service. This divorce of maintenance and operation has the lovely effect of worsening operational efficiency and messing up scheduling, increasing delays, etc.

[Psy]

The name of the game for capitalism is not growth, it is valorisation, it is profitable reproduction. If the bourgeoisie or capitalism is in a "long decline" post 1973 then we have to acknowledge that they sure have managed that decline to their advantage. They've managed to maintain that profitability, albeit at a lower rate, by transferring wealth up the social ladder and forcing costs down the social ladder. That's the name of their game called capitalism, that the bourgeoisie force everybody to play with a stacked decked of marked cards and at the house odds.

True that have but taking the recent crisis into account we can see a possible trend of crises getting worse and recoveries getting weaker. Capitalists are getting excited over just the economy showing the slightest rebound not taking into account the scale of the decline.



That's why they don't crumble, but have to be overthrown.

Actually even with 100% exploitation there are problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS1tJZXLwnI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obq-otMPavo



As for your hypothetical decrepitude of fixed capital driving up labor costs and costs of production, I suggest you take a look at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics information on labor costs and productivity in the USA compared to costs in Europe, Japan, Brazil etc.

We should see US labor costs soaring, and the price of US exports uncompetitive in international markets. Instead we see unit labor costs declining, or steady, or growing at a far slower rate than occurs in Europe. We see capital good exports of the US increasing their penetration of European and world markets-- besides Intel there's those old rustbelt companies like Caterpillar, Navistar, etc.

Here is the problem Europe and Japan capitalists does not really exploit labor significantly more then American capitalists, their advantage is more modern fixed capital.

If technical level of fixed capital played no role then Japan and Europe would have not been able to challenge US producers.




As far as electrification of railroads, the issue isn't weight/power, but rather how those ratios translate into value equivalents. So if you use life-cycle costs-- which include capital outlays, and life-cycle maintenance and operating costs, you find over great distances and for long haul service, diesel electric is far less costly, far more efficient for capital. In areas of dense population where you need to provide passenger service, and commuter service, requiring rapid rates of acceleration because of numerous station stops, electrification provides a far better service. But if you knew anything about railroads you would realize how little freight business is carried proportionately on European railroads vs. US railroads. You might realize how European railroads are organized as a service to the public, providing passenger transport, and the large difficulties European railroads have trying to make their freight operations profitable. You might realize that almost all European railroads, all the infrastructure is owned by the state, funded by the state, even where privatization has been attempted.

European and Asian railways also focus on getting containers to its destination faster while US railways focus on moving bulk good, European and Asian railways also run their trains closer together as they can as they freight trains usually are lighter thus can stop shorter and accelerate faster so a light freight train getting a caution and being order to reduce their speed is less of a problem then a large heavy US freight train as it would mean having to put them under caution sooner so they can slow down in time and it would mean them taking longer to get back up to speed after the train ahead of them gains enough distance for the freight train to go back to normal speed.



Right, capitalists are not interested in modernizing all their fixed capital. Capitalists are never interested in modernizing all their fixed capital. Their only interest is in doing what has to be done, including modernizing, expanding the fixed asset base, to generate adequate profit. That's why they do everything they do.




You think previously capital sought to remedy its crises through expansion? Since when has that expansion every been separated from destruction? Look at the US expansion after the Civil War-- the bankruptcies, the overproduction, the abandonment of industries, consolidation etc.

Right but previously there was untapped market to expand into, the destruction of fixed capital previously was simply a way of consolidating capital so it expand.



And precisely what would you call WW1 and WW 2? Resolution through expansion?

Yhea Germany in both cases looked to expansion as a solution to its crisis in the rate of profit.



As for where capitalism can expand-- it's not a question of where, of geography. It's a question of how. And it does that by destroying means of production which embody accumulated value, by driving down costs, by transferring wealth up the social ladder, by a bit more than just a bit of arson on the international level-- by doing on a grand, and acute scale, what it does daily everywhere on a small scale. And again, that's why it won't collapse, but has to be overthrown.

It is still a question of where, where is the new untapped market. In the 1980's it was China as its industrialization created demand along with a way to lower production costs in certain industries.



Oh... and those 35 year old locomotives... well those that haven't been rebuilt and overhauled to include the latest fuel control systems, adhesion monitoring, emissions control, tractive effort enhancements... those other 35 year old locomotives are usually leased out or sold to short lines, secondary systems, or used in yard switching and local service, where the efficiencies of traction control, adhesion, etc are not of such critical importance.

Right while 35 year old electric locomotives still run fine with most modernization being improving control system and communications. Hell the CNR ran GE electric locomotives built in 1914 till 1995 in Montreal and even then they were retired because they switched from DC to AC catenary.



And upgrades to US railroads? Every year on every class 1 railroad numerous upgrades are made to mainlines and yards. That's what capital program are all about. Putting in continuous welded rail is an upgrade. Centralized traffic control is an upgrade. Purchasing 4400 HP locomotives is an upgrade.
And how does this fair to upgrades Europe and Asian railways did during the long boom?

[Dimentio]

Actually, the Old Soviet Union - how strangely it sounds - has a better position. The USA is actually a very geographically peripheral world power. If it succumbed to a collapse or a revolution, China and the EU would probably replace it as a world power.

If the EU + Russia formed a socialist bloc, it would probably have a direct impact for a greater amount of people as that would dominate the coasts and landmass of Eurasia. And Eurasia + Africa is the largest landmass on Earth.

Strange that I was neg-repped by GracchusBabeuf for this. I wonder why he doesn't try to argument in the open, instead attacking like some catfish from below the sand.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't understand. What did the Third Period, the KPD flirtation w/the far right, and nationalist regimes like Peron have to do with the Paris Commune?

Peron wasn't the kind of nationalist I was referring to. He isn't the kind who'd be receptive to recallability of all officials, to average workers' wages for public officials, to scrapping judges altogether in favour of juries, to militias, etc.


My understanding is that the KPD alliance with the Nazis was a huge disaster. Today it makes for a somewhat bizarre historical footnote.

You're invited to join the group, where there's more discussion.


Third world nationalist regimes-from Nasser to Peron do have some ideological descent from Lassalle and before him from Bismarck. Rather than socialism Third World nationalism represented national development states, a model pioneered by Bismarck.

Lassalle wanted working-class independence from the liberal bourgeoisie. Many Third World nationalist regimes picked the liberal bourgeoisie of one nation over the liberal bourgeoisie of another.


Exactly. And neither were the SA in Germany, despite the illusions of some who saw them as "radicals" and "reds" in brown shirts.

As if the SPD and the Nazis were two monolithic movements? :glare:

[S.Artesian]

True that have but taking the recent crisis into account we can see a possible trend of crises getting worse and recoveries getting weaker. Capitalists are getting excited over just the economy showing the slightest rebound not taking into account the scale of the decline.

That's because capitalism is going through its most severe contraction of the post WW2 [and hence great depression] era. Yes, crises might get worse, they might not. Recoveries might get weaker, they might not. So what? Neither crises nor recovery inherently threaten the rule of capital, by themselves. That's the point.

And perhaps you haven't tumbled to the fact that I don't look at You Tube. I know it's awfully old-fashioned of me, but I read actual books, actual documents, actual statistical reports to get my information.


Here is the problem Europe and Japan capitalists does not really exploit labor significantly more then American capitalists, their advantage is more modern fixed capital.

I think that's what I said at the very beginning. The US bourgeoisie won't crumble because they've had a grand old, and profitable, time, smacking the snot out of its working class with a severity that leaves the European and Asian bourgeoisie breathless.......but again you miss a point.

More modern fixed capital should translate into more efficient exploitation of its proletariat. It should, according to you, mean labor costs are less. So how can that be, that with its more modern fixed capital, the European and Asian bourgeoisie are not able to more efficiently expropriate more surplus value?

We can answer-- well the fixed capital is not really all that much more modern. For example we might point out that in 1970, when autoworkers at GM went on strike, the UAW pulled 400,000 of them out of the plants. And this past most recent strike [2007 I think?]-- there were 70,000 GM autoworkers pulled out of plants. Had GM's auto production declined dramatically between 1970 and 2007? Not hardly. Had the number of plants declined? Absolutely. Had capacity declined? No.. Had tremendous augmentation of the productivity of labor been achieved through automation, digital process controls? You bet.

Point being, I don't think there is much evidence for vast degrees of greater efficiency in Europe or Asia's fixed plant. Certainly South Korea is the most efficient steel producer... and you know what? The US market requires South Korea to be that efficient, as US producers have concentrated on specialty and niche production, where fixed costs and high productivity can be translated into higher value-added products.

It, efficiency, superior productivity of the EU and Asia certainly does not exist in agriculture; nor does it exist in the means of communication and transportation-- those critical components of circulation that get the commodities to market.


If technical level of fixed capital played no role then Japan and Europe would have not been able to challenge US producers.

Who said it played no role? Who said that Japan and the EU haven't challenged. Sure they did-- and Japan got slapped by the US more than 20 years ago which led to Japan's speculative bubble, its export of capital offshore, its long deflation, and its attempt to "tier" its working class [ a la the US] to reduce labor costs and boost profits.

Certainly, it plays a big role. But again, reporting the demise of the US bourgeoisie, its designation as a pitiful poor hobbled shell of its once gigantic self, is a bit premature.


European and Asian railways also focus on getting containers to its destination faster while US railways focus on moving bulk good, European and Asian railways also run their trains closer together as they can as they freight trains usually are lighter thus can stop shorter and accelerate faster so a light freight train getting a caution and being order to reduce their speed is less of a problem then a large heavy US freight train as it would mean having to put them under caution sooner so they can slow down in time and it would mean them taking longer to get back up to speed after the train ahead of them gains enough distance for the freight train to go back to normal speed.

Any data to buttress these claims? Any data on the number of containers moved to and from originating/terminating point by rail in the EU or Asia as compared to the numbers, the proportion moved by rail in the US. Any ton mile figures on container movements in Europe or Asia by rail to compare with US figures-- published monthly by the way in Railway Age? Or are you making this stuff up?

Any numbers on minimum headways between freight trains in the EU or Asia? Average train weights? Signal design distances? Braking ratios? Distance to zero velocity? All those things we use to determine and enforce safe separation of trains? Or are you making this stuff up?

I know a little bit about safe separation of trains, having been responsible for it, for calculating braking distances, maximum authorized speeds, headways etc. And how does that translate into "value"? I can tell you, but you're making some claims for greater efficiency of EU and Japanese carriers, so you tell me.

How much freight is moved over what distance in what period of time at what cost? Those are the value calculations you make on a railroad. Every operating decision is a financial decision and vice-versa, so tell me where is this fucking greater efficiency of European Union and Japanese Railways when it comes to moving freight, and why don't we see it like at the bottom line of their financial reports?

Yes, US railways focus, not on only on bulk goods, but moving goods in bulk. Forty percent of US railway traffic is coal-- after that it's chemicals, grains, autos, lumber, with the fastest growing sector being containerized freight-- same as in maritime transport. But as for carloads, approximately 55% of loads are non-container, with 45% containerized. The "bulk" category really has no meaning.


Right but previously there was untapped market to expand into, the destruction of fixed capital previously was simply a way of consolidating capital so it expand.

You really do need to stop looking at You Tube and read some history. Markets don't exist untapped. They are created by dispossession of populations from agriculture, having only their labor power to exchange. So are you trying to tell me that that process has been entirely completed now? That China, with half its population still trapped in agricultural production is "tapped out" for expansion? That Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, that Africa is tapped out?

The destruction of fixed capital is a way of restoring the rate of profit, just as expansion of capital, dispossession of indigenous populations, lowering of wages, etc. etc. are ways of restoring a rate of profit.

Are you really convinced that this is the "end" of capitalism-- that it can't "recover" its rate of profit? That's absurd. Why is this capitalism different from all other capitalisms? Why could it recover from the great depression through the most massive bloodletting in history, then, but can't do so now? As a matter of fact, how could it keep going after 1969? Because China was just around the corner? That's not historical materialism, that's teleology you're trying to sell.



Yhea Germany in both cases looked to expansion as a solution to its crisis in the rate of profit.

Germany? Are you seriously arguing that Germany's desire for expansion was the cause of WW1 and WW2? That's just nuts. Next thing you know you'll be telling me how the Japanese conducted a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

Of course the bourgeoisie think they see a solution in expansion. But what the bourgeoisie thinks doesn't count-- like it doesn't count what they think about BP and the Gulf of Mexico. What counts is what capitalism requires, and that is destruction of the means of production, destruction of capital because capital has become, in Marx's words, the immanent barrier to capital. That's what overproduction is, the overproduction of the means of production as capital. That's why they have to be destroyed.



Right while 35 year old electric locomotives still run fine with most modernization being improving control system and communications. Hell the CNR ran GE electric locomotives built in 1914 till 1995 in Montreal and even then they were retired because they switched from DC to AC catenary..

So? You keep the shell, the "car body" of the locomotive and you change the power plant, the axle loading, the traction control systems, the fuel monitoring and conservation system, and what do you have? A 35 year old locomotive, or a new locomotive?

You take a railroad, rip out the old ties, the old ballast, the old rail and put in concrete ties, new ballast, continuously welded rail and what... you're going to tell me that it's the same old railroad because the original purchase, and grading of the land was done 150 years ago?

The unmodified GP 35s and GP 38s, if there are any left are used on short-lines, in yards, on branch work.



And how does this fair to upgrades Europe and Asian railways did during the long boom?

I have no fucking idea, and I doubt that you do either. But I do know that the "long boom" and the period since 1981, or 1991, has not exactly seen massive increases in profitability of the EU railways, where there have been increases in such profitability in US railways-- along with tremendous shrinkage of track, reduction in crews and employees, increased train lengths and weights, merger and consolidations of major carriers, spinoffs of branch lines, changing of work rules... and... declining rates of accidents.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Die Neue Zeit

Lassalle wanted working-class independence from the liberal bourgeoisie. Many Third World nationalist regimes picked the liberal bourgeoisie of one nation over the liberal bourgeoisie of another.


As if the SPD and the Nazis were two monolithic movements?



OK, but as far as I understand the SPD and the Nazis had different social bases. The SPD was more or less working class and the Nazis petit bourgeois. The National Bolsheviks weren't a mass movement but rather a group of intellectuals coming from a syndicalist faction of the KAPD. The Strasserite wing of the Nazi Party did not have the class base for effectively resisting Hitler.

Also I believe Lasalle actually secretly met with Bismarck to discuss plans for a "social monarchy". This wasn't known until the 1930s. The Lasallean/Bismarckian tradition has been more influential in the Third World than Marx or Lenin. This has been responsible for much of the "statist" and Third Worldist distortions of Marxism.

[S.Artesian]

Lassalle wanted working-class independence from the liberal bourgeoisie.

But he was less picky about being independent from Bismarck and the state apparatus, which was the mediation of capital and capitalism in Germany. Somehow that minor detail, that Bismarck and the organization of the German state represented the actual accommodation of the exploiting classes to each other escaped his notice.


As if the SPD and the Nazis were two monolithic movements? :glare:

Fucking priceless. For everything else there's Mastercard. One, the SPD had a base in the working class, a class that can organize itself for the overthrow of capitalism and for the emancipation of labor. The other has no such base. Is based in the panic, frenzy, and historical dead end of the kleine bourgeoisie, which has no relationship to the means of production, to the organization of the economy that can overthrow capitalism and emancipate labor.

That other, those "brown reds" may exist as individuals, but as a collectivity, as a social force they exist to prevent the organization of the working class as a class for the expropriation of capital.

As a collectivity, yes indeed monolithic is the word. They, the "brown reds" the "radical Nazis" need to be combated on a collective basis for their social role which will be to disorganize and pulverize the working class.

You pick your dog and you get his fleas.

"How many drops is this for you, Lieutenant?"

"37... simulated."

"How many combat drops?"

"Ah.... 2, including this one."

sotto voce-- Hudson and Vasquez, "Oh man."

[RED DAVE]

The Lasallean/Bismarckian tradition has been more influential in the Third World than Marx or Lenin. This has been responsible for much of the "statist" and Third Worldist distortions of Marxism.Truth is, this "tradition," in the form of social democracy, Maoism and Stalinism, has been the strongest all over the world.

The concept of working constructively with or controlling a government that retains capitalist economic relations is still a dominant strategy on the Left.

RED DAVE

[Die Neue Zeit]

OK, but as far as I understand the SPD and the Nazis had different social bases. The SPD was more or less working class and the Nazis petit bourgeois.

That all changed in the late 20s, when disgruntlement with the cuts-cuts-cuts SPD government, plus Bloody May, translated into growing working-class support for the Nazis, especially for that gullible wing which truly was "national-socialist" (i.e., the wing that adhered to the NSDAP program and not Mein Kampf).


The National Bolsheviks weren't a mass movement but rather a group of intellectuals coming from a syndicalist faction of the KAPD. The Strasserite wing of the Nazi Party did not have the class base for effectively resisting Hitler.

What I am saying is that a Communitarian Populist Front could have split the SPD and the Nazis in two. Such a front could come to power for the DOTP (I mentioned some of the programmatic terms above), and then gear up to re-integrate all of Germany against Fascist warmongering and against foreign occupation as imposed by the Treaty of Versailles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:German_losses_after_WWI.svg).


Also I believe Lasalle actually secretly met with Bismarck to discuss plans for a "social monarchy". This wasn't known until the 1930s. The Lasallean/Bismarckian tradition has been more influential in the Third World than Marx or Lenin. This has been responsible for much of the "statist" and Third Worldist distortions of Marxism.

I noted this in my snicker post within that thread: that the "alliance with the far right" is based on the "social monarchy." In fact, Lassalle's actions were already known before the 1930s, thanks to correspondence by Marx and Engels, and thanks to opposition by Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht. But, loosely speaking a "social monarchy" has its uses, as explained below.

In the Third World, the working class doesn't tend to be the majority class demographically and the small-business owners are divided between a progressive role and a reactionary role (unlike in advanced capitalist countries), and so the Kautskyan Marxist opposition to government coalitions is partially lifted for a Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and National Petit-Bourgeoisie:

http://wcrforum.com/showthread.php?tid=326


What political tendency would best describe this kind of struggle in the Third World? For obvious reasons it isn't exactly Maoist:

1) "Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and National Petit-Bourgeoisie"


A new "Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and National Petit-Bourgeoisie" in the Third World, but based on separate class organizations, would be: proletariat, hired hands performing unproductive labour (butlers, housemaids, and even military assembly line folks), proper lumpenproletariat (prostitutes where illegal, rank-and-file gangsters), coordinators (mid-level managers, academics with subordinate research staff, doctors without general practice businesses, and spetsy / "specialists"), and nationalistic petit-bourgeoisie of urban and rural areas.

No segment of the bourgeoisie is included, before or after the waging of the struggle below.

2) "People's War" based on #1 above, but also political strikes or strike waves in the cities (like in Cuba)

For example, I see Chavez as a combination of Proudhon, Lassalle, and Bismarck, yet it is wise for the Venezuelan working class to be in political and not necessarily governmental coalition with his anti-bourgeois movement; unlike Mao, Chavez has denied any "national" role for any segment of the Venezuelan bourgeoisie.

[Die Neue Zeit]

But he was less picky about being independent from Bismarck and the state apparatus, which was the mediation of capital and capitalism in Germany. Somehow that minor detail, that Bismarck and the organization of the German state represented the actual accommodation of the exploiting classes to each other escaped his notice.

Have you already read Chapter 1 of Lars Lih's book on Lenin's WITBD (can be previewed on Google Books)? Part of Chapter 1 re-evaluates the legacy of Lassalle beyond "dictatorial" organizational methods and smooching too much to Bismarck.

[S.Artesian]

Have you already read Chapter 1 of Lars Lih's book on Lenin's WITBD (can be previewed on Google Books)? Part of Chapter 1 re-evaluates the legacy of Lassalle beyond "dictatorial" organizational methods and smooching too much to Bismarck.

Nope haven't read it. Smooching too much? Does that mean it's OK to smooch a little with Bismarck? Maybe just swap a little bit of spit with the capital's state? OK, like it's OK to let him put his tongue in your mouth, but if he puts his hand between your legs-- tell him not on the first date?

WTF? OK, hey Lenin, Trotsky, you guys had it all wrong. It's OK to engage in a little heavy petting with that Kerensky fellow. No going all the way, though. Not without a ring. Make him sign a pre-nup while you're at it. Listen, he won't buy the cow, if he gets the milk for free. So you know, go out there have fun, but no intercourse...

How about blow jobs? Are blow jobs OK? Hey, Lassalle, yeah you can suck him, just don't let him come in your mouth.

WTF?

"They don't pay us enough for this shit."

"Not to wake up to your ugly face, they don't, Drake."

"What? Was that a joke?"

"I wish it were."

[Lenina Rosenweg]

In the Third World, the working class doesn't tend to be the majority class demographically and the small-business owners are divided between a progressive role and a reactionary role (unlike in advanced capitalist countries), and so the Kautskyan Marxist opposition to government coalitions is partially lifted for a Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and National Petit-Bourgeoisie:


This is the Maoist "New Democracy" or the "Bloc of Four Classes" represented on the PRC flag. It leads to bureaucratic deformation, capitalist restoration and neoliberalism. The same thing will happen in Venezuela if the revolutionary process doesn't move forward.

My understanding is that the Nazis never won a majority in the Reichstag. It was the depression which hit Germany in 1932, the demoralization of the middle classes, and political gridlock of the Weimar system which enabled the Nazi victory. Most importantly German industrialists picked Hitler, he was their guy.Eventually they realized they had made a horrible mistake, looking at it from their own class interests, but by then it was too late. The Nazis, up until the very end of Wiemar, never got a large working class support. The support they got at the end was due to the collapse, confusion, and treachery of the SPD and KPD.

The only class capable of moving a society out from under the domination of capital is the working class. When the class moves, everyone else does.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Nope haven't read it.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=8AVUvEUsdCgC

Chapter 1 is all you need to read in order to understand the logic behind the Kautsky Revival spearheaded by Lars Lih and spurred further by the likes of Mike Macnair, Paul Cockshott, and myself.


Smooching too much? Does that mean it's OK to smooch a little with Bismarck?

Sure. Skip to page 54 of Lih's book linked to above.

Lassalle's agitation was two-fold, for universal suffrage and for producer cooperatives with state aid:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/pre-cooperative-worker-t88629/index.html

By the way, Bismarck represented the landed Junker aristocracy, not the bourgeoisie and especially liberal bourgeoisie, and not even the petit-bourgeoisie (contrary to what Marx said in Gothakritik). Get your class representation right.

The progressive role of all segments of the bourgeoisie was over ever since the bourgeois inability and/or unwillingness to complete the full-fledged anti-feudal revolution (which would have meant nationalized banking and land, among other things); it succumbed to the rentier counter-revolution.


It's OK to engage in a little heavy petting with that Kerensky fellow.

Kerensky was a liberal. Liberals are, by definition, against the statism of Bismarck and against the politics of Lassalle.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

A railroad question. I know almost nothing about railroads. I have noticed that passenger rail service in Europe (including all of Russia), and parts of Asia are vastly better than that of the US. Amtrak is efficient but hideously expensive.It cost $80 to travel from Boston to White River, Vermont, one way. Would this fit into the discussion on railroads?

Of course the US passenger transportation system is highly privatized, as opposed to almost everywhere else.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is the Maoist "New Democracy" or the "Bloc of Four Classes" represented on the PRC flag.

No it isn't. I said explicitly above that it wasn't. The Bloc of Dispossessed Classes and National Petit-Bourgeoisie is the proper "permanent revolution" line that was held by the Second International for developing countries, against Menshevik bourgeois two-stageism on the right and against pure workerism (and Trotsky's sheer arrogance towards the peasantry and their "idiocy of rural life") on the left.

It takes into account the progressive role of something called Petit-Bourgeois Democratism.

Lenin's "permanent revolution" and April Theses of 1917 came from Kautsky's Prospects of the Russian Revolution (http://www.revleft.com/vb/prospects-russian-revolution-t126942/index.html) (note Lih's intro and my subsequent commentary) and not Trotsky's Results and Prospects.


It leads to bureaucratic deformation, capitalist restoration and neoliberalism. The same thing will happen in Venezuela if the revolutionary process doesn't move forward.

The revolutionary process moves forward because there's no role for any segment of the bourgeoisie. I am aware, though, that Chavez isn't the whole Bolivarian movement, and that the right-wing of the movement likes their bourgeois patronage.


My understanding is that the Nazis never won a majority in the Reichstag. It was the depression which hit Germany in 1932

The SPD reacted to the Depression with a cuts-cuts-cuts austerity budget, which only fuelled support for the Nazis. They never got a majority, but since when did an electoral majority equate to majority political support?

[Psy]

That's because capitalism is going through its most severe contraction of the post WW2 [and hence great depression] era. Yes, crises might get worse, they might not. Recoveries might get weaker, they might not. So what? Neither crises nor recovery inherently threaten the rule of capital, by themselves. That's the point.

Actually it does as there is nothing stopping the rate of profit falling into negative territory (becoming a rate of loss) where M-C-C1-M1 becomes impossible as you'd always get less money out then you put in.



And perhaps you haven't tumbled to the fact that I don't look at You Tube. I know it's awfully old-fashioned of me, but I read actual books, actual documents, actual statistical reports to get my information.

It was a speech about how the falling rate of profit still exists when you allow capitalists to have 100% exploitation (workers are slaves that consume nothing) and we ignore transformation issues of commodities being turned back into money.




I think that's what I said at the very beginning. The US bourgeoisie won't crumble because they've had a grand old, and profitable, time, smacking the snot out of its working class with a severity that leaves the European and Asian bourgeoisie breathless.......but again you miss a point.

More modern fixed capital should translate into more efficient exploitation of its proletariat. It should, according to you, mean labor costs are less. So how can that be, that with its more modern fixed capital, the European and Asian bourgeoisie are not able to more efficiently expropriate more surplus value?

Till you look at the falling rate of profit and understand increased efficiency in production does not necessarily translating into greater efficiency in extracting surplus value.



We can answer-- well the fixed capital is not really all that much more modern. For example we might point out that in 1970, when autoworkers at GM went on strike, the UAW pulled 400,000 of them out of the plants. And this past most recent strike [2007 I think?]-- there were 70,000 GM autoworkers pulled out of plants. Had GM's auto production declined dramatically between 1970 and 2007? Not hardly. Had the number of plants declined? Absolutely. Had capacity declined? No.. Had tremendous augmentation of the productivity of labor been achieved through automation, digital process controls? You bet.

Yet this has contributed in the devaluation of automobiles.



Point being, I don't think there is much evidence for vast degrees of greater efficiency in Europe or Asia's fixed plant. Certainly South Korea is the most efficient steel producer... and you know what? The US market requires South Korea to be that efficient, as US producers have concentrated on specialty and niche production, where fixed costs and high productivity can be translated into higher value-added products.

It, efficiency, superior productivity of the EU and Asia certainly does not exist in agriculture; nor does it exist in the means of communication and transportation-- those critical components of circulation that get the commodities to market.

For Japan communication and transportation is superior with most of Japan being on high speed fiber optics and most of Japan's railways being electrified with higher speed trains.




Who said it played no role? Who said that Japan and the EU haven't challenged. Sure they did-- and Japan got slapped by the US more than 20 years ago which led to Japan's speculative bubble, its export of capital offshore, its long deflation, and its attempt to "tier" its working class [ a la the US] to reduce labor costs and boost profits.

Certainly, it plays a big role. But again, reporting the demise of the US bourgeoisie, its designation as a pitiful poor hobbled shell of its once gigantic self, is a bit premature.

I'm not saying the US will suddenly decade just that the US will find it harder and harder just to maintain its market share.



Any data to buttress these claims? Any data on the number of containers moved to and from originating/terminating point by rail in the EU or Asia as compared to the numbers, the proportion moved by rail in the US. Any ton mile figures on container movements in Europe or Asia by rail to compare with US figures-- published monthly by the way in Railway Age? Or are you making this stuff up?

Any numbers on minimum headways between freight trains in the EU or Asia? Average train weights? Signal design distances? Braking ratios? Distance to zero velocity? All those things we use to determine and enforce safe separation of trains? Or are you making this stuff up?

I know a little bit about safe separation of trains, having been responsible for it, for calculating braking distances, maximum authorized speeds, headways etc. And how does that translate into "value"? I can tell you, but you're making some claims for greater efficiency of EU and Japanese carriers, so you tell me.

How much freight is moved over what distance in what period of time at what cost? Those are the value calculations you make on a railroad. Every operating decision is a financial decision and vice-versa, so tell me where is this fucking greater efficiency of European Union and Japanese Railways when it comes to moving freight, and why don't we see it like at the bottom line of their financial reports?

Yes, US railways focus, not on only on bulk goods, but moving goods in bulk. Forty percent of US railway traffic is coal-- after that it's chemicals, grains, autos, lumber, with the fastest growing sector being containerized freight-- same as in maritime transport. But as for carloads, approximately 55% of loads are non-container, with 45% containerized. The "bulk" category really has no meaning.

Lets look at locomotives shall we.

JNR Class EF66 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JNR_Class_EF66)
The locomotives were designed to be able to haul a 1,000-tonne train at 100 km/h

Now the average US freight train in 1980 was 2,200 tons Transportation statistics meaning the EF66 would require a helper just to move the average US freight train of 1980 (as that would be just shy of 2,000 tonnes) but most image and videos of the EF66 shows them pulling freight trains solo so unless JR Freight is pushing them far past their factory specs odds are they pulling around half the weight of US freight trains of 1980 and US freight trains are now heavier.

Looking at M250 freight EMU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M250_series)we are talking 16 cars making a set made for small parcels.






You really do need to stop looking at You Tube and read some history. Markets don't exist untapped. They are created by dispossession of populations from agriculture, having only their labor power to exchange. So are you trying to tell me that that process has been entirely completed now? That China, with half its population still trapped in agricultural production is "tapped out" for expansion? That Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, that Africa is tapped out?

Pretty yes as they can't significantly lower labor costs more by pulling new worker off the fields.



The destruction of fixed capital is a way of restoring the rate of profit, just as expansion of capital, dispossession of indigenous populations, lowering of wages, etc. etc. are ways of restoring a rate of profit.

Not in the long run, all you are doing is allowing capitalists to consolidate capital but that doesn't really solve over production.



Are you really convinced that this is the "end" of capitalism-- that it can't "recover" its rate of profit? That's absurd. Why is this capitalism different from all other capitalisms? Why could it recover from the great depression through the most massive bloodletting in history, then, but can't do so now? As a matter of fact, how could it keep going after 1969? Because China was just around the corner? That's not historical materialism, that's teleology you're trying to sell.

I'm saying Capitalism is past its prime and probably looking at a long decline. The problem is that there is no force to pull capitalism out of its current crisis and the displacement of previous crisis of capitalism has accumulated to the point capitalists as of yet have no clue of how to deal with the crisis.



Germany? Are you seriously arguing that Germany's desire for expansion was the cause of WW1 and WW2? That's just nuts. Next thing you know you'll be telling me how the Japanese conducted a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

Of course the bourgeoisie think they see a solution in expansion. But what the bourgeoisie thinks doesn't count-- like it doesn't count what they think about BP and the Gulf of Mexico. What counts is what capitalism requires, and that is destruction of the means of production, destruction of capital because capital has become, in Marx's words, the immanent barrier to capital. That's what overproduction is, the overproduction of the means of production as capital. That's why they have to be destroyed.

Well at that point Japanese and German capitalism saw no other alternative then imperialist expansion.

Also it is not as simple as destroying capital as that is just the symptom not the underlying problem of over production.




So? You keep the shell, the "car body" of the locomotive and you change the power plant, the axle loading, the traction control systems, the fuel monitoring and conservation system, and what do you have? A 35 year old locomotive, or a new locomotive?

You take a railroad, rip out the old ties, the old ballast, the old rail and put in concrete ties, new ballast, continuously welded rail and what... you're going to tell me that it's the same old railroad because the original purchase, and grading of the land was done 150 years ago?

The unmodified GP 35s and GP 38s, if there are any left are used on short-lines, in yards, on branch work.

Good point but how much do you have to replace in a outdated diesel locomotive compared to a outdated electric locomotive




I have no fucking idea, and I doubt that you do either. But I do know that the "long boom" and the period since 1981, or 1991, has not exactly seen massive increases in profitability of the EU railways, where there have been increases in such profitability in US railways-- along with tremendous shrinkage of track, reduction in crews and employees, increased train lengths and weights, merger and consolidations of major carriers, spinoffs of branch lines, changing of work rules... and... declining rates of accidents.
But profitability was not the point, the point for European and Asian national railways was subsidizing industrial growth.

[S.Artesian]

http://books.google.ca/books?id=8AVUvEUsdCgC

Chapter 1 is all you need to read in order to understand the logic behind the Kautsky Revival spearheaded by Lars Lih and spurred further by the likes of Mike Macnair, Paul Cockshott, and myself.

Gee, does comrade Cockshott know he's been recruited into your EMT Cardiac Intensive Care unit, trying to restart the heart of the long dead Karl K? Tell me, who gets to put the defibrillator paddles on the corpse and yell, "Clear!"?



By the way, Bismarck represented the landed Junker aristocracy, not the bourgeoisie and especially liberal bourgeoisie, and not even the petit-bourgeoisie (contrary to what Marx said in Gothakritik). Get your class representation right.I said that Bismarck, the German state represented the mediation of capital, its material deviation, so to speak, from an abstract ideal, that nonetheless functions to realize those fundamental social determinants of the "ideal"-- in this case that material deviation, that accommodation of the liberal bourgeoisie to the Junker capitalist-hacendados, and the Junker hacendados to capitalism in Bismarck's state realizes the expansion of the means of production as capital, and the organization of labor as wage-labor, which is after all, the most important thing.

You need to get your history right, to actually know someting about the material reproduction of capitalism in Germany, on the Junker estates, rather than just repeat static misrepresentations that Bismarck represented the Junker aristocracy as an aristocracy.


The progressive role of all segments of the bourgeoisie was over ever since the bourgeois inability and/or unwillingness to complete the full-fledged anti-feudal revolution (which would have meant nationalized banking and land, among other things); it succumbed to the rentier counter-revolution.Oh bullshit. Progressive role of any segment has never been an issue, and exists only as a myth, confusing capitalism's necessity for access to free labor with the pompous rhetoric but actual hemming and hawing of the bourgeoisie. And succumbing to rentier counter-revolution? My ass. No more than the "liberal bourgeoisie" in the US succumbed to the "redemptionist" counterrevolution in the post-Civil War South. They accommodated, encouraged, and even bankrolled the return of the redemptionist governments-- and that wasn't "rentier-ism" at work, but capitalism at work, preserving its property relations, again, mediating itself, its actual material existence in the concrete in order to preserve its essential organizing principle-- private property in the means of production against the social organization of labor.

In the end, it's "OK" with your communitarian populist front to try and reenact 1923 and the Ruhr Valley all over again, appealing to that nationalist-militarist hysteria of the kleine bourgeoisie; and in the end it's "OK" to "relax" the opposition to, the prohibition on joining a bourgeois government in less developed countries, like say Morales' in Bolivia, or by logical extension, the MNR's in Bolivia in the 1952-1964 period, or Goulart's in Brazil or.... Lula's in Brazil today, right? Because why?

Because a little bit of smooching with the mediations of capital is OK as long as your heart is pure?

Actually because all that distortion, contortion of language wrapped up in your brand new "communitarian populist front" is the same-old, same-old crap that goes by any of a dozen names-- popular front, government of popular unity, national front, government of national salvation, blahblahblahblah. Same-same.


Lips that have touched Bismarck's shall never touch mine.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Gee, does comrade Cockshott know he's been recruited into your EMT Cardiac Intensive Care unit, trying to restart the heart of the long dead Karl K? Tell me, who gets to put the defibrillator paddles on the corpse and yell, "Clear!"?

He mentioned Kautsky many times, from Ideas of Leadership and Democracy to Transition to 21st Century Socialism in the European Union. From the latter:

Historically, the dominant perspective on socialism has been that developed in the German Social Democratic Party in the years before the first world war. The SPD was the strongest and most influential party in the Socialist International and its ideas influenced other parties, including both the British Labour Party and the European Communist Parties. Lih has shown the extent to which the Leninism to which the latter subscribed was in fact just a re-labeling of classical German Social Democracy.


I said that Bismarck, the German state represented the mediation of capital, its material deviation, so to speak, from an abstract ideal, that nonetheless functions to realize those fundamental social determinants of the "ideal"-- in this case that material deviation, that accommodation of the liberal bourgeoisie to the Junker capitalist-hacendados, and the Junker hacendados to capitalism in Bismarck's state realizes the expansion of the means of production as capital, and the organization of labor as wage-labor, which is after all, the most important thing.

It took the total defeat of the German Empire to vault the liberal bourgeoisie firmly in power. Those accommodations go all the way back to the days of petty commodity production.


Oh bullshit. Progressive role of any segment has never been an issue, and exists only as a myth, confusing capitalism's necessity for access to free labor with the pompous rhetoric but actual hemming and hawing of the bourgeoisie.

So you disagree with Marx's evaluation of the industrialists before his death?


And succumbing to rentier counter-revolution? My ass. No more than the "liberal bourgeoisie" in the US succumbed to the "redemptionist" counterrevolution in the post-Civil War South. They accommodated, encouraged, and even bankrolled the return of the redemptionist governments-- and that wasn't "rentier-ism" at work, but capitalism at work, preserving its property relations, again, mediating itself, its actual material existence in the concrete in order to preserve its essential organizing principle-- private property in the means of production against the social organization of labor.

The slave trade is separate from the rentier problem. The latter was the hallmark of European feudalism; the former wasn't.


In the end, it's "OK" with your communitarian populist front to try and reenact 1923 and the Ruhr Valley all over again, appealing to that nationalist-militarist hysteria of the kleine bourgeoisie; and in the end it's "OK" to "relax" the opposition to, the prohibition on joining a bourgeois government in less developed countries, like say Morales' in Bolivia, or by logical extension, the MNR's in Bolivia in the 1952-1964 period, or Goulart's in Brazil or.... Lula's in Brazil today, right? Because why?

I didn't say it was OK to join any bourgeois government. I said it was OK to have a front with Third World national petit-bourgeois forces. Three qualifiers: Third World, national, and petit-bourgeois.


Actually because all that distortion, contortion of language wrapped up in your brand new "communitarian populist front" is the same-old, same-old crap that goes by any of a dozen names-- popular front, government of popular unity, national front, government of national salvation, blahblahblahblah. Same-same.

Lips that have touched Bismarck's shall never touch mine.

It isn't the popular front of allying with the liberal bourgeoisie. :glare:

"Communitarian" excludes the likes of right-libertarian populists, and "populist" excludes the likes of bourgeois communitarians.

[S.Artesian]

Actually it does as there is nothing stopping the rate of profit falling into negative territory (becoming a rate of loss) where M-C-C1-M1 becomes impossible as you'd always get less money out then you put in.

Have you ever read Marx on this? Offsetting tendencies? The critical nature of "crisis" in the reproduction of capital, restoring the rate of profit? Try the manuscripts of 1861-1864, volume 3 of Capital. If nothing prevents this from occurring, then why hasn't it occurred?



It was a speech about how the falling rate of profit still exists when you allow capitalists to have 100% exploitation (workers are slaves that consume nothing) and we ignore transformation issues of commodities being turned back into money.

Marx referred to, and consistently, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. It is a general trend, it can, and is offset. It can be secular, systemic, and still within that system, the cycles of capitalism function.



Till you look at the falling rate of profit and understand increased efficiency in production does not necessarily translating into greater efficiency in extracting surplus value.

No, you don't understand a thing. The tendency of the rate of profit to fall is based precisely on the real domination of labor by capital, the increased and dominant extraction of relative surplus value, the greater efficiency in the extraction of surplus value. You really are making all this shit up as you go along aren't you?



Yet this has contributed in the devaluation of automobiles. . Of course it does, that's the point. The increase in the technical component, the fixed assets, the displacement of labor by fixed assets means that the value of such assets can only be passed on incrementally to the commodities, while the overall value of the commodity declines due to the decline in the time necessary for its reproduction. Fixed assets, and their costs, participate wholly in the labor process, but only marginally in the valorisation process.



For Japan communication and transportation is superior with most of Japan being on high speed fiber optics and most of Japan's railways being electrified with higher speed trains. Productivity again is a measure of value, output vs unit of input. What are the equivalent numbers for train miles per employee, ton-miles per train, cars dispatched per crew hours. I suspect for one thing, you're confusing freight and passenger train operations. Most importantly, where's the profit?




I'm not saying the US will suddenly decade just that the US will find it harder and harder just to maintain its market share..
That's a big change from what you were preaching earlier-- that the US industrial plant was decrepit, that the decrepit plant meant the US bourgeoisie was on its last legs, that capitalism had nowhere to go.



Lets look at locomotives shall we.

JNR Class EF66 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JNR_Class_EF66)
The locomotives were designed to be able to haul a 1,000-tonne train at 100 km/h

Now the average US freight train in 1980 was 2,200 tons Transportation statistics meaning the EF66 would require a helper just to move the average US freight train of 1980 (as that would be just shy of 2,000 tonnes) but most image and videos of the EF66 shows them pulling freight trains solo so unless JR Freight is pushing them far past their factory specs odds are they pulling around half the weight of US freight trains of 1980 and US freight trains are now heavier.

Looking at M250 freight EMU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M250_series)we are talking 16 cars making a set made for small parcels.

Yeah, let's look at them. But can we look at something a bit more recent than shit from 30 years ago? Can we look at mainline haulage, since the US average train size includes local switching service, industrial train movements, and yard transfer movements.

1000 tons is about 10-12 grain hoppers, or 15 coal cars. With heavy axle load cars now capable of handling 125 tons, we're talking 8 cars. Are you fucking kidding me? If I ran a train everytime I had 8 or 10 cars so I could run it at 100 km/h, my railroad would have been out of business as efficiencies and productivity boosts brought about by heavy haul 4400 HP AC [or DC now] traction diesel locomotives with end-of-train devices would have been absolutely wiped out. Either my railroad would have been out of business, or I would have received a rather pointed telephone call from the president of the railroad telling me to either stop this shit immediately or seek other employment.

You want to run your railroad for small parcels? For 16 car trains? Be my guest. We did that for a while. Now guess what. Utilizing 1 3000 HP locomotive I can run 1000 tons up any ruling grade less than 2.5 percent. Utilizing 1 3000 HP locomotive I can run those 10 cars at speeds of 60 mph on tangent, flat track. So what? The volume of freight business on the rails in the US does NOT allow such wasteful use of resources, unless the service is designed with a tariff, a fee, that justifies it. So if somebody wants a special train of 10 cars to go from Albany to Buffalo-- it can be done, with 1 locomotive [although we would probably place 2, back to back, so we could drop the one train and couple on to the return haul without having to change power, simply refuel]. But they have to pay for it.

So tell me again, exactly what is your point about these locomotives?


Pretty yes as they can't significantly lower labor costs more by pulling new worker off the fields.

All you're saying is that capitalism runs up against the limits of its own inability to transform the social organization of production. No shit. We know that capitalism has limits. We also know capitalism has offsetting tendencies, and can immolate half the planet if that's what it takes.



Not in the long run, all you are doing is allowing capitalists to consolidate capital but that doesn't really solve over production.

Guess what comrade? The bourgeoisie don't give a shit about "the long run." They're having a long run, a helluva a long run by simply doing what they do day be day. Right, nothing except socialist revolution will solve capitalist overproduction. You know what? That's the whole point, nothing but socialist revolution with resolve capitalist overproduction by expropriating the bourgeoisie; by seizing the means of production. That means that capitalism is not going to collapse on its own. It will reproduce itself in all its miserable glory and glorious misery, taking humanity to new depths of suffering, while all the time telling itself how good it looks.



I'm saying Capitalism is past its prime and probably looking at a long decline. The problem is that there is no force to pull capitalism out of its current crisis and the displacement of previous crisis of capitalism has accumulated to the point capitalists as of yet have no clue of how to deal with the crisis.

And why is that? Why is it that this time, nothing will work, but in 2001-2003, 1991-1993, the whole fucking 80s, 1973-1975, 1970-1971, some things worked? Why is it that WW2 worked after the great depression? New territories? Nope. Destroyed means of production? Decimated working class? Yeah, let's start with those.

And the bourgeoisie don't need a clue for dealing with the crisis, all they need to do is to keep the working class from dealing with the crisis as a class.


But profitability was not the point, the point for European and Asian national railways was subsidizing industrial growth.

I rest my case. Profitability is not the point? It sure is for capitalism. That's why the US bourgeoisie remain the strongest among equals. Weren't you the guy trying to tell me what the name of this game was? Suddenly, I guess, either the game has changed, or the name isn't that important anymore.

[Zanthorus]

On the falling rate of profit thing, I'm pretty sure Marx actually criticised Adam Smith for having an "apocalyptic" view of crisis. Andrew Kliman had a quote from, I think, Theories of Surplus-Value where he says as much. If I recall correctly, in the third volume of Capital Marx has the chapter on the falling rate of profit followed by the chapter on the counter-tendencies and then a chapter afterwards on the development of the law in it's immanent contradictions. The point of the third chapter is apparently that although the decline in the rate of profit also decreases the value of the goods that the capitalist needs to buy in order to keep the production process, the discount doesn't apply to goods bought in the past, so the capitalist is still screwed now. I forget exactly how the rest of the story goes but during the crisis capital value is destroyed which restores profitability and sets the whole thing in motion again. So capitalism's crises continue on in a cyclical fashion.

Although I've barely started on volume two at the moment mind, most of my knowledge of Marx's crisis theory comes from reading Kliman.

[S.Artesian]

A railroad question. I know almost nothing about railroads. I have noticed that passenger rail service in Europe (including all of Russia), and parts of Asia are vastly better than that of the US. Amtrak is efficient but hideously expensive.It cost $80 to travel from Boston to White River, Vermont, one way. Would this fit into the discussion on railroads?

Of course the US passenger transportation system is highly privatized, as opposed to almost everywhere else.

Long-haul passenger service on US railroads was taken over by the US government in 1971 as part of the slow, torturous reorganization brought about by the collapse of the Penn-Central Railroad [not actually a merger, more of a suicide pact] and the bankruptcies and impending bankruptcies of the other Northeast based and Midwest based railroads.

There was no money to be made in the service, not with the expansion of the automobile economy post WW2, and the advent of commercial transcontinental air service.

Amtrak is the infant left on the doorstep of US railroading. Nobody wants to pay for it, but everybody hopes somebody will admit to being its parent.

In Europe, railroad service is just that, a public service, with operations well subsidized by governments, although "privatization" is the buzzword.

Buzzwords or no, France spends 10% of its GDP on its rail service. And it is a great service. It's fun operating at 200 mph, believe me.

No regular US passenger service, long haul or commuter is privatised. All are either operated, or operated under contract to state or local governments with some subsidies and funds provided by the US Federal Transit Commission.

[S.Artesian]

Just one thing:


I didn't say it was OK to join any bourgeois government. I said it was OK to have a front with Third World national petit-bourgeois forces. Three qualifiers: Third World, national, and petit-bourgeois.

Right, I know. You can't just smooch with any agent for the recuperation and stabilization of capital, it's got to be the right agent for the recuperation and stabilization of capital. I mean, you've got a reputation to protect, no? You wouldn't want word getting out that you're easy... that you can be had for the price of a movie and a box of popcorn? Next thing you know, they've labeled you a slut, they're writing about you on bathroom walls, and sure you get plenty of calls and dates, but does anybody really like you for being you.

Or in the immortal words of the Shirelles: "Will you still love me tomorrow?"

OK, so, can you give us some examples. Allende's Unidad Popular government in Chile, OK to join? Yes or no?

Uh.. the MNR government in Bolivia, 1952-1964, OK to join? Yes or no? Villoreal prior to the MNR, OK to join or not? Morales and the MAS, should we, or shoudn't we?

Arbenz government, Guatemala, 1954-- OK to join? Yes or no?

Mujica government, Uruguay, right now-- thumbs up, or thumbs down?

Goulart's government, Brazil 1964, should you, or shoudn't you.

Lula's government , Brazil today, let's do it and say we didn't, or let's not and say we did?

Cardenas, Mexico 1934-1940, yea or nay?

Sandinistas, first time around, make it or break it?

Really. What's a girl to do? And how, as the Young Rascals asked 43 years ago, can I be sure?

[S.Artesian]

On the falling rate of profit thing, I'm pretty sure Marx actually criticised Adam Smith for having an "apocalyptic" view of crisis. Andrew Kliman had a quote from, I think, Theories of Surplus-ValueThe point of the third chapter is apparently that although the decline in the rate of profit also decreases the value of the goods that the capitalist needs to buy in order to keep the production process, the discount doesn't apply to goods bought in the past, so the capitalist is still screwed now. where he says as much. If I recall correctly, in the third volume of Capital Marx has the chapter on the falling rate of profit followed by the chapter on the counter-tendencies and then a chapter afterwards on the development of the law in it's immanent contradictions. I forget exactly how the rest of the story goes but during the crisis capital value is destroyed which restores profitability and sets the whole thing in motion again. So capitalism's crises continue on in a cyclical fashion.




Yep, devaluation overtakes valorization of the fixed assets, as fixed assets transfer their value only incrementally through numerous cycles of production and only through the extinction of their use value.

[Psy]

Have you ever read Marx on this? Offsetting tendencies? The critical nature of "crisis" in the reproduction of capital, restoring the rate of profit? Try the manuscripts of 1861-1864, volume 3 of Capital. If nothing prevents this from occurring, then why hasn't it occurred?


Marx referred to, and consistently, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. It is a general trend, it can, and is offset. It can be secular, systemic, and still within that system, the cycles of capitalism function.

No, you don't understand a thing. The tendency of the rate of profit to fall is based precisely on the real domination of labor by capital, the increased and dominant extraction of relative surplus value, the greater efficiency in the extraction of surplus value. You really are making all this shit up as you go along aren't you?

Watch the talk it shows that even with 100% exploitation and no issue with finding demand there is a falling rate of profit.

What this means is even with forces pushing the rate of profit up that in the very long run the rate of profit approaches zero.



. Of course it does, that's the point. The increase in the technical component, the fixed assets, the displacement of labor by fixed assets means that the value of such assets can only be passed on incrementally to the commodities, while the overall value of the commodity declines due to the decline in the time necessary for its reproduction. Fixed assets, and their costs, participate wholly in the labor process, but only marginally in the valorisation process.

Right and as commodities become cheaper while capital becomes more costly you have a big problem with the rate of profit.




Productivity again is a measure of value, output vs unit of input. What are the equivalent numbers for train miles per employee, ton-miles per train, cars dispatched per crew hours. I suspect for one thing, you're confusing freight and passenger train operations. Most importantly, where's the profit?





That's a big change from what you were preaching earlier-- that the US industrial plant was decrepit, that the decrepit plant meant the US bourgeoisie was on its last legs, that capitalism had nowhere to go.

It really has nowhere to go all it can do is ride out the decline through consolidation unless it can solve its crisis with over production.



Yeah, let's look at them. But can we look at something a bit more recent than shit from 30 years ago? Can we look at mainline haulage, since the US average train size includes local switching service, industrial train movements, and yard transfer movements.

1000 tons is about 10-12 grain hoppers, or 15 coal cars. With heavy axle load cars now capable of handling 125 tons, we're talking 8 cars. Are you fucking kidding me? If I ran a train everytime I had 8 or 10 cars so I could run it at 100 km/h, my railroad would have been out of business as efficiencies and productivity boosts brought about by heavy haul 4400 HP AC [or DC now] traction diesel locomotives with end-of-train devices would have been absolutely wiped out. Either my railroad would have been out of business, or I would have received a rather pointed telephone call from the president of the railroad telling me to either stop this shit immediately or seek other employment.

Your thinking bulk goods not light weight goods.



You want to run your railroad for small parcels? For 16 car trains? Be my guest. We did that for a while. Now guess what. Utilizing 1 3000 HP locomotive I can run 1000 tons up any ruling grade less than 2.5 percent. Utilizing 1 3000 HP locomotive I can run those 10 cars at speeds of 60 mph on tangent, flat track. So what? The volume of freight business on the rails in the US does NOT allow such wasteful use of resources, unless the service is designed with a tariff, a fee, that justifies it. So if somebody wants a special train of 10 cars to go from Albany to Buffalo-- it can be done, with 1 locomotive [although we would probably place 2, back to back, so we could drop the one train and couple on to the return haul without having to change power, simply refuel]. But they have to pay for it.

That is because in Japan there is more short run hauls and back with JNR they wanted to make industries want to ship by rail over truck and to do they they couldn't wait for a station to get enough cargo to warrant the large US style freight trains.



So tell me again, exactly what is your point about these locomotives?

To show that Japan runs lighter freight trains and it really can thanks to electrification as it is cheaper to run a electric train the extra cost comes in the form of maintenance of the catenary and the power systems that power them.


Guess what comrade? The bourgeoisie don't give a shit about "the long run." They're having a long run, a helluva a long run by simply doing what they do day be day. Right, nothing except socialist revolution will solve capitalist overproduction. You know what? That's the whole point, nothing but socialist revolution with resolve capitalist overproduction by expropriating the bourgeoisie; by seizing the means of production. That means that capitalism is not going to collapse on its own. It will reproduce itself in all its miserable glory and glorious misery, taking humanity to new depths of suffering, while all the time telling itself how good it looks.

I meant even from the capitalists point of view they really don't have a solution to overproduction outside trying to displace it.



And why is that? Why is it that this time, nothing will work, but in 2001-2003, 1991-1993, the whole fucking 80s, 1973-1975, 1970-1971, some things worked? Why is it that WW2 worked after the great depression? New territories? Nope. Destroyed means of production? Decimated working class? Yeah, let's start with those.

Because it was solved through displacement temporality meaning now capitalists have to solve the crisis of 1970, 1974, 1980's, 1991 and 2001 on top of the current crisis as they never fixed the previous crises just moved the crisis froward in them through credit.




And the bourgeoisie don't need a clue for dealing with the crisis, all they need to do is to keep the working class from dealing with the crisis as a class.

Yes it does if they want don't want global capitalism to degreate into a world war as capitalist powers just result to imperialist expansion to solve the crisis.



I rest my case. Profitability is not the point? It sure is for capitalism. That's why the US bourgeoisie remain the strongest among equals. Weren't you the guy trying to tell me what the name of this game was? Suddenly, I guess, either the game has changed, or the name isn't that important anymore.
It is for private railways, but for national railways the name of the game is subsidizing capitalist profits.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Just one thing:


I didn't say it was OK to join any bourgeois government. I said it was OK to have a front with Third World national petit-bourgeois forces. Three qualifiers: Third World, national, and petit-bourgeois.

Right, I know. You can't just smooch with any agent for the recuperation and stabilization of capital, it's got to be the right agent for the recuperation and stabilization of capital.

What if that Third World national petit-bourgeois force is for the "recuperation and stabilization" of state capital? What if that Third World national petit-bourgeois force has a Cooperativist platform (beyond nationalized land, banking monopoly for "state capital" purposes, utilities and other natural monopolies, foreign trade monopoly - basic stuff) and a Petit-Bourgeois Democratist platform (communal councils, "popular"/"people's" militias, etc.)?

Remember: all of this is thoroughly anti-bourgeois.

Re. examples below, I will answer in respect to votes of confidence and not entering governments themselves except where indicated.


OK, so, can you give us some examples. Allende's Unidad Popular government in Chile, OK to join? Yes or no?

No


Uh.. the MNR government in Bolivia, 1952-1964, OK to join? Yes or no? Villoreal prior to the MNR, OK to join or not? Morales and the MAS, should we, or shoudn't we?

No, No, and Not Sure (don't know if Morales has openly denounced the "national bourgeoisie" like Chavez has)


Arbenz government, Guatemala, 1954-- OK to join? Yes or no?

No


Mujica government, Uruguay, right now-- thumbs up, or thumbs down?

Hell No


Goulart's government, Brazil 1964, should you, or shoudn't you.

Lula's government , Brazil today, let's do it and say we didn't, or let's not and say we did?

No to both, and why would you bring up a neoliberal government as an example? :confused:


Cardenas, Mexico 1934-1940, yea or nay?

No


Sandinistas, first time around, make it or break it?

Yes

You forgot the most obvious contemporary case of all, which would command a resounding Yes for votes of confidence and, depending on which level of government and political orientation (communal, local, municipal, state/provincial, federal), a Yes vote for government coalitions. Right now, though, I don't know of any PCV member in a communal, local, municipal, or state/provincial coalition government.

[NGNM85]

Exactly. And neither were the SA in Germany, despite the illusions of some who saw them as "radicals" and "reds" in brown shirts.

But nobody even claims Ron Paul is a Leftist.

[NGNM85]

Say what? Do you mean after a revolution or as of now?

The latter.


That stuff won't mean Jack if it continues it's economic policy. It can't happen without major economic/political change first.

It wold obviously require political change, but is not so extreme as to be impossible.

To say that it wouldn't mean anything is also erroneous. Signing the Kyoto accords, joining the international consensus and ending the aparthied in Palestine, abiding by international law (Read; an end to US presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) would mean a lot for millions of people. It also doesn't negate the possibility of other positive changes.


Damn, you are a liberal.

Clearly, you don't know what the word means.

[S.Artesian]

Watch the talk it shows that even with 100% exploitation and no issue with finding demand there is a falling rate of profit.

What this means is even with forces pushing the rate of profit up that in the very long run the rate of profit approaches zero.

Are there offsetting tendencies, yes or no? Is war an offsetting tendency, yes or no? We all know that in the very long run the ROP can approach zero. That's the abstract. We're dealing with the concrete. Does the lowered rate of profit since 1973 mean that the US bourgeoisie are without resources to maintain their class rule? Can the US bourgeoisie offset the lowered rate of profit?


Based on the last 37 years, the answers are-- to the first question, "NO, they are not without such resources." to the second, "Yes, they can, by maintaining their class rule, liquidating assets, lowering wages, attacking living standards; by doing all those things they do so well."


Besides, as Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead."



Right and as commodities become cheaper while capital becomes more costly you have a big problem with the rate of profit.

Are you talking about cheaper in terms of less value, or cheaper in terms of less cost price, or cheaper in terms of lower market price?


It really has nowhere to go all it can do is ride out the decline through consolidation unless it can solve its crisis with over production.

No, the bourgeoisie do not have to solve the problem of overproduction. They can't solve the problem of overproduction. If they could, they wouldn't be the bourgeoisie, capital wouldn't be capital, and there would be no necessity for revolution. What they can do is not go anywhere, but stay right where they are, in power, by forcing the costs of their mode of accumulation onto the living standards of everybody else, thus restoring, even temporarily a rate of profit, which of course leads us right back to overproduction.

Hey, that sounds exactly what the bourgeoisie have done since in the past 12 months doesn't it? They sure didn't collapse did they? The US bourgeoisie has hardly been exposed as the "weak sister" in the capitalist daisy chain, has it?






That is because in Japan there is more short run hauls and back with JNR they wanted to make industries want to ship by rail over truck and to do they they couldn't wait for a station to get enough cargo to warrant the large US style freight trains.


To show that Japan runs lighter freight trains and it really can thanks to electrification as it is cheaper to run a electric train the extra cost comes in the form of maintenance of the catenary and the power systems that power them.

This conversation is becoming inane. You started out your argument about electrification being so much more efficient by arguing that electrification means better power to weight ratios, which according to you means more productivity, which means I guess better horsepower ratios, higher tractive efforts, meaning less locomotive power to handle greater tonnages. Now you're telling me that power to weight ratios mean you can run smaller trains more cheaply.

So tell me what are the costs, the operating/maintenance/and capital costs for Japan's mode of operation, and what sort of operating ratios, rates of return on investment does Japan generate in this mode?



Because it was solved through displacement temporality meaning now capitalists have to solve the crisis of 1970, 1974, 1980's, 1991 and 2001 on top of the current crisis as they never fixed the previous crises just moved the crisis froward in them through credit.

Capitalism isn't interested in solving its contradictions. It's interested in reproducing them, leveraging them, making money out of them. Right, so we can push the crisis in 1970, 1974, 1980, 1991, 2001-- we can push everything for 37 years, but not 40 years? Not 50 years? No more "pushing"? You haven't shown why today's contradictions mean the end of capitalism as we know it. And since these are not, by your very admission NEW contradictions, then we need to know why now they are the death rattle of capitalism. You need to show how the quantity of these contradictions has transformed itself into a new quality of contradiction that says, "Game Over."




Yes it does if they want don't want global capitalism to degreate into a world war as capitalist powers just result to imperialist expansion to solve the crisis.

See previous comments. It doesn't matter what the bourgeoisie want or don't want capitalism to do; it doesn't matter if some oppose the invasion of Iraq or some support it. It matters what capitalism requires of the bourgeoisie. War is one of those requirements. War is the necessary complement of "expansion."





It is for private railways, but for national railways the name of the game is subsidizing capitalist profits.

So that's a different name for a different game? Or a different name for the same game? And how does any part of these name games you're playing support your original claims about the fall in profitability of US railroads over the last decade sounding the death knell for US capitalism?

Tell you what, unless you've got something other than name games and You Tubes to offer, this discussion isn't worth pursuing.

[S.Artesian]

The latter.



It wold obviously require political change, but is not so extreme as to be impossible.

To say that it wouldn't mean anything is also erroneous. Signing the Kyoto accords, joining the international consensus and ending the aparthied in Palestine, abiding by international law (Read; an end to US presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) would mean a lot for millions of people. It also doesn't negate the possibility of other positive changes.

And what class with what power is going to do these things, to make these profound changes? What section of what class do you have in mind?

I think comrade RadioRaheem84 really does know what the word means, and you don't.

Be that as it may, here's a word-- reformist. You are hoping for capitalism to reform itself and somehow produce some sort of "enlightened" section of the ruling class to accomplish all these wonderful things NOW.

Guess what? The Age of Enlightenment ended a long time ago, and actually wasn't that enlightened. Today, "enlightenment," enlightened capitalism is worse than a fantasy, it's an ideology of recuperation.

[S.Artesian]

But nobody even claims Ron Paul is a Leftist.


Yep, but there's the same fantasy being spread about "winning over" those attracted to the "tea party," the left "tapping" into that "anger" against the government, finding "commonalities" with blahblahblahblhah, that same-old same-old bullshit.

It reminds me of the late US Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell's "reapproachment" with Malcolm and the Muslims. Don't forget that Rockwell only listened to Malcolm because the Muslims threatened to meet force with force. And don't forget also that listening to Malcolm got Rockwell killed by his own allies.

Let's all pay attention here. This road has been tried before. It goes worse than nowhere, worse than hell, and it's not even paved with good intentions.

[NGNM85]

It reminds me of the late US Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell's "reapproachment" with Malcolm and the Muslims. Don't forget that Rockwell only listened to Malcolm because the Muslims threatened to meet force with force. And don't forget also that listening to Malcolm got Rockwell killed by his own allies.

Let's all pay attention here. This road has been tried before. It goes worse than nowhere, worse than hell, and it's not even paved with good intentions.

You clearly misunderstood what I said and I really think that trying to explain myself to you would be, fruitless, and a waste of both our time.

However, I do feel compelled to correct this bit of historical trivia. George Lincoln Rockwell sought an alliance with the Nation of Islam because they had some anti-semitic leanings, and they discouraged miscegenation, but mostly because they favored segregation, just as he did. He loved Elijah Mohammed's idea of African-Americans going back to Africa. That was the basis of the relationship between the two.

Rockwell was killed by one of his former henchmen John Patler (AKA Yanacki Patsalos) coming out of a laundromat. Patler's motivation for killing Rockwell was largely the result of Rockwell kicking Patler out of the ANP for dereliction of his duties and a number of other things, not to mention he wasn't exactly the picture of psychological stability, beforehand. It had nothing to do with the brief association with the Nation of Islam.

[S.Artesian]

You clearly misunderstood what I said and I really think that trying to explain myself to you would be, fruitless, and a waste of both our time.

However, I do feel compelled to correct this bit of historical trivia. George Lincoln Rockwell sought an alliance with the Nation of Islam because they had some anti-semitic leanings, and they discouraged miscegenation, but mostly because they favored segregation, just as he did. He loved Elijah Mohammed's idea of African-Americans going back to Africa. That was the basis of the relationship between the two.

Rockwell was killed by one of his former henchmen John Patler (AKA Yanacki Patsalos) coming out of a laundromat. Patler's motivation for killing Rockwell was largely the result of Rockwell kicking Patler out of the ANP for dereliction of his duties and a number of other things, not to mention he wasn't exactly the picture of psychological stability, beforehand. It had nothing to do with the brief association with the Nation of Islam.

You clearly miss the point. There was a superficial similarity of interests between the Muslims and Rockwell. They were for segregation, he was for segregation. They were opposed to miscegenation, he was opposed to miscegenation. Rockwell thought he had something in common, especially after Malcolm advised him that payback was more than a possibility if Rockwell attacked demonstrators in the South. Amazing how a rifle can make you think you have something in common with the guy holding the rifle.

There was/is no similarity. Different social origins, different social classes, different social needs. That's the point. The apparent convergence was no more of a possibility between the Muslims and the Nazis as social forces than it was for the small c communist workers and the SA or red browns in Germany. Different, opposed social forces. You can have a convergence all right, like on a battlefield.

As for Rockwell's murder, Patler always maintained his innocence and no direct evidence ever linked him to the attack. He was convicted on purely circumstantial evidence and a history of antipathy to Rockwell.

You can believe what you want to believe, and if it's what the state prosecutors tell you to believe, goody for you. But spare us your "setting the record straight" when all you're doing is repeating the argument of the state prosecutors.

Hey, don't explain to me how some force is going to reform capitalism. Explain it to others. I think this thread has over 1000 views. So why not take advantage, and tell us NOW how right NOW, those changes are going to be made by capitalism to usher in an era of enlightened accumulation?

[Philzer]

Never said labor in the US was cheapest. Said it was the most productive and it is that very productivity of labor that drives down the rate of profit.And so capital goes some where, where the preponderant weight of fixed capital can be offset by really cheap labor in at the start, low value, high labor intensity operations-- like China. .

Consensus.

And theese different productivity and of cours cheapness is the motor for every modern transnational democracies. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?t=131250)

The economic interesting thing is the direction of surplusvalue/surplusprofit.
Read Marx and interpret his economic rules in a new global way!

Is here anybody who knows the "billion of billion of billion of billion" debts which have the USA in China?

Conclusion:

I cannot believe, that peoples which are benefit of this principles of the modern democracy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?t=131250), will starting a world revolution. There has never been this and will never be it.

Kind regard.

[S.Artesian]

Consensus.

And theese different productivity and of cours cheapness is the motor for every modern transnational democracies. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?t=131250)

The economic interesting thing is the direction of surplusvalue/surplusprofit.
Read Marx and interpret his economic rules in a new global way!

Is here anybody who knows the "billion of billion of billion of billion" debts which have the USA in China?

Conclusion:

I cannot believe, that peoples which are benefit of this principles of the modern democracy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?t=131250), will starting a world revolution. There has never been this and will never be it.

Kind regard.


China's central bank has about $2 trillion in foreign reserves and approximately $800 billion in US Treasury debt instruments. Where did that money come from? Well here's a thought-- multinational corporations have invested approximately $800 billion in China over the last 25 years-- not that there is a 1:1 correspondence...

But... but since exports account for 30-40% of China's GDP and more than half [in some sectors 80%] of those export revenues are controlled by, owned, by FDI corporations or partnerships, we have a good "start," don't we? For the most part, those revenues are kept on deposit in China with state, regional banks who must exchange those dollars with the central bank for yuan.?

I think the supposed "leverage" of China over the US is a complete myth. China can't do a thing with those foreign reserves, with those US Treasury instruments, without plunging itself into an economic contraction that will make the current US, and global, problems look like holiday celebration.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/ezimagecatalogue/catalogue/variations/3077-400x500.jpg

[Die Neue Zeit]

And? That's just proof of one aspect of the Iron Law of Disproportionate Immiseration.


Hey, don't explain to me how some force is going to reform capitalism. Explain it to others. I think this thread has over 1000 views. So why not take advantage, and tell us NOW how right NOW, those changes are going to be made by capitalism to usher in an era of enlightened accumulation?

You need to read more on political program and the two or three minimum program models in the Marxist tradition.

[Psy]

Are there offsetting tendencies, yes or no? Is war an offsetting tendency, yes or no? We all know that in the very long run the ROP can approach zero. That's the abstract. We're dealing with the concrete. Does the lowered rate of profit since 1973 mean that the US bourgeoisie are without resources to maintain their class rule? Can the US bourgeoisie offset the lowered rate of profit?


Based on the last 37 years, the answers are-- to the first question, "NO, they are not without such resources." to the second, "Yes, they can, by maintaining their class rule, liquidating assets, lowering wages, attacking living standards; by doing all those things they do so well."


Besides, as Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead."

Right but in the long long run it seems capitalism will eventually hit a barrier to further growth in the form of commodities have low exchange values while capital has a relative high exchange value (meaning it becomes more costly to produce commodities while commodities exchange for less).

We are not talking even the near future we are talking a very long term trend that up to this point capitalism doesn't seem to buck as we see commodities getting cheaper while debt goes up.



Are you talking about cheaper in terms of less value, or cheaper in terms of less cost price, or cheaper in terms of lower market price?

In terms of exchange value



No, the bourgeoisie do not have to solve the problem of overproduction. They can't solve the problem of overproduction. If they could, they wouldn't be the bourgeoisie, capital wouldn't be capital, and there would be no necessity for revolution. What they can do is not go anywhere, but stay right where they are, in power, by forcing the costs of their mode of accumulation onto the living standards of everybody else, thus restoring, even temporarily a rate of profit, which of course leads us right back to overproduction.

Hey, that sounds exactly what the bourgeoisie have done since in the past 12 months doesn't it? They sure didn't collapse did they? The US bourgeoisie has hardly been exposed as the "weak sister" in the capitalist daisy chain, has it?

Right but that would just lead to stagnation and a slow decline.



This conversation is becoming inane. You started out your argument about electrification being so much more efficient by arguing that electrification means better power to weight ratios, which according to you means more productivity, which means I guess better horsepower ratios, higher tractive efforts, meaning less locomotive power to handle greater tonnages. Now you're telling me that power to weight ratios mean you can run smaller trains more cheaply.

So tell me what are the costs, the operating/maintenance/and capital costs for Japan's mode of operation, and what sort of operating ratios, rates of return on investment does Japan generate in this mode?

2004 numbers
22.6 billion tonne/km
2.67 billion Yen operating profit for 2003
Mostly light freight as most bulk goods are shipped by boat

On average a train driver in Japan will move 2.1 million tonnes per year while the average truck driver in Japan moves on average 240,000 tonnes per year.

This is with a sharp decline of freight on Japanese railways that peaked in 1970 with 193 million tonnes down to 37.87 million tonnes in 2004



Capitalism isn't interested in solving its contradictions. It's interested in reproducing them, leveraging them, making money out of them. Right, so we can push the crisis in 1970, 1974, 1980, 1991, 2001-- we can push everything for 37 years, but not 40 years? Not 50 years? No more "pushing"? You haven't shown why today's contradictions mean the end of capitalism as we know it. And since these are not, by your very admission NEW contradictions, then we need to know why now they are the death rattle of capitalism. You need to show how the quantity of these contradictions has transformed itself into a new quality of contradiction that says, "Game Over."

As the crisis is pushed forward capital becomes more costs as debt increases this is while the rate of profit is going down. This means they have to service larger debts with less surplus value. The only real counteraction is expansion, finding new sources of surplus value.




See previous comments. It doesn't matter what the bourgeoisie want or don't want capitalism to do; it doesn't matter if some oppose the invasion of Iraq or some support it. It matters what capitalism requires of the bourgeoisie. War is one of those requirements. War is the necessary complement of "expansion."

It does as the ruling class does not want a world war as would mean their lives being snuffed out in a nuclear war. Why would capitalists in the US want to die from Russian ICBMs just so the US could annex Russia that would be destroyed by US ICBMs? So there are hard limits of imperialist expansion due to nuclear technology.




So that's a different name for a different game? Or a different name for the same game? And how does any part of these name games you're playing support your original claims about the fall in profitability of US railroads over the last decade sounding the death knell for US capitalism?

Well for national railways it is ensuring the infrastructure exists to support industrial capitalism yet as austerity takes hold the infrastructure becomes endangered.

[RadioRaheem84]

It wold obviously require political change, but is not so extreme as to be impossible. What are you a reformist now?


To say that it wouldn't mean anything is also erroneous. Signing the Kyoto accords, joining the international consensus and ending the aparthied in Palestine, abiding by international law (Read; an end to US presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) would mean a lot for millions of people. It also doesn't negate the possibility of other positive changes.How would this happen without major changes in class power? Especially in the US? You keep sidetracking all of the threads in here with your liberal-ish drivel. Then you whine that people are misreading you, misrepresenting what you're saying, and that there is this huge language barrier, whenever someone replies back to you.

Forgive me, but what the hell are you doing on this website? I mean how the hell did you not think that the goals of the things listed above would not come about in full stride or have a lasting impact without major class change? To not know otherwise is to not have a class analysis of things and instead harbor wishful reformist thinking. I mean how do you not even see that a lot the initiatives listed above as not already compromised by the class power that put them into the international political discourse?

Now, I'll just wait for some mod or sympathetic poster to come to your aid, and try to explain your liberal-ish rant in a way that fits the ideology of this forum. Compliments of all the atheist stuff you've contributed to in another forum.



Hey, don't explain to me how some force is going to reform capitalism. Explain it to others. I think this thread has over 1000 views. So why not take advantage, and tell us NOW how right NOW, those changes are going to be made by capitalism to usher in an era of enlightened accumulation? I know I am still waiting.

[S.Artesian]

And? That's just proof of one aspect of the Iron Law of Disproportionate Immiseration.

To exactly what are your referring, your Kaustkyness?


You need to read more on political program and the two or three minimum program models in the Marxist tradition.


Sure. Just as soon as I can get around to it, I'll be basing my programmatic work on programs that are 100 years old and more. Sure thing. Count on it. Bet the rent money. Hell, bet the whole ranch on it. And then, after that I'm going to base my whole program on the "foco" theory of guerrilla warfare as advanced by Regis Debray.

Hey whatever happened to old Regis? Recuperated into the French government you say? What a surprise.

You need to study a bit more about capital, about how it actually functions and why everything you advance is just one more regression in class struggle.

Let me know if I can be of assistance to you in your efforts to understand exactly what it is Marx had in mind with the terms "class struggle," and "social revolution."

Oh... you think I left out Chavez's government? So you think Marxists should be in Chavez's government, administering a "kindler, gentler" capitalism, so what... so Marxists can be held responsible for the electricity shortages, the inflation, the black market, for the coming struggle to hold down workers' wages?

Nope, little old ultra-left me says no government position for me. No problem working in the community councils, no problem in the factory committees, big problem accepting positions in the government. I'm just old-fashioned in that regard.

[S.Artesian]

Right but in the long long run it seems capitalism will eventually hit a barrier to further growth in the form of commodities have low exchange values while capital has a relative high exchange value (meaning it becomes more costly to produce commodities while commodities exchange for less)......

.....We are not talking even the near future we are talking a very long term trend that up to this point capitalism doesn't seem to buck as we see commodities getting cheaper while debt goes up.




....Right but that would just lead to stagnation and a slow decline.




Your post is so confused, such a mish-mash of misinformation, partial information etc etc. it's really not worth going over in detail.

Let me just point out that you've changed from "the end of the [capitalist]world is near," to "in the long run...."

[Die Neue Zeit]

To exactly what are your referring, your Kautskyness?

Very nice. :rolleyes:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/rising-wagesi-t139444/index.html?p=1818957 (answer)


Oh... you think I left out Chavez's government? So you think Marxists should be in Chavez's government, administering a "kindler, gentler" capitalism, so what... so Marxists can be held responsible for the electricity shortages, the inflation, the black market, for the coming struggle to hold down workers' wages?

Nope, little old ultra-left me says no government position for me. No problem working in the community councils, no problem in the factory committees, big problem accepting positions in the government. I'm just old-fashioned in that regard.

I said "depending on which level of government and political orientation (communal, local, municipal, state/provincial, federal), a Yes vote for government coalitions." Despite federal votes of confidence, I'm not keen on entering Chavez's cabinet myself, but the communal councils are part of the Venezuelan governmental system, intended to supplement or supplant later on the local and municipal governments.

Entry into left-leaning local or municipal government coalitions could smooth relations with the communal councils and the new organs set up by the Organic Law on Communes.

The state/provincial level is a level that I'm not sure of, precisely because the Capital District is on the same level as the other states, because the Capital District's governmental head is appointed by Chavez himself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_Capital_District) (to bypass any opposition gains in the official municipio area), and because the Capital District can interact with communal councils in Caracas.

I'm inclined towards a No for the other states, but towards a Yes for the Capital District.

[NGNM85]

You clearly miss the point. There was a superficial similarity of interests between the Muslims and Rockwell. They were for segregation, he was for segregation. They were opposed to miscegenation, he was opposed to miscegenation. Rockwell thought he had something in common, especially after Malcolm advised him that payback was more than a possibility if Rockwell attacked demonstrators in the South.

That is essentially correct.


Amazing how a rifle can make you think you have something in common with the guy holding the rifle.

???


There was/is no similarity. Different social origins, different social classes, different social needs. That's the point. The apparent convergence was no more of a possibility between the Muslims and the Nazis as social forces than it was for the small c communist workers and the SA or red browns in Germany. Different, opposed social forces. You can have a convergence all right, like on a battlefield.

They had specific ideological points of agreement. (The ANP and the Nation of Islam.)

Rockwell was a neo-Nazi. He was just a third-rate imposter. Don’t give him more credit than he deserves.


As for Rockwell's murder, Patler always maintained his innocence

Which means absolutely nothing.

and no direct evidence ever linked him to the attack. He was convicted on purely circumstantial evidence and a history of antipathy to Rockwell.


You can believe what you want to believe, and if it's what the state prosecutors tell you to believe, goody for you. But spare us your "setting the record straight" when all you're doing is repeating the argument of the state prosecutors.


He had expressed a desire to get even with Rockwell, he had the murder weapon, and was in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene. He had means, motive, and opportunity. Just because it’s not impossible doesn’t mean that there, in fact, was a conspiracy. I am not simply taking the prosecutors word for it, it’s the most plausible explanation. You overlook that the evidence of your conspiracy is significantly less substantial. This is a textbook example of the flaws in conspiracist thinking.


Hey, don't explain to me how some force is going to reform capitalism. Explain it to others. I think this thread has over 1000 views. So why not take advantage, and tell us NOW how right NOW, those changes are going to be made by capitalism to usher in an era of enlightened accumulation?

I’m not even sure what you’re rambling about. First, the economic system in the US, today, is not capitalism. However, we can continue calling it capitalism, a lot of people do. ‘Capitalism’ is an economic system comprised of billions of actors engaged in different types of relationships, it is a type of economic system, it is not a person, it does not have thoughts. In any case, what this has to do with anything is beyond me.

[S.Artesian]

I’m not even sure what you’re rambling about. First, the economic system in the US, today, is not capitalism. However, we can continue calling it capitalism, a lot of people do. ‘Capitalism’ is an economic system comprised of billions of actors engaged in different types of relationships, it is a type of economic system, it is not a person, it does not have thoughts. In any case, what this has to do with anything is beyond me.


There it is. Not capitalism? Of course this is capitalism, a social organization of labor, a relation of property to labor, a mode of accumulation that has certain requirements for its maintenance, for its continued reproduction, for the continued appropriation of value.

Capitalism isn't individual actors, it's how accumulation is organized; it's a class relation, that once organized places demands regardless of the "wills" of the individuals claiming to be, or in your case, claiming not to be capitalists.

[S.Artesian]

Very nice. :rolleyes:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/rising-wagesi-t139444/index.html?p=1818957 (answer)


Gee, I'm glad you think so highly of yourself, going beyond Marx and all that, but if it's an "Iron Law" then it applies at all times, and at all points, to all, in capitalism's development and appropriation.

So that would mean during the "good times" we should see your iron law of disproportionate immiseration.

So first, in the period of the "long deflation"-- which certainly was NO long depression since economic activity did not continuously contract-- 1873-1898, we see periods where wages in the US decline nominally, but where real wages actually gain modestly as prices for food, rents, clothing drop by 30% or more.

And in the 1945-1973 period, we see real gains by real sectors of the working class in wages and benefits; we actually see improvements in over mitigations of misery-- things like declines in the rate of children born into poverty, etc.

Uh.. not to put too fine a point on it, but that's why the 1945-1973 period is different from the post 1973 period, and even in the post 1973 period we see a bit "cyclicality" in the trend toward greater immiseration.

Call me thick or slow, but I just don't get "iron laws." Sounds a bit too Lassallean for me. I understand tendencies, like the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, but iron laws usually turn out to exist only in the mind of the would-be lawyer.



I said "depending on which level of government and political orientation (communal, local, municipal, state/provincial, federal), a Yes vote for government coalitions." Despite federal votes of confidence, I'm not keen on entering Chavez's cabinet myself, but the communal councils are part of the Venezuelan governmental system, intended to supplement or supplant later on the local and municipal governments.

That's like saying the soviets in pre-October 1917 were part of the Russian government system because parties that were in the provisional government also had representatives elected to the soviet. That's like saying the cordones industriales in Chile were part of the UP government itself.

Your gymnastic ability, bending, turning, twisting to fit yourself through the eye of every needle is quite impressive. Unfortunately, history isn't a floor exercise, and when we talk about "uneven" we're talking about capitalist development and class struggle, not the parallel bars.

[Philzer]

Hi Artesian!

I`m afraid we totally talk at cross-purposes.


China's central bank has about $2 trillion .....

But... but since exports account for 30-40% of China's GDP and more .....

I think the supposed "leverage" of China over the US is a complete myth. China can't do a thing with those foreign reserves, with those US Treasury instruments, without plunging itself into an economic contraction that will make the current US, and global, problems look like holiday celebration.

Of course China can even never demand something of the USA, as long as they would not be the bigger military powered nation.

They can never call also debts. What would be the answer of the USA: LOL.

But this is why it did not go for me at all.

I wanted to point out merely to the fact, that all people of the west, so all real democracies, of it benefit to buy cheap worker-output from all over the world. In China the individuals work approx. for 85 cents / By hour and in India for approx. 15 cents / By hour and her products will exported to the peoples of the exploiter-democratic-nations (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?t=131250). And this is this principle, so unequal wage for the same work, prinzip of every sucsessfully democracy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?t=131250). The democrat profits from it, is corrupted and contented.

He will never make revolution. I wanted to say this.

Kind regards

[S.Artesian]

Hi Artesian!

I`m afraid we totally talk at cross-purposes.



Of course China can even never demand something of the USA, as long as they would not be the bigger military powered nation.

They can never call also debts. What would be the answer of the USA: LOL.

But this is why it did not go for me at all.

I wanted to point out merely to the fact, that all people of the west, so all real democracies, of it benefit to buy cheap worker-output from all over the world. In China the individuals work approx. for 85 cents / By hour and in India for approx. 15 cents / By hour and her products will exported to the peoples of the exploiter-democratic-nations (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?t=131250). And this is this principle, so unequal wage for the same work, prinzip of every sucsessfully democracy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?t=131250). The democrat profits from it, is corrupted and contented.

He will never make revolution. I wanted to say this.

Kind regards

Disagree. Not all people in the "west," benefit from the exploitation of labor in China, India, Senegal, wherever.

And if there are not prospects for successful socialist revolution the developed countries, there are no prospects for successful socialism period.

Kind regards to you also.

[Philzer]

Hi Artesian!

First: I do not mean this personally.


Disagree. Not all people in the "west," benefit from the exploitation of labor in China, India, Senegal, wherever...

And I also disagree.

Even the bad-most paid-up worker in the real democratic-exploiter-nations* still profits from it. Since he can buy back rather working hours of an Indian, for example, per month when he himself performs.

OK, in the USA ghettos I was not yet, can meet from there also no statement. Are the ghettos in the USA more sluggishly of revolutionary potential?

* You cannot deny that! (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1824137&postcount=9) Otherwise, I think it this the demonstration for your takeover of parts of the ideology of the bourgeois. Like democracy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/democracy-pantheism-bourgeoisie-t131250/index.html?t=131250), unscientific opinion about freedom and more. sorry

kind regards

[Die Neue Zeit]

Gee, I'm glad you think so highly of yourself, going beyond Marx and all that, but if it's an "Iron Law" then it applies at all times, and at all points, to all, in capitalism's development and appropriation.

So that would mean during the "good times" we should see your iron law of disproportionate immiseration.

"In the “trickle-down” best of times, workers’ incomes do not rise as rapidly as the incomes of those above them, and while immiserated further by costs on the growing but hidden consumer debt slavery that supports this disproportionate immiseration, they can be subject to the disproportionately immiserating effects of inflation."

Marx only wrote about wage increases as a percentage of profits. Here I also take into account not just inflation (real wage increases), but also consumer debts.


So first, in the period of the "long deflation"-- which certainly was NO long depression since economic activity did not continuously contract-- 1873-1898, we see periods where wages in the US decline nominally, but where real wages actually gain modestly as prices for food, rents, clothing drop by 30% or more.

Arthur Bough in his blog made that same counter-argument against my posts there, except he used the Great Depression.

My four-fold Iron Law is meant to show as many negative effects on workers wages as possible. It doesn't care about wage declines vs. sharper price declines, because during that particular time the Iron Law of Wages was in effect: absolute impoverishment of workers’ incomes towards subsistence levels.


And in the 1945-1973 period, we see real gains by real sectors of the working class in wages and benefits; we actually see improvements in over mitigations of misery-- things like declines in the rate of children born into poverty, etc.

The first feature of the Iron Law of Disproportionate Immiseration, as I wrote above, is still in effect though.


Call me thick or slow, but I just don't get "iron laws." Sounds a bit too Lassallean for me. I understand tendencies, like the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, but iron laws usually turn out to exist only in the mind of the would-be lawyer.

You don't appreciate how powerful Lassalle's agitation was. "Iron Law of Disproportionate Immiseration" sounds more emotionally appealing than the boring and academic "relative immiseration." Coming from a "schoolmaster" like me, this is quite ironic. :D


That's like saying the soviets in pre-October 1917 were part of the Russian government system because parties that were in the provisional government also had representatives elected to the soviet. That's like saying the cordones industriales in Chile were part of the UP government itself.

But the communal councils are organs of Petit-Bourgeois Democratism. It's like a hypothetical setup of similar grassroots organs by some Red Tory movement in the UK.

[RadioRaheem84]

I’m not even sure what you’re rambling about. First, the economic system in the US, today, is not capitalism. However, we can continue calling it capitalism, a lot of people do. ‘Capitalism’ is an economic system comprised of billions of actors engaged in different types of relationships, it is a type of economic system, it is not a person, it does not have thoughts. In any case, what this has to do with anything is beyond me.

How the fuck does this guy keep getting away with these inane statements on this forum?

He doesn't even understand the basics! It would be one thing if the wanted to but he insists, rather brazenly, that he is correct and we're all misrepresenting what he is saying all of the time.

Goddamn, people skip over his remarks like it's nothing. S.Artesian thank your calling this guy out on his BS.

[S.Artesian]

"In the “trickle-down” best of times, workers’ incomes do not rise as rapidly as the incomes of those above them, and while immiserated further by costs on the growing but hidden consumer debt slavery that supports this disproportionate immiseration, they can be subject to the disproportionately immiserating effects of inflation."

Ummh.....no, it's not that iron a law because e consumer debt as a portion of disposable income has a "cyclicality" to it also, even within a general trend. All you'redoing is putting some different language to the old "iron law of wages" argument, or to the not very new news that sooner or later capitalism has to attack every bit of advancement, every manifestation of social welfare that it originally "spun off" from its intensified exploitation of labor.

Actually this, using some rarified language to arrive at the most pedestrian and mistaken of positions is exactly what you did on the political front with your "communitarian populist front.."

Between 1945-1970 real wages in the US increased, that is adjusted for inflation; real disposable income increased. Debt as a percentage of real disposable income does not always increase at the same rate. Now maybe that's just a blip, but iron laws are not supposed to allow blips.


Marx only wrote about wage increases as a percentage of profits. Here I also take into account not just inflation (real wage increases), but also consumer debts.

Ummh... no again. Marx wrote about wage increases in relation to total capital expenditure, and to the proportion of surplus value "surrendered" under the mask of higher wages.



It doesn't care about wage declines vs. sharper price declines, because during that particular time the Iron Law of Wages was in effect: absolute impoverishment of workers’ incomes towards subsistence levels.

Ummh... no one mo' time as that-- absolute impoverishment of workers' incomes towards subsistence levels did not occur-- did not occur "with iron inflexibility" between 1873-1898, and did not happen in the US between 1945-1970.



You don't appreciate how powerful Lassalle's agitation was. "Iron Law of Disproportionate Immiseration" sounds more emotionally appealing than the boring and academic "relative immiseration." Coming from a "schoolmaster" like me, this is quite ironic. :D

Ummh.... exactly who finds it so much more emotionally appealing? Why? and most importantly, when? I don't find anything about Lassalle appealing as a matter of fact. Don't much care for how Marx and Engels spoke about him in their correspondence, but doesn't change Lassalle's misapprehension and mis-characterization of capitalism.



But the communal councils are organs of Petit-Bourgeois Democratism. It's like a hypothetical setup of similar grassroots organs by some Red Tory movement in the UK.

WTF? Ten depreciated US dollars to anyone other than DNZ who can explain exactly what that means... unless of course if it means DNZ's fascination with the "3rd period" has taken him completely over the edge and we will see him in the background of videos showing Cameron leading thousands of angry bondholders in a showdown with the National Health Service. If that's what it is, I'm keeping the 10 bucks.

[S.Artesian]

Hi Artesian!

First: I do not mean this personally.



And I also disagree.

Even the bad-most paid-up worker in the real democratic-exploiter-nations* still profits from it. Since he can buy back rather working hours of an Indian, for example, per month when he himself performs.

That's not so. You're assuming what has to be shown. You're argument essentially means that any worker in a finishing industry, for example specialty steel production, or transportation, or automobile production benefits, and actually profits from the lower wages paid to workers in agricultural, raw products, extractive, and service industries, etc.

In reality, you see the lower wages paid anywhere used as the lever to move workers everywhere down the wage ladder.

Case in point... US production worker wages.

[NGNM85]

There it is. Not capitalism? Of course this is capitalism, a social organization of labor, a relation of property to labor, a mode of accumulation that has certain requirements for its maintenance, for its continued reproduction, for the continued appropriation of value.

We've identified where the problem is, then. The current paradigm would be more correctly described as 'corporate mercantilism', or at least by modifying the word capitalism with something like 'state.'


Capitalism isn't individual actors, it's how accumulation is organized; it's a class relation,

It's an economic system...


that once organized places demands regardless of the "wills" of the individuals claiming to be, or in your case, claiming not to be capitalists.

Ok. Of course, what this has to do with anything is beyond me.

[S.Artesian]

We've identified where the problem is, then. The current paradigm would be more correctly described as 'corporate mercantilism', or at least by modifying the word capitalism with something like 'state.'



It's an economic system...



Ok. Of course, what this has to do with anything is beyond me.


blahblahblahblah-- corporate mercantilism, blahblahblah, state capitalism, blahblahblhablah--economic system.

No shit? Economic system? Who would have ever thunk of that? And exactly what defines an economic system, if not the organization of labor, the relationship of labor to the accrual of the products of labor which is called... property?

Yeah everything is beyond you, particularly making the least bit of sense about anything you propose, advocate, or pretend to know.

[NGNM85]

blahblahblahblah-- corporate mercantilism, blahblahblah, state capitalism, blahblahblhablah--economic system.

Very impressive.


No shit? Economic system? Who would have ever thunk of that? And exactly what defines an economic system, if not the organization of labor, the relationship of labor to the accrual of the products of labor which is called... property?

Ok. That's like saying communism is a dictatorship with a command economy.


Yeah everything is beyond you, particularly making the least bit of sense about anything you propose, advocate, or pretend to know.

I stated that the US is the sole global hyperpower, thus being in a position to exert substantial influence, as it regularly does. I said that even a few extremely modest, achievable policy changes would have a substantial beneficial impact for an enormous number of people.

This prompted an avalanche of nonsense that has no apparent relation to what I said.

[S.Artesian]

I stated that the US is the sole global hyperpower, thus being in a position to exert substantial influence, as it regularly does. I said that even a few extremely modest, achievable policy changes would have a substantial beneficial impact for an enormous number of people.

This prompted an avalanche of nonsense that has no apparent relation to what I said.

Nope. That's not what is going on here. What is going on is that you have avoided saying how the US can be moved to accomplish even one of those "extremely modest, achievable policy changes."

You were challenged as to the agent for executing these modest, achievable changes, and you have used every post since then to evade that challenge.

So exactly how can the US, given its current economic, class, capitalist rule be compelled or convinced to make such substantial changes?

This is not a trick question. And you can ask others to help you should be incapable of providing an answer yourself.

[danyboy27]

Nope. That's not what is going on here. What is going on is that you have avoided saying how the US can be moved to accomplish even one of those "extremely modest, achievable policy changes."

You were challenged as to the agent for executing these modest, achievable changes, and you have used every post since then to evade that challenge.

So exactly how can the US, given its current economic, class, capitalist rule be compelled or convinced to make such substantial changes?

This is not a trick question. And you can ask others to help you should be incapable of providing an answer yourself.

well, a certain radicalization of the democrat that would lead to a certain form of isolationism doctrine, and dismantle us bases oversea would actually be beneficial to the world.

we are obviously not there yet, but if the us population that actually care would actually make a move and topple that governement by something more egualitarian, well its hard to deny that the possibilites for that world are endless.

[S.Artesian]

well, a certain radicalization of the democrat that would lead to a certain form of isolationism doctrine, and dismantle us bases oversea would actually be beneficial to the world.

we are obviously not there yet, but if the us population that actually care would actually make a move and topple that governement by something more egualitarian, well its hard to deny that the possibilites for that world are endless.

That's not what'shisname's argument. He is not arguing for a change that involves toppling the government. He made that quite clear much earlier.

[RadioRaheem84]

That's not what'shisname's argument. He is not arguing for a change that involves toppling the government. He made that quite clear much earlier.


I think NGN did say that after a revolution, if I am not mistaken. But that was before he was making the argument that the current US State could improve lives by making these modest reforms. So I really do not know what he meant entirely by his faulty argument.

He doesn't even get how a lot of the things he listed are compromised to begin with and or doesn't explain why the 'new' revolutionary government cannot create better alternatives that would really have a lasting impact. He just starts off with the premise that the propositions made by Western capitalist democracies are just good and need defense, even in the event of total change?

I meant it was a seriously flawed liberal answer and he tried to cover his ass about it. And like I figured someone in here (sorry it had to be you Dannyboy) tried to make it fit within the ideology of this forum. It happens a lot with NGN.

He will try to come back at you with a plethora of posts saying that you misread him, misrepresented him or that there is a language barrier between the both of you.

[RadioRaheem84]

I stated that the US is the sole global hyperpower, thus being in a position to exert substantial influence, as it regularly does. I said that even a few extremely modest, achievable policy changes would have a substantial beneficial impact for an enormous number of people.

Again, this doesn't answer the question as to how would these modest reforms even come about with a major change in political class power?


This prompted an avalanche of nonsense that has no apparent relation to what I said.

No one is misrepresenting or misreading you. You're just wrong and cannot 'fess up to it.

[RadioRaheem84]

We've identified where the problem is, then. The current paradigm would be more correctly described as 'corporate mercantilism', or at least by modifying the word capitalism with something like 'state.'Shut up. Just shut up. You're getting completely annoying now and are the most unintentional troll on this board. Can an unintentional troll even be called a troll? :confused:
To say things like 'it's mercantilism' and not 'capitalism' is spurious and reeks of right libertarian bullshit.


It's an economic system...Damn, you do not even know the basics of the basics:


The essential contention of Marxism is that anyone who says “the economy,” is stupid. To redo a well-known recent saying “it's the economy, stupid.” If you say “the economy,” you show you're stupid. There's no such thing as the economy. There is not a unity between the forces of production and the relations of production. So, you could condense the whole of the manifesto and three volumes of Das Kapital into that - the forces and relations of production are not the same. The ability to mine coal and to use that to make iron ore into steel is something that is socially in common. It's collectively done. And the mobilization for it is social but the profit goes to a small group of people, so the product of it is not shared. Thus to speak of this as an industrial revolution or a new economy is false. It's just a refinement of old patterns of exploitation for modern purposes. You could do without this class and the same amount of production could be done. Or indeed, more could be done because there'd be no need for scarcity.
- Christopher Hitchens, Heaven on Earth
http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/interviews_hitchens.html

How the hell do you not see it as being largely social? That is the first step to being a radical, because then you know that it can be changed. Even Hitch gets the gist of it.


Ok. Of course, what this has to do with anything is beyond me. That's the "economy"!

Goddamn, I hate to be such an ass but how can you come in here with such an arrogant attitude about being so terribly wrong?

[NGNM85]

Nope. That's not what is going on here. What is going on is that you have avoided saying how the US can be moved to accomplish even one of those "extremely modest, achievable policy changes."

You were challenged as to the agent for executing these modest, achievable changes, and you have used every post since then to evade that challenge.

That isn’t what you said. You posted a slew of incoherent nonsense.


So exactly how can the US, given its current economic, class, capitalist rule be compelled or convinced to make such substantial changes?

This is not a trick question. And you can ask others to help you should be incapable of providing an answer yourself.

How does any progress happen? Why do you think it’s suddenly so much more technical and sophisticated? It’s no different from civil rights, the labor movement, etc. The principle is the same. Arguably the biggest obstacle right now to these international issues, is the enormous domestic problems we face; record unemployment, etc. However, acting on these domestic issues isn’t much different, if anything, it should be easier. All I said was even fairly minor and achievable changes would make a hell of a lot of difference to a lot of people. You don’t have to overthrow the government to get better environmental legislation, or national healthcare, or whatever. That’s not to say whether we should or should not, that’s another subject, but it isn’t a sufficient condition.


That's not what'shisname's argument. He is not arguing for a change that involves toppling the government. He made that quite clear much earlier.

You really do yourself a disservice with crap like this.

[RadioRaheem84]

NGN, most of the major changes in this country happened because of popular struggle and threat of total revolution. They were concessions by the ruling class. Real change won't come from that class, espsecially concerning issues regarding the third world. The third world is tied with economic interests and is also a reason for the concessions we recieve at home. No mixed western or developed nation gives up that much power without knowing they have the third world in reserve. You need to just give it up.

Stop coming in here and accusing the other comrades of misinterpreting what you said. S. Artisien understood your BS just fine he just thought it was reformist bile.

[RadioRaheem84]

Oh and what happened to corporate communism, NGN? Now it's corporate mercantilism?

[NGNM85]

NGN, most of the major changes in this country happened because of popular struggle and threat of total revolution.

It happened because people made it happen.


They were concessions by the ruling class.

They were forced to concede.


Real change won't come from that class, espsecially concerning issues regarding the third world.

I didn't say otherwise.


The third world is tied with economic interests and is also a reason for the concessions we receive at home. No mixed western or developed nation gives up that much power without knowing they have the third world in reserve. You need to just give it up.

It's not clear what you're talking about so I can't agree or disagree.


Stop coming in here and accusing the other comrades of misinterpreting what you said. S. Artisien understood your BS just fine he just thought it was reformist bile.

Clearly he did not, and neither did you.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Ummh.....no, it's not that iron a law because e consumer debt as a portion of disposable income has a "cyclicality" to it also, even within a general trend. All you'redoing is putting some different language to the old "iron law of wages" argument, or to the not very new news that sooner or later capitalism has to attack every bit of advancement, every manifestation of social welfare that it originally "spun off" from its intensified exploitation of labor.

The Iron Law of Wages was faulty in emphasizing population growth. Paul Cockshott did make a different argument, in that the size of a national labour market can determine bargaining power. He says the bargaining power of Chinese workers will rise further, and when I tried to point to outsourcing towards Africa, he effectively countered me:

http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2010/04/28/greece-and-the-gaffe/


I’d like to ask a very, very belated question You said:

“In commonsense terms, labour will be in short supply relative to capital, which will strengthen the bargaining position of labour and weaken that of capital. Overall the tendancies that Marx identified, and which came to fruition first in Britain (de te fabula natur), are now being played out on a world scale, and on a world scale, they will reproduce the rise of Labour that we experienced a century ago.”

And:

“My position is that as the world reserves of labour are used up the relative strength of labour will increase against capital internationally. Until this point is reached there remains the opportunity for profitable capital accumulation. Hence we can not say even now that capitalism has reached the end of its potential on a world scale. Projecting forward, over-accumulation of capital in China will be come marked in about 15 years, but in India and Africa the turning point will be some decades later.”

I am actually concerned about Africa. There’s a huge reserve pool of labour there that, with sufficient capitalist development, could prevent labour from being in short supply relative to capital.


Africa is not so huge relative to China which will be the main capital exporting nation sending capital to Africa. I anticipate relatively rapid industrial development in Africa as a result.


Outsourcing to Africa will mean even lower manufacturing and other “industrial” (primary and secondary) wages than the original outsourcing to China. And yes, I too notice the outsourcing from China itself.


You are right wages would be lower but my comparison is with the respite that africa gave french and british capitalism a century ago. Because China is so much larger relative to Africa the rate of industrialisation will be faster and in consequence the respite for the chinese rate of profit shorter. You have to take the long view here.




Between 1945-1970 real wages in the US increased, that is adjusted for inflation; real disposable income increased. Debt as a percentage of real disposable income does not always increase at the same rate. Now maybe that's just a blip, but iron laws are not supposed to allow blips.

In that older Learning thread, I noted only three instances when real wages worldwide increased: after the Long Depression but before WWI, the inter-war years, and the post-WWII boom that you already mentioned.

Look at my Draft Program further down again. Macro-capitalism or the more traditional word "imperialism" explains things further:

If certain, nation-based divisions of global labour are not as disproportionately immiserated in comparison to worldwide labour as a whole, it is because the iron law is devastating many other divisions of global labour [...]

From there, I list the features of macro-capitalism today which should be familiar to you in relation to Kautsky's and Lenin's outline, adding one-liners for David Harvey, Rosa Luxemburg, and currency regimes - and also reversing the export of capital with "including continuous imports of the latter which facilitates structural budget and trade deficits."


Ummh... no one mo' time as that-- absolute impoverishment of workers' incomes towards subsistence levels did not occur-- did not occur "with iron inflexibility" between 1873-1898, and did not happen in the US between 1945-1970.

Absolute impoverishment, again, is only the fourth feature. The four-fold Iron Law covers what features apply under which situations, from boom to bust and worse.


WTF? Ten depreciated US dollars to anyone other than DNZ who can explain exactly what that means... unless of course if it means DNZ's fascination with the "3rd period" has taken him completely over the edge and we will see him in the background of videos showing Cameron leading thousands of angry bondholders in a showdown with the National Health Service. If that's what it is, I'm keeping the 10 bucks.

Venezuela's communal councils as they are today don't have an explicitly class character. They are more like Switzerland's communal parliaments and communal councils. Burn your ten bucks away! :D

[RadioRaheem84]

It happened because people made it happen.



They were forced to concede.



I didn't say otherwise.


.
It's not clear what you're talking about so I can't agree or disagree.



Clearly he did not, and neither did you.

NGN, what did you think I meant by the ruling class giving us concessions? I meant that the class struggle in the western nations has advanced to a favorable condition due to the threat of revolt. They did so also knowing that have extensive resources in the third world to exploit. Threfore it would be difficult for many of the things you listed to even happen without major political class change. Not to mention that many of the things listed are such compromised issues to begin with.

Comrades, why are there restricted people in the OI forum with a better understanding of the basics of capitalism and society, while NGN is still running around here thinking his liberalish nonsense is what a principled leftist should believe? I seriously want to know. It's would be one thing if he really wanted to debate and concede that maybe this or that position may not be leftist and we could find some common ground, but he is being very arrogant and acting as though his liberalish junk is the standard and the rest of us "just don't get it".

I mean does anyone in here think Tony Blair is leftist by any stretch of any political spectrum?

Anyone believe that political, economic, and social material condition do not play a major defining role in religious extremism? Anyone hold the idealist belief that it's these ideals that shape the world?

Anyone here believe that our current society in the US is not capitalist but some strang hybrid of communism and capitalism ala corporate communism? Now it's corporate mercantalism apparently? It seems like there are too many modifiers that keep the "natural" flow of market exchange, making it less capitalist?

Anyone?

[S.Artesian]

In that older Learning thread, I noted only three instances when real wages worldwide increased: after the Long Depression but before WWI, the inter-war years, and the post-WWII boom that you already mentioned.

Well then, leaving out the long deflation , we have the 1898-1914 period, the 1921-1930 period, the 1945-1973 period. So in the last 112 years, we have 53 years of "exceptions." That hardly conforms to the workings of an inflexible "iron law."


Look at my Draft Program further down again. Macro-capitalism or the more traditional word "imperialism" explains things further:

[I]If certain, nation-based divisions of global labour are not as disproportionately immiserated in comparison to worldwide labour as a whole, it is because the iron law is devastating many other divisions of global labour [...]

Really? Care to back that up with specific global data for the 1945-1973 period? Can you provide some index, and the method of deriving that index, for the overall level of immiseration in those "other division of global labour"?

The language you use makes me suspect that all you are doing here is recycling the argument that workers in advanced countries benefit from the superexploitation of labor in less advanced countries-- that there's a wage transfer going on along with surplus value expropriation. I'd like to see evidence, and mechanisms, by which that is achieved.




From there, I list the features of macro-capitalism today which should be familiar to you in relation to Kautsky's and Lenin's outline, adding one-liners for David Harvey, Rosa Luxemburg, and currency regimes - and also reversing the export of capital with "including continuous imports of the latter which facilitates structural budget and trade deficits."

Name-dropper. Shame on you. We're not trying to get into a disco here.


Ahh... structural budget and trade deficits? Can you provide more detail on that? Like what trade deficits, when adjust for related party trading?




Absolute impoverishment, again, is only the fourth feature. The four-fold Iron Law covers what features apply under which situations, from boom to bust and worse.

Only because you assume what you first need to prove...

[S.Artesian]

That isn’t what you said. You posted a slew of incoherent nonsense.

Here's what I actually said:


And what class with what power is going to do these things, to make these profound changes? What section of what class do you have in mind?





It’s no different from civil rights, the labor movement, etc. The principle is the same. Arguably the biggest obstacle right now to these international issues, is the enormous domestic problems we face; record unemployment, etc.

Well let's look at the civil rights movement. The material basis, the transformation in the social organization of labor that precipitated the civil rights movement was the transformation of Southern agriculture through its rapid and profound mechanization during the WW2 period and after. This shattered the old tenant-farming, share-cropping relations that had chained African-Americans to the land, and that had supported Jim Crow laws to keep African-Americans chained, and dependent on subsistence agriculture.

In addition, the war and post-war expansion brought African-Americans out of the South, out of the rural areas into the industrial centers of both North and South.

In short, the civil rights movement was precipitated by capitalism's need to access free labor, labor that is detached from the land and available for exploitation.

With that backdrop , there is the sustained and violent class struggle of African-Americans against the discrimination and terrorism of Jim Crow. There is the direct confrontation with the institutions, both in the North and South, that maintain segregation, that marginalize African-Americans, that enforce the true super-exploitation of black labor.

All of this occurs during the post-WW2 expansion. And when that expansion ends, what happens? The gains of that civil rights struggle, which is in essence a struggle for the emancipation of black labor, are attacked, stalemated, and rolled back... not completely of course. No, we have a "New South," but not because the South itself is that much newer, but also because the rest of the country, of the economy becomes much more like the South-- looking to drive black labor back into conditions of marginalization, exclusion, super-exploitation.

We get the attacks on affirmative action, increases in income gaps between blacks and whites, deterioration of health and education gains, greater numbers of children, black children, being born into poverty etc. etc. and all of this because capitalism is..... capitalism. And this occurs because the struggle for the emancipation of black labor did not complete itself because to do so it has to become the struggle for the emancipation of all labor.

So... today? No big economic expansion, is there? No big expansion of the industrial working class is there? Doesn't mean things can't change. It does mean that for any change to occur, a struggle for the emancipation of labor as the struggle for the emancipation of labor, for social revolution is essential.


However, acting on these domestic issues isn’t much different, if anything, it should be easier. All I said was even fairly minor and achievable changes would make a hell of a lot of difference to a lot of people. You don’t have to overthrow the government to get better environmental legislation, or national healthcare, or whatever. That’s not to say whether we should or should not, that’s another subject, but it isn’t a sufficient condition.

No, that's not all you said. You listed among your fairly minor changes, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You were asked to identify the agent for that change.

Ending those wars is not an easy task. Does that mean capitalism can't end those wars? All indications are that it cannot. It certainly didn't end the war with Iraq after Gulf War 1, did it? Imposing sanctions and assaults on Iraq that cost what? 600,000 children their lives, Ms. Albright? It certainly hasn't ended the war yet, and even when the US reduces its forces, to a mere 50,000, the devastation of Iraq society will continue.

And Afghanistan? The bourgeoisie may carry on those wars by other means, but that doesn't mean it will end that war either.

Might be helpful to look at the US engagement in Vietnam.

How did that war end, with a peace process? Negotiations? Protests? Congressional action? Not hardly. Casualties after the US Congress prohibited, in response to protests, ground combat by US forces exceeded casualties before that prohibition.

Release of transcripts of discussions between Kissinger and Nixon shows that they had every intention, desire in continuing the combat by other means, and believed they could win that war, even after negotiating the "peace" accords.

It took the military victory of the North Vietnamese Army, it took defeat on the battlefield of the capitalist proxy forces by the anti-capitalist NVA to end that war.

Regarding domestic legislation-- you can legislate anything you want, but the economy will determine whether or not the legislation has anything other than a momentary impact on the quality of human lives. That economy is telling you to, quite literally, fuck off and die.

The bourgeoisie believe, sincerely, that you can never be too rich or too thin. They can never be too rich. We can never be too thin.




You really do yourself a disservice with crap like this.

Considering the source of that evaluation, thank you for the compliment.

In the meantime, the original question stands. What agent for change will accomplish any of the things you think are relatively minor and easy?

[Paul Cockshott]

Gee, does comrade Cockshott know he's been recruited into your EMT Cardiac Intensive Care unit, trying to restart the heart of the long dead Karl K? .
MacNair and DNZ show considerable more enthusiasm about Karl than I do.

I agree that there is a considerable overlap between Lenin and Kautsky and that Vladimir saw Karl as a renegade
The problem with the 'renegade' argument, which originates
with Vladimir, is that it obscures weaknesses in the 'classical' Kautsky.
If Vladimir Illich shared many of these positions he would tend to see it in
terms of renegacy rather than aboriginal weakness.
The point about Lars Lih and Mike Mcnair is that they explicitly defend
Kautsky and point to the considerable are of overlap between Kautsky
and Lenin. Basically they are saying that there is no significant
difference between Kautskyism and Leninism till after 1917.
My own view is that whilst a clear reassertion of classical social
democracy might be an improvement on the views of the CPs in
the 50s onwards, it is far from adequate today,
hence the critiques of them that I have published.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Well then, leaving out the long deflation [it certainly was not a depression], we have the 1898-1914 period, the 1921-1930 period, the 1945-1973 period. So in the last 112 years, we have 53 years of "exceptions." That hardly conforms to the workings of an inflexible "iron law."

Really? Care to back that up with specific global data for the 1945-1973 period? Can you provide some index, and the method of deriving that index, for the overall level of immiseration in those "other division of global labour"?

The language you use makes me suspect that all you are doing here is recycling the argument that workers in advanced countries benefit from the superexploitation of labor in less advanced countries-- that there's a wage transfer going on along with surplus value expropriation. I'd like to see evidence, and mechanisms, by which that is achieved.

I didn't explicitly say wage transfer or superexploitation. The catch-all phrase I had in mind was "uneven development."

BTW, somehow Mike Macnair in a video on the Labour Party (http://vimeo.com/6183787) said that Lenin's superexploitation argument was unconsciously derived from Lassalle. "The reason Lenin was wrong is because Lassalle was wrong," he said near the conclusion.


Name-dropper. Shame on you. We're not trying to get into a disco here.

You've lost me here. :confused:


Ahh... structural budget and trade deficits? Can you provide more detail on that? Like what trade deficits, when adjust for related party trading?

Hey, I'm just outlining something for a political program, not going into ultra-empiricism.


MacNair and DNZ show considerable more enthusiasm about Karl than I do.

I agree that there is a considerable overlap between Lenin and Kautsky and that Vladimir saw Karl as a renegade
The problem with the 'renegade' argument, which originates
with Vladimir, is that it obscures weaknesses in the 'classical' Kautsky.
If Vladimir Illich shared many of these positions he would tend to see it in
terms of renegacy rather than aboriginal weakness.
The point about Lars Lih and Mike Mcnair is that they explicitly defend
Kautsky and point to the considerable are of overlap between Kautsky
and Lenin. Basically they are saying that there is no significant
difference between Kautskyism and Leninism till after 1917.
My own view is that whilst a clear reassertion of classical social
democracy might be an improvement on the views of the CPs in
the 50s onwards, it is far from adequate today,
hence the critiques of them that I have published.

Let's leave aside the labour credits question for the moment: the only weaknesses I see in the "classical" Kautsky were on democracy, the state, and internationalism (again, IMO, I prefer transnationalism in today's world). For example, I don't see any philosophical weaknesses like that unholy "non-mechanical" trio of Gramsci, Korsch, and Lukacs did.

Neither Macnair nor I are reasserting "classical social democracy" because of the aforementioned weaknesses:

What we need for the moment is a Kautskyan strategy... but one which is clear on the question of the state... and is also clear that internationalism is a task for now... the working class needs to organize internationally before taking power...

[That last part actually means Bordiga was right and Lenin was wrong. "Leninism" wasn't clear enough, beyond anti-Kautsky rhetoric on the state, when it came to hired czarist specialists, and it was quite deficient on the international front.]

You have your years wrong too. There is no significant difference between Kautskyism and "Leninism" till after 1909, not 1917, since by then Kautsky wrote his notorious Ultra-Imperialism work.

[Paul Cockshott]

leaving aside KKs Duhringist positions on the perpetuation of money wages and professional differentials for the middle class, and his very bourgeois constitutional ideas means you have left aside the twomost imortamt economic and poliitical issues

[Paul Cockshott]

I should have added : two most important issues for socialist society.

[S.Artesian]

There is no significant difference between Kautskyism and "Leninism" till after 1909, not 1917, since by then Kautsky wrote his notorious Ultra-Imperialism work.

Priceless. You do have a way of understating, and then ignoring, the obvious, no? This ranks right up there with your "other than its reformist program, what was wrong the actions of the French Communist Party in May '68?"

After 1909, indeed. Especially in 1914 regarding that minor event called World War 1. What was that, some sort of aberration for Kautsky? It is, only if you consider it, the war, to be an aberration for capitalism, which as his theory of ultra-imperialism shows, he did.


So... leaving out WW1, imperialism, and actual social revolution... there's no difference between Kautsky and Lenin. Fan-fucking-tastic. Vive le difference.

I could not make this stuff up.

And... I love the bit about Lenin and Lassalle-- Lenin was wrong because Lassalle was wrong which is supposed to what, burnish Lassalle's reputation?

Now you're no longer asking Mrs. Lincoln how, other than the gunfire, she liked the play, you're asking Mr. Lincoln how, other than the headache, he feels about the performance of his bodyguards.

[Die Neue Zeit]

leaving aside KKs Duhringist positions on the perpetuation of money wages and professional differentials for the middle class, and his very bourgeois constitutional ideas means you have left aside the twomost imortamt economic and poliitical issues

I didn't leave aside the constitutionalist question, or is that a topic separate from the questions of democracy and the state? :confused:

[Someone really, really has to explain the Duhring stuff to me at some point. I still can't grasp fully what, for example, a Russian comrade or two keeps saying about him. :cursing:]

[Paul Cockshott]

ok you did not say leave aside the issues of the state and constitution, but with weaknesses on all these things what do you want to emulate?

[S.Artesian]

I'm still waiting form comrade DNZ to come to grips with, and explain the origins of, Kautsky's actions regarding WW 1.

[Paul Cockshott]

Why is that relevant in 2010?

[S.Artesian]

Why is that relevant in 2010?

For the same reason anything and everything about history is relevant in 2010. Nothing drops out of the sky, but has a historical development.

I'm not the one bringing up Kautsky as the role-model. Someone else is. I'm not the one attempting to burnish Lassalle's importance to class struggle; to the emancipation of labor. DNZ is.

So if those characters and their activities are going to be reassessed for "current value," we have to actually assess what all their activities were, what they amounted.

You can ask what you asked, "why is that relevant to 2010" about everything and anything-- about the PCF's role in 68, the UP in Chile in 1970-1973, Kautsky's Road to Power-- but once the question is asked, the relevancy is in the qualities of the answers provided, i.e. what was that role and what was the material intent of that role?

Look, somebody's out there saying "Lenin's Imperialism is mistaken, but it's mistaken because its Lassallean, and Lassalle was mistaken." And then that somebody turn's around and says don't underestimate Lassalle's importance to the class struggle. Well, it seems to me, since I happen to think Lenin's Imperialism is indeed mistaken, that there is a tremendous relevance in understanding exactly what is mistaken about it and not using that as an excuse to award Lassalle cred points.

I think if someone wants to point out Kautsky's relevance to the current situation, and predicament, of class struggle, his work as a "signpost" on the road to power, then we need to account for all of Kautsky's relevance in the history of class struggle, and in the history of the defeat of that class struggle.

If you don't think the totality of somebody's theories or analysis has to be considered before awarding him or her "icon" status-- that's your personal problem. It is not a basis for concrete materialist analysis.

[Die Neue Zeit]

ok you did not say leave aside the issues of the state and constitution, but with weaknesses on all these things what do you want to emulate?

Perhaps Mike Macnair and I are unintentionally using him as a figurehead for "Organize" in "Educate! Agitate! Organize!" Kautsky represents: (1) the two-front opposition to both reform coalitions on the right and mass strike/direct action fetishes on the left, (2) the difference between a non-revolutionary period and a revolutionary period, (3) the absolute need for political parties (ties in with #2), (4) the idea that real parties are real movements and vice versa (also ties in with #2), and the alternative culture model (also ties in with #2).

As far as we "Kautsky Revivalists" know, he didn't write much about how to organize real parties, why the alternative culture model is important, etc. Neither did August Bebel, the main guy who put that into practice in Germany.


I'm still waiting form comrade DNZ to come to grips with, and explain the origins of, Kautsky's actions regarding WW1.

The lack of internationalism on the organizational front was the problem. Had the original Socialist International been a proper party, then the Basel Manifesto would have been binding. Instead, it was a mere moral platitude, and centralism was limited to the national parties.


Look, somebody's out there saying "Lenin's Imperialism is mistaken, but it's mistaken because its Lassallean, and Lassalle was mistaken." And then that somebody turn's around and says don't underestimate Lassalle's importance to the class struggle. Well, it seems to me, since I happen to think Lenin's Imperialism is indeed mistaken, that there is a tremendous relevance in understanding exactly what is mistaken about it and not using that as an excuse to award Lassalle cred points.

Lassalle was the first agitator against economism:

The origins of what Marxists call [Narrow] "Economism" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/origins-marxists-call-t137206/index.html)

[Paul Cockshott]

For the same reason anything and everything about history is relevant in 2010. Nothing drops out of the sky, but has a historical development.



If you don't think the totality of somebody's theories or analysis has to be considered before awarding him or her "icon" status-- that's your personal problem. It is not a basis for concrete materialist analysis.

I do not have the skill or inclination to paint icons.
What we need are theories and strategies that can be applied in the 21st century.
History is not going to repeat itself, there is not going to be another war in Europe like that o 1914, never again will the European powers dominate and occupy Asia and Africa as they did in the early 20th century.

Can you imagine a modern German president saying anything like :
"Thus I send you now to avenge injustice, and I shall not rest until the German flag, united with those of the other powers, waves victoriously over the Chinese, planted on the walls of Peking, and dictating peace to the Chinese." (Kaiser Wilhelm II, 2 July 1900).

Whether Kautsky or Lenin was write about imperialism in the first 1/4 of the last century is a purely historical question of no relevance to today.

[S.Artesian]

I do not have the skill or inclination to paint icons.
What we need are theories and strategies that can be applied in the 21st century.
History is not going to repeat itself, there is not going to be another war in Europe like that o 1914, never again will the European powers dominate and occupy Asia and Africa as they did in the early 20th century.

Can you imagine a modern German president saying anything like :
"Thus I send you now to avenge injustice, and I shall not rest until the German flag, united with those of the other powers, waves victoriously over the Chinese, planted on the walls of Peking, and dictating peace to the Chinese." (Kaiser Wilhelm II, 2 July 1900).

Whether Kautsky or Lenin was write about imperialism in the first 1/4 of the last century is a purely historical question of no relevance to today.

Your remarks are better directed to DNZ. I am not attempting to revive the corpse of German SPD and send it lurching forward into the future. I'm just wondering why we would do that without first accounting for the actual history of the German SPD and one of its founders.

No, I can't imagine a modern German president saying that-- but I can imagine a modern German president saying, "I am thus sending German troops to Afghanistan, or Iran, or Serbia in order to protect the lives of men and women there, and here at home, to preserve the cause of freedom" etc. etc. etc. and I can see the possibility of our modern German social democrats nodding in unison and agreeing to fund those excursions.

I can see our would-be modern social-democrats or prolecrats or whatever making the same old same old specious distinctions between "unproductive" "bad" finance capital, and "productive" "good" industrial capital; I can see our modern prolecrats repeating bullshit about rentier capitalism; I can see more than just our modern Kautskyites recommending "proper policies" that a fantasized "peoples' European parliament" would direct a fantasized "European Union" to institute in order to secure the "benefits" of an "industrialization policy" for all, ignoring in that the necessity for the abolition of the real European Union with its real bourgeoisie.

But that's just me... you might have other ideas.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Your remarks are better directed to DNZ.


Not at all.


I can see more than just our modern Kautskyites recommending "proper policies" that a fantasized "peoples' European parliament" would direct a fantasized "European Union" to institute in order to secure the "benefits" of an "industrialization policy" for all, ignoring in that the necessity for the abolition of the real European Union with its real bourgeoisie.

But that's just me... you might have other ideas.

You just dissed several planks in Cockshott's Transition to 21st Century Socialism in the European Union, which call for changing the nature of the EU Parliament and other EU structures, as well as for expanding their politico-economic roles relative to the nation-states. This goes back to 1848 and "the whole of Germany shall be declared a single and indivisible republic. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm)"


I am not attempting to revive the corpse of German SPD and send it lurching forward into the future. I'm just wondering why we would do that without first accounting for the actual history of the German SPD and one of its founders.

We have already done that. One of the accounts can be found in Chapter 1 of Lars Lih's book. Another can be found in Vernon Lidtke's Alternative Culture. Yet another can be found in Mike Macnair's book.


I can see our would-be modern social-democrats or social-proletocrats or whatever making the same old same old specious distinctions between "unproductive" "bad" finance capital, and "productive" "good" industrial capital; I can see our modern social-proletocrats repeating bullshit about rentier capitalism; .

Bold letters indicate corrections. I'm inclined to forward you a paper on The Limits of Social-Democratic Politics. The comrade who wrote this paper also distinguished between industrial capital and finance capital. It all started with Rudolf Hilferding, really, unless you don't know his influence on Bukharin's and Lenin's outlook on imperialism.

And Cockshott himself wrote a lot about ground rent vs. finance capital vs. industrial capital.

[S.Artesian]

Not at all.



You just dissed several planks in Cockshott's Transition to 21st Century Socialism in the European Union, which call for changing the nature of the EU Parliament and other EU structures, as well as for expanding their politico-economic roles relative to the nation-states. This goes back to 1848 and "the whole of Germany shall be declared a single and indivisible republic. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/03/24.htm)"


Yeah, I do that a lot-- dis things simply by concentrating on what class struggle actually means; on what capitalism actually is, how it reproduces itself. It's become a habit, and I just can't help myself.

EDIT: PS, Think we should get back on-topic, no? Regarding the US and the prospects, and impacts, for significant change.



We have already done that. One of the accounts can be found in Chapter 1 of Lars Lih's book. Another can be found in Vernon Lidtke's Alternative Culture. Yet another can be found in Mike Macnair's book.

They're all on my list. Might take me some time, I have a long list.




Bold letters indicate corrections. I'm inclined to forward you a paper on The Limits of Social-Democratic Politics. The comrade who wrote this paper also distinguished between industrial capital and finance capital. It all started with Rudolf Hilferding, really, unless you don't know his influence on Bukharin's and Lenin's outlook on imperialism.

No shit, Hilferding? Who would have ever thought that? Yeah, social democrats, big C communists, new leftists, Monthly Reviewers, "radical" political economists, have all "distinguishing" between industrial capital and finance capital for a century or more, all of which has only served their accommodation to.... Big C Capitalism.


And Cockshott himself wrote a lot about ground rent vs. finance capital vs. industrial capital.So did Marx

[Paul Cockshott]

well to get back on topic, there can be no significant advance in the US whilst it retains the constitution of a slaveholders republic. Until that is replaced by a democratic constitution there can be no great change in property relations

[Die Neue Zeit]

Maybe you should write an equivalent socialist transition program for the US, with emphasis on the constitution. I'm pretty sure there are more flaws than just the Fifth Amendment, the parts of Article I pertaining to the Senate, or Article II. ;)

[S.Artesian]

Maybe you should write an equivalent socialist transition program for the US, with emphasis on the constitution. I'm pretty sure there are more flaws than just the Fifth Amendment, the parts of Article I pertaining to the Senate, or Article II. ;)

Maybe we should recognize the US Constitution for what it was, an accommodation to slaveholders as the emerging bourgeoisie as the industrial bourgeoisie didn't exist yet, the merchant bourgeoisie was dependent on the products of the slaveholders; free soil capitalism was not developed enough to sustain the domestic market; and there was no labor movement.

Maybe we should recognize that the only things worth preserving, historically, of that Constitution, which politically was a step backward from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, are the 13th, 14th, 15th amendments, the product of the triumph of free soil, free labor in the Civil War and Reconstruction, recognizing at the same time that the bourgeoisie who marshaled the forces for that war, turned against the radical program for Reconstruction, abandoning the Freedmen's Bureaus, and the freed men and women, and their Union Leagues to the terrorism of the KKK; and recognizing also that the same industrial bourgeoisie more than accommodated the "Redemptionist" governments that reconstituted the plantation class's control, they bankrolled them.

Maybe we should pay attention to how that once "radical" Republican Party, in its conversion to its opposite which it always was, now wants to "review" the 14th amendment for possible repeal, so as to deny citizenship to the children of migrants born on the soil of the US.

Maybe those in Europe should pay attention similarly to Sarkozy's attacks on immigrants in France, where he will introduce legislation to strip of citizenship and deport the foreign born, or the children of foreign born convicted of threatening the lives of police officers.

Maybe instead of arguing for "industrial policies," arguing for "development" as somehow separate and apart from the radical abolition of capitalism, maybe instead of arguing for the EU to takeover military spending from the budgets of the smaller EU countries, you might want to consider how we mobilize labor to protect its most vulnerable sector, migrant labor.

But those are just my thoughts, maybe you don't want to do any of those things-- any of those things that actually confront capital as capital, as a class relation, as a class relation that must be overthrown.

PS: What are you, Cockshott's parrot?

[S.Artesian]

well to get back on topic, there can be no significant advance in the US whilst it retains the constitution of a slaveholders republic. Until that is replaced by a democratic constitution there can be no great change in property relations


This is nothing but the old stagist argument all dressed up in the red, white, and blue of old Gory-- as if there is a necessity for a "democratic" struggle above and beyond, prior and preliminary to the class struggle, a class struggle that would and must abolish the very foundations of that constitution, the foundations for reform of that constitution.

We are not about confining the struggle for the emancipation of labor to the pieces of paper that the capital produces to announce its coalitions of ruling classes.

If this kind of nostalgic pseudo-democratic, a-historical claptrap keeps up, don't bother to get back on topic, as all that will be produced is the repetition of all the failures that have defined... well, that have defined the success of the bourgeoisie to date.

[Paul Cockshott]

This is nothing but the old stagist argument all dressed up in the red, white, and blue of old Gory-- as if there is a necessity for a "democratic" struggle above and beyond, prior and preliminary to the class struggle, a class struggle that would and must abolish the very foundations of that constitution, the foundations for reform of that constitution.
As I understand it the central question for any revolution is the issue of state power.
My contention is that the constitutional form of state in the USA precludes the
masses from holding power. The principle aim should thus be to overthrow the
republic and replace it with a democracy.

The struggle for democracy would certainly be class struggle, political class struggle.
I dont see why you counter pose class struggle to a struggle for democracy.

How do you envisage a struggle that " must abolish the very foundations of that constitution" not being a political struggle for democracy?

I am not in the US but I would have thought that the aims of a democratic movement should be the abolition of the Senate and Presidency, the replacement of the supreme court by sovereign Grand Juries, and the selection of the house of representatives by lot from the general population, along with single term limits for representatives.

[S.Artesian]

As I understand it the central question for any revolution is the issue of state power.
My contention is that the constitutional form of state in the USA precludes the
masses from holding power. The principle aim should thus be to overthrow the
republic and replace it with a democracy.

The struggle for democracy would certainly be class struggle, political class struggle.
I dont see why you counter pose class struggle to a struggle for democracy.

How do you envisage a struggle that " must abolish the very foundations of that constitution" not being a political struggle for democracy?

I am not in the US but I would have thought that the aims of a democratic movement should be the abolition of the Senate and Presidency, the replacement of the supreme court by sovereign Grand Juries, and the selection of the house of representatives by lot from the general population, along with single term limits for representatives.

You've just proven my contention: where is the "class-for-itself" and consequently for all others in the abolition of the Senate an the Presidency, the supremacy of Grand Juries-- which as anyone who has ever served on one knows are manipulated and controlled by district attorneys-- the selection of the HOR by lot-- and of course you left out the abolition of the electoral college, etc etc etc?

What you are advocating is "perfecting" a democracy devoid of expropriating the form of social reproduction, the property that creates the imperfection. What you are advocating is specifically not defining the cause of emancipation with, or as, the emancipation of labor. Consequently, the notion of class, drops out of your "equations," and with that the need for the expropriation of that specific property form.

Would and must the abolition of that form of class rule, that development of the emancipation of that labor involve all those things you mention? Indeed it would, and surpass all those things by a mile. But the converse is not the truth of the proposition-- agitating for a unicameral legislature, an end to the Supreme Court, etc. does not contain in itself the prospects for the expropriation of of the means of production, for the emancipation of that labor.

You are by the very fact of advocating a "democratic movement" posing that movement as separate, apart, and in fact, opposed to a movement of class, of conscious class struggle for the abolitoin of the private ownership of the means of production. There's nothing new in this-- it was advocatd and used that way in Spain, in Chile under the UP front of Allende. Nothing new, and nothing successful. In fact, it leads to a situation where, since the underlying conflict between means and relations of production that "stimulates" the use of "democracy" as a substitute of conscious class expropriation of a ruling class also propels the working class to take such actions of expropriation, the "new" "democratic" government must oppose, restrain, and finally, disarm that working class movement. That's the legacy of the formal adherence to "democracy" when that formality is in fact an attempt to reduce, mitigate, and substitute for explicit class consciousness.

Yes, the central question for revolution is state power, but the very existence of a revolution is a question of class, of organization of production, of expropriation of property. State power is a means to those ends, and not an end in itself. Your "formula" posits that state power, in its new "direct democracy" garb, without class content, as an end in itself.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Maybe we should pay attention to how that once "radical" Republican Party, in its conversion to its opposite which it always was, now wants to "review" the 14th amendment for possible repeal, so as to deny citizenship to the children of migrants born on the soil of the US.

Maybe those in Europe should pay attention similarly to Sarkozy's attacks on immigrants in France, where he will introduce legislation to strip of citizenship and deport the foreign born, or the children of foreign born convicted of threatening the lives of police officers.

Maybe instead of arguing for "industrial policies," arguing for "development" as somehow separate and apart from the radical abolition of capitalism, maybe instead of arguing for the EU to takeover military spending from the budgets of the smaller EU countries, you might want to consider how we mobilize labor to protect its most vulnerable sector, migrant labor.

For that to happen, you need a Directional Program. I've written one such demand for this:

Matching the transnational mobility of labour with the establishment of a transnationally entrenched bill of workers’ political and economic rights, and with the realization of a globalized and upward equal standard of living for equal work, thus allowing real freedom of movement through instant legalization and open borders, and thereby precluding the extreme exploitation of immigrants.


This is nothing but the old stagist argument all dressed up in the red, white, and blue of old Gory-- as if there is a necessity for a "democratic" struggle above and beyond, prior and preliminary to the class struggle, a class struggle that would and must abolish the very foundations of that constitution, the foundations for reform of that constitution.

Read my Theory thread:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/crises-various-types-t139890/index.html

Political struggles and not labour struggles beget real class struggle.

[S.Artesian]

For that to happen, you need a Directional Program. I've written one such demand for this:

Matching the transnational mobility of labour with the establishment of a transnationally entrenched bill of workers’ political and economic rights, and with the realization of a globalized and upward equal standard of living for equal work, thus allowing real freedom of movement through instant legalization and open borders, and thereby precluding the extreme exploitation of immigrants.

Oh... that's just swell... I can't imagine that workers all over the world aren't trudging toward your abode to lift you on their shoulders.

Those are find words, comrade. And that part about an entrenched workers' bill of rights really is new, different, original. And meaningless.

Here's what I would say, actually did say, in the US. 1. Nobody is illegal 2. No arrests, no deportations. 3. Collective, class action against Obama's raids on workplaces. Obstruction and resistance to INS searches in the workplace 4. No background checks on immigration status of workers, those applying for employment, driver's licenses, school enrollment, medical care.

As for "political struggles" not "labor struggles" developing into class struggle-- you're making the very schematic distinction, rather than transition, you think you are overcoming. Struggles against homelessness, against evictions, against dismissal of teachers, against increased impoverishment are political struggles. Struggles for unicameral legislatures, grand juries rather than supreme courts are neither.

[Die Neue Zeit]

My program is transnational. Your suggestions are appropriate only for a national program or inter-national program at best. The new element is "the realization of a globalized and upward equal standard of living for equal work." This addresses the problems of labour arbitrage posed by the likes of ex-Reaganites (who then suggest tougher immigration laws), whereby there's a combination of labour outsourcing and immigration of cheap labour.


As for "political struggles" not "labor struggles" developing into class struggle-- you're making the very schematic distinction, rather than transition, you think you are overcoming. Struggles against homelessness, against evictions, against dismissal of teachers, against increased impoverishment are political struggles. Struggles for unicameral legislatures, grand juries rather than supreme courts are neither.

No they aren't. You've betrayed your broad economism by saying that defensive struggles are political.

Actual class struggles for the proletariat are much closer to mass participation in public policy-making and administration within political party-movements than they are to waves of labour unrest.

As a concession, I have included "the right to the city" in my programmatic work, because social movement-ism isn't the vehicle for this, but rather political parties.


What you are advocating is "perfecting" a democracy devoid of expropriating the form of social reproduction, the property that creates the imperfection. What you are advocating is specifically not defining the cause of emancipation with, or as, the emancipation of labor. Consequently, the notion of class, drops out of your "equations," and with that the need for the expropriation of that specific property form.

Even the "struggle for socialism" - up to and including the social-proletocratic model based on electronic, non-circulable labour credits replacing money-capital altogether - is economic and not political.

[S.Artesian]

My program is transnational. Your suggestions are appropriate only for a national program or inter-national program at best. The new element is "the realization of a globalized and upward equal standard of living for equal work." This addresses the problems of labour arbitrage posed by the likes of ex-Reaganites (who then suggest tougher immigration laws), whereby there's a combination of labour outsourcing and immigration of cheap labour.

You're "program" such that it is, is an abstraction, positing an establishment of a "transnational" "workers bill of rights" apparently by some sort of "public policy" or "administrative" action through the very mechanisms by which the transnational bourgeoisie maintain their political power.

Case in point, you are the person who advocates that the EU assume the burden of military spending, rather than directly opposing all military spending by the states.


No they aren't. You've betrayed your broad economism by saying that defensive struggles are political.Sorry, you need to go back and reread what economism is-- the view that simple wage struggle in the work place are adequate. When workers oppose reductions in education, or take responsibility for protecting the most vulnerable sectors of the working class, they are confronting the reproduction of capital as property, the need of capital to reproduce itself at the expense of the social development, the needs, of the all the poor, disadvantaged, marginalized, exploited.


Actual class struggles for the proletariat are much closer to mass participation in public policy-making and administration within political party-movements than they are to waves of labour unrest.Hmmh... let's see. Actual class struggle in China 1926-1929, very much like mass participation in public policy making and administration? Revolution and counterrevolution in Spain, very much like public policy making and administration? Chle 1970-1973, public policy making and administration? El Alto 2003, El Alto and all of Bolivia, 2005-- public policy making?Certainly there's an element of that in there, but that element is dependent upon class consciousness, and actual [proto]organizations of class power, class rule, identifying and confronting the property that encapsulates production and social reproduction.


As a concession, I have included "the right to the city" in my programmatic work, because social movement-ism isn't the vehicle for this, but rather political parties.That's mighty big of you. As a fan, and resident, of major cities, let me be the first to thank you for that right.


Even the "struggle for socialism" - up to and including the social-proletocratic model based on electronic, non-circulable labour credits replacing money-capital altogether - is economic and not political.

And you accuse me of economism? The struggle is social. It combines political and economic in its overcoming of the the separate categories, in their abolition through direct taking of power to reorganize production.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You're "program" such that it is, is an abstraction, positing an establishment of a "transnational" "workers bill of rights" apparently by some sort of "public policy" or "administrative" action through the very mechanisms by which the transnational bourgeoisie maintain their political power.

You need to absorb my Draft Program more carefully, and perhaps from the beginning (even if it isn't complete yet on class relations). Preceding the list or program of directional measures and following the Iron Law and imperialism stuff was:

In spite of the aforementioned considerations, it would be easier to do away with the transnational rule of bourgeois law before realizing the extension of at least some of the considerations for the benefit of the working class, such as...


Sorry, you need to go back and reread what economism is-- the view that simple wage struggle in the work place are adequate.

That's the narrowest form of economism. Economism is much broader than that, as evidenced by the socialist economism criticized in 1847-1848 as "True Socialism."


When workers oppose reductions in education, or take responsibility for protecting the most vulnerable sectors of the working class, they are confronting the reproduction of capital as property, the need of capital to reproduce itself at the expense of the social development, the needs, of the all the poor, disadvantaged, marginalized, exploited.

No they aren't. Chapters 6 & 7: Only when workers think outside of the box in education (training income), in wage protection (cost of living adjustments), in unemployment (Minsky's public employer of last resort for consumer services), etc. do they confront such reproduction.


And you accuse me of economism? The struggle is social. It combines political and economic in its overcoming of the the separate categories, in their abolition through direct taking of power to reorganize production.

"Social" is a vague word.

The minimum program for the emergence of this demarchic “Commonwealth” surpasses broad economism by aiming for multiple struggles:

1) A two-fold political struggle of a minimum-maximum character, with politico-ideological independence for the working class as the immediate aim, and with the demarchic commonwealth fully replacing the repressive instruments for the rule of minority classes – the state – as the aim later on;
2) Economic struggles of a minimum-maximum character, with economic struggles promoting politico-ideological independence for the working class as an immediate aim, and with economic struggles directly for social labour later on – since the struggle for this “socialism” is indeed economic and not political; and
3) Peripheral sociocultural struggles of a minimum-maximum character around various issues, such as identity politics.

Indeed, the main page of RevLeft puts "social" in bold text preceding "discrimination" for describing the Discrimination forum.

[S.Artesian]

You need to absorb my Draft Program more carefully, and perhaps from the beginning (even if it isn't complete yet on class relations). Preceding the list or program of directional measures and following the Iron Law and imperialism stuff was:

In spite of the aforementioned considerations, it would be easier to do away with the transnational rule of bourgeois law before realizing the extension of at least some of the considerations for the benefit of the working class, such as...

You mean the iron law which has already been shown to be not so iron, or a different iron law? You mean the imperialism stuff which is the same as your "rentier" capitalism stuff, and just as wrong-headed? Or are we talking about other stuff?

Thanks for telling me what I need to do. You need to read a bit more of Marx-- that stuff written in the latter part of the 1850s and 60s. You need to get beyond 1848, and when I say get beyond 1848, that includes getting beyond 1890. A good start to that is that later stuff by Marx.




No they aren't. Chapters 6 & 7: Only when workers think outside of the box in education (training income), in wage protection (cost of living adjustments), in unemployment (Minsky's public employer of last resort for consumer services), etc. do they confront such reproduction.Confronting the needs of a class, the bourgeoisie, by the actions of another class conscious of itself of representing, defending the needs of ALL others is thinkng outside the box, way more outside than cost-of-living adjustments under terms of general deflation, or any one or all of Minsky's enduring follies.




"Social" is a vague word.Keep that in mind the next time you refer to yourself as a social proletarocrat.



The minimum program for the emergence of this demarchic “Commonwealth” surpasses broad economism by aiming for multiple struggles:


1) A two-fold political struggle of a minimum-maximum character, with politico-ideological independence for the working class as the immediate aim, and with the demarchic commonwealth fully replacing the repressive instruments for the rule of minority classes – the state – as the aim later on;
2) Economic struggles of a minimum-maximum character, with economic struggles promoting politico-ideological independence for the working class as an immediate aim, and with economic struggles directly for social labour later on – since the struggle for this “socialism” is indeed economic and not political; and
3) Peripheral sociocultural struggles of a minimum-maximum character around various issues, such as identity politics.

Indeed, the main page of RevLeft puts "social" in bold text preceding "discrimination" for describing the Discrimination forum.Could you please be just a bit more pedantic? I think there's still a few words in the above that don't reek with the smell of a junior professor trying to impress a lecture hall full of freshmen.

PS: Could you please answer a couple of questions directly? Does your draft program, or any of your programs, or do you advocate the EU assuming the burden of military expenditures for all countries in its union? Do you advocate that the EU assume the burden of military spending for, say, Greece, the largest importer of conventional weaponry in Europe?

[Die Neue Zeit]

You mean the iron law which has already been shown to be not so iron, or a different iron law? You mean the imperialism stuff which is the same as your "rentier" capitalism stuff, and just as wrong-headed? Or are we talking about other stuff?

Thanks for telling me what I need to do. You need to read a bit more of Marx-- that stuff written in the latter part of the 1850s and 60s. You need to get beyond 1848, and when I say get beyond 1848, that includes getting beyond 1890. A good start to that is that later stuff by Marx.

Actually, I have read a bit of the later stuff. The labour credits stuff wouldn't be there without reading the later stuff.

Your contention against the Iron Law of Disproportionate Immiseration is in its first and fourth manifestations despite my clear rebuttals, and I never mentioned rent in my imperialism outline.


Confronting the needs of a class, the bourgeoisie, by the actions of another class conscious of itself of representing, defending the needs of ALL others is thinkng outside the box, way more outside than cost-of-living adjustments under terms of general deflation, or any one or all of Minsky's enduring follies.

I never advocated cost-of-living adjustments under general deflation. I said "non-deflationary adjustments" for a reason.

Also, what enduring follies are you referring to?


Could you please be just a bit more pedantic? I think there's still a few words in the above that don't reek with the smell of a junior professor trying to impress a lecture hall full of freshmen.

I don't use academic jargon, and you'll notice how the demands in my Draft Program borrow much more from legalese and technical jargon, but very little academic jargon (no breakups into smaller sentences).


PS: Could you please answer a couple of questions directly? Does your draft program, or any of your programs, or do you advocate the EU assuming the burden of military expenditures for all countries in its union? Do you advocate that the EU assume the burden of military spending for, say, Greece, the largest importer of conventional weaponry in Europe?

My draft program doesn't cover military expenditures except to the extent that the military-industrial complex should be national-democratized (either nationally or the multinational equivalent).

[S.Artesian]

Actually, I have read a bit of the later stuff. The labour credits stuff wouldn't be there without reading the later stuff.

Your contention against the Iron Law of Disproportionate Immiseration is in its first and fourth manifestations despite my clear rebuttals, and I never mentioned rent in my imperialism outline.

No, but you've mentioned rent, and rentier capitalism, going so far as to identify finance capital as "rentier capitalism" which is plainly nonsense, so I thought you might have that bit in your super-duper program.

And you acknowledge that your iron law is not quite so iron for at least 3 periods, amount to 53 years in the last 112 years of capitalism. That doesn't sound very iron-like to me.


I never advocated cost-of-living adjustments under general deflation. I said "non-deflationary adjustments" for a reason..

Here's what you said in the earlier post:


in wage protection (cost of living adjustments)My point being that COLA adjustments are not "thinking outside the box," but are squarely in the box.


Also, what enduring follies are you referring to?Regarding Minsky? Basically his notion of capitalism getting "carried away" with itself, leading to bubbles and bursting bubbles. The old "Minsky Moment," which ranks right up there with Greenspan's "excessive exuberance" mumbling as non-explanations for capitalist overproduction.

I used the term follies as a play on words since a guy named Minsky ran a burlesque theater in NYC, which, as myth would have it, put on the first strip-tease show.




I don't use academic jargon, and you'll notice how the demands in my Draft Program borrow much more from legalese and technical jargon, but very little academic jargon (no breakups into smaller sentences). That's what you think. It sounds like nothing so much as a junior professor giving a lecture in introductory political science.




My draft program doesn't cover military expenditures except to the extent that the military-industrial complex should be national-democratized (either nationally or the multinational equivalent).
Yeah, but what about your position? Didn't you argue just recently that the EU should take over the burden of defense expenditures from the poorer member countries like Greece, or am I confusing that with someone else's program for recuperation and recomposition of capitalism?

[Paul Cockshott]

You've just proven my contention: where is the "class-for-itself" and consequently for all others in the abolition of the Senate an the Presidency, the supremacy of Grand Juries-- which as anyone who has ever served on one knows are manipulated and controlled by district attorneys-- the selection of the HOR by lot-- and of course you left out the abolition of the electoral college, etc etc etc?

With the abolition of the presidency there would obviously be no electoral college.
By Grand Jury I simply mean grand in the French sense of large -- of the order of 50 to give a better sampling of opinion -- do not know the size of current US ones.



What you are advocating is "perfecting" a democracy devoid of expropriating the form of social reproduction, the property that creates the imperfection. What you are advocating is specifically not defining the cause of emancipation with, or as, the emancipation of labor. Consequently, the notion of class, drops out of your "equations," and with that the need for the expropriation of that specific property form.

Give me some slack!
You never asked about that. I think that a Labour Party in the US should have as it overriding goal the abolition of wage slavery. Now given the political system of the USA this could just conceivably be achieved by a constitutional amendment similar to that outlawing slavery, in other countries with different connstitutional structures like the UK one could achieve the outlawing of wage slavery by a simpler legislative act. But if one goes on and considers the other supplementary economic measures that would be required to support the abolition of wage slavery, it is difficult to see how these could be achieved without an ambitious legislative programme that would be difficult for a Labour Party to pass in the current political system that they have in the USA.

Even this sets aside the huge difficulty that has repeatedly been experienced in the US in establishing a Labour party to challenge the Republicans and Democrats.




Would and must the abolition of that form of class rule, that development of the emancipation of that labor involve all those things you mention? Indeed it would, and surpass all those things by a mile. But the converse is not the truth of the proposition-- agitating for a unicameral legislature, an end to the Supreme Court, etc. does not contain in itself the prospects for the expropriation of of the means of production, for the emancipation of that labor.

The question you should be asking is whether the changes in property rights required
for the emancipation of the working classes in the USA can be won under the existing
constitution?

If not, then you would have to struggle to change the constitution in order that a putative
Labour Party could win legislation necessary for the abolition of wage slavery.

[S.Artesian]

Give me some slack!
You never asked about that.

Actually, I didn't ask about anything. You offered it all on your own, stating:


well to get back on topic, there can be no significant advance in the US whilst it retains the constitution of a slaveholders republic. Until that is replaced by a democratic constitution there can be no great change in property relations

Which I take to be a fundamentally "stagist" posing of class conflict, and a real abstraction for actual concrete history. How much of an abstraction? Once again, I'm not asking, but you sure are providing:


Now given the political system of the USA this could just conceivably be achieved by a constitutional amendment similar to that outlawing slavery,

Comrade, do you recall what it took to get that constitutional amendment outlawing slavery enacted? Do you recall when it was enacted, what the social conditions were?

Well as a good comrade to all on the right side of the class line, which you are, and as an ace slack-giver, which I most definitely am, let me help you. It took a civil war. It took the victory of that civil war. It took the disenfranchisement of the plantation representatives, states, class; it took the destruction of their property.

So let's not obscure the tasks and the road ahead by thinking that the struggle takes place for any of a) a "democratic" big C Constitution b) an amendment outlawing wage-labor to the present big C constitution c) a small d democratic small c constitution.

"Democracy" such that is in capitalism is based on the formal equality of property-holders, an equality based on unimpeded access to detached, dispossessed "free" labor. That's where all those fine words come from about all men being created equal, or at least some men are created equal, and some men are created 3/5 of equal.

And as further assistance, let me offer you the history of what happened after the passage of those amendments to the big C Constitution-- the retreat from Reconstruction, the redemptionist governments, the restoration of the plantation class, the terrorism of the KKK, all of which acceded to by the party of Lincoln.

I don't know about you, but I have higher aspirations for the conduct of my class in and after a civil war than that.


The question you should be asking is whether the changes in property rights required
for the emancipation of the working classes in the USA can be won under the existing
constitution?

If not, then you would have to struggle to change the constitution in order that a putative
Labour Party could win legislation necessary for the abolition of wage slavery.

What is it with you and DNZ telling me what I should be asking or should be reading? You want some slack? OK, but that means you need to quit handing down the tablets from Mount Sinai.

You need to ask why would we even approach the issue of social revolution, of the social relations of production, of the organization of the economy as an issue to be mediated by a change in a Constitution that was designed to secure exactly those obsolete relations of production?

This is not at all like running candidates for office, where the purpose is to take the opportunity to denounce, expose, oppose the machinations of capital from within its very mechanisms of domination, this is tailoring, and curtailing, the class struggle, in its very essence-- as a struggle of and for the emancipation of labor through the overthrow of capital-- to those very mechanisms.

We have a sufficient number of examples from history of the results of such efforts to "mobilize" the proletariat to achieve socialism through "constitutional measures," and the sum total of those examples in the "plus" column of revolution is worse than ZERO.

[Paul Cockshott]

Clearly I am aware of the civil war and the circumstances of the abolition of slavery in the US, but you should recall that its abolition elsewhere was less cataclismic.
It isalso clear that there is a very real chance of slaveholders rebellions as Engels said, but unless one is willing to face such risks, and to prepare for them there is no point even proposing socialism.

[Paul Cockshott]

I see you write of the historical achievements of the political workers movement in Europe as 'less than zero'.

[S.Artesian]

I see you write of the historical achievements of the political workers movement in Europe as 'less than zero'.

The historical achievements of the political workers movement in Europe are not socialism. And the achievement of socialism is the issue. Nice attempt to bait and switch.

I'm from New York, we can smell "bait and switch" before it comes into view. Ever hear of "Crazy Eddy"?

As for slavery-- you brought it up. You brought it up regarding the "constitutional path" to abolition in the US, not anywhere else, as an example of, I guess, a possible path to be followed by a class-conscious movement, or to build, perhaps, that class-conscious movement.

Now you want to duck out from your own example and bring up the abolition in the British Caribbean?

Another bait and switch.

Sorry, you've used up all your slack. No more for you.

[Paul Cockshott]

I Obvoiusly agree with you that none of the capitalist countries are democrcpacies in a real sense. Hence I conclude that winning the battle for democracy remains a goal. Please explain your objection to stages. Any temporal process goes throuh stages.

[S.Artesian]

I Obvoiusly agree with you that none of the capitalist countries are democrcpacies in a real sense. Hence I conclude that winning the battle for democracy remains a goal. Please explain your objection to stages. Any temporal process goes throuh stages.

Obviously, every historical struggle develops, that's what makes it historical. The questions involve the linkage, or the separation, between various stages, the rate of transformation of one stage into another, and the mechanisms, the mediations that must embody those transitions to bring a struggle to fruition.

"Stages" don't exist as discrete, separate, isolated packages. They erupt as manifestations of that fundamental conflict between means and relations of production that, as Marx said, announces a revolutionary era. So at the very moment when organizations and individuals are announcing their fidelity to a "stage," they are in that very act severing themselves from the full development of that essential conflict.

Examples? You can look at... well Russia and the impossibility of confining that struggle to the interim stage of the provisional revolutionary government; of resolving that struggle through or by a "constituent assembly."

And we can also see in the organization of working class power, in the soviets, the only effective mediation to accomplish the transition, and the actualization of working class power.


We can look at the Spanish Civil War, where the adherence to a "republicanism," justified by appeals to Spain's "lack of economic development," it's "backward relations of landed property," has the practical result in disorganizing the working class core of the struggle, and in effect, disavowing the need for expropriation of private property, expropriation of the bourgeoisie as a class.

We can look at Chile under the UP govt, 1970-1973, with its program of "splitting" a "national" "democratic" bourgeoisie from "monopoly" and international capital in the belief that the struggle had to first "win a majority of the population" to itself to see another example of the "stagist" theorizing, which in reality acts as an opposition to the workers own actions.

Earlier in this thread NGNM85 brought up the civil rights struggle in the US-- and I took that opportunity to explain exactly where I think "stage" analysis fails--. That struggle manifests itself as a demand for "equality," "integration" "civil rights." At core that struggle is triggered by profound changes in the relations of production in the South, and the struggle for the emancipation of black labor. The "stage" of civil rights had to be surpassed by the core to the struggle, which is that emancipation of black labor. Adherence to the "stage" of civil rights became, at some point, an opposition to that recognition, a resistance to a transition to class analysis- not everywhere of course. The League of Revolutionary Black Workers did come into being [and in my opinion the LRBW is the most important organization in the history of the black struggle, since the Union League Associations of the freed slaves in the South after the Civil War].

The point being that the struggle today, as the black struggle was, has been, is, and will be, is a struggle for the emancipation of labor. That emancipation requires abolition of private property in the means of production.

No, I don't expect that to happen immediately, nor do I expect all sectors of the working class, much less the general population, to grasp that banner at the same time. Quite the contrary. And for that reason I think the mediations, the organizations and programs that we develop have to speak to the interests of the whole class to exercise power as a class.

The organization, tactics, programs have to pose fundamental class needs that expose the results of the organization of production as private property.

Some of these things are simple: like opposing all the myriad bailout programs the bourgeoisie unleashed when they were more than a few days late and a few trillion dollars short; like opposing all evictions, and demanding instead immediate cancellation of debt-- mortgage debt, credit card debt-- just abolish it.

Advocating a "democratic c[C]onstitution" does not speak to that need for separation and opposition of the working class to the bourgeoisie, of labor to private property.

You can only "win" the battle for "democracy," by battling for something other than "democracy," by battling for the expropriation of capital.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And you acknowledge that your iron law is not quite so iron for at least 3 periods, amount to 53 years in the last 112 years of capitalism. That doesn't sound very iron-like to me.

The first outline is iron enough when linked to the second outline and then the directional program after that second outline.


My point being that COLA adjustments are not "thinking outside the box," but are squarely in the box.

It is when compared to mere defensive struggles.


Regarding Minsky? Basically his notion of capitalism getting "carried away" with itself, leading to bubbles and bursting bubbles. The old "Minsky Moment," which ranks right up there with Greenspan's "excessive exuberance" mumbling as non-explanations for capitalist overproduction.

I used the term follies as a play on words since a guy named Minsky ran a burlesque theater in NYC, which, as myth would have it, put on the first strip-tease show.

Minsky is the farce to Marx's tragedy in the eyes of serious bourgeois economists: both are recognized only for their crises theories, but not for their other contributions. If you think about capitalist markets = consumer markets + labour markets + capital markets, then they're only recognizing the capital markets part.

Public employer of last resort for consumer services is thinking outside the box on the unemployment problem. Here Minsky had the labour markets in mind.

This is extended towards the whole Post-Keynesian School, up to and including their Chartalist theory of money (a step up from the sheer lack of monetary theory in the usual Marxist tradition).


Yeah, but what about your position? Didn't you argue just recently that the EU should take over the burden of defense expenditures from the poorer member countries like Greece, or am I confusing that with someone else's program for recuperation and recomposition of capitalism?

I think you had someone else in mind. :confused: All I called for was a federalization and centralization of the EU ("changing the nature of the EU Parliament and other EU structures, as well as for expanding their politico-economic roles relative to the nation-states").

[Paul Cockshott]

They were socialism to varying degrees from perhaps 30 percent in Sweden, somewhat moe in the UK to perhaps 95 percent in Czechoslovakia and the DDR .

[Die Neue Zeit]

Comrade, our witty and sarcastic poster here is an uber-Trotskyist. If even I object to your description of Czechoslovakia and the DDR on the basis of their bureaucratized mass commodity production (http://www.revleft.com/vb/giving-up-some-t129907/index.html) (and never leaving with the COMECON as a whole to establish the lower phase(s) of the communist mode of production), he'll object to it even more.

[S.Artesian]

Comrade, our witty and sarcastic poster here is an uber-Trotskyist. If even I object to your description of Czechoslovakia and the DDR on the basis of their bureaucratized mass commodity production (http://www.revleft.com/vb/giving-up-some-t129907/index.html) (and never leaving with the COMECON as a whole to establish the lower phase(s) of the communist mode of production), he'll object to it even more.


I am not a Trotskyist, as the Trotskyists who know me will be only to happy to confirm.

Anyone who tells me,however, that the UK and or Sweden are "30%" socialist is playing with words, displaying what I call "analytic sophistry." The only place that sort of "reasoning" gets anybody is tailing after the "30%" socialists carrying 100% of the bourgeoisie's water.

I'm not inclined to carry anybody's water.

Like I said, no more slack.

[JamesH]

I hear a lot of nice words about "emancipation" and "abolition" but I hear no concrete plan from those opposed to agitating for a democratic constitution about how the working class will achieve it's liberation without sovereign, democratic power.

[S.Artesian]

I hear a lot of nice words about "emancipation" and "abolition" but I hear no concrete plan from those opposed to agitating for a democratic constitution about how the working class will achieve it's liberation without sovereign, democratic power.

Nobody said the working class does not require sovereign, democratic power, since sovereign means ruling, and democratic is precisely how the working class conducts itself in its own class organizations.

What is contested here is the notion that the road to that power involves a trip through agitating for a revised US Constitution, as opposed to say demands for abolition of debt-- consumer and housing debt; termination of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; termination of all military spending; defense of migrant workers against INS incursions into workplaces.


And before you say-- "unrealistic"-- stop at think about the realism of a revision of the US constitution-- of an amendment to outlaw wage-labor-- that's the apex of unreality.


I don't hear anything that amounts to a realistic plan from those advocating constitutional change to the constitutional government and the constitution itself-- unless you think, of course, getting such changes adopted by state legislatures is so much easier and more realistic, given the fact that state legislatures are specifically designed to "overweight" rural areas in order to offset the weight of the cities-- i.e. workers.

You got any nice words? I mean besides "sovereign," and "democratic"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

I hear a lot of nice words about "emancipation" and "abolition" but I hear no concrete plan from those opposed to agitating for a democratic constitution about how the working class will achieve it's liberation without sovereign, democratic power.

You should read this article:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-strugglist-democracy-t112390/index.html

[Die Neue Zeit]

I am not a Trotskyist, as the Trotskyists who know me will be only to happy to confirm.

Then how come you oppose "steps toward socialism" that are taken on a national basis? How come you use the word "transition" to mean a period of time earlier than the transitional period between workers' power and the lower phase(s) of the communist mode of production? Why do you base your "transition" on growing political struggles out of economic ones?

[Paul Cockshott]

Let me appologise for the briefness of many of my earlier replies. I only occasionally
have access to a real computer at the moment, so most replies are painfully thumbed
in on a mobile phone that only allows me to edit 5 narrow lines of text.


Obviously, every historical struggle develops, that's what makes it historical. The questions involve the linkage, or the separation, between various stages, the rate of transformation of one stage into another, and the mechanisms, the mediations that must embody those transitions to bring a struggle to fruition.

"Stages" don't exist as discrete, separate, isolated packages. They erupt as manifestations of that fundamental conflict between means and relations of production that, as Marx said, announces a revolutionary era. So at the very moment when organizations and individuals are announcing their fidelity to a "stage," they are in that very act severing themselves from the full development of that essential conflict.

Examples? You can look at... well Russia and the impossibility of confining that struggle to the interim stage of the provisional revolutionary government; of resolving that struggle through or by a "constituent assembly."

I would have thought that Russia showed clear stages.

1. The establishment of the Soviet form of government.
2. A decade or so later the establishment of a socialist economy.




And we can also see in the organization of working class power, in the soviets, the only effective mediation to accomplish the transition, and the actualization of working class power.

Soviets appear, on the basis of historical experience, to require very special circumstances to come into existence : defeat in war, a
mutiny of the armed forces, and an existing absolutist or dictatorial government.
Even when they have come into existence, there is only the 1917 Russian example
as a reasonably long term success in terms of establishing a socialist economy.
There record in terms of establishing any real democracy does not even extend
to that case, since within a very short while you effectively had one dominant party controlling the state. The indirect elections inherent in the Soviet constitution made
this almost inevitable.

Were some form of military dictatorship to be established in the USA, and were this to
lead the country into prolonged and bloody wars in which it was finally defeated, one
could envisage soviets being thrown up in the US. But I suspect it is a mirage to expect
them to arise and be able to take power otherwise. It was understandable that the
Russian socialists in the 1920s thought that their country's model was universal, but
now, almost a century later we should be skeptical.






We can look at the Spanish Civil War, where the adherence to a "republicanism," justified by appeals to Spain's "lack of economic development," it's "backward relations of landed property," has the practical result in disorganizing the working class core of the struggle, and in effect, disavowing the need for expropriation of private property, expropriation of the bourgeoisie as a class.

I do not know enough Spanish history to comment on this.


We can look at Chile under the UP govt, 1970-1973, with its program of "splitting" a "national" "democratic" bourgeoisie from "monopoly" and international capital in the belief that the struggle had to first "win a majority of the population" to itself to see another example of the "stagist" theorizing, which in reality acts as an opposition to the workers own actions.

As I recall, the Allende government never had a majority in the assembly, despite
winning the presidency. This hamstrung its tax and legislative programme.
This, to my mind, is an example of how the American constitutional model of
a separation of powers makes the task of a socialist government far harder.




Some of these things are simple: like opposing all the myriad bailout programs the bourgeoisie unleashed when they were more than a few days late and a few trillion dollars short; like opposing all evictions, and demanding instead immediate cancellation of debt-- mortgage debt, credit card debt-- just abolish it.


I am in full agreement with this, but in order to actually abolish all debt you need to
be in a position to enact it. I think the original Erfurt programme's demand for direct
popular legislation -- something which Kautsky was opposed to if I recall my biography of him correctly, is relevant here. If the constitution allows for direct legislation by the people
then there is better possibility of winning a referendum on the cancellation of all debts
than the chance of being able to win that via a vote in an elected assembly.




Advocating a "democratic c[C]onstitution" does not speak to that need for separation and opposition of the working class to the bourgeoisie, of labor to private property.

You can only "win" the battle for "democracy," by battling for something other than "democracy," by battling for the expropriation of capital.

The motive for democracy has ever been the despoilation of the propertied classes, that is certainly true.

[JamesH]

Nobody said the working class does not require sovereign, democratic power, since sovereign means ruling, and democratic is precisely how the working class conducts itself in its own class organizations.

What is contested here is the notion that the road to that power involves a trip through agitating for a revised US Constitution, as opposed to say demands for abolition of debt-- consumer and housing debt; termination of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; termination of all military spending; defense of migrant workers against INS incursions into workplaces.


And before you say-- "unrealistic"-- stop at think about the realism of a revision of the US constitution-- of an amendment to outlaw wage-labor-- that's the apex of unreality.


I don't hear anything that amounts to a realistic plan from those advocating constitutional change to the constitutional government and the constitution itself-- unless you think, of course, getting such changes adopted by state legislatures is so much easier and more realistic, given the fact that state legislatures are specifically designed to "overweight" rural areas in order to offset the weight of the cities-- i.e. workers.

You got any nice words? I mean besides "sovereign," and "democratic"?

True, no one said that this was going to be easy. You're quite right that a struggle for democracy would not be easily accomplished but I don't see why struggles for the termination of military spending or ending the war in Afghanistan should be top priority, goals that are about as likely to happen in the near future as a new constitutional convention. But at least a democratic constitution gives the working class power to change property relations; ending the war in Afghanistan or terminating military spending-while perhaps strengthening the power of the organized left-does nothing in that direction.

[Paul Cockshott]

Anyone who tells me,however, that the UK and or Sweden are "30%" socialist is playing with words, displaying what I call "analytic sophistry." .

They obviously are not now, but in 1978 over 50% of the housing stock in Britain
was owned by the state, so were all the energy industries including oil, gas, coal,
electricity, atomic power. So were all telecoms, the railways, the aircraft industry,
most of civil aviation, the greater part of the car industry, steel, shipbuilding, health,
90% of education, the greater part of armaments production....
This amounted to at least 30% of the economy, and a significant part of this was
non-comodity production: free health and education.

This economic structure had been brought about by a Labour Party that did it because
it thought that this was what you had to do to establish socialism.

I note that you do not challenge my estimate of the CSSR to be about 95% socialist.

[S.Artesian]

Let me appologise for the briefness of many of my earlier replies. I only occasionally
have access to a real computer at the moment, so most replies are painfully thumbed
in on a mobile phone that only allows me to edit 5 narrow lines of text.


I would have thought that Russia showed clear stages.

1. The establishment of the Soviet form of government.
2. A decade or so later the establishment of a socialist economy.

I had in mind the historical debate as to whether it was possible for the Russian revolution to be a proletarian one, given the "necessity" of a stage of bourgeois development, which so many Marxists mistakenly thought hadn't occurred to a sufficient degree in Russia.

Those Marxists in their formal "stagism" failed to grasp that the "backwardness" of Russia was itself an index to capitalism running up against the limits of private property. It is the uneven and combined development of capitalism in its international growth that puts an end to that argument of stages and "development."

It seems to me that similar, analogous arguments about "sufficient development" have dogged, literally, the prospect for the independent actions of workers to this day. Took place in Chile and led to the complete disorganization of the working class by the UP government itself, so much so that Allende in the midst of his own overthrow took to the radio to urge the workers to stay at home, to stay indoors and trust to the "constitutional process."

Right, the UP coalition did not have control of the legislature, and the legislature had the power to frustrate much, but not most, and not all, of the UP's program. The UP did that all by itself, with its timidity. What the legislature did do was actually request the military to overthrow Allende in June and July prior to the actual September coup. And what did the UP do? Did it disperse the legislature? Did it arrest those calling for a coup? Nope. Sure didn't. But it certainly did oppose the actions of the workers themselves, taking over the small and medium size industries that the UP, and in particular the CP, wanted to court as friends-- despite the fact that those same capitalists were trying to move their money out of the country, were supporting the legislature etc.

We see similar stagism going on in Bolivia in 2003, and again in 2005 and after, with the MAS leadership paying lip service to socialism, but its dues to capitalism, explicitly endorsing a program of state capitalism.

And keep an eye, BTW, on Bolivia, where things are starting to come undone-- with strikes in Potosi, and occupations; with the MAS unable to transform the state bureaucracy that can and will frustrate radical steps.


Soviets appear, on the basis of historical experience, to require very special circumstances to come into existence : defeat in war, a
mutiny of the armed forces, and an existing absolutist or dictatorial government.

Yes and no. Equivalents of soviets appeared in Spain, they appeared in Chile, and forerunners have appeared in Bolivia, in the FEJUVEs [netword of neighborhood associations], with the FEJUVE in El Alto leading the struggle against the privatization of the water system.


Even when they have come into existence, there is only the 1917 Russian example
as a reasonably long term success in terms of establishing a socialist economy.
There record in terms of establishing any real democracy does not even extend
to that case, since within a very short while you effectively had one dominant party controlling the state. The indirect elections inherent in the Soviet constitution made
this almost inevitable.

All true. Soviets are like life itself; fragile, messy, and vulnerable. And you know what else? They beat the hell out of every other alternative.


Were some form of military dictatorship to be established in the USA, and were this to
lead the country into prolonged and bloody wars in which it was finally defeated, one
could envisage soviets being thrown up in the US. But I suspect it is a mirage to expect
them to arise and be able to take power otherwise.

Being created is one thing, and taking power is something else. I expect soviets could be created just like they've been created in other places-- as workers' own forms or organization to confront living conditions in and out of the work places. Has happened that way in places. Taking power? That's the hardest part, no doubt.



It was understandable that the
Russian socialists in the 1920s thought that their country's model was universal, but
now, almost a century later we should be skeptical.

I honestly do not think the Russian socialists in the 1920s though soviets were the universal model, especially since they were so quick to dispense with their own.



I am in full agreement with this, but in order to actually abolish all debt you need to
be in a position to enact it. I think the original Erfurt programme's demand for direct
popular legislation -- something which Kautsky was opposed to if I recall my biography of him correctly, is relevant here. If the constitution allows for direct legislation by the people
then there is better possibility of winning a referendum on the cancellation of all debts
than the chance of being able to win that via a vote in an elected assembly.

Yes. But that's not going to happen. So either we use that demand simply as a point of agitation, which doesn't seem very worthwhile to me, or we look to make such demands part of the foundation of workers' own organizations in opposition to that of the bourgeoisie's government.



The motive for democracy has ever been the despoilation of the propertied classes, that is certainly true.[/QUOTE]

Did you mean to say "never"? If so we're in agreement, and that's my point. I think the issue of direct control must include direct expropriation.

[Paul Cockshott]

Yes ad hoc councils have often arisen, but to be a revolutionary institution they have to be councils of workers and soldiers deputies.

The situation in the US with widespread gun ownership is perhaps slightly different, but even there a council of civilians with ad hoc self defence guards would be very hard put to contest power with the official armed forces. Playing at insurrection would be a very dangerous gamble.

[S.Artesian]

True, no one said that this was going to be easy. You're quite right that a struggle for democracy would not be easily accomplished but I don't see why struggles for the termination of military spending or ending the war in Afghanistan should be top priority, goals that are about as likely to happen in the near future as a new constitutional convention. But at least a democratic constitution gives the working class power to change property relations; ending the war in Afghanistan or terminating military spending-while perhaps strengthening the power of the organized left-does nothing in that direction.


The problem I see with agitation for a new "democratic" constitution is quite simply the lack of class specific consciousness, a failure to attack and articulate the social relations of production at the core; at the heart of the struggle.

At every point, Marx is pretty adamant that behind the notions of "democracy" stands the "social question" the questions of property. In fact, we could Marx's own work actually begins with that confrontation of the social question, of property, of the actual relations of production with the apparent "democracy," "equality" of the bourgeois order. I have in mind specifically Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right where Marx's recognition and critique of Hegel's capitulation, his abandonment of negation through his idealization of the state launches Marx on his investigations of capitalism, and capitalism's favorite ideology, political economy.

I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell of a democratic constitution that allows workers to change property relations ever comes into being without their first being the physical expropriation and suppression of the bourgeoisie and its current constitution.

The issue of military spending is an attempt to pose the question, the issue, of production for need. What is, and who needs, military production? What are these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq about, if not the maintenance of private property, and the reproduction of profit for our asset-stripping, asset-liquidating bourgeoisie.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Were some form of military dictatorship to be established in the USA, and were this to lead the country into prolonged and bloody wars in which it was finally defeated, one could envisage soviets being thrown up in the US. But I suspect it is a mirage to expect them to arise and be able to take power otherwise. It was understandable that the
Russian socialists in the 1920s thought that their country's model was universal, but now, almost a century later we should be skeptical.

Comrade, I think that the emergence of successful US soviets in your scenario is a bit too optimistic. "All power to the soviets" is an ultra-left sham in pretty much every circumstance.

[S.Artesian]

They obviously are not now, but in 1978 over 50% of the housing stock in Britain
was owned by the state, so were all the energy industries including oil, gas, coal,
electricity, atomic power. So were all telecoms, the railways, the aircraft industry,
most of civil aviation, the greater part of the car industry, steel, shipbuilding, health,
90% of education, the greater part of armaments production....
This amounted to at least 30% of the economy, and a significant part of this was
non-comodity production: free health and education.

This economic structure had been brought about by a Labour Party that did it because
it thought that this was what you had to do to establish socialism.

I note that you do not challenge my estimate of the CSSR to be about 95% socialist.


1. The state, in and of itself, does not equal socialism. The fact that the fixed costs of capital so deplete the margins of and for profit that the bourgeoisie must transfer title to the state has as little to do with socialism as the fact that the state of NY pays for the NYC subways has to do with socialism.

That along with the fact that that same bourgeoisie agrees, temporarily, to that same state funding health care is not socialist, and is not new-- Marx has an interesting part, I think it's in Volume 2 where he talks about how in ancient or pre-capitalist societies, certain items of immense expense are made the tasks, the wards actually of the state. I think Marx specifically refers to road construction. Same same. And.. it's a good way for the bourgeoisie to get the workers to pick up some additional part of the cost for their own reproduction

And look what occurred in Britain prior to the great Thatcher pre-emptive counterrevolution. What was transpiring? What was the characteristic of the entire period from 1973-1979-- the power plant strikes, the turning out of Heath, the reinstallation of Labor, and the role the supposedly socialists of the Labor Party played in subduing the workers movement, and paving the way for Thatcher?

2. Re the CSSR-- give me time, comrade, give me a little time.

[S.Artesian]

Comrade, I think that the emergence of successful US soviets in your scenario is a bit too optimistic. "All power to the soviets" is an ultra-left sham in pretty much every circumstance.

Actually, I think you're pretty much of a sham in pretty much every circumstance.

And I know it was you, in the one of threads on Greece, who advocated that the EU step in to take over some of the big ticket items like healthcare costs, and the military budget.

You got some cojones talking about workers' councils as shams.

[JamesH]

The problem I see with agitation for a new "democratic" constitution is quite simply the lack of class specific consciousness, a failure to attack and articulate the social relations of production at the core; at the heart of the struggle.

At every point, Marx is pretty adamant that behind the notions of "democracy" stands the "social question" the questions of property. In fact, we could Marx's own work actually begins with that confrontation of the social question, of property, of the actual relations of production with the apparent "democracy," "equality" of the bourgeois order. I have in mind specifically Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right where Marx's recognition and critique of Hegel's capitulation, his abandonment of negation through his idealization of the state launches Marx on his investigations of capitalism, and capitalism's favorite ideology, political economy.

I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell of a democratic constitution that allows workers to change property relations ever comes into being without their first being the physical expropriation and suppression of the bourgeoisie and its current constitution.

The issue of military spending is an attempt to pose the question, the issue, of production for need. What is, and who needs, military production? What are these wars in Afghanistan and Iraq about, if not the maintenance of private property, and the reproduction of profit for our asset-stripping, asset-liquidating bourgeoisie.

It seems that your objection lies in the belief that the political struggle for democracy causes a loss of focus on the class aspect. But the fight for democracy is intimately tied up with the class struggle; it is the battle of the demos (the poor, the commoners) against the representatives of the ruling class in the billionaire Senate, House, and White House.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You got some cojones talking about workers' councils as shams.

Real parties are real movements and vice versa. Others here also have "some cajones," but instead talking about party-movements as centrist "shams."

[DunyaGongrenKomRevolyutsi]

They obviously are not now, but in 1978 over 50% of the housing stock in Britain
was owned by the state, so were all the energy industries including oil, gas, coal,
electricity, atomic power. So were all telecoms, the railways, the aircraft industry,
most of civil aviation, the greater part of the car industry, steel, shipbuilding, health,
90% of education, the greater part of armaments production....
This amounted to at least 30% of the economy, and a significant part of this was
non-comodity production: free health and education.

This economic structure had been brought about by a Labour Party that did it because
it thought that this was what you had to do to establish socialism.

I note that you do not challenge my estimate of the CSSR to be about 95% socialist.

This is staggering! ownership of the means of production which is what socialism is and yet, the workers are not in any way in control of the means of production in the UK, nor have they ever been at any point.. how can you therefore call the UK of that era, "30% socialism"?

Had workers established a dual-power base whereby, they had soviets operating over large regions then I MIGHT have taken your assertion here seriously (at various points, you could say independent committees came close to taking over large areas like cities, ie the glasgow soviet) but your suggestion here is absolutely absurd! Do you think that this sort of talk helps defeat the illusions that workers still have in the Labour Party and trade unions movement, even today?

[S.Artesian]

It seems that your objection lies in the belief that the political struggle for democracy causes a loss of focus on the class aspect. But the fight for democracy is intimately tied up with the class struggle; it is the battle of the demos (the poor, the commoners) against the representatives of the ruling class in the billionaire Senate, House, and White House.

Yes it's intimately tied up. NO it's not identical to, nor can it substitute for, that class aspect.

You can make this a battle of poor vs. rich but then how do you distinguish that from populism, without defining the social basis, the relations of production that make the rich rich, and the workers workers?

[S.Artesian]

Real parties are real movements and vice versa. Others here also have "some cajones," but instead talking about party-movements as centrist "shams."

I haven't said anything about party-movement being "centrist shams," just as I have never opposed "steps to socialism" taken on a "national basis."

Both accusations are shams, your personal shams.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I haven't said anything about party-movement being "centrist shams," just as I have never opposed "steps to socialism" taken on a "national basis."

Yes you have, like in the PCF thread and like in your various derisions of Soviet economic accomplishments (finance nationalization, land nationalization, trade monopoly, etc.).

[Paul Cockshott]

well from a syndicalist standpoint you would be right, but syndicalism was a relatively minor tendancy in socialism. Most of the socialist movement aimed for state ownership, and this includes most communists and Trotskyists.

[S.Artesian]

Yes you have, like in the PCF thread and like in your various derisions of Soviet economic accomplishments (finance nationalization, land nationalization, trade monopoly, etc.).



Either you are confusing me with someone else, or you are deliberately making things up and being dishonest. A charitable soul would conclude the former. I am not that charitable a soul.

Check the PCF thread and reproduce a single post where I deride the Soviet economic accomplishments. Better yet, find a single post where I discuss the the Soviet economic accomplishments.

Check your thread on Lars T. Lih for any post where I deride the economic accomplishments of the fSU.

Better yet, check Lenina's thread on State Capitalist Theories for any posts where I deride the economic accomplishments of the fSU.

Or check the various Stalin/Trotsky debate threads, or the "Socialism in One Country" threads.

And let's keep in mind that criticism, disagreement, or pointing out the contradictions in any economic, social formation do not constitute derision. Derision means contemptuous dismissal.

This is part of the reason I referred to you as a sham. You make things up to suit your own needs. So you claim I 'deride' the accomplishments of the fSU.

If I remember correctly, and I'm sure I do, you are actually on record as suggesting, if not directly endorsing, that, in 1918, the Menshevik Internationalists and Left SRs should have organized a counter-coup, expelling the Bolsheviks from the soviets, so go ahead and square that with your uncritical praise of the accomplishments of the Soviet economy.

The economic accomplishments of the fSU were an index to the great strength of the proletariat's seizure of power-- to its expropriation and suppression of the bourgeoisie-- actions that were extra-constitutional to say the least.

Those accomplishments did not however amount to socialism nor did they secure the development of socialism from internal erosion and external attack. Consequently, we need to examine the actual material dynamics of land nationalization, the financial nationalization etc to see 1) what was accomplished, particularly in terms of amplified productivity of labor; amplified productivity in agriculture 2) what was not accomplished in advancing the working class' self-organization 3) the interactions of the economy with the world markets.

When you can demonstrate that you are capable of controlling your compulsion to create deliberate distortions about others' statements, I'll be more than happy to discuss these, and other issues with you. Until then however, as we used to say back in the day, go pound sand.

And I say that with my sincere best wishes for your future success as the mini-Kautsky.

[S.Artesian]

well from a syndicalist standpoint you would be right, but syndicalism was a relatively minor tendancy in socialism. Most of the socialist movement aimed for state ownership, and this includes most communists and Trotskyists.

State ownership does not mean ownership of the bourgeoisie's state apparatus. State ownership means the overthrow and destruction of that apparatus, by organs and organization of the proletariat.

What was it that friend of Marx said about the state, something about in essence it being bodies of armed men? And somebody else, that guy who said not simply taking over, "laying hands on," but breaking up... Something along those lines.

I'm all for state power. Expropriation requires just that. Expropriation of the bourgeoisie is the necessary prerequisite for socialism. Which is why the UK was/is 0% socialist.

[Paul Cockshott]

State ownership does not mean ownership of the bourgeoisie's state apparatus. State ownership means the overthrow and destruction of that apparatus, by organs and organization of the proletariat.

What was it that friend of Marx said about the state, something about in essence it being bodies of armed men? And somebody else, that guy who said not simply taking over, "laying hands on," but breaking up... Something along those lines.

That is what you mean, but that is not what much of the socialist movement historically meant by state ownership.

If state ownership becomes sufficiently extensive, and if the social weight of the working class is large enough that starts to change the dynamics of the economy. I think that the crisis in the UK economy from the mid 60s to the late 70s was an interstitial crisis between capitalist and socialist forms of economy. The publicly owned sector was sufficiently large, that, when combined with a policy of full employment it underrmined the dynamic of capitalism. The Labour Movement did not throw up a strategy to complete the transition, the closest that it came was the Alternative Economic Strategy of the Benn wing. The extra parliamentary left certainly had no strategy, since they did not understand the conjuncture.

We see the end result of full scale nationalisation in the former CSSR where Klement Gottwald's government carried out much more extensive nationalisations than Clemment Atlee's one in Britain, and as a result ended up with an economy which was no longer capitalist.

By the usage of everyone but a few small sects like the SWP, the Czech economy was 'socialist'. This was achieved without the smashing of the old state machinery. Instead the workers movement took it over and used it or its own ends. The balance of power within
the coalition in Prague had been heavily influenced by demonstrations by workers militia
demanding more cabinet posts for the CP, but this was external pressure on what
was otherwise a change in who occupied which ministry.

I think that the economic policies followed by the government of the CSSR and the political form of the state left a lot to be desired in terms of the ultimate long term survival of socialism

[DunyaGongrenKomRevolyutsi]

State ownership does not mean ownership of the bourgeoisie's state apparatus. State ownership means the overthrow and destruction of that apparatus, by organs and organization of the proletariat.

What was it that friend of Marx said about the state, something about in essence it being bodies of armed men? And somebody else, that guy who said not simply taking over, "laying hands on," but breaking up... Something along those lines.

I'm all for state power. Expropriation requires just that. Expropriation of the bourgeoisie is the necessary prerequisite for socialism. Which is why the UK was/is 0% socialist.

Aye, amazing that these guys don't acknowledge any of that.

[S.Artesian]

That is what you mean, but that is not what much of the socialist movement historically meant by state ownership.

If state ownership becomes sufficiently extensive, and if the social weight of the working class is large enough that starts to change the dynamics of the economy. I think that the crisis in the UK economy from the mid 60s to the late 70s was an interstitial crisis between capitalist and socialist forms of economy. The publicly owned sector was sufficiently large, that, when combined with a policy of full employment it underrmined the dynamic of capitalism. The Labour Movement did not throw up a strategy to complete the transition, the closest that it came was the Alternative Economic Strategy of the Benn wing. The extra parliamentary left certainly had no strategy, since they did not understand the conjuncture.

We see the end result of full scale nationalisation in the former CSSR where Klement Gottwald's government carried out much more extensive nationalisations than Clemment Atlee's one in Britain, and as a result ended up with an economy which was no longer capitalist.

By the usage of everyone but a few small sects like the SWP, the Czech economy was 'socialist'. This was achieved without the smashing of the old state machinery. Instead the workers movement took it over and used it or its own ends. The balance of power within
the coalition in Prague had been heavily influenced by demonstrations by workers militia
demanding more cabinet posts for the CP, but this was external pressure on what
was otherwise a change in who occupied which ministry.

I think that the economic policies followed by the government of the CSSR and the political form of the state left a lot to be desired in terms of the ultimate long term survival of socialism


So the struggle between classes became a struggle within a "mixed economy" and, as all the conservatives proclaimed with great trepidation, Britain was creeping its way into socialism?

We disagree. Your argument is basically a continuation of the social democrat argument [picked up even by Lenin] that trusts, concentration of capital, and state operation of of parts of the bourgeois economy are, in and of themselves, socialist.

The crisis of Britain, particularly in its acute phase from around 1970 through the ascension of Callaghan 1) cannot be abstracted from the general overproduction of capital internationally 2) the declining returns on investment due to (1) 3) and is not fundamentally different than what takes place in the US in the period 1970-1980 leading to the ascent of our US idiot version of the UK's Thatcher, Ronald Reagan.

As for CSSR, I have to do a lot more research on the taking of power and transformation of the economy before even making a comment.

As for what most of the "socialist movement" means by state power-- what constitutes your most? The official CPs? The official Socialist Parties?

Did Soares in power in Portugal constitute socialism? Did it constitute "taking state power" in any real sense? How about Zapatero in Spain? Socialism? State power of small s socialism? Lula? Bachelet? Mitterand?

Is France with its heavy state ownership "more socialist" than the US? Than Germany? But less socialist than Sweden?

Your notion of the conquest of power is confined completely within and by the framework established by the bourgeoisie, and as such, it is no suprise, and no mere aberration that all it leads to is the restoration of the bourgeoisie in its more virulent, vicious persona.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Check the PCF thread and reproduce a single post where I deride the Soviet economic accomplishments. Better yet, find a single post where I discuss the the Soviet economic accomplishments.

You derided the possibility of the COMECON collectively developing socialism, if I remember correctly. The COMECON was a bigger bloc than just the Soviet Union.


Or check the various Stalin/Trotsky debate threads, or the "Socialism in One Country" threads.

See above.


If I remember correctly, and I'm sure I do, you are actually on record as suggesting, if not directly endorsing, that, in 1918, the Menshevik Internationalists and Left SRs should have organized a counter-coup, expelling the Bolsheviks from the soviets, so go ahead and square that with your uncritical praise of the accomplishments of the Soviet economy.

That's 1920, not 1918. Get your years right. 1918 was when the Bolshevik coups d'etat occurred, and 1920 was the only safe time to overthrow them.


Those accomplishments did not however amount to socialism nor did they secure the development of socialism from internal erosion and external attack. Consequently, we need to examine the actual material dynamics of land nationalization, the financial nationalization etc to see 1) what was accomplished, particularly in terms of amplified productivity of labor; amplified productivity in agriculture 2) what was not accomplished in advancing the working class' self-organization 3) the interactions of the economy with the world markets.

Granted, the COMECON never really did integrate enough, but you dismissed the possibility of sufficient integration securing "the development of socialism from internal erosion and external attack."


Your argument is basically a continuation of the social democrat argument [picked up even by Lenin] that trusts, concentration of capital, and state operation of of parts of the bourgeois economy are, in and of themselves, socialist.

Since Marx and Engels used the word "socialism" derisively in the Communist Manifesto, that social-democratic argument is valid, but only to the extent that the correct parts of the economy are owned by the state (utilities, land, and banks first and foremost).


Your notion of the conquest of power is confined completely within and by the framework established by the bourgeoisie, and as such, it is no suprise, and no mere aberration that all it leads to is the restoration of the bourgeoisie in its more virulent, vicious persona.

Implicit in Paul's posts is a critique of socialist economism, analogous to the old True Socialism.

[Paul Cockshott]

This is staggering! ownership of the means of production which is what socialism is and yet, the workers are not in any way in control of the means of production in the UK, nor have they ever been at any point.. how can you therefore call the UK of that era, "30% socialism"?

I was illustrating what a large share of the economy, and thus the means of production + means of consumption ( housing stock ) was publically owned. In the main this public ownership arose because of the demands of the workers movement. Although some firms were certainly nationalised because they were in financial difficulties, others were nationalised at the demand of the trades unions. The relevant unions demanded and got nationalisation of coal, railways, steel, shipbuilding.

As Joni Mitchell sang at the time, you dont know what youve got till its gone. Even people like the SWP who were skeptical about nationalised industries at the time came out against the privatisation and contracting out which replaced nationalisation under Thatcher.



Had workers established a dual-power base whereby, they had soviets operating over large regions then I MIGHT have taken your assertion here seriously (at various points, you could say independent committees came close to taking over large areas like cities, ie the glasgow soviet) but your suggestion here is absolutely absurd! Do you think that this sort of talk helps defeat the illusions that workers still have in the Labour Party and trade unions movement, even today?

I live in Glasgow, and I am unaware of there ever having been a Soviet here. There has been effective contest of state power by the population though, the most recent being the successful mass civil disobedience against the Poll Tax and the subsequent sucessfull campaign against water privatisation. In that campaign we won a majority of over 90% in a popular referendum against water privatisation. This indicates that the working class here could clearly see a difference between a publicly owned utility supplying water and a private company doing the same.

[JamesH]

Yes it's intimately tied up. NO it's not identical to, nor can it substitute for, that class aspect.

You can make this a battle of poor vs. rich but then how do you distinguish that from populism, without defining the social basis, the relations of production that make the rich rich, and the workers workers?

I must admit confusion; can't we talk about that stuff along with the political struggle? I just don't see how making a rather roundabout critique of property relations through antiwar activism is more preferable to discussing issues that are most important here to workers at home.

In this country, every worker knows that his/her paycheck is pitifully inadequate and that the bosses earn far more than the value they create-hence the need for a quantitative education on the extent of exploitation in the capitalist mode of production; agitation in this direction could really resonate among the working class.

There is also widespread cynicism here about the Republic, with confidence in our government and politicians at a real low. This is being channeled by the Tea Party people into a "throw them all out!" movement; we ought to seize the initiative and hammer home the futility of the electoral process. We should be initiating and mobilizing not for electoral campaigns but for popular referenda. The idea is to engage in these tactics as part of a slow, mission creep towards a democratic constitution.

[S.Artesian]

You derided the possibility of the COMECON collectively developing socialism, if I remember correctly. The COMECON was a bigger bloc than just the Soviet Union.

There you go again, deliberately distorting what was written. First you claim that I derided the accomplishments of the fSU, nationalization of finance, land nationalization. When challenged on that you now flip the script and say "Oh you deried the possibility of Comecon collectively developing socialism. Comecon was a bigger bloc than just the Soviet Union."

You remember in correctly as that discussion was not in the PCF thread. Secondly, I did not deride anything the Soviet bloc accomplished, derision meaning contemptuous dismissal. I derided your idealist illusions that said the Comecon "went wrong" in not coordinating its policy across borders, in that such coordination would require the revolutionary collective action of the working class itself across borders, something the bureaucracies in each and all the Comecon countries were a bit reluctant to engage.

It was your illusion, based on your simple-minded notion of "size" rather than social relations of production that were being derided. Now perhaps it's difficult for you, with your overgrown ego to distinguish between you, the wannabe Kautsky, and the actual prospects, and requirements of socialism, but there are medications you can take for that.

So again, yes I deride your contention that socialism is a matter of "policy," of having the correct policy, of bureaucratic voluntarism based on the size of the economy [as if the fSU wasn't big enough on its own, as if the fSU did not possess physical resources, raw materials, use values enough on its own to accomplish what you regard to be socialism.

At no point have I ever contemptuously dismissed the gains of the proletarian revolution in Russia. I have criticized the methods by which such gains were achieved, and the ultimate costs of those gains based on the weakening of and damage to the prospects for international revolution by that very same bureaucracy.

I happen to consider WW2 one of those costs. Perhaps you don't see a connection between the gains of the five year plans and the policies of the International that proved so disastrous for the working class and consolidated the rule of the bourgeoisie enough so that they could conscript their own working classes in the slaughter of each others' working classes. I do. And that connection is summed up in four words: Socialism in One Country.

Criticism is not derision, nor is it "treason." But lying is lying.

So... produce the post where I contemptuously dismiss the gains of the fSU. Not where I say they don't amount to socialism. But where I dismiss them as irrelevant, meaningless, marginal. Or just shut up.

[S.Artesian]

I must admit confusion; can't we talk about that stuff along with the political struggle? I just don't see how making a rather roundabout critique of property relations through antiwar activism is more preferable to discussing issues that are most important here to workers at home.

In this country, every worker knows that his/her paycheck is pitifully inadequate and that the bosses earn far more than the value they create-hence the need for a quantitative education on the extent of exploitation in the capitalist mode of production; agitation in this direction could really resonate among the working class.

There is also widespread cynicism here about the Republic, with confidence in our government and politicians at a real low. This is being channeled by the Tea Party people into a "throw them all out!" movement; we ought to seize the initiative and hammer home the futility of the electoral process. We should be initiating and mobilizing not for electoral campaigns but for popular referenda. The idea is to engage in these tactics as part of a slow, mission creep towards a democratic constitution.

I agree with all of that, except that last two sentences. The fact of the matter is that class struggle does not allow for popular referenda and "slow mission creep." The bourgeoisie are not slow on pulling the trigger when they feel secure enough. Slow mission creep is exactly what has proven so deadly time after time to the prospects for revolutionary transformation.

Paul indicates there was a "slow mission creep" in the UK in the period beginning with Atlee and ending with Callaghan. OK, so what was the result? Was the mission accomplished? Obviously not. Could the mission have been accomplished along the lines that I think Paul envisions?

Only if the bourgeoisie weren't the bourgeoisie; only if this weren't already capitalism. But it is capitalism.

Allende and the UP believed in exactly that type of slow mission creep. Didn't work out too well there.

In the midst of "near-revolutionary" upsurge in Portugal and then in Spain, where in fact workers' councils sprung up spontaneously, there were those arguing for "slow mission creep," establishing a democratic process as if such a "democratic process" could have been established without one class or the other establishing its dominance. Well one class did. And they called that a democratic process.

Now we can argue that it's not a real democracy, or...or we can look at the class struggle at the root, the heart of the upsurge in Chile, or Portugal, or Spain, and say hey.. this isn't about establishing a formal democracy, with popular referenda, with direct and immediate recall of representatives, this is a class struggle, a question of which class has the power, and which institutions serve which class.

Despite the derisive comments of those who believe workers' councils are a sham, time after time in both and advanced and less advanced capitalist countries, the workers themselves have thrown up forms of organization that represent the kernel of such councils.

In Honduras, after the ousting of Zelaya, similar organizations, led by the unions sprang up to coordinate protests and defend leaders and participants from the attacks of the police. The fact that the programs of these defense organizations were tied to restoring Zelaya, to protection of "democratic liberties," were not the critical factors-- that these organs were class organs was the critical factor. It took the combined efforts of the US, Brazil, and the Honduran police/military, and Zelaya himself to suppress those organizations. And they had to move fast.

Now the Honduran struggle needed to move beyond the legalism of the ousting of Zelaya; the phase of "democratic rights" and of slow mission creep and attack the fundamental relations of land and labor-- the social content actually driving the protests. And it would have moved there, which is why Fernandez, Lula, and Zelaya all tumbled so quickly to the "deal" that wasn't a deal that Micheletti agreed he didn't have to agree to.

Anyway, except for that, and the fact that the Tea Party isn't about "throwing all of them out," but is actually only about throwing Obama and his supporters out and mostly because Obama is not white, I agree with your post.

[DunyaGongrenKomRevolyutsi]

I was illustrating what a large share of the economy, and thus the means of production + means of consumption ( housing stock ) was publically owned. In the main this public ownership arose because of the demands of the workers movement. Although some firms were certainly nationalised because they were in financial difficulties, others were nationalised at the demand of the trades unions. The relevant unions demanded and got nationalisation of coal, railways, steel, shipbuilding.

Yes, demands that demobilised the workers movement from being as militant as it needed to be. It was a concession to quieten workers down.


As Joni Mitchell sang at the time, you dont know what youve got till its gone. Even people like the SWP who were skeptical about nationalised industries at the time came out against the privatisation and contracting out which replaced nationalisation under Thatcher.

The SWP still call for a vote for Labour, what good are they?


I live in Glasgow, and I am unaware of there ever having been a Soviet here. There has been effective contest of state power by the population though, the most recent being the successful mass civil disobedience against the Poll Tax and the subsequent sucessfull campaign against water privatisation. In that campaign we won a majority of over 90% in a popular referendum against water privatisation. This indicates that the working class here could clearly see a difference between a publicly owned utility supplying water and a private company doing the same.

The poll tax movement was pretty good, but it needed to move beyond reformism (and in a lot of ways it did), without trying to sound mean I would say it's a GOOD thing that it went far beyond popular referendums into being a direct economic struggle (mass non-payment of poll tax which had a powerful effect on the government). As for the Glasgow soviet: http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/archive/index.php/t-66664.html.

[S.Artesian]

Just because I'm such a good guy, I thought I'd dig up the old Comecon debate so we can see what was being so derisively dismissed.

It turns out it's in the the thread "For Trotskyists"

And here's what our mini-Kautsky says:


Really, the goal of the COMECON as a whole should have been self sufficiency and greater political integration, even if it resulted in tiny Albania being a bread basket, East Germany being an industrial powerhouse, or Bulgaria and Mongolia becoming Soviet republics.

To which I replied:


There is no such thing as self-sufficiency in food production. That's the point, and maybe, in the last analysis, the whole point to international revolution. No way technological development could be sufficient even on the an expanded SSR concept to support the social relations of production necessary to eliminate scarcity.

It's all about relations between city and countryside.

Which caused our mini-Kautsky to accuse me of being a mini-Malthus, which puzzled m so I replied:


WTF? Malthus' "line" is not about self-sufficiency or international development. His line is about maintaining scarcity. Europe is not "self-sufficient" in food production, neither is the US even though the US runs a balance of trade surplus in it agricultural sector.

The US imports billions of dollars worth of food annually. Is that because the US is following the Malthus line? Of course not, it is because capital is capital and everywhere seeks a profit.

Malthus' line is that productivity cannot overcome scarcity. Marx's "line" which I think I'm reiterating is that productivity certainly can and does overcome scarcity, but that such productivity cannot be achieved in "one country" or "one trading bloc."

The social relations of production will drive the advance or inhibition of productivity

Which brought these words of genius from DNZ:


Then you're definitely a defeatist by opposing the construction of socialist production in a sufficiently large (if not necessarily global) trading bloc.

Bringing these equally wise words from me:




I said earlier in this thread this argument about defeatism and SOIC is a stalking horse, as is the assertion that anybody was opposd to construction of "socialist production" in any country or trading bloc.

The point was what social relations of production were going to be developed to sustain and be sustained by the different proposals then and now.

It's utopian horseshit to think that the very same social relations that were maintained by the bureaucracy could or would have been suddenly transformed into relations where the workers in the Comecon countries would have been able to organize production across borders for the use of all, for the elimination of scarcity.

It's anti-historical moralizing to argue that the bureaucrats, wedded to organization of social relations of production that excluded the proletariat from doing that, would somehow have a collective epiphany and be able to, in and of itself as a bureaucracy, decide on establishing such cross-border collective rationality.

That's the point....

Even for the most advanced of the advanced countries, international exchange is essential for maximizing productivity, for rational development of production, for eliminating scarcity.

Again, that doesn't mean everybody waits for everybody to have a revolution before anybody has a revolution. It does mean "economic" policies cannot be divorced from the critical social relation, and the preliminary essential social relation is the expansion of the revolution to its global stage. http://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/misc/progress.gif

Now I realize I have a more aggressive and abrasive manner of speaking than most people, and I tend not to mind when people are abrasive with me, as long as they're being honest and not distorting the record, but really, there isn't a word of derision of the accomplishments of the proletarian revolution here.

Just in the interests of historical accuracy...

Now back to the US and the struggle for "real democracy..."?

[Paul Cockshott]

I agree with all of that, except that last two sentences. The fact of the matter is that class struggle does not allow for popular referenda and "slow mission creep." The bourgeoisie are not slow on pulling the trigger when they feel secure enough. Slow mission creep is exactly what has proven so deadly time after time to the prospects for revolutionary transformation.

Paul indicates there was a "slow mission creep" in the UK in the period beginning with Atlee and ending with Callaghan. OK, so what was the result? Was the mission accomplished? Obviously not. Could the mission have been accomplished along the lines that I think Paul envisions?


.

There is no doubt that social democratic politics reached an impasse in the mid 1970s.
This was partly a failure of leadership on the parts of the British and Swedish parties
to come up with an economic policy that could take the process forward. Some ideas
were in play, the alternative economic strategy and the worker buyout plans in Sweden, but these failed to win firm majority support in the parties.

The leaderships of the parties were not used to thinking in stategic terms about the
transformation of economic relations. They dealt with problems in an ad-hoc manner,
and the extra parliamentary left was stuck in a basically economistic mode and unable
to provide alternative leadership.

You are wrong to say that the class stuggle does not allow the use of popular referenda, I raised the objective of a popular referendum against water privatisation in the Govanhill ( a district on the South Side of Glasgow) committee against water privatisation. It was adopted by the campaign. The labour council supported it. It took place and stopped the privatisation in its tracks.

[Paul Cockshott]

The poll tax movement was pretty good, but it needed to move beyond reformism (and in a lot of ways it did), without trying to sound mean I would say it's a GOOD thing that it went far beyond popular referendums into being a direct economic struggle (mass non-payment of poll tax which had a powerful effect on the government). .

I was in the WPS at the time and we played a key role in intiating the anti-poll tax campaign. I was the first convenor of the Edinburgh anti poll tax union, and proposed that we print the first batch of posters with the slogan 'Pay No Poll Tax'. Our aim was to develop a mass campaign of civil disobediance that would question the existing state since our programme called for its replacement by a Scottish Workers Republic with an assembly chosen by lot
and all major laws and taxes subject to popular vote. We considered that mass civil disobediance against oppressive laws could lead to other forms of struggle as had happened in Ireland after the civil rights movement there. But a key to succeeding in such a strategy would have been to undermine the legitimacy of the existing state. Civil disobediance starts that, but it needs an ideology of an alternative state form if one is to justify more radical forms of struggle.

[S.Artesian]

There is no doubt that social democratic politics reached an impasse in the mid 1970s.
This was partly a failure of leadership on the parts of the British and Swedish parties
to come up with an economic policy that could take the process forward. Some ideas
were in play, the alternative economic strategy and the worker buyout plans in Sweden, but these failed to win firm majority support in the parties.

The failure of these parties is more than a failure of leadership, and more than an impasse. It is much more of an index to a transformation of capitalism-- of the end to the 1945-1969-70 post WW2 upswing.

In response to the topping of the rate of return on investment and its downward turn, the bourgeoisie, IMO, mobilize for an offensive against the living standards of the working class-- an offensive marked in birth in 1973 by two critical events-- OPEC 1, with OPEC serving as the bagman, or the rent collector for the oil companies, boosting their rates of return at the expense of the other capitalist sectors, and at the expense of living standards; and secondly, Pinochet's overthrow of Allende and the subsequent attack on living standards of Chilean workers.

It's not an offensive without reverses, setbacks, and even moments of near defeat-- there's as strike wave that surges in the US through 1974, there's the struggle in Portugal, and then later in Spain; there's Heath being run out of office by British workers.. but all of this dissipates, and is effectively reversed by the so-called leaders and leading parties of the workers themselves-- with such parties merely setting the workers up for what happens next, which in the UK and the US is massive attacks on workers, on living standards, on social gains.

And in less advanced capitalist countries is... death squads.

But in any case, capitalism, the needs of capital to counter reduced profitability called the tune, the tune of transferring wealth up the social ladder, of lowering wages, of de-concentrating capital [after the Turn strike in Italy, and the hot autumn, the Italian bourgeoisie vowed never to construct again so many factories with so many workers so closely]. Again, this is not a failure of the the leadership of "socialist" parties; a failure in a democratic process. It's the bourgeoisie grasping the imperative of class war, of, you should pardon the expression, fucking democracy, and taking care of business.



You are wrong to say that the class stuggle does not allow the use of popular referenda, I raised the objective of a popular referendum against water privatisation in the Govanhill ( a district on the South Side of Glasgow) committee against water privatisation. It was adopted by the campaign. The labour council supported it. It took place and stopped the privatisation in its tracks.

OK, I accept that. It can be an effective organizing tactic, but to be effective as an instrument of class struggle it has to be integrated into strategy for the class breaking with the institutions, and the parties of those institutions, that act to curtail its power.

[Paul Cockshott]

The failure of these parties is more than a failure of leadership, and more than an impasse. It is much more of an index to a transformation of capitalism-- of the end to the 1945-1969-70 post WW2 upswing.
That was the conjunctural situation of the crisis, but how it developed could
have been different had the workers movement had a strategy, a political economy
and a constitutional strategy of its own.

[DunyaGongrenKomRevolyutsi]

I was in the WPS at the time and we played a key role in intiating the anti-poll tax campaign. I was the first convenor of the Edinburgh anti poll tax union, and proposed that we print the first batch of posters with the slogan 'Pay No Poll Tax'. Our aim was to develop a mass campaign of civil disobediance that would question the existing state since our programme called for its replacement by a Scottish Workers Republic with an assembly chosen by lot
and all major laws and taxes subject to popular vote. We considered that mass civil disobediance against oppressive laws could lead to other forms of struggle as had happened in Ireland after the civil rights movement there. But a key to succeeding in such a strategy would have been to undermine the legitimacy of the existing state. Civil disobediance starts that, but it needs an ideology of an alternative state form if one is to justify more radical forms of struggle.

Thats a good achievement, I agree with the bulk of that apart from on taxes and laws, the former of which wouldnt/shouldnt really be applicable in a socialist state presuming we replaced the pound with labour vouchers. On laws, generally they require a little bit more than a popular vote, even in the most centralised and democratic workers' state, generally speaking this is a little point-picky I know but I feel it is important to be as honest as possible.

Back to your Scottish water points, the best course of action would be to support workers at SW and stop their living and working conditions from taking hits and secondly, for workers who use Scottish Water facilities at home to connect with the workers AT Scottish Water, on the grounds that the workers at SW do a good job and they are taking pay hits (I remember they struck in 2008, it was on the media fairly frequently for such a short strike).

But my points are that rather than organizing around the issue of privatisation or nationalisation, it is important to organize around the basic issues that exist within and around the two hyped up issues that the media and the government likes to talk about so much, I'm sure you basically agree but I think that a LOT of the left jumps onto these bandwagons so easily, when its never really that simple and we must be careful when approaching these issues not to foster illusions (the sort that Unison Scotland would like us to fall for).

[S.Artesian]

That was the conjunctural situation of the crisis, but how it developed could
have been different had the workers movement had a strategy, a political economy
and a constitutional strategy of its own.

That's true, Paul. But these things don't fall from the sky, and moreover, these cannot even come about when "loyalty" is required to those very parties, and institutions, organizations that embody, not just an old strategy, but an old moment of capitalism itself.

[Paul Cockshott]

That's true, Paul. But these things don't fall from the sky, and moreover, these cannot even come about when "loyalty" is required to those very parties, and institutions, organizations that embody, not just an old strategy, but an old moment of capitalism itself.
Well we have to learn from history, from our past failures and our past successes and develop strategies for the current stage. I put forward ideas on this, they may be proven wrong in the future, but they are my best shot at it for the present. I have no doubt they can be improved in debate.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And that connection is summed up in four words: Socialism in One Country.

Criticism is not derision, nor is it "treason." But lying is lying.

If you mean Soviet policies after 1933-1934, then you have a point. Which, coincidentally, would include events like the Spanish Civil War.

If, however, you mean the albeit-bureaucratic maneuverings and the First Five Year Plan, then you definitely don't know the distinction between building SIOC and achieving it (as per my Third Periodist thread on the subject).


I derided your idealist illusions that said the Comecon "went wrong" in not coordinating its policy across borders, in that such coordination would require the revolutionary collective action of the working class itself across borders, something the bureaucracies in each and all the Comecon countries were a bit reluctant to engage.

It was your illusion, based on your simple-minded notion of "size" rather than social relations of production that were being derided. Now perhaps it's difficult for you, with your overgrown ego to distinguish between you, the wannabe Kautsky, and the actual prospects, and requirements of socialism, but there are medications you can take for that.

So again, yes I deride your contention that socialism is a matter of "policy," of having the correct policy, of bureaucratic voluntarism based on the size of the economy [as if the fSU wasn't big enough on its own, as if the fSU did not possess physical resources, raw materials, use values enough on its own to accomplish what you regard to be socialism.

Well, you did bring up the relevant posts, so I should thank you for that. How exactly is "size" (territorial boundaries, raw materials, other resources, etc.) simplistic? Besides, if you're criticizing the authoritarianism, then you've got to tackle Bordiga and not just Stalin (labour credits plus "totalitarianism").

That Malthus remark of mine was in response to your assertion that no particular territory can be self-sufficient in food production. I was referring to Malthus's analysis and not "solution" - that being that population growth is much more than the growth of food resources available.


I was in the WPS at the time and we played a key role in intiating the anti-poll tax campaign. I was the first convenor of the Edinburgh anti poll tax union, and proposed that we print the first batch of posters with the slogan 'Pay No Poll Tax'. Our aim was to develop a mass campaign of civil disobediance that would question the existing state since our programme called for its replacement by a Scottish Workers Republic with an assembly chosen by lot and all major laws and taxes subject to popular vote. We considered that mass civil disobediance against oppressive laws could lead to other forms of struggle as had happened in Ireland after the civil rights movement there. But a key to succeeding in such a strategy would have been to undermine the legitimacy of the existing state. Civil disobediance starts that, but it needs an ideology of an alternative state form if one is to justify more radical forms of struggle.

Comrade, I believe I said in other threads that what distinguishes Kautsky Revivalists from the traditional grow-political-struggles-out-of-economic-ones bunch is that we prefer mass civil disobedience as the route towards a possible future mass strike tactic than any scattered incident of labour unrest towards an illusory mass strike wave strategy. At least we try to increase political consciousness and then spill the related political struggles over into economic struggles.

That's why May 1968 in France was a joke. That's why the US Civil Rights Movement had more positive lessons in the long run.

As for growing political struggles out of economic ones:


Back to your Scottish water points, the best course of action would be to support workers at SW and stop their living and working conditions from taking hits and secondly, for workers who use Scottish Water facilities at home to connect with the workers AT Scottish Water, on the grounds that the workers at SW do a good job and they are taking pay hits (I remember they struck in 2008, it was on the media fairly frequently for such a short strike).

This is exactly the kind of economistic thinking I was criticizing.

[JamesH]

I agree with all of that, except that last two sentences. The fact of the matter is that class struggle does not allow for popular referenda and "slow mission creep." The bourgeoisie are not slow on pulling the trigger when they feel secure enough. Slow mission creep is exactly what has proven so deadly time after time to the prospects for revolutionary transformation.

Paul indicates there was a "slow mission creep" in the UK in the period beginning with Atlee and ending with Callaghan. OK, so what was the result? Was the mission accomplished? Obviously not. Could the mission have been accomplished along the lines that I think Paul envisions?

Only if the bourgeoisie weren't the bourgeoisie; only if this weren't already capitalism. But it is capitalism.

Allende and the UP believed in exactly that type of slow mission creep. Didn't work out too well there.

In the midst of "near-revolutionary" upsurge in Portugal and then in Spain, where in fact workers' councils sprung up spontaneously, there were those arguing for "slow mission creep," establishing a democratic process as if such a "democratic process" could have been established without one class or the other establishing its dominance. Well one class did. And they called that a democratic process.

Now we can argue that it's not a real democracy, or...or we can look at the class struggle at the root, the heart of the upsurge in Chile, or Portugal, or Spain, and say hey.. this isn't about establishing a formal democracy, with popular referenda, with direct and immediate recall of representatives, this is a class struggle, a question of which class has the power, and which institutions serve which class.

Despite the derisive comments of those who believe workers' councils are a sham, time after time in both and advanced and less advanced capitalist countries, the workers themselves have thrown up forms of organization that represent the kernel of such councils.

In Honduras, after the ousting of Zelaya, similar organizations, led by the unions sprang up to coordinate protests and defend leaders and participants from the attacks of the police. The fact that the programs of these defense organizations were tied to restoring Zelaya, to protection of "democratic liberties," were not the critical factors-- that these organs were class organs was the critical factor. It took the combined efforts of the US, Brazil, and the Honduran police/military, and Zelaya himself to suppress those organizations. And they had to move fast.

Now the Honduran struggle needed to move beyond the legalism of the ousting of Zelaya; the phase of "democratic rights" and of slow mission creep and attack the fundamental relations of land and labor-- the social content actually driving the protests. And it would have moved there, which is why Fernandez, Lula, and Zelaya all tumbled so quickly to the "deal" that wasn't a deal that Micheletti agreed he didn't have to agree to.

Anyway, except for that, and the fact that the Tea Party isn't about "throwing all of them out," but is actually only about throwing Obama and his supporters out and mostly because Obama is not white, I agree with your post.

There seems to be a certain amount of fatalism here; since councils and soviets are the dominant worker organizations in times of revolutionary upsurge, objecting to them is to interfere with the natural progression of the class struggle. Surely there's no ingrained reason why crises necessitate throwing up councils; perhaps their continued appearance has to do with tradition-"worked for the Bolsheviks and the Paris Commune, good enough for us too." Or perhaps because they are familiar forms of government for those living under representative systems, being not that dissimilar from parliaments (where certain people called politicians are selected to rule). It’s my humble opinion that we ought not to simply accept this situation but work to change people’s minds in the direction of more democratic forms of organizing.

Historical prominence doesn't necessarily recommend councils. What remains of the councils in Spain and Portugal? The Russian soviets quickly came under the domination of the Bolsheviks and party dictatorship soon followed, with power emanating from the Central Committee of the Communist Party, another representative institution.

If the question of the class struggle is "a question of which class has the power, and which institutions serve which class," then soviets fail to answer that question. While Russian soviets were initially mechanisms of power for workers, peasants, and soldiers, they didn't long stay that way. Just four years after October, Kronstadt sailors were arresting the chair of the local soviet as part of their demands for an end to the Bolshevik power monopoly; vicious repression soon followed. It is the nature of elections that people unrepresentative of the population will soon come to dominate an elected body; revolutionaries become careerist politicians who can proceed to politically shift the organization in any way that they please. Councils fail to abolish the distinction between rulers and ruled, which I consider to be one of the most important aspects for future socialism.

And if referenda challenging the dominant political and economic system would be rejected by a bourgeois government, surely alterative political forms like soviets would be even less likely to survive. A legally gathered referendum held up or illegally denied acts as a form of education about the true class nature of the state and severely undermines it legitimacy. In addition, there are already mechanisms in place in the United States for referenda; they are just rarely used (chalk it up to Americans' cynicism towards political life, something modern socialists ought to work to change).

[Die Neue Zeit]

While Russian soviets were initially mechanisms of power for workers, peasants, and soldiers, they didn't long stay that way. Just four years after October, Kronstadt sailors were arresting the chair of the local soviet as part of their demands for an end to the Bolshevik power monopoly; vicious repression soon followed.

The suppressions occurred much earlier than that. The Bolshevik coups d'etat of 1918 were directed against soviets which returned anti-Bolshevik majorities, in all cases a combination of Left-SRs and Menshevik-Internationalists, thus proving the superiority of the SPD/USPD model over the council model.

Now, if only Die Linke can start up an alternative culture/mutual aid apparatus...

[Stephen Colbert]

I dont know if its just me but being a leftist in the U.S. is horridly discouraging. Every one of me creates several hundred tea partiers :crying:

[S.Artesian]

If you mean Soviet policies after 1933-1934, then you have a point. Which, coincidentally, would include events like the Spanish Civil War.

If, however, you mean the albeit-bureaucratic maneuverings and the First Five Year Plan, then you definitely don't know the distinction between building SIOC and achieving it (as per my Third Periodist thread on the subject).

Actually, I mean you. Lying is lying. Deliberate distortion is deliberate distortion.



Well, you did bring up the relevant posts, so I should thank you for that. How exactly is "size" (territorial boundaries, raw materials, other resources, etc.) simplistic? Besides, if you're criticizing the authoritarianism, then you've got to tackle Bordiga and not just Stalin (labour credits plus "totalitarianism").

Oh, don't thank me. You could apologize for your false accusations. And only a churlish sort would reject an apology. Do I strike you as the churlish type? the sort that would tell you, in the face of your attempt, to go fuck yourself, turn blue, and/or otherwise disappear from the face of the planet?

As for how size is simplistic?-- if size, raw materials, resources, population as quantities were the determining factors, if they existed solely as use-values, there wouldn't be a problem to begin with. But they don't, and neither do we. Our ability to access the resources is socially determined and that social determination is the thing, actually the relation, that makes "socialism in one country" an impossibility.

And that explains and reveals the very notion to be an ideological stalking horse, a political weapon to be used against those whose solution to the problems of a proletarian seizure of power amidst 'backward' relations of landed property and agricultural production is different than those various proposals clung to by bureaucrats. This is why the period leading up to the first five year plan is not an issue of "socialism in one country," but an issue of which social relations of production are being strengthened, organized by the actions of the RCP.


That Malthus remark of mine was in response to your assertion that no particular territory can be self-sufficient in food production. I was referring to Malthus's analysis and not "solution" - that being that population growth is much more than the growth of food resources available.

And I am, when stating that no country can be self-sufficient in food production at this "stage" in world history, referring to that thing, actually again a relation, called the international division of labor. There is no escaping that thing, not without inflicting tremendous privation on a population.




we prefer mass civil disobedience as the route towards a possible future mass strike tactic than any scattered incident of labour unrest towards an illusory mass strike wave strategy. At least we try to increase political consciousness and then spill the related political struggles over into economic struggles.

Well what do you know, here's something we actually agree upon, having cut my teeth in the US civil rights movement. Organized direct action, confrontation of the institutions of power is social generalization of the economic conflict.


That's why May 1968 in France was a joke. That's why the US Civil Rights Movement had more positive lessons in the long run.

And here's where we disagree. Hardly a joke. DeGaulle didn't think it was a joke. The PCF didn't think it was a joke. Both were terrified, both did their best to disrupt the struggle. A churlish sort of fellow would respond by pointing out that in comparison to the events of May 68, the class mobilization in 68, you're a joke.

But let's hear what you think are the positive lessons in the long run of the US Civil Rights movement, since this thread is about change in the US.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Oh, don't thank me. You could apologize for your false accusations. And only a churlish sort would reject an apology. Do I strike you as the churlish type? the sort that would tell you, in the face of your attempt, to go fuck yourself, turn blue, and/or otherwise disappear from the face of the planet?

Apologies for my polemical exaggerations, then. However, you should tone down the attempts at hysterical humour, since you seem to come across as more hysterical than humourous. Case in point: Mrs. Lincoln.


Organized direct action, confrontation of the institutions of power is social generalization of the economic conflict.

Don't confuse general economic conflicts with mere labour conflicts.


But let's hear what you think are the positive lessons in the long run of the US Civil Rights movement, since this thread is about change in the US.

I already wrote about one of those lessons above re. civil disobedience. Another lesson is the square of legality vs. illegality and peaceful means vs. violence.

[DunyaGongrenKomRevolyutsi]

This is exactly the kind of economistic thinking I was criticizing.

But the popular referendum idea inherently means supporting state-ownership and by default, the labour party.

If there were ways of factoring civil disobedience, a dual-power base struggle like workers' committees in self-management (which is only possible at a very heightened period of class-struggle ofcourse) or other non-compromising tactics then I wouldn't complain. The simple fact is that you can't always factor massive arrays of tactics into every struggle, circumstances don't always permit that.

Sometimes it's better to struggle in the fairly set out "economistic" way and to achieve a small victory, rather than to attempt elaborate moves that are overwhelmingly likely to backfire.

[S.Artesian]

Apologies for my polemical exaggerations, then. However, you should tone down the attempts at hysterical humour, since you seem to come across as more hysterical than humourous. Case in point: Mrs. Lincoln.

It might be churlish of me to point this out, but there's a difference between humor and deliberate distortion. You engaged in the latter. Calling it "polemical exaggerations" and trying to "balance" it with my use of humor to characterize certain of your positions is not exactly quid pro quo, is it? [Rhetorical question, no need to answer]




I already wrote about one of those lessons above re. civil disobedience. Another lesson is the square of legality vs. illegality and peaceful means vs. violence.

But those aren't the lessons to be learned from a social movement, those are tactics you are referring to. We're talking about success and failure; the transition [a word you don't like, but to my knowledge, a word not patented by Trotsky or Hegel, so I'll continue to use it] from success to failure. We're talking about the history of the movement. You know what history is, right? That thing human beings make, but not of a whole cloth, or any cloth they like; not just willy-nilly. So if there are lessons to be learned, they are in just that transition, just that moment of success leading to failure.


The lesson you think others should learn is that France 68 was a "joke," not that it paralyzed the bourgeoisie, shut down the country, caused the head of government to flee, and then failed to move beyond that taking over society. You treat May 68 with derision, as if somehow, social struggle are only serious if they have a minimum program, a parliamentary program, a medium program, a somewhere in between program, a maximum program. That's not Marxism, as it doesn't come to grips with the real social determinants of what made May 68 so earth-shaking, and at the same time, made it so incapable of even recognizing the tasks it had set itself.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And I am, when stating that no country can be self-sufficient in food production at this "stage" in world history, referring to that thing, actually again a relation, called the international division of labor. There is no escaping that thing, not without inflicting tremendous privation on a population.

Comparative advantage is a joke:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxist-theories-trade-t130884/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-you-support-t139403/index.html?p=1818651


The lesson you think others should learn is that France 68 was a "joke," not that it paralyzed the bourgeoisie, shut down the country, caused the head of government to flee, and then failed to move beyond that taking over society. You treat May 68 with derision, as if somehow, social struggle are only serious if they have a minimum program, a parliamentary program, a medium program, a somewhere in between program, a maximum program. That's not Marxism, as it doesn't come to grips with the real social determinants of what made May 68 so earth-shaking, and at the same time, made it so incapable of even recognizing the tasks it had set itself.

Without a revolutionary program there can be no revolutionary movement. :confused:

And you've got the list of programs wrong:

1) There are programs and there are platforms. "Parliamentary" stuff belongs to platforms just as much as transitory (not "transitional") action stuff does.
2) Programmatically, there are almost a dozen types of programs, half of which are combinations of individual program types. That's why I used a spreadsheet (which you have :p ) and not mere text to illustrate these types of programs and how they relate to one another.

[S.Artesian]

Comparative advantage is a joke:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/marxist-theories-trade-t130884/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/do-you-support-t139403/index.html?p=1818651


Division of labor is not "comparative advantage."




Without a revolutionary program there can be no revolutionary movement.

Bullshit. Revolutionary struggle is precipitated by the conflict between the means and relations of production. The struggle won't be successful without the organization of the class itself as an instrument of state power. This requires a revolutionary program. That doesn't mean without such a program no movement takes place.

That's why May '68 wasn't a joke.



2) Programmatically, there are almost a dozen types of programs, half of which are combinations of individual program types. That's why I used a spreadsheet

Exactly. Once the workers have printed out your spreadsheet, laminated it, and refer to it... the rest is a snap, which is why the bourgeoisie are terrified of OPEN OFFICE software.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Division of labor is not "comparative advantage."

But it is related. Division of labour is supposed to take advantage of any hypothetical "comparative advantage." Also, your argument comes across as a supply-side economics argument, when it is demand that determines supply.



With or without China, the COMECON could have further constructed "socialism in one trading bloc" had the Soviets been more "social-imperialist" in insisting on things like sovkhoz-ization in Poland and Hungary, and had they further promoted a possible political integration of Bulgaria as an example.


Bullshit. Revolutionary struggle is precipitated by the conflict between the means and relations of production. The struggle won't be [I]successful without the organization of the class itself as an instrument of state power. This requires a revolutionary program. That doesn't mean without such a program no movement takes place.

That's why May '68 wasn't a joke.

My statement was a correction of Lenin's "without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." This has been used to justify sectarianism. The tradition of Eisenach, Gotha, and Erfurt basically says that real parties are real movements and vice versa.

I know what you're trying to say (successful vs. unsuccessful social movements), but the "movement" behind May 1968 was no real movement at all precisely because there existed no real party.


Exactly. Once the workers have printed out your spreadsheet, laminated it, and refer to it... the rest is a snap, which is why the bourgeoisie are terrified of OPEN OFFICE software.

Tone it down and address what I said. I rarely use Open Office anyway.

[S.Artesian]

But it is related. Division of labour is supposed to take advantage of any hypothetical "comparative advantage." Also, your argument comes across as a supply-side economics argument, when it is demand that determines supply.

What do you think you're advocating when you're advocating that Comecon should have divided production, i.e. labor, according to the previous developed capabilities of its members-- like Albania as the "bread basket" and DDR as the industrial center? That's the division of labor.

Disengaging US agriculture from that international exchange, those international relations of production in order to "isolate" its agriculture and concentrate its agriculture on "eliminating hunger" is nationalist, and idealist, nonsense and will create privation internally and externally.

The social relations of production that must be advanced to eliminate scarcity must be advanced on an international level, with deeper involvement and organization of agriculture, the "rational" distribution of labor time, beyond the comprehension or capabilities of a bureaucracy.

To argue that bureaucracies "could have" accomplished that, or "should have" accomplished that is like arguing that 3rd Intl could have, or should have, advanced the world revolution "if only" it had followed "correct policies." [And that by the way is why I'm not a Trotskyist, and no Trotskyist I know considers me a Trotskyist]

That's the point you don't get-- it's about social relations of production, relations between city and countryside; how that labor is going to be, can be organized.


Tone it down and address what I said. I rarely use Open Office anyway.Climb down off your high pedestal and stop being such a sanctimonious, self-righteous prig.

Especially since you've been shown to deliberately distort what others say.

A little humility, or at least embarrassment in being caught out lying would improve your credibility.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Disengaging US agriculture from that international exchange, those international relations of production in order to "isolate" its agriculture and concentrate its agriculture on "eliminating hunger" is nationalist, and idealist, nonsense and will create privation internally and externally.

How will privation be created internally if the US doesn't stop importing certain types of food?


The social relations of production that must be advanced to eliminate scarcity must be advanced on an international level, with deeper involvement and organization of agriculture, the "rational" distribution of labor time, beyond the comprehension or capabilities of a bureaucracy.

Why do you have such an irrational disdain for the very idea of a bureaucracy? Advances in computer technology and other information systems can aid bureaucracies comprehend the agricultural problem.


To argue that bureaucracies "could have" accomplished that, or "should have" accomplished that is like arguing that 3rd Intl could have, or should have, advanced the world revolution "if only" it had followed "correct policies." [And that by the way is why I'm not a Trotskyist, and no Trotskyist I know considers me a Trotskyist]

Every class struggle is political, and the stage is set for people to pull their own strings.

[S.Artesian]

How will privation be created internally if the US doesn't stop importing certain types of food?

And how, once the US decides to restrict exports, will it maintain the trade relations necessary for imports? And exactly what will replace US grain supplies in the world markets? What you are suggesting is "social" isolationism.


Why do you have such an irrational disdain for the very idea of a bureaucracy? Advances in computer technology and other information systems can aid bureaucracies comprehend the agricultural problem.

Hilarious. Thank heavens I can quote you on this. And I will. Why such disdain for bureaucracy? Oh... I don't know, maybe history, yeah that's it, maybe the history of bureaucracy like in the fSU, or in China-- in its demonstrated inability to advance the productivity of labor to a level even equivalent to that of capitalism, much less beyond it.

And you? Why do you have such a fetishized affection for bureaucracy?

In the railroad business, where technology is viewed as the solution to every issue big or small, I would remind my staff that technology is no substitute for supervision. Technology is inanimate, passive, and useless if the social relations of production are so conflicted as to make the information provided by technology a property, an ideology for perpetuating the bureaucracy itself.

Silly Marx, if only he had realized what technology could accomplish, he wouldn't have written all those things about class-for-itself, and free association of producers, etc. He would have realized that all that was needed was a bureaucracy for itself, with the for-itself being a broadband connection.




Every class struggle is political, and the stage is set for people to pull their own strings.
What the fuck does that mean. I still got 10 bucks for anyone who can explain these mauvaise mots.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And how, once the US decides to restrict exports, will it maintain the trade relations necessary for imports? And exactly what will replace US grain supplies in the world markets? What you are suggesting is "social" isolationism.

Grain supplies from places like Africa can be increased. Right now they're artificially depressed because of agricultural subsidies.


Hilarious. Thank heavens I can quote you on this. And I will. Why such disdain for bureaucracy? Oh... I don't know, maybe history, yeah that's it, maybe the history of bureaucracy like in the fSU, or in China-- in its demonstrated inability to advance the productivity of labor to a level even equivalent to that of capitalism, much less beyond it.

Only "bureaucratic" organization could organize consistent double-digit growth in the high teens or low twenties to jump-start economic development.

Only "bureaucratic" organization could organize consistent double-digit growth in the low teens for further economic development... so long as there's no abrupt, knee-jerk shift from the focus on investment and reinvestment towards domestic consumption.

Most importantly, only "bureaucratic" organization can "fill up" the proletariat with the awareness and skills needed to fulfill its own world-historical mission - due to developing an innovative panoply of methods for spreading enlightenment and 'combination' - to paraphrase Lars Lih on the pre-war SPD as a vanguard party-movement.


What the fuck does that mean?

Material conditions are the stage, but it is people who pull their own strings (like policy).

[S.Artesian]

Grain supplies from places like Africa can be increased. Right now they're artificially depressed because of agricultural subsidies.



Only "bureaucratic" organization could organize consistent double-digit growth in the high teens or low twenties to jump-start economic development.

Only "bureaucratic" organization could organize consistent double-digit growth in the low teens for further economic development... so long as there's no abrupt, knee-jerk shift from the focus on investment and reinvestment towards domestic consumption.

Examples please? Russia? By depressing consumption, and with declining productivity? Is that your model?

China? Perhaps your forgetting the insignificant $800 billion in FDI that's been pumped into China in the last 25 years?

Really, what are you talking about? Only bureaucratic organization?

And grain production could be increased in places like Africa? Do tell. No shit. And who is going to do that and how will it be accomplished?

You live in a world that has very little resemblance to the world of capitalism-- a world where if only social formations established after the slaughter of the proletariat somehow could, adopt the right policy, like designating country X to be a breadbasket, and country DDR to be an industrial center, all contradictions in an economy could be resolved... forgetting or ignoring that the existence of a bureaucracy is proof of the continued reproduction of the contradictions, particularly that contradiction of city and countryside.

[Paul Cockshott]

China? Perhaps your forgetting the insignificant $800 billion in FDI that's been pumped into China in the last 25 years?



This is a serious misconception. China has never relied on foreign investment, it is and has been a net capital exporter - it subsidises the USA rather than the other way round. China has imported technology, but not capital.