War guilt of German Imperialism

[Paul Cockshott]

In a recent thread on rapes commited by Soviet forces in Germany in 1945, I was struck by a tendancy among some posters to to attempt to deny German war guilt. This position strikes me as quite astonishing in that it puts these posters on the same terrain as rechts radicalismus. By saying that the world war was caused by 'international capitalism' not by German imperialism they absolve German National Socialism of blame for the worst war in human history.

Implicit in this position is a repudiation of the Nurnberg verdict. If the war was caused by 'international capitalism' rather than by the decisions of the German government, then the verdict of the tribunal that the accused were guilty of launching a war of agression is effectively repudiated and their execution was unjustified.

If Germany was not guilty of launching a war of agression, then the war repartions paid by both German states were unjustified.

These final conclusions are effectively the same as those of right wing German nationlists, even if the initial motivations start out different.

How many forum participants go along with this denial of war guilt?

[S.Artesian]

In a recent thread on rapes commited by Soviet forces in Germany in 1945, I was struck by a tendancy among some posters to to attempt to deny German war guilt. This position strikes me as quite astonishing in that it puts these posters on the same terrain as rechts radicalismus. By saying that the world war was caused by 'international capitalism' not by German imperialism they absolve German National Socialism of blame for the worst war in human history.

Implicit in this position is a repudiation of the Nurnberg verdict. If the war was caused by 'international capitalism' rather than by the decisions of the German government, then the verdict of the tribunal that the accused were guilty of launching a war of agression is effectively repudiated and their execution was unjustified.

If Germany was not guilty of launching a war of agression, then the war repartions paid by both German states were unjustified.

These final conclusions are effectively the same as those of right wing German nationlists, even if the initial motivations start out different.

How many forum participants go along with this denial of war guilt?

Geez Cockshott, the Nuremberg verdicts? I'm in danger of decertifying the Nuremberg verdicts by not supporting the view that the German nation bears collective guilt for WW2. I didn't realize that the Nuremberg trials were trying the entire German nation, the entire German people. Why, those trials didn't even bring to trial all the German Nazis, not to mention the German ruling class, not to mention the supporters of the ruling class and the Nazis.

Yeah, well let me tell you, the war reparations weren't "justified." They weren't justified after WW1. They're not justified after WW2. The war reparations imposed on Iraq after Gulf War 1 weren't justified.

Have you ever noticed how war reparations are imposed on the vanquished by the victor? You think that might have something to do with it?

Do you think there is something in the specific historical make up of German capitalism that makes it more inclined to war than other capitalisms, say British capitalism or US capitalism?

So tell me, as a subject of the British government exactly how do you feel about the representatives of your government, a government that his historically waged wars of aggression and conquest to secure, among other things, access to bird shit, trading privileges along the Rio de la Plata, forced opium importation, gold mining and farming in Africa, slave production from the resistence of the Maroons, destroying indigenous peoples and economies by the boat load.... how do you feel about the warlike orientation of the British bourgeoisie, British capitalism, the British nation? Don't you think they should be put on trial before the whole world?

[Kotze]

By saying that the world war was caused by 'international capitalism' not by German imperialism they absolve German National Socialism of blame for the worst war in human history.Wouldn't surprise me if some here can't parse this sentence, because they use imperialism as a term that is independent of military strength, apparantly interchangeably with capitalism.

There's strong peer pressure among the left to blame capitalism for everything and to take every little recession and what have you as proof of capitalism being in its death throes, or at least as proof of the business-cycle theory of recurring Hitlers.

How many people here believe for instance that under capitalism today you can't have a situation near full employment that lasts? There's this "theory" that goes like this: Yeeeahyouknow, the Nazis ended mass unemployment, but they did that with massive military spending and then going to war, and there was no other way, because, mumblemumblecontradictions, mumble, capitalism. Now buy my shitty Trot newspaper. There is of course the issue with the bourgeoisie using unemployment as a threat as Kalecki and others have pointed out, but they have many ways of keeping labour docile, by propaganda and by regulating what unions are allowed to do, and there's no need to kill millions when the occasional disappearance of a unionist does the trick. As if that wasn't bad enough.

I think this pattern of blaming capitalism for everything is related to lack of vision. To be able to say that capitalism sucks in times and places without big wars, even in the richer countries, even in a rich country during a boom, requires that you know something better, at least a rough idea, for comparison. Without that, all one has is death-throes babble, delivered with the customary glee which makes one come across as reasonable as the guys from the Westboro Baptist Church.

[S.Artesian]

Wouldn't surprise me if some here can't parse this sentence, because they use imperialism as a term that is independent of military strength, apparantly interchangeably with capitalism.

There's strong peer pressure among the left to blame capitalism for everything and to take every little recession and what have you as proof of capitalism being in its death throes, or at least as proof of the business-cycle theory of recurring Hitlers.

How many people here believe for instance that under capitalism today you can't have a situation near full employment that lasts? There's this "theory" that goes like this: Yeeeahyouknow, the Nazis ended mass unemployment, but they did that with massive military spending and then going to war, and there was no other way, because, mumblemumblecontradictions, mumble, capitalism. Now buy my shitty Trot newspaper. There is of course the issue with the bourgeoisie using unemployment as a threat as Kalecki and others have pointed out, but they have many ways of keeping labour docile, by propaganda and by regulating what unions are allowed to do, and there's no need to kill millions when the occasional disappearance of a unionist does the trick. As if that wasn't bad enough.

I think this pattern of blaming capitalism for everything is related to lack of vision. To be able to say that capitalism sucks in times and places without big wars, even in the richer countries, even in a rich country during a boom, requires that you know something better, at least a rough idea, for comparison. Without that, all one has is death-throes babble, delivered with the customary glee which makes one come across as reasonable as the guys from the Westboro Baptist Church.

Right, pure genius. There was this little international, worldwide event, called the Great Depression, which, as I followed it had a lot to do with the rise of National Socialism in Germany, the revolutionary struggles in Spain, Vietnam, and even in France, and following the defeat of the workers in those and other countries WW2.

No, I do not think German capitalism caused WW2.

But I do love the part where you tilt at the windmill of full employment as unemployment tops 20% in Spain, and 40% for those aged 19-25; how unemployment in the EU is creeping up again, how mass layoffs in the US have shown an increase recently.

Saying capitalism causes, needs, recession, depression and war is not at all like saying capitalism is in its death throes.

Saying that the cause of WW2 was not "super-aggressive" German imperialism, but was required by capitalism as it exists in the world... by its need for destruction and accumulation is not to absolve the German capitalism, the German bourgeoisie of its responsibility.

It seems that for some,however, saying the German nation does bear a "collective guilt" for the war is a matter of convenience, conveniently exempting their own bourgeoisie from the responsibility, the need, for war.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yeah, well let me tell you, the war reparations weren't "justified." They weren't justified after WW1. They're not justified after WW2. The war reparations imposed on Iraq after Gulf War 1 weren't justified.

With the loony "revolutionary" defeatist attitude in that rape thread, no wonder why I've got only mixed feelings towards one of only two instances of actual Soviet imperialism: forced relocation of industrial facilities from Germany to the USSR as part of a broader reparations program!

[The other instance being the Aswan Dam, and "mixed" because the rest of Eastern Europe was over-looted despite the participation of their regimes in Operation Barbarossa]


Have you ever noticed how war reparations are imposed on the vanquished by the victor? You think that might have something to do with it?

See the above.

[Die Neue Zeit]

How many people here believe for instance that under capitalism today you can't have a situation near full employment that lasts? There's this "theory" that goes like this: Yeeeahyouknow, the Nazis ended mass unemployment, but they did that with massive military spending and then going to war, and there was no other way, because, mumblemumblecontradictions, mumble, capitalism. Now buy my shitty Trot newspaper. There is of course the issue with the bourgeoisie using unemployment as a threat as Kalecki and others have pointed out

But I do think zero cyclical and structural unemployment a la Minsky is possible to achieve and maintain before workers take power. :confused:

[S.Artesian]

I don't really understand what DNZ's point is, but then again who does? Ever?

However, I must say I am so gratified to see him, the Kautskyite-proletarocrat or something, endorsing Cockshott's damnation of German hyper-aggressive capitalism and war-causing, a national characteristic that infused the German SDP of Kautsky way back in 1892, setting up the historic "betrayal" of 1914, or so claims Mr. Cockshott.

Sometimes, you just cannot make this shit up.

And sometimes, the actions of fools are entertainment for cynics.

[DaringMehring]

It is amazing how pseudo-socialists deny the revolutionary potential of our times.

Honestly, what do you say to workers who have lost their jobs, who are losing their homes while making a loss on their devalued asset? "Don't worry, capitalism can reach full employment at some point in the future?" Who cares? Their lives are already ruined.

It is so pathetic that any self-professed socialist can come out with the kind of garbage on show in this thread. Revolution to solve irresolvable contradictions of capitalism is "trot mumbling?" If that's the case then it only shows how utterly other orientations have fallen. These guys sound like wanna-be labor bureaucrats playing the role of conciliating the masses to capitalism. Probably it's no surprise then you've got "Caesar not Spartacus; Kautsky not Lenin" DNZ and "blame the Germans not capitalism" Cockshott here. It's a social democracy frenzy.

[Omsk]

"blame the Germans not capitalism"

Should i blame capitalism for the murders done by the Waffen SS sturm-units who burned Yugoslavia,should i?Of course not!It had nothing to do with capitalism,it had to do with the fact the Waffen SS troops were bloody savages who's only goal was the extermination of races!To hell with you people and your side-picking,go lick your Nazi idol's boot's you bastards!

[Paul Cockshott]

Geez Cockshott, the Nuremberg verdicts? I'm in danger of decertifying the Nuremberg verdicts by not supporting the view that the German nation bears collective guilt for WW2. I didn't realize that the Nuremberg trials were trying the entire German nation, the entire German people. Why, those trials didn't even bring to trial all the German Nazis, not to mention the German ruling class, not to mention the supporters of the ruling class and the Nazis.

Yeah, well let me tell you, the war reparations weren't "justified." They weren't justified after WW1. They're not justified after WW2. The war reparations imposed on Iraq after Gulf War 1 weren't justified.


The crucial verdict was that the leaders of the German state were convicted of launching an aggressive war. You appear to reject the proposition that the German state launched such an imperialist war.

You reject the idea that the West German taxpayer should have paid compensation to the jewish survivors of the concentration camps, or that the East German ones should have had to pay compensation for the destruction and looting that the German state had carried out in the USSR. In this you are, as I suspected, sharing the platform of the German radical right.

The war reparations imposed on Iraq are another matter, they were imposed by the imperialist agressors. Blair and Bush were prima facie guilty of having launched an agressive war in the sense of the Nurnberg verdict. They are comparable to the reparations that Bethman Hollweg was demanding from France.

You do not think that German capitalism caused world war II, instead it was caused by 'international capitalism'.
Well people can have all sorts of weird conspiracy theories about the past, but if we are to take you seriously you need to cite some historical studies to back you up. Without that, blaming 'international capitalism' for the war is demagogy on a par with Goebbels blaming international plutocracy or Hitler blaming international Jewry for the war.

I have been citing Fritz Fischer, one of the most prominent German historians of the 1960s whose exhaustive investigations of the war plans of the German state in the first half of the 20th century caused an outrage in West German historical circles when first published, since they struck at the core of the myth of history promulgated by the German establishment according to which Germany was as much a victim as an aggressor.

Which historians are you relying on for your claims?

[Kotze]

Yeah, well let me tell you, the war reparations weren't "justified." They weren't justified after WW1. They're not justified after WW2.Let's all have a silent minute thinking about the poor Nazis and the horrors of the Marshall Plan :closedeyes:

As for your comparison with historical atrocities by the British bourgeoisie: Not that I would be against it, but the Brits paying reparations today would have a more abstract quality to it than Germany's reparations to survivors of forced labour.


Saying capitalism causes, needs, recession, depression and war is not at all like saying capitalism is in its death throes.Of course not, it is "merely" the business-cycle theory of recurring Hitlers.
the cause of WW2 was not "super-aggressive" German imperialism, but was required by capitalism as it exists in the world... by its need for destruction and accumulationIt wasn't required by capitalism.
It seems that for some,however, saying the German nation does bear a "collective guilt" for the war is a matter of convenience, conveniently exempting their own bourgeoisie from the responsibilityI live in Germany, you fuckwit.


It is amazing how pseudo-socialists deny the revolutionary potential of our times.

(...)

It is so pathetic that any self-professed socialist can come out with the kind of garbage on show in this thread.You don't know how — and how — right you are. It's amazing how religious many "Marxists" on this forum are. It is not enough that capitalism makes some bad events more probable, contributes to them, oh no, everything bad must be the direct fault of capitalism, it is destiny that it will get worse, and then HELL or SALVATION :rolleyes:

It is those with the outlook of history as destiny who are denying the potential.

@ComradeErich: I hear you. Reminds me of when the crazies ran over the thread about commemorating the end of WWII. It was like Hannah Arendt on crack.

[dernier combat]

Should i blame capitalism for the murders done by the Waffen SS sturm-units who burned Yugoslavia,should i?Of course not!It had nothing to do with capitalism,it had to do with the fact the Waffen SS troops were bloody savages who's only goal was the extermination of races!
The purpose of the Waffen-SS, like that of all militaries, was to protect the (more often than not external) interests of the ruling class. It had everything to do with capitalism. Yes, the SS was composed of a lot of racists. No, this doesn't change its status as an organ of the capitalist state.


To hell with you people and your side-picking,go lick your Nazi idol's boot's you bastards!
Provide evidence for this assertion. I see no Nazis ITT. Who here idolizes Nazis?

[hatzel]

It was like Hannah Arendt on crack.

I assume that by this you mean that it was really really great, right? :rolleyes:

(And yes, I actually went through this thread looking for stuff it was even worth responding to, and that's all I got...I can however say that Cockshott's being awfully silly because it's well known that his position wasn't one of the German State's war guilt, but of German collective war guilt, whereby the German population at large could be blamed for the war / the actions of the German State during the war.)

[S.Artesian]

The crucial verdict was that the leaders of the German state were convicted of launching an aggressive war. You appear to reject the proposition that the German state launched such an imperialist war.

I reject the thoroughly bourgeois notion that all Germans bear a collective guilt for first and/or second world wars. I asked you to describe the peculiar nature of German capitalism that makes it so hyper-aggressive as compared to the "benign" capitalisms of the US, France, Britain, Belgium, Spain etc. Did I miss the part where you give us the materialist analysis of those specific class relations that make the entire German nation so bent on world dominance?



You reject the idea that the West German taxpayer should have paid compensation to the jewish survivors of the concentration camps, or that the East German ones should have had to pay compensation for the destruction and looting that the German state had carried out in the USSR. In this you are, as I suspected, sharing the platform of the German radical right.Neat-- good smear. Hitler had a mustache, hated Jews. Artesian has a mustache, therefore, as I suspected, he hates Jews. Wait a minute... Paul, don't you think that the former East Germans should have to pay compensation to the Jewish [that's a capital "J," you goy] survivors also? And what about me, don't leave me out. None of my relatives survived the camps, can I get in on the deal, too?

As I suspected, you share the platform of the Zionist capitalists.


The war reparations imposed on Iraq are another matter, they were imposed by the imperialist agressors. Blair and Bush were prima facie guilty of having launched an agressive war in the sense of the Nurnberg verdict. They are comparable to the reparations that Bethman Hollweg was demanding from France.
Ummm... I specified Gulf War 1, when Iraq launched a "war of aggression" against poor, little Kuwait.

But tell me Paul, as a member of the British nation, do you bear an aliquot part of your nation's collective guilt for waging the wars of aggression against Iraq, and the barbaric sanctions that crippled the economy?



You do not think that German capitalism caused world war II, instead it was caused by 'international capitalism'.

Well people can have all sorts of weird conspiracy theories about the past, but if we are to take you seriously you need to cite some historical studies to back you up. Without that, blaming 'international capitalism' for the war is demagogy on a par with Goebbels blaming international plutocracy or Hitler blaming international Jewry for the war.
Oh that's rich, you sophistic slandering jerk. Yeah throw in the link to Goebbels and Hitler blaming the Jews. If I weren't such a thick-skinned kind hearted person I'd call you scum-sucking gob of spit for using such shabby tactics. Fortunately, I am.


But here's the thing: you're the one who is using an argument akin to Goebbels and Hitler.... that a people, a volk, bear a collective responsibility for the ills of all others; that a people, undifferentiated by class, are responsible the economic organization organized and sustained by a particular class relations; and you do that to divert, evade, avoid, and secure the reproduction of those relations.

But I have to say, I truly admire your equating of the protocols of the Elders of Zion with the entire history of capitalism in its use of war to secure accumulation. Yep, the accumulation/destruction necessity of capital as a conspiracy theory. Got to love that



I have been citing Fritz Fischer, one of the most prominent German historians of the 1960s whose exhaustive investigations of the war plans of the German state in the first half of the 20th century caused an outrage in West German historical circles when first published, since they struck at the core of the myth of history promulgated by the German establishment according to which Germany was as much a victim as an aggressor.

Which historians are you relying on for your claims?

I have to tell you, I've never read Fritz. But I have read numerous Marxist accounts of the economic forces at work that would necessarily lead to WW2.. Trotsky just to name one of those Marxists.. although I'm sure you regard him as an agent of the Japanese High Command and the Wehrmacht [plus trotsky was a jew, a rootless cosmopolitan, and an upholder of the distinctly unRussian conspiracy theory about classes]and all of those Marxists point to the international economic conditions, and the successive defeats of the working class revolution as paving the way to war.

And I've also read, but many, many years ago, those who attributed the wars to the collective nature of those barbaric Huns, Teutons, Prussian militarists, etc. but I found those stories very unsatisfying and incompatible with my weird conspiracy theory called Marxism where military conflicts are inherent in the competition of capitals, and the overproduction of capital.


But hey, I've got to hand it to you and your two mini-yous, DNZ and Kotze, you guys are good at muddying waters.

[RedSunRising]

This ties in with the middle class romanticism of those who see capitalism as some machine abstracted from humanity itself and not as a means of dominance used by one set of humans over another set of humans who bare personal responsibility for that domination. The multi-millionaire and the state torturer in a lot of people's eyes it seems are just as much victims of capitalism as the starving miner.

[Paul Cockshott]

I reject the thoroughly bourgeois notion that all Germans bear a collective guilt for first and/or second world wars. I asked you to describe the peculiar nature of German capitalism that makes it so hyper-aggressive as compared to the "benign" capitalisms of the US, France, Britain, Belgium, Spain etc. Did I miss the part where you give us the materialist analysis of those specific class relations that make the entire German nation so bent on world dominance?

The reasons why German capitalism had that predatory expansionist character in the early 20th century are quite clear. The German bourgeoisie wished to contend for world power with what were seen as the only true world powers of the day: Russia, the USA and Britain. To do that it aimed


to increase its territory gaining control of mineral reserves and provide land for settlement. These aims were targeted at

annexing the French iron ore fields of Briey
annexing the whole of central Africa to control its mineral reserves which were currently in Belgian, Portuguese, French and British hands

In Central Europe it sought to establish an area of monetary and customs union creating an economic unit large enough to compete with the world powers.
It sought to apply in Eastern Europe the type of policy of clearing or exterminating the native population to make way for farm settlement that the US had applied in the West

England, Russia and the US, Spain and France had behaved in a similarly predatory and expansionist fashion from the 16th to the late 19th centuries. What made German Imperialism particularly shocking and ultimately led to its failure was that it tried to apply the methods of the American West to other developed European countries





Ummm... I specified Gulf War 1, when Iraq launched a "war of aggression" against poor, little Kuwait.

But tell me Paul, as a member of the British nation, do you bear an aliquot part of your nation's collective guilt for waging the wars of aggression against Iraq, and the barbaric sanctions that crippled the economy?

I opposed both Gulf wars. In the case of the second one, it is pretty clear that the majority of the population initially opposed it too and huge demonstrations were organised against the war involving more than 1 million people.

There was nothing remotely comparable organised by German working class parties, even in 1914 when they had the right to organise openly.

I do hold though, that those who voted for war criminals like Blair and Bush take a share of the guilt for the recent crimes of British and American agression.




I have to tell you, I've never read Fritz. But I have read numerous Marxist accounts of the economic forces at work that would necessarily lead to WW2.. Trotsky just to name one of those Marxists..

I read Trotsky's writings on Germany. But these are journalistic accounts given by politician with a particular agenda, and not based on the detailed study of official sources that are available to a historian. And these writings certainly do not establish a mechanism by which 'international capitalism' is supposed to have initiated the war. You are reifying an abstraction and allowing that to blind you to the actual historical process.

[RED DAVE]

The reasons why German capitalism had that predatory expansionist character in the early 20th century are quite clear.So we are dealing with German capitalism, not Germany.


The German bourgeoisie wished to contend for world power with what were seen as the only true world powers of the day: Russia, the USA and Britain.Best game in town. Why shouldn't they join it?


To do that it aimed


to increase its territory gaining control of mineral reserves and provide land for settlement. These aims were targeted at

annexing the French iron ore fields of Briey
annexing the whole of central Africa to control its mineral reserves which were currently in Belgian, Portuguese, French and British hands


In Central Europe it sought to establish an area of monetary and customs union creating an economic unit large enough to compete with the world powers.
It sought to apply in Eastern Europe the type of policy of clearing or exterminating the native population to make way for farm settlement that the US had applied in the WestOkay. Just a chip off the old block

England, Russia and the US, Spain and France had behaved in a similarly
predatory and expansionist fashion from the 16th to the late 19th centuries.Uhh, the US is still doing it.


What made German Imperialism particularly shocking and ultimately led to its failure was that it tried to apply the methods of the American West to other developed European countries.Actually, the Belgians had genocidal policies in Africa in the 19th Century and the British were extremely violent in India, etc., and the Opium War and on and on. German imperialism was only shocking to other imperialists or those deluded by an imperialist world view.


There was nothing remotely comparable organised by German working class parties, even in 1914 when they had the right to organise openly.This is true. The Social Democrats who DNZ loves so much were some of the worst sell-outs in history.


I do hold though, that those who voted for war criminals like Blair and Bush take a share of the guilt for the recent crimes of British and American agression.How about those, like the CPUSA, who supported Roosevelt as he acceded to the nazis?


I read Trotsky's writings on Germany. But these are journalistic accounts given by politician with a particular agendaYeah. That agenda is called Marxism.


and not based on the detailed study of official sources that are available to a historian. And these writings certainly do not establish a mechanism by which 'international capitalism' is supposed to have initiated the war. You are reifying an abstraction and allowing that to blind you to the actual historical process.More on this later. Let me merely say that Trotsky's attempts to understand fascism were far ahead of anyone else's, certainly far ahead of the Stalinists, and his writings are useful to this day.

RED DAVE

[Thirsty Crow]

England, Russia and the US, Spain and France had behaved in a similarly predatory and expansionist fashion from the 16th to the late 19th centuries. What made German Imperialism particularly shocking and ultimately led to its failure was that it tried to apply the methods of the American West to other developed European countries

Are you aware of the implications of the bolded part? That murderous, genocidal expansionism is bad in the case of "non-civilized" peoples, "barbarians", but then somehow becomes shocking when it comes to similar practices within the borders of developed European nations?

Now, if I were in a bad mood, I'd call you a fucking scumbag racist. But I can imagine a different message that you wanted to get accross, that it was in fact the impression of the people living there at that time, of citizens of developed European countries, that bloody expansionism in their backyard is shocking, but it wasn't and isn't quite shocking when it comes to the "non-civilized" peoples? Is that what you intended to communicate, or is it that you personally hold the opinion that one is overwhelmingly shocking and the other is not so shocking?

[S.Artesian]

What made German Imperialism particularly shocking and ultimately led to its failure was that it tried to apply the methods of the American West to other developed European countries

Fucking priceless. Says it all. "That sonofa***** Hitler is doing this to white people. That dirty vicious Hun thinks we're wogs, bantu babies, brown."

So it's not really barbarism that's got your thoroughly British knickers in a twist, is it Paulie? It's the indignity of being treated like your bourgeoisie treated Africans, Asians, etc.?

It's not the crimes you object to, it's the fucking mirror.


I do hold though, that those who voted for war criminals like Blair and Bush take a share of the guilt for the recent crimes of British and American agression.


Yeah, you do? But you don't offer that same particularity to the German people do you? You said the German people as a people bear a collective guilt. Not those who supported Hitler. Not Nazis. But all the German people.

There is certainly more to Trotsky's analysis of the forces leading to the 2nd WW than his writings on Germany. And there are certainly more Marxists than Trotsky writing about those causes. Try the Marxist Internet Archive.

Not to put too fine a point on it... but frankly Mr. Cockshott, you are a double-talk artist.

[Paul Cockshott]

But I can imagine a different message that you wanted to get accross, that it was in fact the impression of the people living there at that time, of citizens of developed European countries, that bloody expansionism in their backyard is shocking, but it wasn't and isn't quite shocking when it comes to the "non-civilized" peoples? Is that what you intended to communicate, or is it that you personally hold the opinion that one is overwhelmingly shocking and the other is not so shocking?
That is obviously what I meant. The Holocaust was shocking to Europeans because it applied to white people a policy that the Australians and Americans had applied to black or brown people.

[Paul Cockshott]

Yeah, you do? But you don't offer that same particularity to the German people do you? You said the German people as a people bear a collective guilt. Not those who supported Hitler. Not Nazis. But all the German people.


I said the German nation, a majority of whom did support Hitler, and among whom at the peak of his support 8 million were actually card carrying NSDAP members. Given that the overwhelming majority of the NSDAP were male, this means about one in 4 men was actually a party member.

[Paul Cockshott]

There is certainly more to Trotsky's analysis of the forces leading to the 2nd WW than his writings on Germany. And there are certainly more Marxists than Trotsky writing about those causes. Try the Marxist Internet Archive.


Perhaps you can summarise the mechanism by which the war was caused by international capitalism and specify which articles in the Marxist Internet Archive explain this mechanism.

[RED DAVE]

That is obviously what I meant. The Holocaust was shocking to Europeans because it applied to white people a policy that the Australians and Americans had applied to black or brown people.Actually, the British had been trying it on and off on the Irish for centuries. And the Poles had engaged in near-genocide against the Jews in the 17th Century.

RED DAVE

[RED DAVE]

I said the German nation, a majority of whom did support Hitler, and among whom at the peak of his support 8 million were actually card carrying NSDAP members. Given that the overwhelming majority of the NSDAP were male, this means about one in 4 men was actually a party member.And since most German males were members of the working class, what you are really saying, from sheer numbers, is that the German working class is responsible for WWII.

RED DAVE

[Paul Cockshott]

And since most German males were members of the working class, what you are really saying, from sheer numbers, is that the German working class is responsible for WWII.

RED DAVE
Not primarily, but a significant part of the working class shares the blame for having supported Hitler in the most militant way. Remember that the NSDAP had a growing working class membership which had reached some 40% overall by 1933 with over 50% of members being working class in industrial areas, and the SA was an overwhelmingly working class organisation with over 60% working class membership.

[RED DAVE]

Not primarily, but a significant part of the working class shares the blame for having supported Hitler in the most militant way.And do you still, after this, call yourself a Marxist? In all my years on the Left, that has to be up there as one of the dumbest things I have ever read. That's up there with stalinist claims that Trotsky hit himself in the head with an ice axe. Do you believe that one too?


Remember that the NSDAP had a growing working class membership which had reached some 40% overall by 1933 with over 50% of members being working class in industrial areas, and the SA was an overwhelmingly working class organisation with over 60% working class membership.Comrade, and I use the term lightly, Marxists put the blame on the leadership of the working class: the Social Democrats and Stalinists, who should have known and done better.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

That is obviously what I meant. The Holocaust was shocking to Europeans because it applied to white people a policy that the Australians and Americans had applied to black or brown people.


No that's not so obvious, given your allegiance to the principles of bourgeois justice-- "just us"-- a la Nuremberg that you site so readily.

No that's not so obvious given you eagerness to slur and smear others by claiming they share the position of the German Radical Right; given your claims that others use arguments akin to that of Goebbels and Hitler.

What is obvious is that you'll say anything to protect your position, no matter how inane that position is.

What you said is shocking, is exactly what you found shocking, just like your ruling class found shocking-- that Hitler would actually do what they did, against them, in competing with their capitalisms.

So tell me again how this goes? The British, the French, the US bourgeoisie in their capitalisms were just as vicious, just as warlike, just as expansive as the German bourgeoisie but before the German bourgeoisie were, and, at least most of the time, that vicious, that warlike, that expansive against brown, yellow, red, black people. But that was then. 19th century. By the 20th century... what Britain, France, the US, Belgium had become less "expansive," less vicious, actually pacific... towards whom may I ask?

Black people? Nope. Brown people? Nope? Yellow people? Nope. Red people? Nope.

Towards each other? Well, maybe. Towards each other, and now here come the Germans who, like bulls at tea time and coming late to this international fuckfest against people of color, upset the tea trolley, smash the crumpets.

Deciding that slaughtering indigenous people in Namibia just wasn't going to do the trick for capitalist accumulation, these vicious Hun-Prussian-Junker Hun bastards trained their competitive guns, and their guns of competition on other white people-- and that is supposed to mean the cause of the wars wasn't the competition of international capitalisms, the result of the overproduction of capital, but the warlike nature of the German bourgeoisie????

And of course, throw in the collective guilt of the German people.

Go peddle your thinly disguised white British chauvinism elsewhere. Your own words tell us what you are... a racialist.

EDIT-- and here's what you said regarding the German population:


Whether German civilians were to be considered culpable for the crimes of the Nazis

You then answered in the affirmative, using the term "German nation" so pardon me if I miss the subtlety of your distinctions... coming from a guy who thinks I share a plank on the platform of the German Radical Right.

[S.Artesian]

Not primarily, but a significant part of the working class shares the blame for having supported Hitler in the most militant way. Remember that the NSDAP had a growing working class membership which had reached some 40% overall by 1933 with over 50% of members being working class in industrial areas, and the SA was an overwhelmingly working class organisation with over 60% working class membership.


But not the KPD with its "social-fascist" policy? It's "Nach Hitler, Uns" policy. Not the Comintern for liquidating the most militant revolutionists in Vietnam, Spain, worldwide?

[S.Artesian]

Perhaps you can summarise the mechanism by which the war was caused by international capitalism and specify which articles in the Marxist Internet Archive explain this mechanism.


Overproduction of the means of production of capital; severe depression; inability to restore profitability.

Those are three off the top of my head.

[Paul Cockshott]

Overproduction of the means of production of capital; severe depression; inability to restore profitability.

Those are three off the top of my head.
Do you have any figures for the organic composition of capital?
Do you have any transmission mechanism by which a hypothesised rise in the organic composition causes war?

[Paul Cockshott]

And do you still, after this, call yourself a Marxist? In all my years on the Left, that has to be up there as one of the dumbest things I have ever read.
Comrade, and I use the term lightly, Marxists put the blame on the leadership of the working class: the Social Democrats and Stalinists, who should have known and done better.
RED DAVE

Do you dispute the evidence produced by historical research that there was a high level of working class participation in the NSDAP, and that a shift of working class voters to the NSDAP was a key factor in the ability of that party to form a government.

You would rather condemn the leaders of the KPD who propagandised against support for Hitler than condemn workers who voted for Hitler or joined the SA?

[S.Artesian]

I do have figures on the increased organic composition of capital in the United States in the 1921-1929 period; with initially increased profitability, followed by a decline in the return on investment.

Do you have any mechanism by which you can show the relatively pacific nature of US, French, UK capitalism vis-a-vis German capitalism?

But if we're going to play 20 questions-- I've asked you a boatload which you have dodged-- like the culpability of the Comintern, and the KPD in the defeat of the workers in Germany, Spain, Vietnam etc.

Plus I've asked you directly: do you seriously mean to argue that German capitalism's need to compete with US, UK, French capitalism means capitalism as a whole, as an economic organization is NOT responsible for WW2?

Take your time.

[Rafiq]

To all the Idealist "Hur Hur Nazism had nothign to do with Capitalism" Crowd: World War 2 was a direct response to international capitalism. German Fascism was a direct response toward class struggle.

We shouldblame capitalism for [email protected]

[Paul Cockshott]

So tell me again how this goes? The British, the French, the US bourgeoisie in their capitalisms were just as vicious, just as warlike, just as expansive as the German bourgeoisie but before the German bourgeoisie were, and, at least most of the time, that vicious, that warlike, that expansive against brown, yellow, red, black people. But that was then. 19th century. By the 20th century... what Britain, France, the US, Belgium had become less "expansive," less vicious, actually pacific... towards whom may I ask?

France never showed the kind of genocidal viciousness that the US showed in the West, or the British settlers in Tasmania, or the Spanish in Mexico and Peru.

The imperial powers other than Axis had ceased to be expansionist for the simple reason that they had already taken over all the vulnerable states in the non capitalist world.

There is no dispute that Britain France and the other imperial powers had engaged in agression against pre capitalist states. Such agression, were it done in the 20th century would have been judged criminal in international law, but concepts of what is criminal action are conditioned by history. Bourgeois society gives rise to ideas of national self detrmination, the right of nations to independence etc. By the standards of the 20th century the aggressive imperialism of Germany in Europe, Italy in Ethiopia and Japan in China were atavistic regressions to an earlier age. That is what being reactionary means, and that is why they were doomed to fail.

Similarly one can say that Jewish settler colonialism in Palestine today is another atavistic regression to the standards of the 19th century and is similarly doomed to fail in the long run.

[Paul Cockshott]

I do have figures on the increased organic composition of capital in the United States in the 1921-1929 period; with initially increased profitability, followed by a decline in the return on investment.
In the UK the organic composition of capital was historically low in the inter war years, see figure 6 in http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/marxts.pdf . It was significantly lower than in the 1880s or the 1960s.
I dont know of any sources on the organic composition in Germany. From the time series that I have been able to prepare going from the 1850s to the present day for the UK, I can see no correlation between organic composition of capital being high and wars breaking out.



Do you have any mechanism by which you can show the relatively pacific nature of US, French, UK capitalism vis-a-vis German capitalism?

This is not difficult to show. The decisive evidence is the Washington treaty of 1922 according to which the leading world powers agreed not to engage in an arms race.
The London treaty of 1930 further tightened these limits. To this you can add the adherence of the powers other than USA to the league of nations and its principle of collective security, the Kellog Pact which outlawed resort to war.

The most obvious evidence though is who attacked who.



But if we're going to play 20 questions-- I've asked you a boatload which you have dodged-- like the culpability of the Comintern, and the KPD in the defeat of the workers in Germany, Spain, Vietnam etc.

These are inherently unanswerable questions since they involve reading history in the past hopeful. The Trotskyist claims of culpability involve a certain credulity that things would have turned out better if commintern had taken Trotky's advice. That is entirely a matter of opinion and inherently untestable.



Plus I've asked you directly: do you seriously mean to argue that German capitalism's need to compete with US, UK, French capitalism means capitalism as a whole, as an economic organization is NOT responsible for WW2?

Yes I do argue that. History proves that competition does not need to lead to war. Since 1945 Germay has been able to compete successfully without recourse to war. It was the reactionary policies of the Kaiserreich and 3rd Reich that led to war not capitalist competition.

[S.Artesian]

France never showed the kind of genocidal viciousness that the US showed in the West, or the British settlers in Tasmania, or the Spanish in Mexico and Peru.

Really? Perhaps not genocidal, but the French in Algeria and Vietnam in particular were not known for upholding those standards of bourgeois justice you hold so near and dear to your heart. Aggression against those people continued well into the 20th century. So what... you think maybe it was criminal aggression practiced by the French in Vietnam; the British in India or not?


The imperial powers other than Axis had ceased to be expansionist for the simple reason that they had already taken over all the vulnerable states in the non capitalist world.


Sounds like Kautsky to me. Ultra-imperialism and all that. So do you mean that when the British took action against the oil workers in Trinidad, throwing them in jail, throwing their union leaders in jail, while British union leaders sat on war boards with the heads of the British corporations that were paying the tab for the strike busting... that "work" wasn't undertaken on behalf of increased accumulation, or the attempt to increase accumulation, which, of course, is exactly what expansion is?

And the French, shooting the peasants seizing land in Vietnam in 1930-31, not expansionist?

Just because it isn't genocidal doesn't mean it isn't capitalist aggression, Mr. Cockshott.


There is no dispute that Britain France and the other imperial powers had engaged in agression against pre capitalist states. Such agression, were it done in the 20th century would have been judged criminal in international law, but concepts of what is criminal action are conditioned by history.

Translation: concepts of what is criminal action are conditioned by history MEANS, justice = just us; the victors write the law and declare the crimes.

But you really mean to tell us that the same allies that undertook suppression of urban and rural workers, the landless and poor in Malaya, Kenya, Vietnam, Indonesia just as soon as they could retrieve their former colonies, weren't expansionist? Weren't aggressive capitalists? Didn't engage, collectively, as a ruling class, in criminal actions.

God takes care of fools and babies, Mr. Cockshott, and you must be a very religious man.


Bourgeois society gives rise to ideas of national self detrmination, the right of nations to independence etc. By the standards of the 20th century the aggressive imperialism of Germany in Europe, Italy in Ethiopia and Japan in China were atavistic regressions to an earlier age. That is what being reactionary means, and that is why they were doomed to fail.


Actually the Hapsburg empire gave rise to the notion of national self-determination, at least in the Balkans, in the attempt to disrupt and dismantle the Ottoman empire.

What society gave rise to the "atavistic" regressions in Japan, Germany, and Italy? Was it bourgeois society, capitalist society?

Should we look at the corporate connections-- internationally, across boundaries-- that existed between banks, insurance companies, and industrial corporations, between those institutions of bourgeois enlightenment in Germany, Britain, France, the US, Belgium? Or don't you think there were any?

Japan, Germany, Italy, were no "atavistic" regressions from the "norm" of bourgeois society--they were the modern, acute, expressions of the impulse to destruction that exists at the very core, as the identity of capital accumulation.

You want to assign collective guilt to a "criminal nation" in the 20th century on the basis of the laws created, established by slaveholder societies, by ruling classes that condemned millions to death from hunger, disease, outright execution up to, during, and after, their conscience salving trials after WW2.

[S.Artesian]

Yes I do argue that. History proves that competition does not need to lead to war. Since 1945 Germay has been able to compete successfully without recourse to war. It was the reactionary policies of the Kaiserreich and 3rd Reich that led to war not capitalist competition.

Priceless-- ummm............Serbia? Not a war.

Afghanistan.............not a war.




I don't what those German combat troops are doing there, in those non-wars, but they're not painting pictures.

Yes, in the 50 years after WW2, when Germany was partitioned, and allied with one or the other major blocs engaged in conflicts of various kinds... yep that sure is correct. Last 15 years... that's not quite so clear, is it?

But I'm gratified to hear that you don't think the pretty much worldwide collapse, or near collapse of the economies of the advanced capitalist countries in the 1930s necessarily caused the war. I feel so much better now, looking at another round of collapses.

I wonder what's made the US and the UK and now France morph from their pacific natures into these war-seeking organizations? It can't be capitalism, we know that accumulation of capital, overproduction, profitability have nothing to do with war. I wonder what could it be?

[PhoenixAsh]

Do you dispute the evidence produced by historical research that there was a high level of working class participation in the NSDAP, and that a shift of working class voters to the NSDAP was a key factor in the ability of that party to form a government.

I do not dispute the evidence but I do dispute your illogical conclusion. First and foremost you are talking about collective guilt and responsibility....then go on to argue this because 1 in 4 men so...actually broadly speaking 12-15% of the population were card carrying members of the Nazi party. A far cry from the collective you propose.

All the while also ignoring other facts that the NSDAP and the KPD between them had 50% of the votes. That after the 1932 elections in which the vast majority of Germans did not vote for the SPD...and the KPD and SPD together held more seats...

In 1933 ofcourse there was this slight fire incident for which the communists were put on public trail and resulted in massive propaganda against the communists and SPD and the arrest of KPD leadership amongst whom party leader Thalman.

If you look at election results there is no point in history in which the NSDAP has parliamentary majority. Its highest voting percentage of 43% of the votes came after the KPD was prohibited and communist leadership was detained...leaving the majority of Germany still not voting for the NSDAP....

So either your collective guilt theory seriously lacks any support in evidence and is simply emotive.

Nor do I find that conclusion to be particuarly Marxist or socialist in its nature. It flatly denies the fact that the economic situation, which was a result from capitalism and imperialism and was in Germany worsened by the war reparations they had to make after WWI, did not play an incredibly and most important part in why the NSDAP managed to gain so much support....a fact which is clearly indicated by the lessening of votes and party income from contributions after the economic situation stabilised.

It also ignores the entire political and social situation in Germany...where the KPD and SPD fought each other nearly as much a they did the NSDAP and its SA...and fatly refused to put aside their political differences to fight the Nazi's and compose a united front.

Now thats disregarding the theories of Trotsky and many others who state clearly that fascism requires capitalism.

[RedTrackWorker]

You reject the idea that the West German taxpayer should have paid compensation to the jewish survivors of the concentration camps, or that the East German ones should have had to pay compensation for the destruction and looting that the German state had carried out in the USSR. In this you are, as I suspected, sharing the platform of the German radical right.

People on the left complain about how we spend so much time fighting old battles. Well, here you see why: because some people refuse to learn the lessons of those battles.

Do we need a Zimmerwald Revleft? Is it so easily forgotten (or never understood) what the Decree on Peace (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_on_Peace) meant?


By a just or democratic peace, for which the overwhelming majority of the working class and other working people of all the belligerent countries, exhausted, tormented and racked by the war, are craving — a peace that has been most definitely and insistently demanded by the Russian workers and peasants ever since the overthrow of the tsarist monarchy — by such a peace the government means an immediate peace without annexations (i.e., without the seizure of foreign lands, without the forcible incorporation of foreign nations) and without indemnities.

What it meant for the German revolution of 1918? Would the Stalinists have you think that Lenin didn't press for German reparations just because the Soviets were too weak to enforce them--and I guess that he lied to cover that up with all this stuff on "a just or democratic peace"?

And we're still fighting this re-hashed "ultra-imperialism"? There wouldn't have been a WW2 if the German ruling class hadn't been aggressive?

The working class faces an immense challenge in the current period. And it's a disgrace to the movement that so many of those who claim its cause are defending positions the working class already paid so dearly to overcome.

[Paul Cockshott]

Really? Perhaps not genocidal, but the French in Algeria and Vietnam in particular were not known for upholding those standards of bourgeois justice you hold so near and dear to your heart. Aggression against those people continued well into the 20th century. So what... you think maybe it was criminal aggression practiced by the French in Vietnam; the British in India or not?
Ir is well known that the colonial powers commited attrocities against native populations who rose up against colonial rule right down until the 1950s and early 60s, this is not in dispute, but that is something different from launching an agressive war to invade another country.





Sounds like Kautsky to me. Ultra-imperialism and all that. So do you mean that when the British took action against the oil workers in Trinidad, throwing them in jail, throwing their union leaders in jail, while British union leaders sat on war boards with the heads of the British corporations that were paying the tab for the strike busting... that "work" wasn't undertaken on behalf of increased accumulation, or the attempt to increase accumulation, which, of course, is exactly what expansion is?
Breaking a strike is something qualitatively different from launching a war of agression costing some 70 million lives.




And the French, shooting the peasants seizing land in Vietnam in 1930-31, not expansionist?

Obviously not, since France had conquered Indo-China well before then.



But you really mean to tell us that the same allies that undertook suppression of urban and rural workers, the landless and poor in Malaya, Kenya, Vietnam, Indonesia just as soon as they could retrieve their former colonies, weren't expansionist?

Obviously not, this was not expansionism but a doomed attempt to hold onto what they already had by the most reactionary imperialist elements of the Dutch, French and British upper classes.




What society gave rise to the "atavistic" regressions in Japan, Germany, and Italy? Was it bourgeois society, capitalist society?


No it was not 'bourgeois soiciety' in the abstract. It was the specific configuration of social forces in these states that involved not only a capitalist class but also in the Japanese and German cases a whole number of other factors: a military cast enjoying huge power and prestige, a hereditary autocracy, a state religion in Lutheranism and Shintoism that encouraged martial virtues and unquestioning obedience to the state, a reactionary landowning aristocracy with dominant influence on the political structure.





Should we look at the corporate connections-- internationally, across boundaries-- that existed between banks, insurance companies, and industrial corporations, between those institutions of bourgeois enlightenment in Germany, Britain, France, the US, Belgium? Or don't you think there were any?

Of course there were, but why should that lead to war between these states?
There are much closer links between the financial institutions of countries in the EU today but that has not propelled them to war. If anything such interdependencies act as disincentive to war.



Japan, Germany, Italy, were no "atavistic" regressions from the "norm" of bourgeois society--they were the modern, acute, expressions of the impulse to destruction that exists at the very core, as the identity of capital accumulation.
.

You may think that, but what is the evidence? If capitalism is driven by an 'impulse to destruction', why are wars between capitalist states so rare?
Why have the states of Europe not been promiscuously at war with one another every few years since the industrialised?

But that is not what we see. Instead we see that all of the wars between capitalist countries in Europe in the last 150 years involved Prussian or German expansionism. And these wars stoped three quarters of a century ago. You dont see wars between Britain and France, France and Spain, Sweden and Danemark, Belgium and Holland.

The idea that war and the drive to war between capitalist countries is the norm may have seemed plausible in the 1930s, but to persist with this idea now is anachronistic.

[HEAD ICE]

RevLeft is getting stranger by the day.

[Paul Cockshott]

I do not dispute the evidence but I do dispute your illogical conclusion. First and foremost you are talking about collective guilt and responsibility....then go on to argue this because 1 in 4 men so...actually broadly speaking 12-15% of the population were card carrying members of the Nazi party. A far cry from the collective you propose.

Do you not think that a figure of 8 million NSDAP members shows an extraordinarily high level of popular support for facism?




All the while also ignoring other facts that the NSDAP and the KPD between them had 50% of the votes. That after the 1932 elections in which the vast majority of Germans did not vote for the SPD...and the KPD and SPD together held more seats...

In 1933 ofcourse there was this slight fire incident for which the communists were put on public trail and resulted in massive propaganda against the communists and SPD and the arrest of KPD leadership amongst whom party leader Thalman.

If you look at election results there is no point in history in which the NSDAP has parliamentary majority. Its highest voting percentage of 43% of the votes came after the KPD was prohibited and communist leadership was detained...leaving the majority of Germany still not voting for the NSDAP....
That is true, but a majority of Germans voted for nationalist parties, and in terms of international aims the objectives of the nationalist block were the same.
And once the NSDAP came to power there was such a rush to join it that they had to close the books to membership for a while.



Now thats disregarding the theories of Trotsky and many others who state clearly that fascism requires capitalism.

That is true to the extent that you did not get Fascist parties in middle ages, but political parties as such are a product of capitalism. You dont get Christian Democrat parties without capitalism either, so it tells us very little.

[S.Artesian]

I know this is anachronistic but expansion means the expansion of capital, expansion of accumulation, so Paul, those successful attempt to reimpose colonial rule-- expansive. Breaking the strikes, expansive. Shooting the peasants, expansive-- expanding the power of capital.

I didn't say that war between capitalist countries is the norm today which is how you define the anachronism. But the drive to war between capitalist countries was certainly not anachronistic in the 1930s. You are arguing not against the idea, but any material basis for a drive to war between capitalist countries based on competition for markets, declining profitability, etc. etc.

But I have to say, Red Track Worker is spot on:


And it's a disgrace to the movement that so many of those who claim its cause are defending positions the working class already paid so dearly to overcome.


It was not merely a specific configuration of forces unique to Germany or to Italy or to Japan that caused WW2. The configuration of force in Germany, in Italy, in Japan, where specific expressions of the general, social, international collapse of the processes of accumulation, of profitability, and the attempt to restore the same at the expense, quite literally, of the living.

You should, Mr. Cockshott, really stop congratulating yourself on the humanity, and the legality, of your British "non-expansionist" capitalism. There's billions of people out there who don't regard their experience of British capitalism with any less horror, terror, nausea, and disgust, than those who experienced the Nazi version of industrial capitalism.

As for the wars between capitalist states being so rare-- first off, it's a whole lot rarer because you don't even regard WW2 as a war between capitalist states, determined by the demands of accumulation. So if we allow WW2 as the last big inter- or intra- capitalist conflict..... we're talking about 60 years, when capitalism was

a)recovering from its last, and massive, bloodletting
b)when profitability in the US was able to sustain, economic reconstruction of Europe and Japan
c) when the US economic power was such that it could create alliances focused on the "communist threat" to all
d) When in fact inter-imperialist war had transformed into civil wars in less developed countries against the resurgence of class struggle.
e) no, we don't see wars between Belgium and Holland, etc. etc.. But we do see wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine, Africa...are these wars detached from the needs of accumulation? Do you think, for example, that the invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with the profitability of the oil majors in the period after 1992? The targets of destructive accumulation may change, but the weapon is the same.

[Kotze]

Care to actually address Cockshott's question regarding your economic theory of wars?

Just a reminder:
Do you have any figures for the organic composition of capital?
Do you have any transmission mechanism by which a hypothesised rise in the organic composition causes war?

In the UK the organic composition of capital was historically low in the inter war years, see figure 6 in http://reality.gn.apc.org/econ/marxts.pdf. It was significantly lower than in the 1880s or the 1960s.
I dont know of any sources on the organic composition in Germany. From the time series that I have been able to prepare going from the 1850s to the present day for the UK, I can see no correlation between organic composition of capital being high and wars breaking out.

[S.Artesian]

As I said, I have the figures for the US between 1921-1929, the recovery of profitability, and then the subsequent flattening.

I'll be more than happy to produce the whole study, when Cockshott answers the myriad of questions I've raised about the collective guilt of the German people.

[HEAD ICE]

This thread serves nothing except as a pathetic example of the sad nationalist virus and Marxist patriotism that is a shame but ought to be expected, especially by people like the OP. Cockshott absurdly says that condemning WWII as an imperialist war and not something that is unique to the German's genes implies a repudiation of the Nuremburg trials (which by the way I DO repudiate, the Nuremburg trials being nothing but a show and "justice" in the same manner as the USA shooting bin Laden) which is of course ridiculous, but what is not absurd is that Cockshott clearly implies and in fact out right rallies behind the British and American bourgeoisie (lets ignore the Soviet Union). WWII was a result of German insanity yet Cockshott has no problem with the melting of Japanese and the litany of crimes of British imperialism, because after all Germany was worse. Back in the day people like Paul Cockshott would be called social patriots.

People recently have been restricted for less than this. Churchill's and Roosevelt's Marxist, Mr. Paul Cockshott.

[Jose Gracchus]

Should i blame capitalism for the murders done by the Waffen SS sturm-units who burned Yugoslavia,should i?Of course not!It had nothing to do with capitalism,it had to do with the fact the Waffen SS troops were bloody savages who's only goal was the extermination of races!To hell with you people and your side-picking,go lick your Nazi idol's boot's you bastards!

Just goes to show MLs are petty bourgeois nationalists to the core. Anywho, the point is, for those too fucking stupid to see it otherwise, by S. Artisan and others, than it could just as easily been another fascist revanchist power, like France, had she been humiliated according to the war aims of the German Empire in 1918. It was not the German "national character", Jesus, I had no idea there were revolutionary socialists who took the fucking Sonderweg seriously.

[S.Artesian]

Anyone interested in piecing together the information regarding US industry and manufacturing from (post) WW1 through the Depression and into WW2, regarding growth of fixed assets, output, and profit can find significant [although in spots, sketchy] data in the Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970.

This is a 2 volume study released by the US Dept. of Commerce and currently out of print but available through some bookdealers.

Check volume 1, National Income and Wealth; volume 2, Manufactures, and Business Enterprise.

Also the US Bureau of Economic Analysis maintains the National Income Product Account tables (NIPA) on its web site: http://www.bea.gov (http://www.bea.gov/)

[Kotze]

Cockshott absurdly says that condemning WWII as an imperialist war and not something that is unique to the German's genes implies a repudiation of the Nuremburg trialsHe did not say that.

What he said was that he does not see how you can blame international capitalism in the abstract for the Nazis. There is this economic theory of wars, how overproduction of the means of production of capital and low profit leads to war. Do you have any idea what a powerful argument it will be for the left if we can show that this is actually true?

But the only economist on the entire fucking forum said that he is not aware of a correlation between low profits and starting wars. ("From the time series that I have been able to prepare going from the 1850s to the present day for the UK, I can see no correlation between organic composition of capital being high and wars breaking out.") Now S.Artesian and you and 90% of this board got all butthurt when somebody said such a thing, and immediately went on to question his motive and started to make up shit like what you just said. So I suppose it has to be true because you want it so much to be true, never mind the data.


Anyone interested in piecing together the information...Wait a sec. I thought you had already pieced it together. Now you recommend a book that you say is out of print. Hmmm...

Well people, if that economic theory of wars is clearly true, if that's so obvious, show the general correlation. Don't whine about how we can't be friends if I don't display unshakable belief in your grand theories. Show the general correlation.

[Paul Cockshott]

I didn't say that war between capitalist countries is the norm today which is how you define the anachronism. But the drive to war between capitalist countries was certainly not anachronistic in the 1930s. You are arguing not against the idea, but any material basis for a drive to war between capitalist countries based on competition for markets, declining profitability, etc. etc.

What is at stake here is whether the Leninist/Trotskyist orthodoxy according to which capitalism leads inevitably to war should be accepted as a correct theory. I know that Artesian and a number of other posters consider that this idea is a fundamental thesis of Marxism, but as far as I can see this idea is completely absent in the writings and theories of Marx himself.

There is no suggestion in Marx's Capital that capitalism has an impulse to war, or that such a drive was either innate in capitalism or a necessary consequence of the logic of capital accumulation.

The idea that it has was put forward by Lenin in the context of World War I in his pamphlet on imperialism. In that pamphlet he argued that imperialism was a new stage of capitalism that had arisen after Marx's time, and that this new phase meant that it had acquired a dynamic that necessarily led to war.

The reality of European colonial empires is indisputable, but the claim that these arose as a consequence of capitalism having entered a new phase with qualitatively different dynamics from those examined by Marx seems very questionable. The economically important colonial empires were already in existence in Marx's time and he certainly knew about them, and wrote about them. So the assertion that colonial empires were a new phase of capitalism is hard to support.

The alternative position is that imperialism and militarism are policies of states, not properties of the economic system, and as state policies they can change in response both to internal politics and world politics.

It is worth noting that of the 9 main belligerents in the 14-18 war 5 were relict feudal autocracies which had not undergone bourgeois revolutions. An alternative explanation of militarism wars of aggression at that time would be to see them as policies pursued by autocracies and dictatorships.

[Paul Cockshott]

Anyone interested in piecing together the information regarding US industry and manufacturing from (post) WW1 through the Depression and into WW2, regarding growth of fixed assets, output, and profit can find significant [although in spots, sketchy] data in the Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970.

This is a 2 volume study released by the US Dept. of Commerce and currently out of print but available through some bookdealers.

Check volume 1, National Income and Wealth; volume 2, Manufactures, and Business Enterprise.

Also the US Bureau of Economic Analysis maintains the National Income Product Account tables (NIPA) on its web site: http://www.bea.gov (http://www.bea.gov/)
Those are some of the primary sources that you could use to start research on the topic. What I was looking for was analyses of this data in terms of Marxian categories along the lines described by Shaikh and Tonak or used by Dumenil and Levy, or used in the paper I gave a link to.

[RED DAVE]

The Trotskyist claims of culpability involve a certain credulity that things would have turned out better if commintern had taken Trotky's advice. That is entirely a matter of opinion and inherently untestable.Can't resist a bit of Trot baiting, can you?

What sane Marxists say, is that if the Stalinist leadership had not embarked on the politically insane policy of the Third Period beginning in 1928 and had, instead, worked for a United Front with the Social Democrats, the German working class could have been united to fight fascism. Instead, we have insane shit like the theory of social fascism. And then, in 1935, we have the flip side of the Third Period with the Popular Front.

RED DAVE

[PhoenixAsh]

Do you not think that a figure of 8 million NSDAP members shows an extraordinarily high level of popular support for facism?

Offcourse, but the conlcusion you are making that this is a result of them being German is not really warranted and it ignores cause and effect of the specific socio-economic situation in which Germany found itself in the interbellum which gave rise to this kind of support for the NSDAP. That economic situation was a direct result of capitalist and imperialist mechanisms at work creating huge inflation, poverty, unemployment and economic marginalisation worsened by having to pay reparations. This situation resulted in a breakdown of capitalist principles and resulted in a shift towards more and more authoritarianism because of the civil unrest and political competition of opposing political forces while the traditional democratic and capitalist parties were unable to manage the crisis to stop this unrest from happening.

Hitler could not have rissen to power if the burgoisie and international capitalists had not supported him and chosen fascism over the alternative of a communist revolution....enabling Hitler to pose as a true alternative.

That paired with the huge amount of national and international propaganda against communism and socialism created a unique atmosphere which in any country would have resulted in pretty much the same end game.

Similar situations evolved in different context in Italy and Spain. Also resulted in massive support for anti-communist forces by the international burgoisie and thereby giving creditability to the fascists resulting in massive support.


That is true, but a majority of Germans voted for nationalist parties, and in terms of international aims the objectives of the nationalist block were the same.

That is indeed the case. Hitler gained the majority in parliament by siding with some nationalist parties....who were traditionalist in the sense that they were capitalist in nature.



And once the NSDAP came to power there was such a rush to join it that they had to close the books to membership for a while.

As has been seen in Italy and Spain.



That is true to the extent that you did not get Fascist parties in middle ages, but political parties as such are a product of capitalism. You dont get Christian Democrat parties without capitalism either, so it tells us very little.

Well thats true.

[Paul Cockshott]

Can't resist a bit of Trot baiting, can you?

What sane Marxists say, is that if the Stalinist leadership had not embarked on the politically insane policy of the Third Period beginning in 1928 and had, instead, worked for a United Front with the Social Democrats, the German working class could have been united to fight fascism. Instead, we have insane shit like the theory of social fascism. And then, in 1935, we have the flip side of the Third Period with the Popular Front.

RED DAVE
It is Trotskyists rather than other groups of Marxists who say this. What you are engaging in is speculative alternative history. You are saying that had it been the case that Trotsky was in charge of Comintern policy then history would have turned out differently and for the better.

But such counter-factual speculations must be recognised for what they are: exercises in fiction. We may speculate that had Lincoln failed to attend the theatre that night, had he not been assassinated, then American history might have turned out for the better. Alternative history stories are fascinating and entertaining. They can also make us think about things we might not otherwise have dwelled upon. Turtledove's new series 'The War That Came Early', which explores the possible consequences of WWII starting in 1938 over the Sudatenland is a good example. But we should never forget that this is fiction. Reality is so complex, and unanticipated consequences so common, that any attempt to speculate on how things might have been is no more than that, speculation.

It is a mistake to base the historical perspective entire political movement on such alternative history stories. When you do that you start to confuse fact with fiction.

The past itself is fuzzy enough, information about the past is inherently fleeting. What actually happened in history is hard to know with certainty. But if you want to reason about not about the historical past of our world, but instead about the history of other worlds in Everett's sense, worlds in which Trotsky came out top in the Soviet power struggle, then there are no criteria for truth, there is nothing other than personal aesthetic preference to guide you.

[PhoenixAsh]

I think you are right about speculative what-if scenario's in general especially over longer periods. Alternate history thinking is nice and all but purely theoretical. That does not mean that its entirely without merit.

One of the causes and context in which enabled the NSDAP to rise to power is the absence of a unified alternative. The opposition was horribly fragmented and fought just as much amongst themselves as they did the NSDAP footsoldiers and lakceys....that does not create an environment in which you solve problems. What would have happened if this hadn't been the case is pure speculation...but the analysis that this contributed greatly to and perhaps was even a necessary condition for the rise of power of the fascists.

Remember in sheer numbers of support the KPD and SDP outweighted any other faction in German politics with over 37% of the votes....united they would have been able to oppose much of what happened and in sheer numbers of footsoldiers they would have even been more able to defeat the fascists on the streets.

The NSDAP and SA however managed to maximise their benefit from the infighting and even concocted and instigated such events and exploit them to their benefit.

[Paul Cockshott]

I agree about the effects of disunity. What is speculative is whether in the historical circumstances unity could have occured.

[S.Artesian]

He did not say that.

What he said was that he does not see how you can blame international capitalism in the abstract for the Nazis. There is this economic theory of wars, how overproduction of the means of production of capital and low profit leads to war. Do you have any idea what a powerful argument it will be for the left if we can show that this is actually true?

But the only economist on the entire fucking forum said that he is not aware of a correlation between low profits and starting wars. ("From the time series that I have been able to prepare going from the 1850s to the present day for the UK, I can see no correlation between organic composition of capital being high and wars breaking out.") Now S.Artesian and you and 90% of this board got all butthurt when somebody said such a thing, and immediately went on to question his motive and started to make up shit like what you just said. So I suppose it has to be true because you want it so much to be true, never mind the data.

No, asshole, what your "only economist" said was that the German nation bears collective guilt for launching a war of aggression that was WW2. What he said that the peculiar, particular characteristics of the German bourgeoisie and German capitalism were the causes, in reality, of both world wars.

What your "only economist" stated was that he based that on his reading of one book; and...that what was so shocking about the German nation's actions was that it attempted to do to Europe what Europe had done years before to people in Africa, Asia, the Americas. That's what your only economist said.


Wait a sec. I thought you had already pieced it together. Now you recommend a book that you say is out of print. Hmmm...

I said, I had the numbers on organic composition [and I use fixed assets accumulation as the marker], and profitability for the 1921-1929 period. That's what I said. I have not written an exposition of my views because I'm in the middle of writing something else. And I will have no problem writing up my views using those numbers when I finish writing the article on rent I'm writing now.

Your only economist appears to believe that there is no correlation between the depression of the 1930s and the drive to war; or the economic contraction of 1912 and the build up to WW1.

Your only economist claims that for 150 years, military conflicts in Europe were derived from Prussian militarism/German expansionism, as if somehow that expansionism is abstract, distinct from the conflict with already established British and French capitalist accumulation.

Regarding the source, The Bicentennial Edition is no longer available through the US Gov Printing Office. It is widely available through dealers at abebooks.com


Well people, if that economic theory of wars is clearly true, if that's so obvious, show the general correlation. Don't whine about how we can't be friends if I don't display unshakable belief in your grand theories. Show the general correlation.

Friends? With the likes of you? You and you racialist "only economist" can walk off hand in hand happily ever after. Sometimes, it's better to be measured by the people you're not friends with.

[Paul Cockshott]

I see that irony can be misunderstood. The Nazi holocaust is particularly shocking to american society because the victims, unlike the natve americans or Armenians, are easier for them to identify with.

[RedSunRising]

Can't resist a bit of Trot baiting, can you?

What sane Marxists say, is that if the Stalinist leadership had not embarked on the politically insane policy of the Third Period beginning in 1928 and had, instead, worked for a United Front with the Social Democrats, the German working class could have been united to fight fascism. Instead, we have insane shit like the theory of social fascism. And then, in 1935, we have the flip side of the Third Period with the Popular Front.

RED DAVE

You know, as Trotsky also knew well, that the SDP labeled the Communists as bad as if not worse than the Nazies before the KPD returned the compliment and the SPD from the murder of Rosa Luxembourg and its organization of the freikorps using proto-fascist elements before unleashing them on the working class onwards had gone out of its way to prove as best it could to the German ruling class how much it hated Communists. Your dream of a United Front in those conditions is what is batshit insane, but you know this, just like most Trotskyites know this. You also know that the difference between the Popular Front and the United Front is the real world.

[Paul Cockshott]

I see that irony can be misunderstood. The Nazi holocaust is particularly shocking to american society because the victims, unlike the natve americans or Armenians, are easier for them to identify with.

[Kotze]

I have not written an exposition of my views because I'm in the middle of writing something else.I did not ask you for to write a lengthy essay, but to show data that backs up your economic theory of wars (a theory that is so awesome that only racists could possibly disagree with it :rolleyes:), data that shows that there is a general correlation between high organic composition of capital and wars breaking out.

Given that you repeatedly refuse to actually show this (because you don't have time for that, despite having ample time for flooding the forum with radical posturing), I take it you haven't done the research that would be necessary to show as true what you want so much to be true.

[S.Artesian]

The idea that it has was put forward by Lenin in the context of World War I in his pamphlet on imperialism. In that pamphlet he argued that imperialism was a new stage of capitalism that had arisen after Marx's time, and that this new phase meant that it had acquired a dynamic that necessarily led to war.


The argument that WW1 was the determined by the economic organization of capitalism as capitalism is not unique to Lenin or Trotsky. It is certainly part of Rosa Luxemburg's work. It is a view shared by left, council, communists.

And it finds a source in the Communist Manifesto:


For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity — the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented.



The reality of European colonial empires is indisputable, but the claim that these arose as a consequence of capitalism having entered a new phase with qualitatively different dynamics from those examined by Marx seems very questionable. The economically important colonial empires were already in existence in Marx's time and he certainly knew about them, and wrote about them. So the assertion that colonial empires were a new phase of capitalism is hard to support.

I am not a supporter of Lenin's theory of imperialism; nor Trotsky's; nor Rosa's.



The alternative position is that imperialism and militarism are policies of states, not properties of the economic system, and as state policies they can change in response both to internal politics and world politics.


Except apparently, in the case of Germany. But seriously, to say militarism is a policy that can change, that can morph, assume different expressions, some more belligerent than others and based on that assumption is not economically determined by the class organization of society, by the accumulation of capital does not explain, and obscures, the previous growth of military spending. and the various methods by which the that old conflict between means and relations of production is expressed .



It is worth noting that of the 9 main belligerents in the 14-18 war 5 were relict feudal autocracies which had not undergone bourgeois revolutions. An alternative explanation of militarism wars of aggression at that time would be to see them as policies pursued by autocracies and dictatorships.

Or an alternative explanation will be found in the analysis of uneven and combined development where these feudal autocracies where already "shot through" with the uneven and combined development of capitalism, exhibiting advanced urban factory concentrations in the midst of backward agricultural relations, making the conflict between means and relations of production even more acute.

Moreover, this detachment of military conflict, the need for military conflict from capitalism leads us the the "evil policy" of "evil men" explanation, although in your case it's the evil policy of an evil nation. It then become very difficult to account for the changes which occur, in who's "evil.'

The problem is, besides what I believe is the racialism inherent in your account, is that there is no explanation for either the conflict between means and relations of production that is for Marx a centerpiece of his analysis of capital, or for its resolution, and the recovery of capital that war provides.

But I'll tell you what-- my thesis is that overproduction in the 1920s manifesting in, and a manifestation of the overproduction of capital precipitated the great depression, the need for capitalism to restore accumulation led to the WW2. So I will finish my article on rent and then post my take on that process in the in the US.

[JamesH]

Really? Perhaps not genocidal, but the French in Algeria and Vietnam in particular were not known for upholding those standards of bourgeois justice you hold so near and dear to your heart. Aggression against those people continued well into the 20th century. So what... you think maybe it was criminal aggression practiced by the French in Vietnam; the British in India or not?



Sounds like Kautsky to me. Ultra-imperialism and all that. So do you mean that when the British took action against the oil workers in Trinidad, throwing them in jail, throwing their union leaders in jail, while British union leaders sat on war boards with the heads of the British corporations that were paying the tab for the strike busting... that "work" wasn't undertaken on behalf of increased accumulation, or the attempt to increase accumulation, which, of course, is exactly what expansion is?

And the French, shooting the peasants seizing land in Vietnam in 1930-31, not expansionist?

Just because it isn't genocidal doesn't mean it isn't capitalist aggression, Mr. Cockshott.



Translation: concepts of what is criminal action are conditioned by history MEANS, justice = just us; the victors write the law and declare the crimes.

But you really mean to tell us that the same allies that undertook suppression of urban and rural workers, the landless and poor in Malaya, Kenya, Vietnam, Indonesia just as soon as they could retrieve their former colonies, weren't expansionist? Weren't aggressive capitalists? Didn't engage, collectively, as a ruling class, in criminal actions.

God takes care of fools and babies, Mr. Cockshott, and you must be a very religious man.



Actually the Hapsburg empire gave rise to the notion of national self-determination, at least in the Balkans, in the attempt to disrupt and dismantle the Ottoman empire.

What society gave rise to the "atavistic" regressions in Japan, Germany, and Italy? Was it bourgeois society, capitalist society?

Should we look at the corporate connections-- internationally, across boundaries-- that existed between banks, insurance companies, and industrial corporations, between those institutions of bourgeois enlightenment in Germany, Britain, France, the US, Belgium? Or don't you think there were any?

Japan, Germany, Italy, were no "atavistic" regressions from the "norm" of bourgeois society--they were the modern, acute, expressions of the impulse to destruction that exists at the very core, as the identity of capital accumulation.

You want to assign collective guilt to a "criminal nation" in the 20th century on the basis of the laws created, established by slaveholder societies, by ruling classes that condemned millions to death from hunger, disease, outright execution up to, during, and after, their conscience salving trials after WW2.

There is a difference between expansionism and consolidating one's "sphere of influence." Though disgusting, the actions of the French against Vietnamese peasants are no more expansionist than the Soviet intervention in Hungary.

And may I add, can we please have some more civility in this discussion? The patience of Paul is contrasted with the vile and puerile insults that are directed at his head. Clearly, he isn't a racist or a British nationalist.

[RED DAVE]

It is Trotskyists rather than other groups of Marxists who say this. What you are engaging in is speculative alternative history.Nio, I am criticizing a disastrous historical line.


You are saying that had it been the case that Trotsky was in charge of Comintern policy then history would have turned out differently and for the better.No, I am criticizing a disastrous historical line.

Can't resist Trot baiting, can you?


But such counter-factual speculations must be recognised for what they are: exercises in fiction.No, they are criticism of a disastrous historical line.


We may speculate that had Lincoln failed to attend the theatre that night, had he not been assassinated, then American history might have turned out for the better. Alternative history stories are fascinating and entertaining.But that's not what I'm doing. I'm criticizing a disastrous historical line.


They can also make us think about things we might not otherwise have dwelled upon. Turtledove's new series 'The War That Came Early', which explores the possible consequences of WWII starting in 1938 over the Sudatenland is a good example. But we should never forget that this is fiction. Reality is so complex, and unanticipated consequences so common, that any attempt to speculate on how things might have been is no more than that, speculation.You are confusing, which is not surprising, historical fiction and Marxist political criticism.


It is a mistake to base the historical perspective entire political movement on such alternative history stories. When you do that you start to confuse fact with fiction.But that's not what I'm doing, so it's okay.


The past itself is fuzzy enough, information about the past is inherently fleeting. What actually happened in history is hard to know with certainty. But if you want to reason about not about the historical past of our world, but instead about the history of other worlds in Everett's sense, worlds in which Trotsky came out top in the Soviet power struggle, then there are no criteria for truth, there is nothing other than personal aesthetic preference to guide you.What you have just done, and it's not surprising in your zeal to defend stalinism and its political lines, is to abandon Marxist political criticism.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

There is a difference between expansionism and consolidating one's "sphere of influence." Though disgusting, the actions of the French against Vietnamese peasants are no more expansionist than the Soviet intervention in Hungary.

"Sphere of influence"? That's a good phrase for it. Obviously, Vietnam and Algeria, being right next door to France, and providing an easy vector to the very heart of France are just like Hungary in relation to the fSU.


And may I add, can we please have some more civility in this discussion? The patience of Paul is contrasted with the vile and puerile insults that are directed at his head. Clearly, he isn't a racist or a British nationalist.

That's not clear to me at all. But sure, nothing wrong with more civility.

[Paul Cockshott]

Dave, the problem with this sort of criticism, is that as Red Sun says, you can not know the effect of the KPD following Trotkys policy. Would the SPD have played along?
That is why it is essentially speculative and pointless.

[Paul Cockshott]

Dave, the problem with this sort of criticism, is that as Red Sun says, you can not know the effect of the KPD following Trotkys policy. Would the SPD have played along?
That is why it is essentially speculative and pointless.

[RED DAVE]

DavePaul.


the problem with this sort of criticism, is that as Red Sun says, you can not know the effect of the KPD following Trotkys policy.Of course we can't know. We can't ever know for certain what the effect of a different policy would be, ever. But there are reasonable expectations. It is reasonable to expect that if the KPD leadership and the SPD leadership had advocated and carried out a united front, things would have been quite different in Germany.


Would the SPD have played along?We don't know. They were a slimy bunch of class collaborationists. But it is quite possible that the SPD membership, it's mass working class base, would have responded.

In any event, do you think that the theory of social fascism was Marxism? Do you think, Molotov referring to fascism as "a matter of taste" was Marxism?


That is why it is essentially speculative and pointless.It is far from pointless. To rehash these discussions is, hopefully, to prevent shit like that in the future. That's called politics, Paul.

RED DAVE

[Paul Cockshott]

Dave, the problem with this sort of criticism, is that as Red Sun says, you can not know the effect of the KPD following Trotkys policy. Would the SPD have played along?
That is why it is essentially speculative and pointless.

[RedSunRising]

Dave, the problem with this sort of criticism, is that as Red Sun says, you can not know the effect of the KPD following Trotkys policy. Would the SPD have played along?
That is why it is essentially speculative and pointless.

In Berlin in 1929 the SPD ordered the police to shot down Communist workers on May Day which should give us some indication, also the fact that so many of the German working class went along with the KPD during the third period should give us pause for thought that maybe it wasnt as crazy as it sounds now. Anyway as much they could the Rot Front tried to create a united front from below. When the Comintern did adopt Trotsky's policy after 1935 Trotsky and his ilk found different reasons to criticize it. You can never please some people who are romantically attached to Socialist ideas.

[caramelpence]

Dave, the problem with this sort of criticism, is that as Red Sun says, you can not know the effect of the KPD following Trotkys policy. Would the SPD have played along?
That is why it is essentially speculative and pointless.

Two points. Firstly, if you were familiar with Trotsky's arguments behind the united front in Germany, you would know that he didn't support the KPD proposing a united front solely on the basis that the SPD would accept and that a united front would offer tactical advantages, he also recognized that, if the SPD were to refuse, that would expose the party as unwilling to work with anti-fascist forces and serve to win workers away from the SPD. Lenin made the same argument in relation to Labour Party affiliation in Britain. Secondly, it's true that we don't know what would have happened if the KPD had adopted Trotsky's policy, because we don't have a time machine or an alternative history device, but this doesn't make it "essentially speculative" because all forms of historical argument implicitly posit a hypothetical alternative scenario - when a historian argues that the terms of the Versailles Treaty were important for the Weimar Republic having a lack of credibility, for example, they are implicitly positing an alternative scenario where the terms of the Treaty were different and where the Republic was more stable as a result. The positing of hypothetical alternatives in this way is fine as long as the historian can provide adequate reasoning and evidence for their argument, that is, why they have chosen to explain a particular event or outcome in terms of a specific cause or set of causes, rather than another cause. This is a thought process that most primary school students could probably grasp, but that's apparently too much for you.

Now that I've made those points, let me say that you're pro-British scum, and that you prove just how easy it is for people to go from Stalinism (i.e. your political past) to social democracy (i.e. your current political project) due to both assuming a patronizing and elitist relationship with the working class and accepting the nation-state as a given and legitimate political environment. Hal Draper was right.

[S.Artesian]

I did not ask you for to write a lengthy essay, but to show data that backs up your economic theory of wars (a theory that is so awesome that only racists could possibly disagree with it :rolleyes:), data that shows that there is a general correlation between high organic composition of capital and wars breaking out.

Given that you repeatedly refuse to actually show this (because you don't have time for that, despite having ample time for flooding the forum with radical posturing), I take it you haven't done the research that would be necessary to show as true what you want so much to be true.

I'll grant you that-- I've wasted 4-5 days arguing with those seeking to "explain" "understand" mass rape-- as revenge, as the the general dehumanizing impact of war, etc. etc. , and another day or two arguing with those who think the first and second world wars are the result of the peculiarities of the German "nation.'

It is a fucking waste.

[RedSunRising]

Two points. Firstly, if you were familiar with Trotsky's arguments behind the united front in Germany, you would know that he didn't support the KPD proposing a united front solely on the basis that the SPD would accept and that a united front would offer tactical advantages, he also recognized that, if the SPD were to refuse, that would expose the party as unwilling to work with anti-fascist forces and serve to win workers away from the SPD.

That was already obvious.

And Lenin's position on the British Labour Party wasnt exactly his wisest one ever.

A point that needs to made here is that Trotskyites do not understand the nature of Social Democracy due to their first world chauvinism as well as their origins in the middle class and labour aristocracy. Infact the Trotskyites in the USA's main goal in life is establishing a Social Democratic Party in that country!

[RED DAVE]

TA point that needs to made here is that Trotskyites do not understand the nature of Social DemocracyProof of that ridiculous assertion? Who was it who supported Roosevelt and the Democratic Party, which isn't even social democratic but liberal, Stalinists or Trotskyists.


ue to their first world chauvinism as well as their origins in the middle class and labour aristocracy.Now you are merely engaging in political cursing, not political analysis.


Infact the Trotskyites in the USA's main goal in life is establishing a Social Democratic Party in that country!Prove it.

RED DAVE

[Rainsborough]

Now that I've made those points, let me say that you're pro-British scum, and that you prove just how easy it is for people to go from Stalinism (i.e. your political past) to social democracy (i.e. your current political project) due to both assuming a patronizing and elitist relationship with the working class and accepting the nation-state as a given and legitimate political environment. Hal Draper was right.

Way to go comrade, thread after thread wonders why we don't have a united left and you've just accused the British of being scum. Thats one way to convince the British worker of our cause.:rolleyes:

[RedTrackWorker]

Your dream of a United Front in those conditions [in Germany] is what is batshit insane

This view doesn't explain why the CP proposed a "united front from above" to the SPD in the Prussian landtag referendum--and when refused had a de facto united front with the Nazis.
It also doesn't explain the origins of the truly "batshit insane" policy of "after Hitler, us."
In fact, RedSunRising's argument isn't an argument but an excuse for refusing to rethink a party dogma which obviously failed.

[DaringMehring]

In Berlin in 1929 the SPD ordered the police to shot down Communist workers on May Day which should give us some indication, also the fact that so many of the German working class went along with the KPD during the third period should give us pause for thought that maybe it wasnt as crazy as it sounds now. Anyway as much they could the Rot Front tried to create a united front from below. When the Comintern did adopt Trotsky's policy after 1935 Trotsky and his ilk found different reasons to criticize it. You can never please some people who are romantically attached to Socialist ideas.

You make a few mistakes here.

First, the united front was not "Trotsky's policy" in particular, it was the policy of the first congresses of the 3rd International, when Lenin was still alive. If the united front is "Trotsky's policy," it is only because he was among the few who remained faithful to the original Comintern policy.

Second, you mistake "united" and "popular" front.

The united front states that when the basic needs of the workers are under attack, Communists should participate with other worker/labor organizations in their defense. So Labor in the UK or the SPD could be worked with, because they claimed to be organizations for workers trying to bring socialism.

The popular front is the idea that everyone who is not a fascist should unite against fascism, which includes bourgeois forces. So for instance the CPUSA changed its tune about the Roosevelt administration, the Spanish CP worked as part of a bourgeois government, and so on.

There is a big difference between these two types of fronts!

[DaringMehring]

As to the origins of fascism, I wrote this in an essay several years ago (it should be noted that DNZ's hero Kautsky calls economics decisive in the rise of fascism... perhaps trying to absolve himself for his leadership blunders vis a vis the revolutionary communists):

"The growth of fascism as a social movement in interwar Germany is commonly attributed to the desperate economic situation the country faced after WWI (70, 71, 72). Karl Kautsky summed it up, saying "Hardly had the worst consequences of reparations been overcome and the reparations themselves eliminated, than the world crisis made its appearance, affecting all countries, but none so severely as Germany. This was the decisive factor in Hitler’s victory" (65). Hitler himself in Mein Kampf Vol I Ch XII "The First Period of Development of the National Socialist German Workers' Party" said "The fact that millions bear in their hearts the desire for a basic change in the conditions obtaining today proves the deep discontent under which they suffer" (73). Hitler, while admitting a "deep discontent", predictably kept his focus on national pride and spirit rather than economic considerations, but the labor statistics provided by Kautsky cut to the quick: "In July, 1932, only a minority of the 20,000,000 wage earners in Germany were fully employed; 7½ million were without jobs and 5 million were on part-time work" (65). In Italy too "general economic distress" is also cited as a major factor that promoted the growth of fascism (36).

This, however, is only half of the story. The disastrous economic conditions in Italy and Germany following WWI both created a desire for change and discredited the then-governing structures of power in the eyes of many. But a desire for change does not equate to a desire for fascism. Fascist movements have not developed with equal ferocity in all periods of economic malaise. The development of fascism must be tied to the specific socio-cultural milieu in which economic hardship is driving a desire for change.


Under capitalism fascism and Marxism have emerged as the main representatives of lower-class discontent. Each provides an explanation as to the causes of society's ills. Marxism provides analysis that points to capitalism and its inherent class struggle as the root of the problem. Fascism on the other hand represents the most powerful explanation given an acceptance of capitalism and of certain elements of capitalist ideology. Thus the capitalist value of inequality is replicated in fascist ideology, the ruling class propaganda that "anyone, regardless of circumstance, can make it if they have enough desire and work hard enough" is translated into explanation by will rather than economic and other objective factors, the ideas integral to the ruling class's use of race as a way to divide the working class and to evade accountability are accepted wholeheartedly, the struggle of human against human is celebrated and hailed as some kind of universal principle of nature, and so on.


An individual's propensity to accept fascism rather than socialism is tied to their acceptance of the capitalist system. Besides being obvious, this was observed historically: Trotsky's analyses of Germany revealed that the social base of fascism was in peasant smallholders, shopkeepers, etc., while the communists drew in the main on wageworkers..."

[JamesH]

[QUOTE=S.Artesian;2130810]"Sphere of influence"? That's a good phrase for it. Obviously, Vietnam and Algeria, being right next door to France, and providing an easy vector to the very heart of France are just like Hungary in relation to the fSU.
[\QUOTE]

Proximity is not needed for a sphere of influence as you rightly point out. The point is, as Paul said, you don't expand into areas you already control.

[Paul Cockshott]

An individual's propensity to accept fascism rather than socialism is tied to their acceptance of the capitalist system. Besides being obvious, this was observed historically: Trotsky's analyses of Germany revealed that the social base of fascism was in peasant smallholders, shopkeepers, etc., while the communists drew in the main on wageworkers..."
This view of NSDAP membership was shared not only by Trotsky by other writers from the 30s and 40s. However since the 1980s there has been extensive research by historians into the membership records of the NSDAP in order to investigate its social composition. These studies show that although the middle class were over represented relative to their share in the population, there was a very substantial working class participation in party. The percentages varied accross regions but seems to have averaged out at around 40% of party membership, with about 50% of NSDAP urban votes comming from working class districts. A comprehensive overview of this is given in Peter Stachura's article 'National Socialism and the German Proletariat, 1925-1935 in the Historical Journal Sept, 1993. The articles by Muhlberger also contain a lot of information on this.

That should come as no surprise to us today when we look at the constituencies in the UK that deliver significant votes for the BNP.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

But I do think zero cyclical and structural unemployment a la Minsky is possible to achieve and maintain before workers take power. :confused:

No, it's not. Britain in the 60s and 70s largely proved this. It would be possible only in the shortest time frame. The full employment objective would collapse pretty soon, otherwise, under the inherent contradictions within Capitalism.

[Paul Cockshott]

Now that I've made those points, let me say that you're pro-British scum, and that you prove just how easy it is for people to go from Stalinism (i.e. your political past) to social democracy (i.e. your current political project) due to both assuming a patronizing and elitist relationship with the working class and accepting the nation-state as a given and legitimate political environment. Hal Draper was right.

I am not sure how you think you infer these things about my politics. The thread is about the role of Germany in launching an aggressive war. But let me give some background information.

Yes I was a member of the CPGB, but was expelled for my activity in editing and distributin a newspaper for the John Maclean Society, if you know anything about Glasgow politics of the 1980s this was hardly a 'pro British' position. After that I was involved in the refoundation of the Workers Party of Scotland along with Matt Lygate a notorious Scottish Republican. After the SSP was formed as a united front party of Scottish Socialists I joined that, and following its split I have been in Solidarity.

I have consistently argued against the idea that the nation state can be the basis for socialism.

For instance at the end of last year I said


First point here is that classical social democracy and to a large extent the communist parties as well were based around the nation state. The communist philosopher Althusser goes so far as to say that political parties are part of the state’s ideological apparatus. All political parties then existing were part of the legitimation mechanism of the state. But the nation state is no longer actually the focus of political power that it once was. In Europe the coexistence of the EU and the nation state means that nation states are no longer economically self-governing, and secondly, the prospect that was once held that if a social-democratic party of a communist party took power in one country it could install a socialist economy in that country. It’s unrealistic, given the scale of modern production.
Transcript of a talk given in 2010 (http://sosialismi.net/blog/2011/02/07/ideas-of-leadership-and-democracy/)

In a 1991 pamphlet I wrote:

Kings used to claim that they must be obeyed because they were acting as god's representative on earth. In other words they claimed a divine right to rule. In modern times this idea became less and less plausible. If people would no longer believe the myth that the king was god's representative, they were even less likely to believe that a government made up of bankers and industrialists had been sent by god. This is why the nationalist idea became necessary. People were to be taught that obedience to the government was their duty to the nation. By the use of songs and symbols and ceremonies, the nation was made to seem some supernatural entity, just as god had been in the past.

This is why from a socialist standpoint nationalism is - always - an illusion. There are no good and bad nationalism, it is as De leon called it, the falsest of all false paths.

In this it is like religion, it is false, but lots of people believe in it and one can not reliably make them dis-believe it by oppression. Oppression of a religion or a nationalist ideology by another religion or nationalism only reinforces peoples sense of identity with it. It was for this reason and this alone that Lenin defended the right of nations to self determination - because any attempt to deny it merely reinforced nationalist ideology. ( Against Nationalism, http://reality.gn.apc.org/polemic/antina.htm)

[Paul Cockshott]

No, it's not. Britain in the 60s and 70s largely proved this. It would be possible only in the shortest time frame. The full employment objective would collapse pretty soon, otherwise, under the inherent contradictions within Capitalism.
I agree, it is possible in the short term, but the maintainance of rapid accumulation and full employment tends to drive the rate of profit down to levels at which reproduction of the capitalist economy becomes uncertain.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

It's not that I agree with the Chicago School, or am against full employment, but it's something that one should not expect, in the long run, in a society organised on a for-profit basis.

It is something that can only be seriously contemplated in the transitory stage of Socialism, where bourgeois financial capital has been destroyed as an economic force, and where said transitory country is in a big enough trading bloc that monetary pressures on the price level are not a huge concern.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You know, as Trotsky also knew well, that the SDP labeled the Communists as bad as if not worse than the Nazies before the KPD returned the compliment and the SPD from the murder of Rosa Luxembourg and its organization of the freikorps using proto-fascist elements before unleashing them on the working class onwards had gone out of its way to prove as best it could to the German ruling class how much it hated Communists. Your dream of a United Front in those conditions is what is batshit insane, but you know this, just like most Trotskyites know this. You also know that the difference between the Popular Front and the United Front is the real world.

Well said, but I don't like Popular Fronts. The "United Front From Below" position of the Comintern was more nuanced and more realistic than an exile's take on "united fronts," and would have been more successful if it became a Communitarian Populist Front and made more rhetoric for scrapping the Versailles Treaty by any means necessary.

[Die Neue Zeit]

But I do think zero cyclical and structural unemployment a la Minsky is possible to achieve and maintain before workers take power. :confused:

No, it's not. Britain in the 60s and 70s largely proved this. It would be possible only in the shortest time frame. The full employment objective would collapse pretty soon, otherwise, under the inherent contradictions within Capitalism.

[...]

It's not that I agree with the Chicago School, or am against full employment, but it's something that one should not expect, in the long run, in a society organised on a for-profit basis.

It is something that can only be seriously contemplated in the transitory stage of Socialism, where bourgeois financial capital has been destroyed as an economic force, and where said transitory country is in a big enough trading bloc that monetary pressures on the price level are not a huge concern.


I agree, it is possible in the short term, but the maintainance of rapid accumulation and full employment tends to drive the rate of profit down to levels at which reproduction of the capitalist economy becomes uncertain.

"Largely," comrade El Granma? You're overestimating things, I think, and I was deliberately absolutist in my take on unemployment (as opposed to the bogus, Bastard Keynesian "full employment" joke). ;)

I place Minsky, Meidner, and Kalecki on zero cyclical and structural unemployment ELR programs, not to mention Fully Socialized Labour Markets (per my commentary), on the threshold. It's not "transitional" in the bogus Trotskyist sense that workers must seize ruling-class power to implement this. If mistaken, at least I'm erring on the side of "reform" and not apocalyptic/cataclysmic "transition."

If bourgeois opponents want to say that capitalism is all great, good, progressive, etc. then let's see how they'll react when radical pro-labour reforms like this are suggested.

Paul: I'd give such a program ten years before workers must seize ruling-class power in order to maintain ELR programs and Fully Socialized Labour Markets. Ten years, though, is still a helluva lot better than two or three years. :)

[RedSunRising]

Well said, but I don't like Popular Fronts. The "United Front From Below" position of the Comintern was more nuanced and more realistic than an exile's take on "united fronts," and would have been more successful if it became a Communitarian Populist Front and made more rhetoric for scrapping the Versailles Treaty by any means necessary.

Im uneasy about Popular Fronts too, especially as the Popular Front era was allowed to continue past the fall of the Third Reich up until the start of the cold war in Western Europe when at least in Italy if not in France the CP should have done what was done in China after the defeat of the Japanese and push on to the capture of state power.

The KPD was though pretty strident in its opposition to the Versailles Treaty. The question of "social-patriotism" is an interesting but tricky one.

[Paul Cockshott]

I'll grant you that-- I've wasted 4-5 days arguing with those seeking to "explain" "understand" mass rape-- as revenge, as the the general dehumanizing impact of war, etc. etc. , and another day or two arguing with those who think the first and second world wars are the result of the peculiarities of the German "nation.'

It is a fucking waste.

These issues are not a waste as they do have bearing on contemporary world politics. I have already alluded to the argument that Bush and Blair were, under the terms of the Nurnberg first indictment, arraign-able as war criminals on the grounds of joint venture and conspiracy to wage aggressive war.

To the extent that the British and American nations supported this criminal venture they too have been seen in the eyes of much of the world as guilty of crimes against peace.

[S.Artesian]

These issues are not a waste as they do have bearing on contemporary world politics. I have already alluded to the argument that Bush and Blair were, under the terms of the Nurnberg first indictment, arraign-able as war criminals on the grounds of joint venture and conspiracy to wage aggressive war.

To the extent that the British and American nations supported this criminal venture they too have been seen in the eyes of much of the world as guilty of crimes against peace.

Thank you for reminding me of the importance of this issue and your claims that 1) the German nation has, or had, a particularly virulent form of capitalism making it responsible for war in Europe for 150 years and 2) the German nation is singularly responsible for the war crimes of WW2, because after all... who built the death camps, created the poison gas, forged steel used in railroads feeding the death camps etc.

So since Paul has read a book by a professor Fisher on this matter, I went back and read a book called All Honorable Men. written by James Stewart Martin. Mr. Martin was no friend of Germany, sharing Paul's view that German capitalism was uniquely responsible for WW2, and this responsibility is determined by the particularly virulent nature of German capitalism.

Martin was a lawyer and professor who was tapped to work for the US Department of Justice in its probe of German economic power, the ties of German industry to the Nazis, and the ties of US and other corporations to the Nazi efforts through their links to German industry.

At every point in his investigation, Martin discovers collaboration, combination, collusion, cartelization involving US, British, French corporations and industrialists in the financing, production, and protection of their German "fraternity brothers" as he calls it. In steel, non-ferrous metals, chemicals, petroleum, US, French, and British corporations maintained close economic ties with the virulent German industrialists pre and during World War 2.

In the opening of the book [which can be downloaded for free] Martin writes:


We discovered even more spectacular complications, such as those in the three-way arrangement among the aircraft-equipment firms,Bendix of the United States, Siemens of Germany, and Zenith in England. Under one of these arrangements the American firm in1941 had stood by an agreement with the Siemens firm of Germanyand forbade British Zenith to grant patent licenses so that the British Air Ministry could expand production of aircraft carburetors.

Almost a year after Dunkerque, Zenith wrote to Bendix that:

"The Ministry suggested they would prefer to manufacture the
carburetors themselves and asked us to waive all our rights in this
matter.

We have told them plainly that we are not prepared under any
circumstances to agree to tills or to alter one item of our contract
with you. . . ."


But that's just a minor "complication" compared to what else is discovered. Martin describes international arrangements to restrict and control production in steel, chemicals, etc. voluntarily and eagerly agreed to by major industrialists in Britain, France, US, etc. with German industrialists after the Nazis assume power.

He reports:


By agreement between German and American producers of magnesium -needed for aircraft -production in the United States before the war was limited to no more than 5000 tons per year. In contrast, Germany in 1933 alone used 13,500 tons and during the next five years consumed magnesium at the rate of 33,000 tons per year. Here was a case where American "business-is-business" men
had, knowingly or unknowingly, helped a German firm to close some valves over here....

Now Paul might take this as evidence of the more pacific nature of US capitalism vs. its German counterpart, or simply that the US capitalists were just "being capitalists" and agreeing to a deal they though would maximize profits... but that's the whole point, isn't it?-- that capitalists just being capitalists, finance, create, support war machines?

But of course the British and French and US capitalists who participated in these agreements were just conducting their business, determined to achieve profit. They didn't know what Germany-- the Nazis would do. Of course not. How could they, when even the German industrialists who were part of the state-sanctioned combines didn't know?


The men who turned the policy of France before 1940 toward
economic collaboration with the Third Reich have never admitted
that they intended digging a grave for France. The men of the
Federation of British Industries, who in March 1939, at Dusseldorf,
worked out a of economic collaboration with the Reichsgruppe
Industrie, have denied any intention of helping to set the stage for
war. Even the German bankers and industrialists who called in
Hitler to bolster their tottering financial empires later denied any
intention to produce what followed.

Could it be that the French, British, US industrialists worked so carefully to protect the interests of their German brothers? How's this sound:


During the years of coal scarcity the German steel producers took the lead in organizing an international association to guarantee the steel industry of each western European nation a fixed share in the export markets for all types of steel products. In return, the steel makers of each country agrecd to limit production to a fixed quota, with cash penalties for production or exports beyond the agreed amounts. This association, known in German as the Internationale Rohstahlgemeinschaft, in French as the Entente Internationale de I'Acier, in English as the International Steel Cartel, with its offices in a stone building two blocks off the Grand' Rue in Luxembourg, became the privately organized policing system that governed the steel trade of the world from 1926 to 1939....

The horizontal separation of private interests from government policies went even further. The struggle of the interwar period was not simply a clash between French interests on the one side and German interests on the other. During the development of the Ruhr-Lorraine industrial complex, like-minded industrialists in France and Germany had become directors of jointly owned and jointly controlled financial, industrial, and distributing enterprises.

In many cases common views on questions of economic organization, labor policy, social legislation, and attitude toward government had been far more important to the industrialists than differences of nationality or citizenship. After 1870 the interdependence of the French and German iron and steel industries led the owners to work together despite national differences, although the private activities of the French owners were, in many instances, in direct opposition to French public policy. It is curious to note that only the French appeared to have this conflict between public policy and private activities. On the German side, complete co-ordination seems to have been preserved between national and private interests; between officials of the German Republic and the leaders of German industry and finance.


Who financed the restoration of the German industrialists in the Ruhr and elsewhere. US and British banking interests of course. Dillon Read,[the Dillon of C. Douglas Dillon, US Treasury Secretary under Kennedy] played a critical role. And the result-- for one, overproduction:


. At the height of the boom, in 1928, the whole German steel industry was runniug at only a little over two thirds of its capacity. In other fields of heavy industry, actual production was as low as 10 per cent of the instalied capacity. In the construction of locomotives, a field monopolized by the Borsig and Henschel combines, output at the height of the boom was only 5 per cent of capacity. Later, in World War 11, when
Henschel specialized in "Tiger" tanks and 88-millimeter guns, the formerly idle capacity came into its own.

Unfortunately, the bondholders who put up the money for these increases in heavy industrial capacity never got the benefit of the supposed "strength' and "soundness" of the companies. The low output in relation to the large capacity meant a huge unpaid debt to foreign investors who had bought the bonds. The companies were technically bankrupt until saved by government subsidies; but the subsidies were arranged only after payments to foreigners had been forbidden by foreign-exchange regulations.

From a long-run standpoint, the records indicated that the organization f the German iron and steel industry was wasteful. A commission known as the Enquite Ausschuss had been appointed by the German government early in the 1930's to investigate conditions that had led to the industrial depression. The commission had found that the steel industry was clumsily put together and was overexpanded in proportion to Germany's light industry and consumer-goods production. By fixing their sights on control of domestic and international markets, instead of meeting the cconomic needs of German industry for iron and steel, the German steel industry had put itself into a position where control must be maintained over international markets or the industry must go bankrupt. But German steel products could he distributed in international trade only so long as no foreign competitors undercut Germany by competitive selling




But there's so much more to the story-- including Standard Oil's collaboration with IG Farben before and during the war, shielding Farben's assets, patent rights, etc; the US steel manufacturers' participation in the German led international steel cartel well after the Nazis had taken power not that that matters, remember the crime is not that of the Nazis, but the German nation, infected with this pestilent form of German capitalism as transmitted by the German industrialists.

What the whole story tells us, and I will be providing much more detail, is that what drives the war is not so much competition between capitals for markets etc., but in fact collaboration, cooperation of the bourgeoisie in the belligerent countries who all aim to make a killing while making a killing.

What the story tells us is that all participants were engaged in "business as usual," and that "business as usual" tells us that the real answer to the questions:

1. Who initiated the "war of aggression"
2. Who built the death camps
3. Who functions according to this need for "destructive accumulation"

is-- the bourgeoisie, not as an abstraction of "international capital" but in their concrete actions as international capitalists; in their concrete manifestations of owners of steel, coal, chemicals, petroleum, metals production as capital; in their concrete identities as British, US, French, Belgium, German industrialists; in their everyday conduct of "business as usual."

[JamesH]

I'm sure much of this has already been said, but I too have reservations on blaming the Second World War on "international capitalism" in the abstract. By doing so, we run the risk of exonerating the great evil that should have been put to rest at the end of the war, namely, the idea of ethnic nationalism, that uniquely 20th century phenomenon that grew out of the nationalist movements and scientific racism of the 19th century.

While I largely agree with Paul's claims that the tendencies toward expansion were already present in pre-Nazi foreign policy outlook, I think the infusion of the ethnic component fundamentally altered the character of German imperialism. Operation Barbarossa I think ought to be seen as nothing less than a gigantic race war in the east.

I believe, as a digression, that this is the reason why Israel represents such a unique evil in the world, for exactly the reason that Paul said, because Zionism represents an "atavistic regression to the standards of the 19th century." By commanding respectability as the only "democracy" in the Middle East, Israel and its apologists have convinced a large number of Jews and non-Jews alike that Jews, alone among ethnic groups, have a right to their own state. We need only look at the Nazis to see the consequences of believing that your race has a right to Lebensraum. Israel threatens to sink us further in the moral abyss by legitimating the murderous and discredited ideologies of the 20th century. I think we assist in this venture by not recognizing the clear lesson on the evils of ethnic nationalism left to us by WWII.

[S.Artesian]

So what was so uniquely compelling about German capitalism that made British, US, French, Dutch, Belgium capitalism all participate in its inherent expansionism and militarism? Was it the opportunity for profit?

From All Honorable Men:


In January 1942 came the Department of Justice case against the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, charging conspiracies with I.G. Farben to violate the antitrust laws.
The company and its officers paid fines and accepted a court decree enjoining them from continuing the marketing and patent arrangements in the future. The Standard Oil Company then bought full page advertising space in newspapers all over the United States to publicize Standard's claim that the United States had benefited from the Farbeb deals because Standard had received much more technical information from I.G. Farben than they had given I.G. in return.


It was, of course, true that under the agreements much of the basic research was to be conducted in Germany. The American partner, therefore, had to depend on Germany for more technical information than they would themselves be able to give in return.


When the German Economic Ministry read copies of the Standard Oil advertisements, they demanded a full report from I.G. Farben to answer the charge that Standard had had the better of the exchange.


In the files at Frankfurt we turned up copies of the I.G.Farhen report to the Economic Ministry. The Farben managers were not allowed to rely on the sweeping generalizations of a newspaper advertisement. Their scientists had to produce documented answers to satisfy the Economic Ministry and the General Staff.



The contention of the Farben report was that the German firm had received from Standard Oil several important new links in the jigsaw puzzle of their own technology, whereas the apparently vast quantities of information they had passed over to the
Americans had left large gaps to be filled by new research and development before they could be put to any use.


Pre-war "mistakes" by Standard? Well in 1945 Standard Oil brought suit to recover property it claimed was erroneously seized by the US Government as property belonging to enemy aliens, to wit, I.G. Farbren:


The papers we picked up indicated that Mr. Frank A. Howard of the Standard Oil group and Dr. Ringer of I.G. Farben had met in the last week of September 1939, at The Hague. They prepared a document that became known as the "Hague Memorandum.''



This document appeared on its face to be an agreement under which I.G. Farben sold to Standard Oil of New Jersey various patents and shares of stock. Actually the two men also prepared a separate agreement, kept secret, under which I.G. Farben retained the right to cancel the transfer and get its properties back as soon as it was
safe to do so. Mr. Howard did not even keep a copy of this agreement. He signed the original and the carbon copy on behalf of Standard Oil and handed both copies to Dr. Ringer, who took them back to Frankfurt.


The Standard Oil case might very well have had a happy ending for the fraternity brothers if the suit had been filed in 1947. Even by 1946 it was to become very difficult for United States government representatives to get facts from German files. It was not long before we had to show cause why we should he permitted to prowl
about among the business papers of reputable German concerns.


By 1947 investigations which the Germans considered troublesome would appear doubly objectionable to American businessmen actingas military government officials in Biznnia. Investigations that might disclose embarrassing transactions between American and German companies were called a "waste of taxpayers' money." Also, troubling busy German industrialists with unfriendly questions would tend to "interfere with German recovery" and might arouse "antagonism."


In the end we were caught between businessmen representing private interests and others of the same persuasion holding official positions, where they had power to change the orders under which we operated. But for a brief period in 1945 matters were not so well under control. True, we found a number of members of the international brotherhood, commissioned as colonels and brigadier generals in the army, moving about rather freely in the field on matters of their own concern; but by the same token it was also possible for representatives of the government to get around freely as we all did in the Standard Oil case.


The documents needed by the government to establish the falsity of the Standard Oil claim were finally shipped by air back to the United States, along with Dr. von Knieriem as a government witness.


Dr. von Knieriem, who had supervised Ringer's work, had annotated his own copy of the secret Hague Memorandum with comments showing its true intent. One of these phrases alone should have been enough. It was a marginal note, "Nach Kriegs Kamouflag"(postwar camouflage)....



The real agreement which was made by Mr. Howard and Dr. Ringer and which was later ratified by their principals can he gleaned only after a scrutiny of many documents and the oral testimony of Mr. Howard. . . .


The Court found that these were sham transactions designed to create an appearance of Jersey ownership of property interests which nevertheless continued to be regarded by the parties as I.G. owned. The parties intended that after completion of the war and the resulting disappearance of the danger of United States Government controls the property would be formally returned to I.G. and the pre-war relationship resumed. . . .


On the witness stand, Howard, testifying concerning the Hague Conference, was, in the opinion of the Court, not a credible witness. In effect the courts held that the Standard Oil Company had tried to put across a misrepresentation in order to protect an outpost for
I.G. Farben. Whereas President Roosevclt had referred to the use made of the I.G. Farben trust by the Nazis, and had insisted on the "eradication of these weapons of economic warfare," Standard Oil, in the middle of the war against the Nazi state, had invoked the
aid of the Federal Courts to defeat the measures of the United States.



Frank A. Howard was not prosecuted for perjury. The District Court and Circuit Court of Appeals merely declared he was not a "credible witness."



Mr. Howard retired gracefully in 1945, full of honors, as vice president of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, having retired the previous year from his other position as president of the Standard Oil Development Company.


But obviously, there is something peculiar about German capitalism, German industrialists, the German "nation," something that makes it so expansive when all other capitalisms are so pacific.

The point? The point is the same I made previously. It's not "international capitalism" as an abstraction that causes the war; it is international capitalism as manifested concretely in the actions of the capitalists that simply by doing what it must do, seek profit, seeks to profit from and by creating the destruction of the concrete element of capital, human social labor in its living, breathing form.

1. Who initiated the "war of aggression"
2. Who built the death camps
3. Who functions according to this need for "destructive accumulation"

that class known as the bourgeoisie, regardless of nationality.

[S.Artesian]

More on the differences between the unscrupulous warlike German capitalists, and the righteous, fair-playing, pacific, non-expanding capitalists of the UK and US, for All Honorable Men starting on p. 114:


. Degussa [German company] controlled so many patents in so many fields, often covering some intermediate product or process that other industries could not get along without, that it acquired an important status in all the industry-wide agreements, or cartels, in all its fields of interest. Most of these arrangements were not confined to Germany alone.


Cyanides furnished us with one example. To the average person, cyanides are familiar only as a principal ingredient in mystery stories. But industrially they are used as hardening agents and in a variety of other uses important enough to be the subject of an international arrangement known as the International Sodium Cyanide Cartel. This organization has fixed production quotas for its members on an international basis. Degussa was the leader of the continental European group. By quietly building up stockpiles of cyanides and then threatening the Anglo-American group with dumping,



Degussa several times increased its quota of world exports and elbowed itself into a position to settle matters outside of Germany. One by one, companies outside the arrangement were either taken into the agreement, or payments were made to them for not manufacturing cyanides. Failing that, agreements were made that certain quantities would be bought from them at a price far above production costs, if they agreed to limit production, keep prices at a certain level, or limit their activities to a specified market.



As far as the United States was concerned, the leading producer, Du Pont, was not legally able to join the cartel. It was agreed in 1932 that no correspondence on cartel matters would be sent to Du Pont in the United States, and that the British chemical trust, Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., would act as Du Font's agent in these matters.


From 1931 to 1939, the Ocean Chemical Company of Ramsbottom,England, was paid about twenty-five thousand dollars a year for not producing cyanide. In 1931, Degussa began paying a Professor Hene, of Berlin, about ten thousand dollars a year for not exploiting his new process for the manufacture of cyanides. When Hene later moved to England and interested the Rand Mines in his process, Imperial Chemical Industries agreed to make a down payment of over fifty thousand dollars and annual payments of six thousand dollars to Rand Mines and to refrain from manufacturing
cyanides in England.


One could go on through the list of other Dcgussa products and find similar arrangements worked out internationally. In 1934, for example, Du Pont and Degussa made a series of patent-exchange agreements establishing exclusive sales territories for the two companies for alkaline metals, cyanides, sodium peroxide, formaldehyde,
ceramic dyes and other products. In 1935, another range of agreements was made with the Commercial Solvents Corporation of New York. The Du Pont-Degussa agreements were followed closely by similar arrangements between Degussa and Imperial Chemical in England.


Degussa, cyanide? Those of you who know a little bit about the history of this company and this chemical might recall the role of both in the production of Zyklon B-- the gas of choice for those vicious murdering Germans.

A charitable person might think Du Point and ICI had no intimation that the agreements with Degussa would be important to Degussa increasing its strength, expanding its capital, and producing poison gas, among other things, for the Nazis. "After all, we were only conducting business in the best interest of shareholders, maximizing shareholder value by voluntarily agreeing to restricting production. It's not our fault if Degussa uses its capital strength to murder civilians." Right. Interesting since Degussa's defense after the fall of the 3rd Reich was that they were only conducting business in the attempt to maximize value and had nothing to do with the government policy of murdering Jews.

"Schließlich sind wir nur Geschäftsleute. Wir haben kein Interesse an Politik. Die Regierung gibt uns einen Vertrag, um ein Produkt zu erzeugen. Wir produzieren das Produkt. Woher wissen wir, was die Benutzung des Produkts wird gemacht, sobald sie unsere Fabriken verlässt?"

A Marxist, OTOH, might understand that it is impossible for any capitalist to capitalize his or her apparatus without agreements, without exchanges, with other producers regarding what will be produced, and how much of what will be produced.

Some might even think that the peculiar, unique nature of the German bourgeoisie is not really so unique after all.

[Jose Gracchus]

The only thing "unique" about German bourgeois is their geographic and historical inheritance; they arrived late at the capitalist table and in the center of Europe. That's why they engaged in war, to try to overcome the dominance of the UK. But it was a long-shot that the old powers wouldn't stand for, and was repressed (as was Japan's--another Great Power late comer--regional gambit).

[Paul Cockshott]

Ok Artesian I think I understand your hypothesis.
It goes something like

1. The organic composition of capital is high and this reduces profit rates.

2. If the capital stock was lower the rate of profit would be higher.

3. There is thus a 'need' to destroy capital stock.

4. This leads to a war to destroy the capital stock.

5. After the war the rate of profit is higher.

There are a number of problems with this.

First the whole structure is teleological. It is a theory of final cause in which
an end some time in the future -- a higher rate of profit some time in the future
causes events at an earlier instant in time in order to bring this about.

Science excludes the possibility of final causes. It holds that causality operates
from the past to the future, that the state of the world in 1939 determined the
state of the world in 1959. A teleological hypothesis like yours requires the
suposed higher rate of profit in 1959 to act as an attractor on the state of the
world in 1939, causing a war that will in turn cause the higher rate of profit.
This type of causality does not appear to work in the real world.

Secondly it is based on bad accounting. It implies that it is beneficial to
firms to take a capital loss in order to have a higher rate of return on
a smaller capital stock in the future. The executives of big companies do not
in general have much familiarity with marxian economics but they do understand
profit and loss accounting, and they do understand that their prime duty
is too preserve and expand the capital of their shareholders. This is not
achieved by destroying capital stock.

This is true for a firm taken by itself and it is true for a national economy
and it is true for the world economy. A capital loss is a capital loss, it is not
beneficial in real terms and it is not beneficial in money terms.

Thirdly, even if we ignore the bad accounting, the only way to avoid teleology
is to construct a conspiracy version of the theory as follows:


1. The organic composition of capital is high and this reduces profit rates.

2. Some CEO's have read Marx's theory of the falling rate off
profit and think that if the capital stock was lower the rate of profit would be higher.

3. Some of them think that destroying capital stock would be a good idea.

4. They fail to to run this idea past any accountant who would
have pointed out the error of the calculation.

5. They wonder 'how can we destroy capital stock'. They reject
the idea of setting fire to their shops and
factories as too obvious, and unworthy of master villans.

6. Instead they decide to organise a vast international
secret conspiracy to delude the governments of
the world into thinking that it would be a good idea to have a world war.

7. In perfect secrecy and without leaving any public trace of
their plans they succeed in causing a world war.

Note that this requires that the capitalist conspirators act not only with secrecy but with complete selflessnes.
None of them knows before hand whether it will be his capital stock that is destroyed or that of competitor.
Despite this they are prepared to take the risk for the benefit of their class internationally.

Artesian, this is the stuff of conspiracy theories. It is a left wing version of the right wing
conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg group, or cabals of Jewish financiers operating as
a secret world government.

It is idealist philosophy, it is bad economics and it is conspiratorial.
The evidence you are bringing up is not of a conspiracy to cause a war, but of firms conspiring to avoid losses due to war that was brought on by political circumstances beyond their control.

[Paul Cockshott]

The only thing "unique" about German bourgeois is their geographic and historical inheritance; they arrived late at the capitalist table and in the center of Europe. That's why they engaged in war, to try to overcome the dominance of the UK. But it was a long-shot that the old powers wouldn't stand for, and was repressed (as was Japan's--another Great Power late comer--regional gambit).

So you basically agree that German Imperialism started both world wars.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Paul, German foreign policy started only WWII, not WWI.

I lay much of the blame for WWI on the Entente, but there were no "good guys" in WWI. Both sides built up militarily, maintained colonies abroad, heightened nationalist sentiments, had complex diplomatic treaties (the chain reactions starting from declaring wars on small countries), etc.

[S.Artesian]

Here's my "thesis." The Great Depression was created by capitalism. The concrete history of the bourgeoisie attempting to restore and/or maintain profits during this period shows that there is nothing unique about German capitalism, German industrialists, the German "nation"-- that in fact the bourgeoisie worked, schemed, contracted, and indeed, "conspired" to control production through numerous methods, protect each others assets while selling their services to their respective, and each other's governments.

Now your "economics" says "you" can't find that. You find no evidence of that in your statistical analysis. So much the worse for your statistic-- economics is the bourgeoisie's method for denying history.

The history, the actual process of the organization, reproduction, and destruction of labor through and by its specific social configuration makes it painfully clear how this occurs.

Or is it still your contention that the German "nation" was aggressive, militaristic, and "criminal" in comparison to the pacific, democratic, nations of France, the UK, Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, the US etc?

Despite all the evidence, and there's much more to come, of the US, British, French capitalists working hand in glove, secretly and openly from the close of WW1 through the end and beyond of WW2, with the "criminal" Germans to facilitate and profit from the capitalization and recapitalization of the machinery of mass destruction, do you and your supporters actually maintain that Germany, as a "nation" bears a special collective guilt?

That's all that matters. Your phrases about teleology and in perfect secrecy-- which it certainly was not since the industrialists collaborated with each other right out in the open-- don't mean shit.

[RED DAVE]

Ties between US capitalists and German capitalists between the wars:

Heir to the Holocaust (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3294979)

RED DAVE

[black magick hustla]

This ties in with the middle class romanticism of those who see capitalism as some machine abstracted from humanity itself and not as a means of dominance used by one set of humans over another set of humans who bare personal responsibility for that domination. The multi-millionaire and the state torturer in a lot of people's eyes it seems are just as much victims of capitalism as the starving miner.

middle class romanticism lol you havent changed

in the contrary, the stalinists are obsessed with a group of people that are guilty or not because that is how they justify the brutal state capitalism of the eastern bloc (they always ask the ultraleft, how can the ussr be capitalist, who are the owners) or the mindless revengism of the underclass. the whole question of "responsability" or not is bourgeois legalism because it tends to see men as atomized individuals - that mentality has more to do with christian free will and liberalism than a communist attitude. the whole issue of who is guilty or not is used to justify maoist bloodthirst.

[Kotze]

Now your "economics" says "you" can't find that. You find no evidence of that in your statistical analysis. So much the worse for your statistic-- economics is the bourgeoisie's method for denying history.Statistics isn't bourgeois.
Despite all the evidence, and there's much more to come, of the US, British, French capitalists working hand in glove, secretly and openly from the close of WW1 through the end and beyond of WW2, with the "criminal" Germans to facilitate and profit from the capitalization and recapitalization of the machinery of mass destruction, do you and your supporters actually maintain that Germany, as a "nation" bears a special collective guilt?Nobody here denies the Nazi links of some people like Prescott Bush and some companies like IBM. This doesn't nullify a banal fact of life which is known to everybody except some postmodern philosophers on this forum: As a rule of thumb, one has more influence on what happens where one lives than elsewhere.

Many people here who call others bourgeois this or bourgeois that don't seem to know what that actually means. The bourgeois way of doing economics has a strong similarity to conspiracy theories of the implausible type: It puts a heavy emphasis on something outside of statistics by assuming a level of knowledge about the future and coordination that you don't have in the real world, what you get is airy theorizing about mental states anticipating other people's mental states which anticipate the anticipation and so on, a paradoxical model where people plan their actions knowing what the future holds, because the future is fixed, so the future steers the present.

If you want to get closer to understand what somebody thinks, actions speak louder than words. Blaming the leadership of communist groups for their failure to be strong when millions of German workers joined the NSDAP strikes me as a very authoritarian way of arguing, like the people who joined were all passive little innocent children. And blaming international capitalism in the abstract is just delusional.

But hey guys, what if Hitler wasn't racist and he was only, like, forced, by the DIALECTICS of international capitalism to behave like that, why yes, that makes perfect sense, and if you don't see that, man, your mind is like alreay INDUSTRIALIZED INTO THE SYSTEM and poisoned by BOURGEOIS LIBERAL STALINIST RACIST atoms and stuff, you statistics nazi. :rolleyes:

[RED DAVE]

If you want to get closer to understand what somebody thinks, actions speak louder than words.Yea, verily.


Blaming the leadership of communist groups for their failure to be strong when millions of German workers joined the NSDAP strikes me as a very authoritarian way of arguing, like the people who joined were all passive little innocent children.See your quote above. What S.Artesian and others are arguing is that the KPD leadership bears responsibility for its suicidal policy of not fighting for an alliance with the SPD. Instead, in a nutshell, it referred to the social democrats as "social fascists" and engaged in the delusion that "After Hitler, us." Their actions followed their words.


And blaming international capitalism in the abstract is just delusional.International capital acted very concretely to aid the Berman nazis. It is safe to say that if the capitalist class, internationally, had not acceded to the nazi regime it never would have happened.

Just as an example, the Germans recoccupied the Rhineland, which had been demilitarized. This was under a bourgeois regime in France, which let it happen. A few months later, the Popular Front came to power in France and failed to take action. In addition, French capital began to flow out of France, weakening it in relation to Germany. . So what more proof is needed. In England, sections of the ruling class (including King Edward) were working with the nazis. And the friendship of large sectors of American capitalism towards the nazis is well documented. So whose left?

http://bigsiteofhistory.com/the-popular-front-in-france-1936-1937-the-democracies


In the next several chapters, Trading with the Enemy tackles the involvement of heavy industry starting with Standard Oil of New Jersey and ending up with iconic American giants, General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor Company. Interspersed in this section, Higham also levels accusations against International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) for its alleged dealings with the Nazis. Essentially, Trading with the Enemy accuses Standard Oil of New Jersey for supplying fuel to The Third Reich while Ford and GM were building military vehicles to advance the Nazi agenda of conquest. Higham blames ITT for supplying communication equipment, fuses for munitions, and involvement in research and development of rocket technology.

Contained in this central section of the book, Higham spends a great deal of time describing the interactions between the various CEOs of these corporations and their Nazi counterparts. The author takes special note to show that some US government officials were aware of their activities, but their investigations were inevitably eclipsed by the wealth and influence these would be collaborators had. This ultimately leads to Higham’s final third of the book, were he details the fate of the personalities involved and how they were able to obscure their activities and avoid prosecution.http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11392&pageid=23&pagename=Arts

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

Originally Posted by Kotze http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2132516#post2132516)
And blaming international capitalism in the abstract is just delusional. Except nobody's blaming international capitalism in the abstract.

The "blame," or let's try the word "cause" is assigned to international capitalism in the concrete as opposed to the argument that German capitalism, German industry, German nation existed, and functioned, separate and apart from a concrete international capitalism:

that participated in the cartels, trusts, combines, "conspiracies," of German industry;

that financed, and refinanced, the machinery of capital that would be used, and inevitably, in the world conflagration;

that, in the "simple" conduct of its everyday business for its everyday goal, realization of profit, these supposedly "non-expansive" "pacific" capitalisms of the UK, France, Holland, Luxemburg, Belgium the US, protected the assets of this "hyper-aggressive" German capitalism [I]as if and because those assets were inseparable from that profit, and from their own assets.

Or maybe none of those things happened, or have anything to do concretely with World War 2? Talk about delusional, that might take the cake.

[Paul Cockshott]

The pro Hitler sympathy of Edward is public knowledge, as was the craven failure of the Tories to oppose German agression against Austria and the Czechs. But how does such weakness absolve Germany from guilt as the agressor?
If you see an armed thug raping a woman and are too scared to defend her, that does not absolve him.

[S.Artesian]

This has nothing to do with Edward, or any king, but the way capitalists exchange, operate, work with each other.

Fear and cowardice had nothing to do with the actions of the bourgeoisie pre-during-post war.

But whatever you do, don't deal with the concrete history of how the bourgeoisie act as a class with class interests across national boundaries. Nope-- keep taking refuge in the regression analysis where you can't find any link between accumulation and destruction.

Keep right on EDIT: banging the drum with the German "guilt" stick. It's worked well for the bourgeoisie.

[Robocommie]

With all due respect to Comrade Cockshott, I think that if I reject the scholarly validity of Hitler's Willing Executioners, I have to reject this thesis as well. I have little to no patience for concepts of collective guilt.

That said, I still think that paying reparations is/was a good idea, because I think the idea of just leaving Holocaust refugees to fend for themselves, particularly after everything they owned was forcibly appropriated by the German state, is pretty damn cold-hearted. Just like the Swiss banks, if you profited from a crime you should have to pay some kind of price.

I just think it's absurd to talk about the culpability of the "German nation" as if this nation is in fact a homogenous, monolithic entity, lacking internal antagonisms. As one of the better arguments against Hitler's Willing Executioners goes, such a perspective, in my opinion, actually supports the Nazi concept of the German people as a unified racial "Volk."

[Paul Cockshott]

Paul, German foreign policy started only WWII, not WWI.

I lay much of the blame for WWI on the Entente, but there were no "good guys" in WWI. Both sides built up militarily, maintained colonies abroad, heightened nationalist sentiments, had complex diplomatic treaties (the chain reactions starting from declaring wars on small countries), etc.
I suggest you read Fischer's German War Aims in The First World War, especially the chapters on the lead up to and outbreak of the war. It is pretty clear that the Kaiser was looking for an opportunity to start a war with France, and from 1913 was just awaiting a suitably plausible causus belli. The Sarajevo assasination provides the perfect excuse. Fischers analysis of Foreign Office telegrams, inter department memos, diaries of the participants etc, shows that Germany pressured Austria to put forward an ultimatum to Serbia that they were sure would be unacceptable, and thus provide an excuse to invade Serbia. They knew that invasion of Serbia would lead to Russian intervention against Austria, which was what Hollweg and the Kaiser were aiming for. Russian intervention could then be used to stampede the Social Democrats in parliament into supporting the war. In the event of a direct and unprovoked attack on France and Belgium, Social Democratic support could not be counted on.
Fischer recounts the dismay in Vienna and Berliin when the Serbs accepted the apparently prohibitively severe terms of the ultimatum. In response Berlin urged Austria to invade Serbia anyway, since only this could be guaranteed to bring on Russian mobilisation.
He also recounts how Berlin blocked all attempts at mediation between Austria and Serbia by Italy and Britain. The actions of the German and Austrian governments could only be interpreted on the basis of their already having decided on war.

It is very similar to what we saw with the Iraq war. Bush and Blair were sure that they had imposed terms that the Iraqi's could not agree to. As Iraq kept conceding on one point after another, and as the inspectors failed to turn up any evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons, they just attacked anyway.

[Kotze]

Except nobody's blaming international capitalism in the abstract.

capitalism causes, needs, recession, depression and war
Overproduction of the means of production of capital; severe depression; inability to restore profitability.
It was not merely a specific configuration of forces unique to Germany or to Italy or to Japan that caused WW2. The configuration of force in Germany, in Italy, in Japan, where specific expressions of the general, social, international collapse of the processes of accumulation, of profitability, and the attempt to restore the same at the expense, quite literally, of the living. Blahblahblahblah determined by the demands of accumulation blah
I'll be more than happy to produce the whole study blahblahblah
:closedeyes:

[S.Artesian]

Good for you. Keep ignoring the specific history of the actions of just those international capitalists who you think are nicer than the German capitalists and would never do to white people what those nasty German capitalists did.

The horror! The horror!

[Paul Cockshott]

With all due respect to Comrade Cockshott, I think that if I reject the scholarly validity of Hitler's Willing Executioners, I have to reject this thesis as well. I have little to no patience for concepts of collective guilt.

That said, I still think that paying reparations is/was a good idea, because I think the idea of just leaving Holocaust refugees to fend for themselves, particularly after everything they owned was forcibly appropriated by the German state, is pretty damn cold-hearted. Just like the Swiss banks, if you profited from a crime you should have to pay some kind of price.

I just think it's absurd to talk about the culpability of the "German nation" as if this nation is in fact a homogenous, monolithic entity, lacking internal antagonisms. As one of the better arguments against Hitler's Willing Executioners goes, such a perspective, in my opinion, actually supports the Nazi concept of the German people as a unified racial "Volk."

Nations are arguably just the ideological representation of states within nationalist ideology. Whilst one may question whether nations or 'peoples' really exist in the sense described by nationalist ideology, states and their populations and their ideological apparattuses, armies, bureaucracies etc certainly do exist. They not only exist, but they act as collectivities - emergent entities, and they have memories. These memories are embodied both in the personal memories of individuals who have lived through historical events, but also in the representation of national history in literature and education.

Acceptance of war guilt and the transformation of the ideological superstructure in Germany in the aftermath of the second World War was part of the social process which changed Germany from the agressive militaristic country that it was in the early 20th century into the comparatively pacific country it had become by 2000. The refusal to accept that guilt after 1918 laid the foudation for the nationalist myths of victimisation that mobilised the population for the second world war.

Of course within a country there are conflicting interests and conflicting opinions. These may include conflicting opinions with regard to war and peace. But taking the question of reparations for example, it could never have been practical to exclude those who voted against Hitler from paying the income tax quotients that went toward reparations. The real existence of nation states imposes collective duties and obligations on the citizens of the state.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I suggest you read Fischer's German War Aims in The First World War, especially the chapters on the lead up to and outbreak of the war. It is pretty clear that the Kaiser was looking for an opportunity to start a war with France, and from 1913 was just awaiting a suitably plausible causus belli. The Sarajevo assasination provides the perfect excuse.

Didn't France want to start a revanchist war against Germany too? I mean, Germany kicked France's butt in the Franco-Prussian War (the broader context of the Paris Commune itself).

I'm sure the British Empire wanted to bring the German navy back down to earth, figuratively and literally speaking, being alarmed by the naval buildup.


Fischers analysis of Foreign Office telegrams, inter department memos, diaries of the participants etc, shows that Germany pressured Austria to put forward an ultimatum to Serbia that they were sure would be unacceptable, and thus provide an excuse to invade Serbia. They knew that invasion of Serbia would lead to Russian intervention against Austria, which was what Hollweg and the Kaiser were aiming for. Russian intervention could then be used to stampede the Social Democrats in parliament into supporting the war. In the event of a direct and unprovoked attack on France and Belgium, Social Democratic support could not be counted on.

Now this is an interesting piece of information to digest further.

[Paul Cockshott]

Good for you. Keep ignoring the specific history of the actions of just those international capitalists who you think are nicer than the German capitalists and would never do to white people what those nasty German capitalists did.


It is not international capital that stands to gain from wars, it is national capital, that can hope to win preferential terms or gain from looting in the event of war. All you have shown is that multinatonal firms did their best to avoid the losses that might be incurred to the interruption of business in the event of war. Trading with the enemy is not the cause of war.

It was not international capital that stood to gain from the conquest of Iraq, it was American firms primarily in the oil sector, and to a lesser extent UK oil companies. It was not international capital that stood to gain from the looting of the Czech, Dutch, French etc economies, it was German firms.

[Paul Cockshott]

Didn't France want to start a revanchist war against Germany too? I mean, Germany kicked France's butt in the Franco-Prussian War (the broader context of the Paris Commune itself).

I'm sure the British Empire wanted to bring the German navy back down to earth, figuratively and literally speaking, being alarmed by the naval buildup.


.
There is obviously some truth in both these points, and I believe having read that there was discussion within the British Navy of the advantages of 'doing a Copenhagen', but in Britain and in the 3rd Republic the military bureacratic caste did not have the deciding voice in politics.
It is also worth reading
The War plans of the great powers, 1880-1914, PM Kennedy

and of course his other book 'The rise and fall of the Great Powers'.

[S.Artesian]

"Trading with the enemy"? That's an interesting, and wonderfully bourgeois way of putting it, but it is hardly accurate. First, the exchanges weren't between "enemies." Mere technicality, but after 1918 and before 1939-40-41 [pick one] these "nations" weren't enemies. I am shocked that someone as loyal to the requirements of bourgeois jurisprudence as you are would over look that slight fact.

More to the point is the historical fact that the relations among capitalists between WW1 and WW2, during WW2, and after WW2 were not confined to, and cannot accurately be described as,"trading" relations. What occurred was the incorporation of the interests of the pacific bourgeoisie of the UK, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, the US with the interests of the aggressive German bourgeoisie . Incorporation.

As in interlocking directorships between German corporations, Dutch, Belgium, French, UK, US corporations.

As in cartel agreements for dividing markets, restricting production, distributing profits.

As in asset protection in peacetime and in wartime. [Some might find it interesting how the Ford Motor works outside Cologne, and IG Farben's properties were not bombed while the city itself was heavily bombed].

As in the actions, as the Allied armies advanced in Europe, of more than single, isolated officers in the financial/industrial sectors of various Allied military commands-- i.e the UK, the US, the French, and governments [about to be NOT]-in-exile to hide the records detailing the structure of this incorporation and the ongoing participation of their bourgeoisie with their German comrades.

Trading with the enemy? Hardly. What Martin shows that the bourgeoisie of the "enemy" countries regarded, and treated each other as brothers in a fraternity house. No doubt at times they were, as Marx describes them, "squabbling brothers," but brothers none the less. No hard feelings, right Herr Degussa? Right, Mr. Dupont. Right Mr. ICI? Nope no hard feelings. It's all just business.

Incorporation is the word.

It's national capital that stands to gain? If there ever was an abstraction, actually an inversion, "national capital" is it. National capital doesn't existed abstracted, isolated, separate from its incorporation with international capital. That's the point. German capitalism didn't do what it did because Germans are more vicious than the French. It accomplished what it accomplished because of the incorporation of French, German, British, US, Belgium capital in cartels, blocs, combines, etc.

In fact, we might say if German capitalism hadn't existed, the bourgeoisie of England, France, the US etc. would have invented it. And that's where you come in Paul, busily going about your work of reinventing the vicious, aggressive, expansive, brutal, blood-thirsty genocidal Germans as opposed to the pacific, non-expansive, humane, and oh-so just capitalisms of the US, UK, France, Belgium.


questions, Paul: 1. do you even think it was the aggressive nature of German capitalism, and the German bourgeoisie, as capitalism and capitalists that "caused the war," or was it some factor in the national character that transcended classes, and mere material interests?

2. Tell me what exactly US and UK oil firms gained, asset wise, from the conquest of Iraq?

3. is it your contention that the economic interests of the US and UK oil firms determined that war

4. If so what were those interests and how did they force the US nation to go to war?

[RED DAVE]

It is not international capital that stands to gain from warsYou are assuming that you can make a systematic, meaningful difference between national and international capital. Can't be done. National capital is part of the system of international capital.


it is national capital, that can hope to win preferential terms or gain from looting in the event of war.What you are talking about is competition and adjustment within the system.


All you have shown is that multinatonal firms did their best to avoid the losses that might be incurred to the interruption of business in the event of war. Trading with the enemy is not the cause of war.No, it is part of war, which precludes a defintion of war on the basis of national capital.


It was not international capital that stood to gain from the conquest of Iraq, it was American firms primarily in the oil sector, and to a lesser extent UK oil companies. It was not international capital that stood to gain from the looting of the Czech, Dutch, French etc economies, it was German firms.American capital, UK capital, etc., are part of international capital. Show us one instance where, after WWI or WWII, the victorious powers destroyed the capitalism of the losers.

RED DAVE

[Paul Cockshott]

You started out trying to show that WWII did not arise from German aggression but from international capitalism. You cite a book on and titled 'Trading with the Enemy', and conclude that the section of the firms engaged in high technology international business regarded each other as brothers. How then is this brotherhood supposed to have caused the war? Surely you have shown that international capital, far from being a source of belligerence would tend to exert a pacific influence?

On the war in Iraq, I was arguing that it was national capitals in the US that benefited from the outcome when the US took over all Iraqi oil revenues and redirected them towards a supposed reconstruction programme that delivered almost nothing in the way of reconstruction, but which transfered billions of dollars into the accounts of the US firms that won the reconstruction contracts. Alongside these firms various private security firms also made a killing.

From the standpoint of any rational national accounting on the part of the US, the benefits to these firms were outweighed by the costs to the national exchequer of waging the war, but the firms which did benefit had close contacts with the Bush administration and their private interests seem to have had considerable weight.

By themselves these may not be an adequate reason for the war. There are other factors which may have had an influence.
-- the military bureacracy of the Pentagon exerted a huge influence on the government just as the Imperial General Staff did on the German government before and during WWI
-- a desire by the Pentagon to be able to exert military control over world oil supplies by military dominance of of the Gulf, since oil is essential for warfare
-- dynastic reasons on the part of the Bush dynasty - the son achieving what the father had left unfinished

[RED DAVE]

You started out trying to show that WWII did not arise from German aggression but from international capitalism. I assume you're addressing me, so okay.


You cite a book on and titled 'Trading with the Enemy', and conclude that the section of the firms engaged in high technology international business regarded each other as brothers. How then is this brotherhood supposed to have caused the war? Surely you have shown that international capital, far from being a source of belligerence would tend to exert a pacific influence?No more than cooperation between capitalist firms precludes competition. One more time, war is a method by which the international system of capitalism adjusts itself. If this were not true, the Allies would not have allowed German and Japanese capitalism to revive themselves after WWII.


On the war in Iraq, I was arguing that it was national capitals in the US that benefited from the outcome when the US took over all Iraqi oil revenues and redirected them towards a supposed reconstruction programme that delivered almost nothing in the way of reconstruction, but which transfered billions of dollars into the accounts of the US firms that won the reconstruction contracts. Alongside these firms various private security firms also made a killing.Like I have said, this is jockeying for position within the system.


From the standpoint of any rational national accounting on the part of the US, the benefits to these firms were outweighed by the costs to the national exchequer of waging the war, but the firms which did benefit had close contacts with the Bush administration and their private interests seem to have had considerable weight.All you are saying here is that within the system of international capitalism, with the system, there are various forms of competition.


By themselves these may not be an adequate reason for the war. There are other factors which may have had an influence.
-- the military bureacracy of the Pentagon exerted a huge influence on the government just as the Imperial General Staff did on the German government before and during WWI
-- a desire by the Pentagon to be able to exert military control over world oil supplies by military dominance of of the Gulf, since oil is essential for warfare
-- dynastic reasons on the part of the Bush dynasty - the son achieving what the father had left unfinishedWelcome to the wonderful world of liberalism. At this point, you need to turn in your Marxism merit badge.

RED DAVE

[Jose Gracchus]

By themselves these may not be an adequate reason for the war. There are other factors which may have had an influence.
-- the military bureacracy of the Pentagon exerted a huge influence on the government just as the Imperial General Staff did on the German government before and during WWI
-- a desire by the Pentagon to be able to exert military control over world oil supplies by military dominance of of the Gulf, since oil is essential for warfare
-- dynastic reasons on the part of the Bush dynasty - the son achieving what the father had left unfinished

Uhm, do you think there is no material basis for the persistent political authority of the defense establishment as such in the post-1871 German state, as well as the U.S. defense establishment ~1900-2011? Again, I think these factors you name are not in isolation from material factors, but intrinsically caused by them -- the German state had to be united by Prussian armed might directly, and the preeminence of the Prussian establishment was guarded by the persistence of the Prussian military in the German armed forces. The Germans were among the last capitalist Great Powers to emerge on-scene, and therefore being able to acquire the gains the other Powers had by armed force was at a premium.

Similarly, the U.S. found itself by 1940 to be in a position to inevitably become the pre-eminent capitalist hegemon by the end of the war. Consequently, the massive defense establishment after the Second World War was sustained for two major reasons: a.) it was necessary to sustain the means of coercion that was required to maintain the post-war hegemony of the United States, and b.) it was a way to coordinate high-technology industry, guarantee it markets, and absorb the overproduction it generates in such a fashion that benefits capital and the state sector, but does not benefit the population without its authentic consent.

I also think you exaggerate how much more benign or even non-existent the role of the French and British military-industrial establishments were.

[S.Artesian]

You started out trying to show that WWII did not arise from German aggression but from international capitalism. You cite a book on and titled 'Trading with the Enemy', and conclude that the section of the firms engaged in high technology international business regarded each other as brothers. How then is this brotherhood supposed to have caused the war? Surely you have shown that international capital, far from being a source of belligerence would tend to exert a pacific influence?

1. I did not cite a book called Trading With the Enemy. I cited a book entitled All Honorable Men. I have never read Trading With The Enemy. I cited a book that shows that while the German industrialists bankrolled, supported Hitler and his party, those German industrialists were supported, financed by, their counterparts in the US, France, the UK etc. and that all participated in international production cartels, interconnected and incorporated at the highest levels; that the members of this fraternity were cognizant of what Hitler represented; that the members of this fraternity supported each other throughout the war; that the war had positive consequences for the fraternity members, for their shared material, class interests as opposed to their mythological "national" interests.

2. How does the "brotherhood" cause the war? I said "squabbling brothers," no? You will notice how, despite all the talk about strategic bombing, German war production was maintained, but whole cities were leveled. War's a fucking market, Paul. You yourself recognize that in its "inhumane" "19th century phase, capitalisms engaged in war with each other, although not yet on the world scale, despite their international connections, their trading with each other.

3. Does the "brotherhood" get together and say "OK, let's start a war"? Maybe, sometimes, not necessarily. So what? Maybe they act like landlord/arsonists: "Hey, there are these apartment buildings not making any money, and I want to get rid of the tenants, so I'm planning to torch them. Your apartment buildings are right next door, and actually the buildings share the roofs, the basements, and the fire escapes. Is that a problem for you?"

"Hmmm...let me think. Aw, well, you know, ahem, I can't really tell you what to do, but.... I can get you the gasoline wholesale... and well, my buildings aren't making me that much money, too, and while I can never participate in a crime... I won't shed too many tears if my buildings go up in flames too--and you know, I do have close relations with the fire department in that part of town so... umm... maybe I might find a way for them to be, you know, busy... or maybe not have the gasoline they need to get their trucks to the fire. But I wouldn't want to tell you to burn down my buildings too. That would be [I]inhumane, aggressive. And keep in mind, the people in my buildings are...white."



On the war in Iraq, I was arguing that it was national capitals in the US that benefited from the outcome when the US took over all Iraqi oil revenues and redirected them towards a supposed reconstruction programme that delivered almost nothing in the way of reconstruction, but which transfered billions of dollars into the accounts of the US firms that won the reconstruction contracts. Alongside these firms various private security firms also made a killing.


4. And do you think that's why the US invaded Iraq? That's the question. Regarding the facts of your argument. Do you have any data on the oil production, oil revenues extracted from Iraq vs. the US expenditures on the contracts awarded for the supposed rebuilding of Iraq and the resupply of the US forces? The reason I ask is because the US GAO consistently reported "problems" with the use of oil revenues for reconstruction:


Despite 4 years of effort and $2.7 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds, Iraqi oil output has consistently fallen below U.S. program goals. In addition, the State Department's data on Iraq's oil production may be overstated since data from the U.S. Department of Energy show lower production levels--between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels less per day. Inadequate metering, re-injection, corruption, theft, and sabotage account for the discrepancy, which amounts to about $1.8 to $5.5 billion per year. Comprehensive metering of Iraq's oil production has been a long-standing problem and continuing need. Poor security, corruption, and funding constraints continue to impede reconstruction of Iraq's oil sector. The deteriorating security environment places workers and infrastructure at risk while protection efforts have been insufficient. Widespread corruption and smuggling reduce oil revenues. Moreover, Iraq's needs are significant and future funding for the oil sector is uncertain as nearly 80 percent of U.S. funds for the oil sector have been spent. Iraq's contribution has been minimal with the government spending less than 3 percent of the $3.5 billion it approved for oil reconstruction projects in 2006. Iraq has yet to enact and implement hydrocarbon legislation that defines the distribution of oil revenues and the rights of foreign investors. Until this legislation is enacted and implemented, it will be difficult for Iraq to attract the billions of dollars in foreign investment it needs to modernize the sector. As of July 13, 2007, Iraq's cabinet has approved only one of four separate but interrelated pieces of legislation--a framework that establishes the structure, management, and oversight. Another part is in draft and two others are not yet drafted. Poor security, corruption, and the lack of national unity will likely impede the implementation of this legislation.
See: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1107T



(http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1107T)

And the reconstruction and resupply money came in the main from the US treasury, not the diverted oil revenues from Iraq. Iraq's oil revenues were spent in the main by the Iraqi government on its "day-to-day" operations, not on capital and reconstruction projects:


Summary

Iraq has an estimated 115 billion barrels of crude oil reserves--the third largest in the world. Oil export revenues are critical to Iraq's economy, accounting for over half of the country's gross domestic product and over 90 percent of revenues. This testimony discusses (1) Iraq's estimated revenues from 2005 through 2008, (2) Iraq's estimated expenditures from 2005 through 2008, (3) Iraq's financial deposits through 2007 and budget surpluses, and (4) U.S. cumulative expenditures on stabilization and reconstruction activities in Iraq since 2003. GAO analyzed relevant data and reviewed documents such as Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) export oil receipts data and the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) stand-by arrangement for Iraq. GAO worked with officials from the Department of Treasury and interviewed officials from the Departments of State, Defense, Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the IMF. GAO also reviewed translated copies of Iraqi documents, including budget and capital spending reports. Treasury agreed with GAO's findings and stated that Iraq has adequate funds to make and maintain capital investments that deliver service and foster economic growth.
From 2005 through 2007, the Iraqi government generated an estimated $96 billion in cumulative revenues, of which crude oil export sales accounted for about $90.2 billion or 94 percent. For 2008, Iraq could generate an estimated $73.5 billion to $86.2 billion in revenues, with oil exports accounting for $66.5 billion to $79.2 billion. Projected 2008 oil revenues could be more than twice the average annual amount Iraq generated from 2005 through 2007. From 2005 through 2007, the Iraqi government spent an estimated $67 billion on operating and investment activities. Ninety percent was spent on operating expenses, such as salaries and goods and services, and the remaining 10 percent on investments, such as structures and vehicles. The Iraqi government spent only 1 percent of total expenditures to maintain Iraq- and U.S.-funded investments, such as electricity installations and weapons. From 2005 through 2007, Iraq had an estimated cumulative budget surplus of about $29 billion. For 2008, we estimate that Iraq will have an additional surplus of between $38.2 billion to $50.3 billion, which could result in a cumulative budget surplus of $67 billion to $79 billion. Iraq's 2008 budget surplus could be reduced by expenditures from its $22.3 billion supplemental budget, which Iraq's Council of Representative passed in August 2008. However, based on Iraq's past expenditure performance, the government may not be able to spend all that it has budgeted for 2008. Since fiscal year 2003, the United States has appropriated about $48 billion for stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Iraq; it had obligated about $42 billion of that amount, as of June 2008. U.S. agencies spent about $23.2 billion on four critical sectors--security, oil, electricity, and water. As of June 2008, the United States had spent 70 percent of the amount it allocated for these four sectors from fiscal year 2003 through June 2008. Iraq spent 14 percent, or $4.3 billion, of the $30 billion it allocated for similar activities in these sectors from 2005 through June 2008. Iraq's large oil reserves coupled with higher oil prices offer the government of Iraq the potential to increase its contributions to the country's reconstruction efforts and thereby enhance essential services to the Iraqi people.

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1144T

And as some prominent US Senators stated:


(AP) March 9, 2008 The Democratic chairman and Republican former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee have asked U.S. government auditors to determine what Iraq is doing with the billions of dollars in oil revenue it generates.

"We believe that it has been overwhelmingly U.S. taxpayer money that has funded Iraq reconstruction over the last five years, despite Iraq earnings billions of dollars in oil revenue over that time period that have ended up in non-Iraqi banks," Sens. Carl Levin, a Democrat, and John Warner, a Republican, said Friday in a letter to the head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Now I think the major oil corporations benefited from the US invasion of Iraq, both times, but certainly not in the way you describe it. Hey, come to think of it you don't describe it. Why is that? Why don't you describe how US and UK oil majors benefited from the invasions?

And do you think that was the reason for the invasion? Do you think that the invasions were undertaken for the end purpose, the telos, of the benefits to the oil corporations?

Do you think the oil capitalists got together, and just walked into the White House and told Bush "We need a war. Go get Iraq."?



By themselves these may not be an adequate reason for the war. There are other factors which may have had an influence.
-- the military bureacracy of the Pentagon exerted a huge influence on the government just as the Imperial General Staff did on the German government before and during WWI Speculation-- using a general assumption to "prove" a specific conclusion. In this specific case, EDIT: Gulf War 2 :EDIT much of the high level military staff was opposed to the invasion, but like good soldiers, they followed orders. Some of the staff, supported the invasion, and some of the staff had only their "professional" "technical" commitment to doing their jobs right.


-- a desire by the Pentagon to be able to exert military control over world oil supplies by military dominance of of the Gulf, since oil is essential for warfare
This assumes that US access to oil supplies was somehow threatened by Hussein. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Iraq had dramatically increased its production and exports in the years prior to the war-- and legally.


-- dynastic reasons on the part of the Bush dynasty - the son achieving what the father had left unfinishedRight. History is determined by unresolved Oedipal fixations. That makes about as much sense as Bush's claim that Hussein had WMD and was allied with Al Qaeda.


As for that crap about "acceptance of collective guilt" is what allowed Germany to make a transition from aggressive to non-aggressive capitalism--- what idealist nonsense. The country was split in two for 45 years, remember that insignificant material fact? The western portion was absorbed into NATO, with its military role, at that time, pretty well circumscribed. The US assumed the basic military responsibility for protecting the accumulation of capital.

I think Caramelpence had it right-- not the "scum" part-- that's just too harsh -- but your project of transforming yourself from Stalinist to social-democrat, with your good "our" bourgeoisie, and the bad "their" bourgeoisie-- that's spot on.

[Paul Cockshott]

It's national capital that stands to gain? If there ever was an abstraction, actually an inversion, "national capital" is it. National capital doesn't existed abstracted, isolated, separate from its incorporation with international capital. That's the point. German capitalism didn't do what it did because Germans are more vicious than the French. It accomplished what it accomplished because of the incorporation of French, German, British, US, Belgium capital in cartels, blocs, combines, etc.
You are right that as time goes on an increasing proportion of capitalist firms operate internationally and have internationally spread shareholders. In consequence the probability of capitalist interests lobbying for war and conquest declines with time. But back in the 30s such multi-national firms made up a minority of business, whether counted in firms, capital stock, or turnover. A firm like IG Farben had much more influence on the policies of the German government than it did on the policies of the French, British or American governments. Likewise, Burma Oil had little purchase on the policy of the Japanese government, but could influence the UK government.

[RED DAVE]

You are right that as time goes on an increasing proportion of capitalist firms operate internationally and have internationally spread shareholders. In consequence the probability of capitalist interests lobbying for war and conquest declines with time. But back in the 30s such multi-national firms made up a minority of business, whether counted in firms, capital stock, or turnover. A firm like IG Farben had much more influence on the policies of the German government than it did on the policies of the French, British or American governments. Likewise, Burma Oil had little purchase on the policy of the Japanese government, but could influence the UK government.You still, with this potted history of international capital, have not shown that the actions of German capitalism were in contradiction to international capitalism or anything else but a part of the system.

RED DAVE

[Paul Cockshott]

Dave I am not claiming Nazi Germany was anti capitalist, what I am claiming was that it engaged on a war of imperialist aggression.

[RED DAVE]

Dave I am not claiming Nazi Germany was anti capitalist, what I am claiming was that it engaged on a war of imperialist aggression.Uhh, Paul, that is not he issue. the issue is whether or not German capitalism was responsible for for WWI and WWII or was the capitalist system as a whole responsible. S.Artesian and I and others have shown, over and over again, that it is functionally impossible, impossible in terms of concrete relationships, to separate German capitalism from Capitalism as a whole.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

You are right that as time goes on an increasing proportion of capitalist firms operate internationally and have internationally spread shareholders. In consequence the probability of capitalist interests lobbying for war and conquest declines with time. But back in the 30s such multi-national firms made up a minority of business, whether counted in firms, capital stock, or turnover. A firm like IG Farben had much more influence on the policies of the German government than it did on the policies of the French, British or American governments. Likewise, Burma Oil had little purchase on the policy of the Japanese government, but could influence the UK government.

Pure, unadulterated Kautskyism. It's not a question of "harmonizing" of the interests of the bourgeoisie's through their international connections. It's a question of profitability.

What Paul has given us here is the pseudo-Marxist version of the bourgeoisie's argument of the benefits of "free trade," how it binds people together in a community of interests. Of course this mantra is nothing but the "sophisticated" version of merchants' "everyone is welcome. Everyone with money, that is. You're all green to me." Variations on this theme blame the Great Depression on the tariffs and trade policies adopted by the "national" capitalists seeking to preserve market share. "If only we could all trade together... you know, get together in that great marketplace that is life and just exchange our goods. Wouldn't life be beautiful?" And the reasons, opportunity for wars would be drastically reduced, because everyone would have an interest in everyone else's well-being, expansion, development. Capital will harmonize all things as the interconnections make it too expensive, too destructive to all to attack any one part."

Sure. Except the purpose of exchange is not establishing goodwill or brotherly relations among people. It's about accumulation. Everybody does not have an interest in everybody's development. The bourgeois class has an interest in its property and its profit, and the destruction of war is not inflicted on all-- it is, in essence, borne by others, by those not in the fraternity, not within the class.

It is not a case that "expanding trade" will cause a reduction in the competition of the capitals, or an increase in the cooperation of the capitals. The expanding trade is the derivative, the variable, the effect of the profitability. Profitability in production determines exchange.

It's a market. Every buyer is a seller, get it? Every "peacemaker" is a war profiteer. Or perhaps we should cite the great British authorities on this, the Rolling Stones. "Every cop is a criminal, all the sinners saints." The differences are temporal not essential. So at one and the same time, it's in the interests of all the capitalists to combine, conspire, cooperate with the German bourgeoisie bankrolling Hitler. And when war breaks out between the states because of the needs of those capitalists to accumulate more, to integrate French, Belgium, Dutch chemical industries with German and Austrian, well the fraternity will of course wave the flag, because that's in their interests too, while they continue to do business with each other and act in their collective class interests.... kind of like well recently, Halliburton's presence in the Iranian economy despite, or rather, as part of the belligerence of the US to Iran.


Such multinationals made up a minority of firms in the 1930s? By capital stock, by revenue? How substantial minority? The US companies reporting to the US Department of Energy's Energy Information Agency as part of its data collecting operation, called the Financial Reporting System, represent a distinct minority of US firms, and they account for about 10% of the revenues of the Fortune 500. The do however account for about 40% of the gross property, plant, and equipment of all US manufacturing companies. Are we going to deny the "overweighting" of these energy corporations in the US economy, in US policy?

What portion of the PPE did the German companies involved in the international cartel represent in the total German economy?

It was after all these same companies with these same extensive international connections that, we both agree, were so instrumental in developing, supporting the war machinery. Or is this just another example of the congenital belligerence of the German bourgeoisie, so much so that not even international connections can pacify the savage beast?

Here's a possible explanation, pure speculation, I'm sure-- not like Paul's scientific analysis of good and bad bourgeoisie.... maybe the war was in the interests of the bourgeoisie across national lines BUT given the poor conditions of the economy, given the tremendous discontent and class struggle, the fragility of the bourgeosie's political control a this time, it was necessary to subdue and/or integrate the working classes into the machinery of war reproduction. SO..... well we get Hitler and the Nazis doing the deed for the German bourgeoisie; we have the fascist corporatism of Mussolini taking care of that, more or less, more and less, in Italy; AND we get the great integration of the US working class into the machinery of capital through... the wave of unionization backed by.. well backed by the New Deal.

Now with patriotism imprinted on every paycheck... all the bourgeoisie need is someone to take that first step, give them an excuse, make it look like "our" countries are simply "defending" democracy, so that socialism of suckers, patriotism, can sweep millions into the furnaces.

Just a speculation.

Hey, any data on how those oil revenues in Iraq were used to the benefit of the US oil bourgeoisie, or paid for the reconstruction of Iraq?

[Kotze]

It's a market. Every buyer is a seller, get it?What I get is that it was made clear — in a way really everybody can understand — what a bullshit artist you are at this point in the thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/war-guilt-german-t155614/index.html?p=2132113#post2132113), and now you try to bury that under walls of text. Do you ever think about how your words make the left appear to people outside your pseudo-intellectual ghetto?
So at one and the same time, it's in the interests of all the capitalists to combine, conspire, cooperate with the German bourgeoisie bankrolling Hitlerto destroy property so they become poorer. Devious!

Cheers.

[RED DAVE]

how your words make the left appear to people outside your pseudo-intellectual ghetto?to destroy property so they become poorer. Devious!Uh, dude, the US emerged from WWII controlling 40% of the industrial capacity of the world.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

Obviously, Kotze must be correct, because capitalism is so rational, because the material interests of the capitalists are so rational, because a rising tide floats all boats, because rational capitalists would never do anything that in the long run might jeopardize their own wealth, etc.etc. etc.

[Reznov]

By saying that the world war was caused by 'international capitalism' not by German imperialism they absolve German National Socialism of blame for the worst war in human history.

Implicit in this position is a repudiation of the Nurnberg verdict. If the war was caused by 'international capitalism' rather than by the decisions of the German government, then the verdict of the tribunal that the accused were guilty of launching a war of agression is effectively repudiated and their execution was unjustified.

If Germany was not guilty of launching a war of agression, then the war repartions paid by both German states were unjustified.

These final conclusions are effectively the same as those of right wing German nationlists, even if the initial motivations start out different.

How many forum participants go along with this denial of war guilt?

I think you need to look at them as they came in history, one resulting off of another.

The problems all started with International Imperialism and Capitalism. Its just that the reactionaries like Nat'l Socialists were a response to what was happening at the time.

[JamesH]

It's a market. Every buyer is a seller, get it? Every "peacemaker" is a war profiteer. Or perhaps we should cite the great British authorities on this, the Rolling Stones. "Every cop is a criminal, all the sinners saints." The differences are temporal not essential. So at one and the same time, it's in the interests of all the capitalists to combine, conspire, cooperate with the German bourgeoisie bankrolling Hitler. And when war breaks out between the states because of the needs of those capitalists to accumulate more, to integrate French, Belgium, Dutch chemical industries with German and Austrian, well the fraternity will of course wave the flag, because that's in their interests too, while they continue to do business with each other and act in their collective class interests.... kind of like well recently, Halliburton's presence in the Iranian economy despite, or rather, as part of the belligerence of the US to Iran


I think this argument undercuts rather than strengthens the claim that economic factors have primacy for the beginning of the war.

It is similar to the war in Iraq, where I find the explanation that the drive for oil was the impetus behind the war unconvincing. Profits from oil could be easily had without the chaos that follows war and political upheaval; oil companies wanted stability, not war.

[Jose Gracchus]

SA: I think the "idea" of single national capital (though not any reality) is actually a very useful tool for understanding the Soviet-type bureaucratic-autarchic estensive development regimes.

[syndicat]

Cockshott uses a double standard, as S. Artesian has pointed out. He says those who voted for Bush and Blair can be held to blame for the Iraq war and the murderous sanctions.

well, who voted for the Nazis? on whose votes did they come to power? The Nazis during the latter '20s had a meteoric rise in their vote, reaching around 40 percent in the last election before they came to power. They ally, the German Nationalist Party (party of Prussian junkerdom) got around 6 percent. at that time there were three major working class political parties in Germany: Catholic Center, Social Democratic Party, and the Communist Party. Except for the last election in 1932, the Communist Party's vote tended to increase during this period of the rise of Nazism. the vote of the Catholic Center and SPD did not decline during this period. the decline in the Communist vote in 1932 is probably due to increasing repression of the party.

Where did the big rise in Nazi votes come from then, if it wasn't from the working class? Prior to the World War 1 the main German middle class party had been the National Liberals, who advocated a 19th century laissez faire brand of liberalism. In the '20s there were two parties that were heirs to that party, the Democratic Party and the predecessors of the presdent-day Free Democrats. by the last election in 1932 thse two parties were down to only about 2 or 3 percent of the vote. They had been wiped out by the rise of Nazism...which swept the German middle classes. Caught between big capitalist cartels and the aggressive, radical unionism of the early '20s, and with the loss of their savings under the SPD governments in the '20s, they were easy prey for the demogogy of the Nazis.

moreover, the Nazis didn't get equal support from the middle class everywhere. in Bavaria the Nazis got only 8 percent of the vote in 1932. that's because they were competing with the clerical-proto-fascist Bavarian People's Party (sister party to the party of Dolfuss in Austria). in East Prussia the Nazis got 80 percent of the vote.

the German part of East Prussia (the northern half around Koenigsberg) doesn't exist anymore. it's now a part of the Soviet Union. the 5 million residents were expelled at the end of WW2. given their support for Nazism, it's hard not seeing a certain justice in that. the southern half of East Prussia was inhabited by Polish Protestants. that became a part of Poland.

[S.Artesian]

I think this argument undercuts rather than strengthens the claim that economic factors have primacy for the beginning of the war.

It is similar to the war in Iraq, where I find the explanation that the drive for oil was the impetus behind the war unconvincing. Profits from oil could be easily had without the chaos that follows war and political upheaval; oil companies wanted stability, not war.


You are confusing the "drive for oil" which normally means oil as a use value, with the need for profits from oil, the production of oil as a value, and the overproduction of oil that threatens those profits.

[Paul Cockshott]

Uh, dude, the US emerged from WWII controlling 40% of the industrial capacity of the world.

RED DAVE

Yes but how is this meant to demonstrate the point that you and Artesian seem to be arguing, that there was no difference between the German and American ruling classes and that both were equally culpable for the war?

Every historical account that I have read indicates that the US ruling class and US public opinion in general was very reluctant indeed to get involved in the war. They took no action at all as country after country was attacked and invaded by Germany, and only finally got involved when Germany declared war on the US.

There is no doubt that embarking on the course of war was a serious miscalculation by the ruling classes in Germany and Japan, one which caused them huge material and financial losses, and set back their relative economic position for decades. But the fact that the German ruling class miscalculated so badly does not mean that America caused and planned the war in order to do down Japan and Germany as industrial competitors.

I am genuinely puzzled as to which historians you and Artesian have been reading to arrive at your views. Which historian puts forward these views that you are defending?

Never mind historians, which Marxist economist, or any economists for that matter says that war is necessary for and beneficial to the international capitalist economy?

[Paul Cockshott]

Cockshott uses a double standard, as S. Artesian has pointed out. He says those who voted for Bush and Blair can be held to blame for the Iraq war and the murderous sanctions.

well, who voted for the Nazis? on whose votes did they come to power? The Nazis during the latter '20s had a meteoric rise in their vote, reaching around 40 percent in the last election before they came to power. They ally, the German Nationalist Party (party of Prussian junkerdom) got around 6 percent. at that time there were three major working class political parties in Germany: Catholic Center, Social Democratic Party, and the Communist Party. Except for the last election in 1932, the Communist Party's vote tended to increase during this period of the rise of Nazism. the vote of the Catholic Center and SPD did not decline during this period. the decline in the Communist vote in 1932 is probably due to increasing repression of the party.

Where did the big rise in Nazi votes come from then, if it wasn't from the working class? Prior to the World War 1 the main German middle class party had been the National Liberals, who advocated a 19th century laissez faire brand of liberalism. In the '20s there were two parties that were heirs to that party, the Democratic Party and the predecessors of the presdent-day Free Democrats. by the last election in 1932 thse two parties were down to only about 2 or 3 percent of the vote. They had been wiped out by the rise of Nazism...which swept the German middle classes. Caught between big capitalist cartels and the aggressive, radical unionism of the early '20s, and with the loss of their savings under the SPD governments in the '20s, they were easy prey for the demogogy of the Nazis.

moreover, the Nazis didn't get equal support from the middle class everywhere. in Bavaria the Nazis got only 8 percent of the vote in 1932. that's because they were competing with the clerical-proto-fascist Bavarian People's Party (sister party to the party of Dolfuss in Austria). in East Prussia the Nazis got 80 percent of the vote.

the German part of East Prussia (the northern half around Koenigsberg) doesn't exist anymore. it's now a part of the Soviet Union. the 5 million residents were expelled at the end of WW2. given their support for Nazism, it's hard not seeing a certain justice in that. the southern half of East Prussia was inhabited by Polish Protestants. that became a part of Poland.



What is the point of what you are saying about Nazi voters?

You are not denying that parties of the right won a bigger share than those of the left, and that this enabled the NSDAP to come to power. Their support among catholics was less than among protestants, so to an extent catholic and working class voters were less culpable than protestant and middle class ones.
Yes, middle class voters were over-represented in the NSDAP support relative to their population share, but the NSDAP also got substantial upper middle class and working class support.

I dont see why you conclude from your points about voting shares that I am using double standards. I am saying those who support warmongers share the blame for war whether in the 1930s or in this century.

[S.Artesian]

How about all those Marxists who produced Zimmerwald Manifesto? Do they count as Marxist economists and historians who argued that the war is necessary, inherent in capitalism. Oh no, wait, these people didn't classify themselves as economists or historians, but rather just plain old Marxists.

How about all those Marxists who claimed WW2 was inherent in capitalism? They don't count either because they weren't peer-reviewed academic economists and historians?

[Paul Cockshott]

Stranger and stranger:
Hitler and the Nazis doing the deed for the German bourgeoisie; we have the fascist corporatism of Mussolini taking care of that, more or less, more and less, in Italy; AND we get the great integration of the US working class into the machinery of capital through... the wave of unionization backed by.. well backed by the New Deal.

So to you CIO and the stormtroopers were all much of a muchness, all means of incorporating the working class into capitalism?

Surely you can distinguish organisations thrown up by the working class in its defence from fascist organisations.

[S.Artesian]

As I said, it's a speculation.

Any information yet on those Iraqi oil revenues being diverted to pay US contractors for the reconstruction of Iraq? Any information yet on how the US oil majors reaped their billions from taking over the Iraqi oil fields?

[RED DAVE]

Yes but how is this meant to demonstrate the point that you and Artesian seem to be arguing, that there was no difference between the German and American ruling classes and that both were equally culpable for the war?My point, as I recall, is that capitalism as a whole wasn't damaged and that the US merrily permitted German and Japan to retool and get capitalism going ASAP.

Jeez, Paul. You just don't get it. The bourgeoisie is an international class. The US branch of the family made money during the war and traded with the German branch. And after the war, they helped their cousins get back on their feet.


Every historical account that I have read indicates that the US ruling class and US public opinion in general was very reluctant indeed to get involved in the war. They took no action at all as country after country was attacked and invaded by Germany, and only finally got involved when Germany declared war on the US.The US branch of the family was having fun selling shit to both sides! And yes, they didn't want the German branch getting a bigger share.


There is no doubt that embarking on the course of war was a serious miscalculation by the ruling classes in Germany and Japan, one which caused them huge material and financial losses, and set back their relative economic position for decades. But the fact that the German ruling class miscalculated so badly does not mean that America caused and planned the war in order to do down Japan and Germany as industrial competitors.Anyone with half a brain knew that there was going to be another war. Why do you think the French had the Maginot Line?


I am genuinely puzzled as to which historians you and Artesian have been reading to arrive at your views. Which historian puts forward these views that you are defending?

Never mind historians, which Marxist economist, or any economists for that matter says that war is necessary for and beneficial to the international capitalist economy?I'll let S.Artesian answer that. I'll merely note the academic snottiness of it. And let me put it this way: I'm not a historian or an economist, but you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.

RED DAVE

[S.Artesian]

My answer is the long tradition of Marxists who undertook a united class opposition to the class of the bourgeoisie; who recognized that the path to ending the international conflict lay in opposition to their "own" bourgeoisie, as that bourgeoisie acted in the concrete according to the dictates of "abstract" capitalism, as part of the fraternity of capitalists.

Speaking of the Maginot, funny fact... who built the Maginot, provided the plans, the steel?
Anyone care to make a guess?

[HEAD ICE]

I think this thread has shown light on the true reasons behind Paul Cockshott's almost religious opposition to Irish nationalism. It is not from any principled internationalist standpoint of a rejection of alliances with bourgeois large or small, but rather it comes from his British chauvinism that he has proudly displayed throughout this thread.

People on this message board have been restricted and banned for less offenses, however Cockshott's British chauvinism gets a pass because it comes from someone who has written a book. You are clearly being pampered and you would have been restricted long ago if it wasn't for your status as a forum celebrity.

[JamesH]

You are confusing the "drive for oil" which normally means oil as a use value, with the need for profits from oil, the production of oil as a value, and the overproduction of oil that threatens those profits.

Could you perhaps expand on this a little before I respond?

[Kotze]

People on this message board have been restricted and banned for less offenses, however Cockshott's British chauvinism gets a passYes, it's an outrage what an anti-German racist he is. I bet he doesn't have any German friends, given how much he has been defaming people as "Nazis" just for being Nazis. Why don't you post a study that shows the relation between high organic composition of capital and outbreak of wars, that will shut him up.

I'm sure the reason that you and Kléber and RedTrackWorker and I don't how many others pushed the thanks button for S.Artesian's brilliant theory was that you know enough about that relation to judge whether that theory is plausible — and not that since if true it would support your belief system you want it to be true no matter what and that you then lack the emotional maturity to admit that and that you then all go into a mob frenzy like what you see happen on a right-wing forum when somebody asks climate-change deniers a few simple questions and it turns into a rave party of zombies speaking in tongues. Because that would be pathetic.

How could one presume that people tend to have disproportional influence on what happens where they live? That's racist. And I think it is important that we make clear just how racist that is, and that we on the Left will not tolerate that. For example, when you are alone in a room and there is a sudden piercing smell, the only non-racist explanation is that international capitalism farted.

[syndicat]

What is the point of what you are saying about Nazi voters?


that you are making inconsistent statements. you used voting for Bush and Blair as those who bear culpability for the Iraq destruction, sanctions etc. so that's the criterion you propose. so, who voted for the Nazis?

the Nazis got a minority of the vote, mainly from the German middle classes -- professionals, shopkeepers, farm owners, managers. The largest part of the working class didn't vote for the Nazis. that's the evidence.

but you say it is the German nation that bears culpability for the war...which somehow is different than the British nation...which does not bear culpability for the many victims of British imperialism. and for the Iraq war it is somehow only those who voted for Bush and Blair who bear culpability...not the British nation.

[bailey_187]

im trying to keep up ith this debate and struggling abit so im probably wrong

but just quick thing is response to person who said paul is blaming th German nation. Doesnt he mean tho, not every member of the german nation state, but the national-characteristics of the german nation, which is a social construct of the german ruling class? and therefore hes not blaming german workers?

just question, thought whatever

whats some books on this tho, this been really interesting. Paul Cockshott, what books ur gettin ur views from pleas?

[Paul Cockshott]

ok I see what you are saying, I agree that it is the fault of the British and Americans for not stopping their leaders from launching a criminal war, and if this course continues to be followed they will pay the price in the end.

[HEAD ICE]

Yes, it's an outrage what an anti-German racist he is. I bet he doesn't have any German friends, given how much he has been defaming people as "Nazis" just for being Nazis. Why don't you post a study that shows the relation between high organic composition of capital and outbreak of wars, that will shut him up.

I'm sure the reason that you and Kléber and RedTrackWorker and I don't how many others pushed the thanks button for S.Artesian's brilliant theory was that you know enough about that relation to judge whether that theory is plausible — and not that since if true it would support your belief system you want it to be true no matter what and that you then lack the emotional maturity to admit that and that you then all go into a mob frenzy like what you see happen on a right-wing forum when somebody asks climate-change deniers a few simple questions and it turns into a rave party of zombies speaking in tongues. Because that would be pathetic.

How could one presume that people tend to have disproportional influence on what happens where they live? That's racist. And I think it is important that we make clear just how racist that is, and that we on the Left will not tolerate that. For example, when you are alone in a room and there is a sudden piercing smell, the only non-racist explanation is that international capitalism farted.

Where did I call Cockshott a racist? I called him a chauvinist and I call him now a nationalist and a rejector of Marxism (that is assuming he ever accepted Marxism in the first place).

This whole discussion about who was "responsible", the defense of bourgeois legalism, and the belief that ideas bring nations into war is fine. It just isn't Marxist or revolutionary.

[Kotze]

Where did I call Cockshott a racist?On 2nd June, in the same thread you are posting right now in, you said this:
Cockshott absurdly says that condemning WWII as an imperialist war and not something that is unique to the German's genes implies a repudiation of the Nuremburg trialsI already quoted you once (http://www.revleft.com/vb/war-guilt-german-t155614/index.html?p=2130651#post2130651) on that.

But I guess you didn't really mean it like that, right :rolleyes:

By the way, you can take this post as a future reference point for me calling you, S.Artesian, RED DAVE, and Zanthorus pseudo-intellectual frauds, mystics, and economically illiterate slimy fuckwits.

Cheers.

[S.Artesian]

Could you perhaps expand on this a little before I respond?


Well, the best way I can describe this is to briefly point out the recent history of oil earnings, and oil prices:

1. Fueled by the relatively high prices of oil in the 1974-1984 period, US petroleum countries gorged themselves on accumulating assets, acreage, and PPE. Between 1974 and 1981, the asset base of those companies reporting to the US DOE's Financial Reporting System tripled.

2. Of course, production, and the overproduction of oil as a commodity during this period of relatively slower overall growth had to, eventually, bring the prices down, with a thud. At one point during the 1980s, more oil tankers were being used as floating warehouses than were being used to transport oil.

That thud was 1986, with its ongoing price declines which brought the oil companies up short, began the process of gutting the US residential housing markets, brought several US banks in great distress [since some international loans had assumed oil-- the price of oil-- as collateral], and... put the fSU between the proverbial rock [not shale] and the hard place.

3. Massive divestment became the oil major's business plan, with money from the divestitures used to pay down debt, for share buybacks, and other elements of "maximizing shareholder value." This Grand Destockage [pardon my French] was accompanied of course by reduction in employment. Employment in the oil majors fell by some 55% between 1982 and 1992. Exploration and development spending in the 1990-1992 period was reduced a further 30% over the already reduced level of the 1986-1989 period.

4. By 1995, however, with the generalized expansion of the US industrial and manufacturing base, oil prices had increased for 3 straight years, while the direct production costs for the US companies, offshore/onshore, and worldwide had declined due to the advances in horizontal drilling, 3D seismic imaging etc.

Finding costs also reached historical lows, but finding costs, defined as exploration and development costs divided by reserve additions is NOT a good marker, as reserves are an economic category, defined as the amount of oil that can produced over a set period of time, with the given technology, at a current price, and at a profit.

5. In 1996 the FRS participants reported a 52% rise in net income, with profitability at its highest levels since the 1979-1981 [OPEC 2] period. Net income from gas and oil production doubled between 1995 and 1996. Per barrel costs of extracting oil and gas fell sharply in the US and foreign operations of the FRS companies. Between 1991-1996 direct lifting costs declined by approximately 35 percent, while productivity, output per active well increased in the domestic portion by 17% and in the overseas portion by 41% [OECD Europe area had the highest productivity per well of all regions].

Net income as a % of total invested capital finally for the FRS companies, matched and overtook that of the same measure for the S&P industritals.

6. 1997 was another record profit year for the FRS companies, although a 10% decline in the price of oil near year end did not bode well. Said the DOE's Energy Information Agency annual Performance Profile of Major Energy Companies:


"On the supply side, crude oil production in 1997 was up 3.5% over 1996 production. The 2.3 million barrel-per-day rise in production was the largest since 1986 and was considerably in excess of the 1.6 million barrel-per-day increment in demand.

Step ups in oil production of 6 percent over 1996 levels by members of OPEC account for most of the added oil supplies. Nearly all OPEC members reported increases with Iraq registering a doubling of production "[emphasis added]


The FRS companies were still recording reduced lifting and finding costs and greater exploratory success rates. That measure stood at 36% success rate in 1985, and 51% in 1997 despite/because of the increase in drilling.

7. 1998 was the year when oil prices fell to a 25 year low, with prices breaking below the $10/barrel market. Iraq essentially doubled 1997's production, provoking various expressions of displeasure from the FRS companies. Net income as a percentage of total invested capital declined to about 6-7% while the S&P industrials measured theirs at 12.7%

1998, of course, was when our "neo-oil-cons" got together to produce their seminal work on the forthcoming American century, particularly in the Mideast and the need to get rid of Iraq's Hussein. Just a coincidence, I'm sure, as otherwise one would think there might be a conspiracy.. a convergence of interests presented as something other than what it was. Or that these people did what they did with the end purpose, the telos of restoring profitability.

8. Anyway, the Saudis, not known for their telos, responded to the anguished cries of the FRS companies, and lo and behold in 1999 oil prices rose from $10 to $24/barrel. The Saudis reduced production, but that m-%$^&%#@#-ing Hussein increase Iraq's production.

The doubling of the net income of the FRS companies was not sufficient to raise profitability of the FRS companies to the average profitability of the other lartge industrial companies.

9. Another increase in prices in 2000 brought record high profits for the FRS companies. Capital expenditures nearly doubled, however 90% of that expense was the costs of the merger and acquisition activity that took place between the companies.

Nevertheless replacement of reserves "through the drillbit"-- expanding known reserves from developed fields, again a reflection of the economic category called reserves-- was the 2nd highest since 1974. The FRS companies replaced 166 percent of their onshore production, 136 percent of offshore, and 119 percent of foreign production. And, oh holy of holies, for only the 2nd time in 2 decades, the profitability of the FRS companies exceed that of the S&P industrial companies.

10, 2002 saw a 45% decline in the FRS net earnings. Net income from oil and gas production was down 21% due in large part to the glut of natural gas in the US and the recession related slowdown.

Return on investment declined to 9.9% world wide.

But...

11. But there was good news ahead, because...because at the end of 2002, oil prices started to recover as Bush [remember] increased the saber-rattling vs. Iraq, which with its record of exceeding production quotas was doing to US producers what Kuwait in 1991, by violating its production quotas had done to Irag.

There was no shortage of oil supplies, no threat to oil supplies, no restriction in the Straits of Hormuz threatened by Hussein, no declining reserves, no "peak," no "post-peak"-- none of that. There was a decline in profitability. There was overproduction and that got us to,,,


12. 2003 and the invasion of Iraq, and that long run of 3-4 years the oil companies had making money the old fashioned way, through redistribution of all social profits through the mechanism of price.

Now I'm sure that this counts as a "wall of text" and will cause Kotze to resume foaming at the mouth, but too fucking bad. I can't find the graphic comic version in my files for every idiot who needs pictures.

You might also want to recall the "secret meeting" regarding the "energy crisis" held by Dick Cheney and the captains of the energy industry in 2001-- you remember the one Cheney refused to provide the transcripts of the discussions?

Do I think the captains walked in there and told good old boy Dick, "Goddamit, Dick, we're dying here with this overproduction. Go in there and do something get that price up and keep it up!"? You bet I do. Even better, I think Dick told them before they even had a chance to say it. That's how good a good old boy Dick is.

[Paul Cockshott]

How about all those Marxists who produced Zimmerwald Manifesto? Do they count as Marxist economists and historians who argued that the war is necessary, inherent in capitalism.

How about all those Marxists who claimed WW2 was inherent in capitalism? They don't count either because they weren't peer-reviewed academic economists and historians?
As I recall it Lenin's argument was not the same as yours. He did not say that war was needed by international capitalism, nor that the bourgeoisie of the world were a brotherhood. Instead he attributed it to the aims of each national capital to use its state to acquire colonies, primarily in Africa. He did not attribute it to international capital but to the predatory designs of the individual great powers seeking to gain territory. There is nothing in Lenin about capitalism wanting war in order to destroy capital stocks.

Can you name these Marxists who were around during WWII whom you claim to be relying as sources for your arguments?

[Paul Cockshott]

the belief that ideas bring nations into war is fine but it is not Marxism
Neither Kotze nor I are saying that ideas bring nations to war. I am saying that world war 2 was caused by states which had adopted a policy of militaristic aggression under the influence of reactionary blocks of classes, a hypertrophied military bureaucratic apparatus, a national industrial bourgeoisie seeking sources of raw materials and a social patriotic policy of seeking to relieve internal class conflict by external settlement and emigration.

[bailey_187]

Paul Cockshott, what is the Fischer book u mentioned in here

[Paul Cockshott]

just question, thought whatever

whats some books on this tho, this been really interesting. Paul Cockshott, what books ur gettin ur views from pleas?

The books that I have read recently nd which have influenced my understanding of the period are the following:
Fischer : From Kaiserreich to 3rd Reich, and also 'The war aims of Germany in the First World War',
Fischer is arguably the most important German historian of the last 100 years. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Fischer
Also
The war aims of imperial Germany: Professor Fritz Fischer and his critics, JA Moses


Kennedy : The War Plans of the Great Powers 1880 - 1914, and also 'The rise and fall of the Great Powers',

Some of these will be available Gutenberg now is begining to get a number of works on the history of the first world war written during the inter war period that are freely available and interesting to read for the insight they give as to how things were seen then.

[S.Artesian]

As I recall it Lenin's argument was not the same as yours. He did not say that war was needed by international capitalism, nor that the bourgeoisie of the world were a brotherhood. Instead he attributed it to the aims of each national capital to use its state to acquire colonies, primarily in Africa. He did not attribute it to international capital but to the predatory designs of the individual great powers seeking to gain territory. There is nothing in Lenin about capitalism wanting war in order to destroy capital stocks.

Can you name these Marxists who were around during WWII whom you claim to be relying as sources for your arguments?


Oh, that's rich. What Lenin did not do was blame the war on the hyper-aggressive German people. He didn't assign "national guilt."
EDIT:

From the Zimmerwald Manifesto:


Irrespective of the truth as to the direct responsibility for the outbreak of the war, one thing is certain" the war that has produced this chaos is the outcome of imperialism, of the attempt on the part of the capitalist class of each nation to foster their greed for profit by the exploitation of human labour and of the natural resources of the entire globe.Agree or disagree, Mr. Cockshott?


The ruling power of capitalist society who held the fate of the nations in their hands, the monarchic as well as the republican governments, the secret diplomacy, the mighty business organizations, the bourgeois parties, the capitalist press, the church-- all these bear the full weight of responsibility for this war which arose out of the social order fostering them and protected by them, and wich is being waged for their interests.Agree or disagree, Mr. Cockshott?


...we Germans, French, Italians, Russians, Poles, Letts, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Swedes, Norwegians, Dutch, and Swiss, we who stand not on the ground of national solidarity with the exploiting class, but on the ground of the international solidarity of the proletariat and the class struggle, have assembled to retie the torn threads of international relations and to call upon the working class to recover itself and fight for peace.
Obviously, you disagree Mr. Cockshott, because you stand in solidarity with your "non-expansive" exploiting class.


This struggle is the struggle for freedom, for the reconciliation of peoples, for socialism. It is necessary to take up this struggle for peace, for peace without annexations or war indemnities. Agree or disagree, Mr. Cockshott?

Exactly in which volume of Lenin's writings does he call for assigning "national guilt" for WW1? Or have you changed your position regarding Germany's warlike nature that was critical for, according to you, "150 years" of conflict in Europe to --"150 years, but minus WW1?

As for Marxists whose take on WW2- where war was inherent in capitalism and capitalist democracy is no less capitalist and responsible than fascist capitalism... I like CLR James pretty much.

[S.Artesian]

Dear Mr. Kotze,

I have been called worse things by better people.

Than you.

Good luck with your ongoing efforts proving that it's just life that sucks, not capitalism.

[DaringMehring]

I don't understand. Nobody seems to have addressed my point, which is that the rise of fascism originates in the degeneration of capitalism, which takes form in the collapse of the "national capitals." When I posted argument to that effect in regard to Germany, the response from Mr. Cockshott was "but some portion of the German workers supported the Nazis" -- which does not negate or even address the point that German fascism came out of the death throes of German capitalism. Of course workers can support reactionary movements, doesn't change the fact that the big bourgeoisie are the main social force behind them (like today with the Tea Party & the Koch bros. and other funders).

The UK, USA, France all had their own Nazi equivalents, but the bourgeois power was greater there and their national capitals less stressed. However, if Great Depression conditions had continued, is there any doubt, that eventually they would have ripped apart into either socialism or fascism? France certainly seemed close to that type of a crisis. Just read Trotsky's essay on Herriot.

So, who denies that fascism is the symptom of degenerate capitalism? Once accepting this, there is a direct link from capitalism to WWII. So from what else did fascism result? Racism as a peculiar national characteristics of the German people? Obviously it is not.

My previously quoted portion of the essay demonstrated the abysmal economic circumstances of Germany, with majority underemployment.
Further quotes from my essay to demonstrate how the big bourgeoisie turned to fascism:

" Mussolini, backed in his rise to power by big business and wealthy industrialists (27, 28), boasted in 1934 that three quarters of the Italian economy was subsidized by the government (29). This was corporate welfare on an enormous scale: Mussolini, in the words of one analyst, "created a state within the state to serve private interests... not always in harmony with the general interests of the nation" in which "those industrialists who can spend the necessary amount, can obtain almost anything they want, and put into practice the worst kind of monopolistic practices at the expense of the little fellow who is squeezed out in the process" (29).


The story is the same with Hitler. He too was supported in his ascendance to power by big capital. Hitler promised industrialists that his rhetoric on wealth redistribution for the national good was only a ploy to gain support among the working class: in The Road to Resurgence, a 1927 pamphlet "only meant for the eyes of the top industrialists in Germany", Hitler indicated that he was not interested in any transformation of Germany's economic and social structure (30). Hitler argued that "capitalists had worked their way to the top through their capacity, and on the basis of this selection they have the right to lead" (30). Hitler was rewarded for these overtures. Industrialists exerted political pressure in his favor and also provided financial backing for the Nazi party (31). German multi-national firms were the biggest supporters (32). Despite attempts at obfuscation Hitler's relationship with the industrialists could not be indefinitely disguised, and this was one of the causes that led to Hitler being forced to turn on his own rank-and-file and destroy the SA in June 1934 (33)."


"In both the Italian and the German historical cases the capitalists were drawn to the fascist cause at least in part because of the threat of a turn to communism. In the 1932 Reichstag election in Germany the communist KPD took an all time high of 100 deputies (34). In the first presidential election that year the communist candidate Thälmann took 4,983,300 votes, which represented 13.2% of the total (35). This was more than double the 1,931,000 votes he took in 1925 (35). Despite their rivalry, the possibility that the SPD and the KPD might ally meant that the country could have taken a hard left turn at any moment. The rise of the Nazis destroyed this possibility. The same outline of affairs was followed in Italy. In Italy in 1919 "the Socialist Party won more than one-third of all votes and became the largest single party in the Chamber of Deputies" (36). Building on their electoral success workers became increasingly aggressive: "Socialist agitation reached its climax in September 1920 when the General Confederation of Labour called for a general strike. During the strike the workers took over more than six hundred factories and established soviets on the Russian model to rule a number of industrial towns in northern Italy" (36). Yet with the ascendance of fascism in Italy the embattled post-WWI capitalist class had only to look on with satisfaction as they "in the course of a year saw the entire machinery of struggle of the socialist trade unions break up and lose all efficacy" under the fascist onslaught (37)."

[S.Artesian]

No, no comrade, capitalism isn't responsible for everything. Sometimes life just sucks. In this case however, it was the warlike nature of the German nation that expressed itself nationally through the National Socialists. Notice the "national" in the name?

[S.Artesian]

There is nothing in Lenin about capitalism wanting war in order to destroy capital stocks.




Let's be clear Paul, the issue of this thread isn't my contention that war is inherent in capitalism, that the destruction of the means of production is necessary to restarting accumulation, but rather your OP assigning guilt for the war to the "German nation."

You have cited one book by one professor supporting that notion. That's all.

You assign a unique, special, peculiar, and indeed an aberrant nature to the German nation.

Whether the capitalists want to destroy capital stocks is, essentially, irrelevant. The issue is is such destruction inherent in capitalism; is such destruction necessary for capitalism to restart the accumulation process?

Do I think the German industrialists wanted to destroy their combines, syndicats by creating WW2? No. First because capitalists only want to do one thing-- and that is make money. To do that, however, they have to protect their property against the working class. As DaringMehring pointed out, that is the role fascism plays. I'm sure there were German industrialists who opposed the war, or who opposed parts of the war-- like the invasion of Russia, anticipating disaster ahead; or hoping to come to some negotiated agreement with the US over the redivision of markets.

Secondly, the bourgeoisie don't think they're going to lose when they engage in this process of war.

But it doesn't matter what these bourgeoisie intend, it's what the conflicts in the organization of capital dictate that matters here... even to the point of inflicting destruction on the "home countries."

We can take your "good bourgeoisie, bad bourgeoisie"-- or "tolerable" bourgeoisie, "evil" bourgeoisie distinction and apply it internally to any single capitalist country and come up with.... well we know what we'll come up with, it's called a popular front.

We can say the invasion of Iraq was not determined by, inherent to, essential to US capitalism in 2003 [although I think I've established a case that it most certainly was]; that it was the actions of a particularly malevolent section of the bourgeoisie-- an atavistic regression.

But that's bullshit, and we know its bullshit. We know that the capital doesn't require uniformity in the capitalist class.

I understand if you're too busy to provide the data for your assertion that the US oil bourgeoisie and contractors benefited by gaining control of Iraq's oil revenues. I get too busy too sometimes.

[Queercommie Girl]

Talking about German "war guilt", let's not forget the war guilt of US and British imperialism as well, since at one point most white people had racist attitudes towards non-whites like Blacks, Native Americans and Asians.

Just because Hitler done to the white nations what whites have been doing to the non-whites for centuries, doesn't mean Hitler is somehow worse. What, are innocent white or Jewish civilians somehow worth more than innocent Black, Native American and Asian civilians?

[bailey_187]

no, isuel, no one is saying that whites are worth more than other races

[Queercommie Girl]

So why just focus on "German national war guilt" and only demonise the Germans? Either apply the concept of "national war guilt" to all cases in history, or reject the concept altogether. Don't just apply a double standard.

Personally I think the entire concept of "national war guilt" is intrinsically absurd and contrary to the methods of class analysis.

[S.Artesian]

So why just focus on "German national war guilt" and only demonise the Germans? Either apply the concept of "national war guilt" to all cases in history, or reject the concept altogether. Don't just apply a double standard.

Personally I think the entire concept of "national war guilt" is intrinsically absurd and contrary to the methods of class analysis.

In a word....

WORD.

[JamesH]

Well, the best way I can describe this is to briefly point out the recent history of oil earnings, and oil prices:

1. Fueled by the relatively high prices of oil in the 1974-1984 period, US petroleum countries gorged themselves on accumulating assets, acreage, and PPE. Between 1974 and 1981, the asset base of those companies reporting to the US DOE's Financial Reporting System tripled.

2. Of course, production, and the overproduction of oil as a commodity during this period of relatively slower overall growth had to, eventually, bring the prices down, with a thud. At one point during the 1980s, more oil tankers were being used as floating warehouses than were being used to transport oil.

That thud was 1986, with its ongoing price declines which brought the oil companies up short, began the process of gutting the US residential housing markets, brought several US banks in great distress [since some international loans had assumed oil-- the price of oil-- as collateral], and... put the fSU between the proverbial rock [not shale] and the hard place.

3. Massive divestment became the oil major's business plan, with money from the divestitures used to pay down debt, for share buybacks, and other elements of "maximizing shareholder value." This Grand Destockage [pardon my French] was accompanied of course by reduction in employment. Employment in the oil majors fell by some 55% between 1982 and 1992. Exploration and development spending in the 1990-1992 period was reduced a further 30% over the already reduced level of the 1986-1989 period.

4. By 1995, however, with the generalized expansion of the US industrial and manufacturing base, oil prices had increased for 3 straight years, while the direct production costs for the US companies, offshore/onshore, and worldwide had declined due to the advances in horizontal drilling, 3D seismic imaging etc.

Finding costs also reached historical lows, but finding costs, defined as exploration and development costs divided by reserve additions is NOT a good marker, as reserves are an economic category, defined as the amount of oil that can produced over a set period of time, with the given technology, at a current price, and at a profit.

5. In 1996 the FRS participants reported a 52% rise in net income, with profitability at its highest levels since the 1979-1981 [OPEC 2] period. Net income from gas and oil production doubled between 1995 and 1996. Per barrel costs of extracting oil and gas fell sharply in the US and foreign operations of the FRS companies. Between 1991-1996 direct lifting costs declined by approximately 35 percent, while productivity, output per active well increased in the domestic portion by 17% and in the overseas portion by 41% [OECD Europe area had the highest productivity per well of all regions].

Net income as a % of total invested capital finally for the FRS companies, matched and overtook that of the same measure for the S&P industritals.

6. 1997 was another record profit year for the FRS companies, although a 10% decline in the price of oil near year end did not bode well. Said the DOE's Energy Information Agency annual Performance Profile of Major Energy Companies:



The FRS companies were still recording reduced lifting and finding costs and greater exploratory success rates. That measure stood at 36% success rate in 1985, and 51% in 1997 despite/because of the increase in drilling.

7. 1998 was the year when oil prices fell to a 25 year low, with prices breaking below the $10/barrel market. Iraq essentially doubled 1997's production, provoking various expressions of displeasure from the FRS companies. Net income as a percentage of total invested capital declined to about 6-7% while the S&P industrials measured theirs at 12.7%

1998, of course, was when our "neo-oil-cons" got together to produce their seminal work on the forthcoming American century, particularly in the Mideast and the need to get rid of Iraq's Hussein. Just a coincidence, I'm sure, as otherwise one would think there might be a conspiracy.. a convergence of interests presented as something other than what it was. Or that these people did what they did with the end purpose, the telos of restoring profitability.

8. Anyway, the Saudis, not known for their telos, responded to the anguished cries of the FRS companies, and lo and behold in 1999 oil prices rose from $10 to $24/barrel. The Saudis reduced production, but that m-%$^&%#@#-ing Hussein increase Iraq's production.

The doubling of the net income of the FRS companies was not sufficient to raise profitability of the FRS companies to the average profitability of the other lartge industrial companies.

9. Another increase in prices in 2000 brought record high profits for the FRS companies. Capital expenditures nearly doubled, however 90% of that expense was the costs of the merger and acquisition activity that took place between the companies.

Nevertheless replacement of reserves "through the drillbit"-- expanding known reserves from developed fields, again a reflection of the economic category called reserves-- was the 2nd highest since 1974. The FRS companies replaced 166 percent of their onshore production, 136 percent of offshore, and 119 percent of foreign production. And, oh holy of holies, for only the 2nd time in 2 decades, the profitability of the FRS companies exceed that of the S&P industrial companies.

10, 2002 saw a 45% decline in the FRS net earnings. Net income from oil and gas production was down 21% due in large part to the glut of natural gas in the US and the recession related slowdown.

Return on investment declined to 9.9% world wide.

But...

11. But there was good news ahead, because...because at the end of 2002, oil prices started to recover as Bush [remember] increased the saber-rattling vs. Iraq, which with its record of exceeding production quotas was doing to US producers what Kuwait in 1991, by violating its production quotas had done to Irag.

There was no shortage of oil supplies, no threat to oil supplies, no restriction in the Straits of Hormuz threatened by Hussein, no declining reserves, no "peak," no "post-peak"-- none of that. There was a decline in profitability. There was overproduction and that got us to,,,


12. 2003 and the invasion of Iraq, and that long run of 3-4 years the oil companies had making money the old fashioned way, through redistribution of all social profits through the mechanism of price.

Now I'm sure that this counts as a "wall of text" and will cause Kotze to resume foaming at the mouth, but too fucking bad. I can't find the graphic comic version in my files for every idiot who needs pictures.

You might also want to recall the "secret meeting" regarding the "energy crisis" held by Dick Cheney and the captains of the energy industry in 2001-- you remember the one Cheney refused to provide the transcripts of the discussions?

Do I think the captains walked in there and told good old boy Dick, "Goddamit, Dick, we're dying here with this overproduction. Go in there and do something get that price up and keep it up!"? You bet I do. Even better, I think Dick told them before they even had a chance to say it. That's how good a good old boy Dick is.

I appreciate the long response and I don't wish to dispute your statistics. However, I wish to dispute the way the scenario unfolds.

First, I think the influence of the oil industry on Bush/Cheney is overestimated; they certainly weren't oil men.

Secondly, there is evidence that oil companies did not want war and prefer stability to the chaos that follows war. Rather than copying and pasting, let me refer you to Ismael Hossein-Zadeh's article on oil wars:

http://www.counterpunch.org/zadeh07092008.html

[JamesH]

What I don't understand about this discussion is, if the tendency to war is inherent in capitalism, why have there been no major world wars since the second? Why has Germany's foreign policy outlook fundamentally changed?

[Robocommie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90g0KyolR7M&feature=related

[Queercommie Girl]

What I don't understand about this discussion is, if the tendency to war is inherent in capitalism, why have there been no major world wars since the second? Why has Germany's foreign policy outlook fundamentally changed?

What I don't understand is why some people can be stupid enough to blame WWII on something fundamental to the "German nation", rather than say, the particular level of development of 20th century capitalism compared with those of previous centuries.

Even in terms of atrocities during WWII, the Japanese were actually even more brutal than the Germans. The Japanese massacred more Chinese than the Germans massacred the Jews. So why not speak of a Japanese "national war guilt" as well? Surely whatever analysis Paul Cockshott is using towards Nazi Germany can equally apply to Imperial Japan?

Maybe the Japs fucking deserved to get nuked in Hiroshima for what they did to the Chinese?

[S.Artesian]

What I don't understand about this discussion is, if the tendency to war is inherent in capitalism, why have there been no major world wars since the second? Why has Germany's foreign policy outlook fundamentally changed?


This requires a separate thread.

[JoeySteel]

I am amazed at the efforts people go to to avoid the simple admission that Germany was the aggressor and bore responsibility for the war. It is a very convenient position to take because it avoids having to admit that the Soviets were the "good guys" in the war and Soviet reparations were necessary if that conflicts with one's precious political beliefs.

[JamesH]

What I don't understand is why some people can be stupid enough to blame WWII on something fundamental to the "German nation", rather than say, the particular level of development of 20th century capitalism compared with those of previous centuries.

Even in terms of atrocities during WWII, the Japanese were actually even more brutal than the Germans. The Japanese massacred more Chinese than the Germans massacred the Jews. So why not speak of a Japanese "national war guilt" as well? Surely whatever analysis Paul Cockshott is using towards Nazi Germany can equally apply to Imperial Japan?

Maybe the Japs fucking deserved to get nuked in Hiroshima for what they did to the Chinese?

We might be able to; Germany is focused on because it was transformed from a multi-party republic to a one-party state. We have exact figures on working class participation in elections and in NSDAP membership. There is much more responsibility there, since the Nazis had a significant portion of the vote and there was little active resistance and much accomodation, if not outright enthusiasm.

[S.Artesian]

We might be able to; Germany is focused on because it was transformed from a multi-party republic to a one-party state. We have exact figures on working class participation in elections and in NSDAP membership. There is much more responsibility there, since the Nazis had a significant portion of the vote and there was little active resistance and much accomodation, if not outright enthusiasm.

Try not to leave out the the actual street combat that took place between Nazis and communists, would you, when you're passing around your accommodation wafers at this holy communion of the guilty.

And try not to leave out the arrest, imprisonment, exile, of much of the working class leadership.

I mean I know it doesn't count as much as those contributions made by Vickers, and Boeing, and all the good bourgeoisie, but it must count for something.

What boggles the mind about Cockshott and I presume also you with your guilt arguments is that you are so ready to assign guilt to the German "people," but absolutely opposed to assigning any responsibility to the leaders of the official Communist Party for the absolutely hare-brained, self-destructive practices of "social fascism" and "Nach Hitler, Uns."

"We can't know," moans the agnostic Cockshott, "We can never really know, because to know means we would have to know what all the actors would know about all others knowing the knowing.....blahblahblahblah.

Yeah, we do know. That's why history is recorded. So we can't pretend to be stupid any longer.

All this... this shit about German guilt is just an attempt to evade the actual, practical analysis of what happened in that period; and what those events meant regarding the interaction of party and class.

[JamesH]

I think this thread may have gone off a little from the original point.

Let's suppose for the sake of argument that international capitalism in the abstract is the real culprit of the war, and that German imperialism was fundamentally no different than the tendencies that existed in England, France, etc. (which I insist is bizarre, given the obsessive antisemitism overt racial supremacy that characterized Nazi foreign policy)

Even if we see the German fascist rulers as nothing more than instantiations of capital, even if they rule in the name of capital rather than the Volk, they still rule. Hitler, not capital, ordered tanks across Poland and France, the SS and its collaborators, not capital, murdered millions of people. Himmler may have unknowingly acted only to further capital's interest, but he still acted and possesses responsibility for uncountable death and destruction.

German people of all classes voted for these rulers and actively and passively supported them and their ventures, at least until the Allies brought the war back to them. There were no major acts of resistance perpetrated against the Nazis by homegrown German elements. Contrast this with Soviet peasants, who fought in conditions of near civil war in the countryside when resisting Stalinist collectivization policies.

[DaringMehring]

We might be able to; Germany is focused on because it was transformed from a multi-party republic to a one-party state. We have exact figures on working class participation in elections and in NSDAP membership. There is much more responsibility there, since the Nazis had a significant portion of the vote and there was little active resistance and much accomodation, if not outright enthusiasm.

This is really a new low; putting the blame of Nazism on the proletariat. You remove from history the fact that, despite the horribly mistaken Comintern-KPD line, the German working class fought the Nazis including the use of physical force, as documented in Eva Rosenhaft's book "Beating the Nazis." You are simply wrong about "little active resistance."

The second part of your blundering is you apparently believe bourgeois democracy is a mirror of social wants and not an institution of class domination. Some workers voted for the Nazis -- that doesn't mean the Nazis were an institution and phenomenon of the proletariat, any more than workers voting for Democrats or Republicans mean those are proletarian institutions.

Some German proletariat were enthusiastic about the Nazis -- sure. There have always been racists in all the social classes. More, the Nazis played at socialist rhetoric, and some Germans believed that they would indeed break the bourgeois power that had been oppressing them. So, some German proletarians were deceived. And? How is that separate from the objective conditions of capitalist collapse? In non-economic-disaster periods, where are the Nazis? They survive in small quantities but they only find an audience for their views when people are willing to go against the social system which is no longer working for them -- why today we've seen a small resurgence of the far right.

In short, while I've given copious well-researched paragraphs, and several posts of logical materialist argument, I have yet to see anything other than one or two line non-materialist rejoinders that don't address my basic points but rather try to point to the German proletariat as the source of Nazism.

It's like NGNM part 2.

[JamesH]

Try not to leave out the the actual street combat that took place between Nazis and communists, would you, when you're passing around your accommodation wafers at this holy communion of the guilty.

And try not to leave out the arrest, imprisonment, exile, of much of the working class leadership.

I mean I know it doesn't count as much as those contributions made by Vickers, and Boeing, and all the good bourgeoisie, but it must count for something.

What boggles the mind about Cockshott and I presume also you with your guilt arguments is that you are so ready to assign guilt to the German "people," but absolutely opposed to assigning any responsibility to the leaders of the official Communist Party for the absolutely hare-brained, self-destructive practices of "social fascism" and "Nach Hitler, Uns."

"We can't know," moans the agnostic Cockshott, "We can never really know, because to know means we would have to know what all the actors would know about all others knowing the knowing.....blahblahblahblah.

Yeah, we do know. That's why history is recorded. So we can't pretend to be stupid any longer.

All this... this shit about German guilt is just an attempt to evade the actual, practical analysis of what happened in that period; and what those events meant regarding the interaction of party and class.

Yes, there was fighting...when the Nazis were out of power. Where was the fighting after they won?

The fact is that, until the war, the Nazis enjoyed a fairly broad base of popular support. Those who voted for and supported them, yes, do bear a large responsibility for the crimes they committed and the wars they started.

No one denies that some extremely brave individuals (mostly communists and social democrats) actively resisted Hitler. But, comparatively, there weren't that many.

[JamesH]

This is really a new low; putting the blame of Nazism on the proletariat. You remove from history the fact that, despite the horribly mistaken Comintern-KPD line, the German working class fought the Nazis including the use of physical force, as documented in Eva Rosenhaft's book "Beating the Nazis." You are simply wrong about "little active resistance."

The second part of your blundering is you apparently believe bourgeois democracy is a mirror of social wants and not an institution of class domination. Some workers voted for the Nazis -- that doesn't mean the Nazis were an institution and phenomenon of the proletariat, any more than workers voting for Democrats or Republicans mean those are proletarian institutions.

Some German proletariat were enthusiastic about the Nazis -- sure. There have always been racists in all the social classes. More, the Nazis played at socialist rhetoric, and some Germans believed that they would indeed break the bourgeois power that had been oppressing them. So, some German proletarians were deceived. And? How is that separate from the objective conditions of capitalist collapse? In non-economic-disaster periods, where are the Nazis? They survive in small quantities but they only find an audience for their views when people are willing to go against the social system which is no longer working for them -- why today we've seen a small resurgence of the far right.

In short, while I've given copious well-researched paragraphs, and several posts of logical materialist argument, I have yet to see anything other than one or two line non-materialist rejoinders that don't address my basic points but rather try to point to the German proletariat as the source of Nazism.

It's like NGNM part 2.

No one is claiming the "proletariat" is the source of Naziism. What is claimed is that a large portion of the German population, which includes parts of the working class, bears responsibility for the Nazis and the war they started.

I agree that the republic is a form of class domination. However, universal suffrage does give the majority of people some leverage over politics. The Nazis had an explicit programme of expansionism and racial supremacy. Anyone who voted for that platform is responsible for its implementation, no matter how "deceived" you believe the working class was.


German working class fought the Nazis including the use of physical force

Really? Every single member? Then the Nazis would not have won.

Also, you can't start history at 1930 and marvel at the stupidity of the KPD's social fascism line. It's not as if there was no previous animosity between the KPD and SPD that rendered unity extremely difficult.

[S.Artesian]

I think this thread may have gone off a little from the original point.

Let's suppose for the sake of argument that international capitalism in the abstract is the real culprit of the war, and that German imperialism was fundamentally no different than the tendencies that existed in England, France, etc. (which I insist is bizarre, given the obsessive antisemitism overt racial supremacy that characterized Nazi foreign policy)

Even if we see the German fascist rulers as nothing more than instantiations of capital, even if they rule in the name of capital rather than the Volk, they still rule. Hitler, not capital, ordered tanks across Poland and France, the SS and its collaborators, not capital, murdered millions of people. Himmler may have unknowingly acted only to further capital's interest, but he still acted and possesses responsibility for uncountable death and destruction.

German people of all classes voted for these rulers and actively and passively supported them and their ventures, at least until the Allies brought the war back to them. There were no major acts of resistance perpetrated against the Nazis by homegrown German elements. Contrast this with Soviet peasants, who fought in conditions of near civil war in the countryside when resisting Stalinist collectivization policies.


Cut the crap, please. Nobody is saying capitalism in the abstract killed anybody. We're saying capitalism in the concrete created this circumstances and drove the actions of the classes and the agents of those classes. Part of that concrete capitalism was:

1) the depression for which the bourgeoisie didn't seem to be able to find a remedy, except through forced labor and the production/destruction brought by the war; at least in the US for the New Deal was pretty much of a bust. Or maybe the depression played no part in creating the setting for WW2? Except in Germany? Do us a favor....

2) US, French, British, Belgian, Dutch industrialists and bankers had actively cooperated, collaborated in industrial cartels, restrictions of production, technical exchanges with their German counterparts. Or maybe the bankers, industrialists really didn't participate in those cartels. Didn't really undertake the protection of their own assets through the protection of German assets from the advance of the workers?

3) These other bourgeoisie did this knowing full well what was the likely outcome of their collaboration with the German counterparts-- war. Or maybe only the German bourgeoisie knew what the outcome would be? Sure that's why everybody was making arrangements in 1938, 39 for the resumption of "normal" relations after the war.

4) these other bourgeoisie hardly suffered as much as the workers in these other countries thrown into this conflagration. Or maybe they did, and only the German bourgeoisie didn't really suffer? Yeah, those bankers assigned as officers in the Allied armies of occupation who moved heaven and earth, or actually tried to stop the movement of earth, in order to protect and restore their German partners, they suffered like motherfuckers. Regular fuckin' grunts, those guys.

5) these other bourgeoisie made strenuous efforts to protect the assets and the livelihoods of their German counterparts during and after the war. See above.

It's business, sonny boy. Get it?

[DaringMehring]

Even if we see the German fascist rulers as nothing more than instantiations of capital, even if they rule in the name of capital rather than the Volk, they still rule. Hitler, not capital, ordered tanks across Poland and France, the SS and its collaborators, not capital, murdered millions of people. Himmler may have unknowingly acted only to further capital's interest, but he still acted and possesses responsibility for uncountable death and destruction.


I think the basic difference, is that you appear to think we are exonerating the Nazis. Incorrect: we condemn the Nazis and indict capitalism, while you appear to attempt to exonerate capitalism.

In short, you say "Hitler, not capital" was responsible for blitzkrieg, while I say "Hitler and capital" were responsible for the blitzkrieg.

You cannot put it all down to one act -- one man pushing a button -- when the reason that man was in the place he was, with the power he had, stems directly from capitalism.

Similarly, we condemn violent criminals today, but we also recognize that crime is a function of poverty and inequality, and thus that the capitalist system is ultimately to blame.



German people of all classes voted for these rulers and actively and passively supported them and their ventures, at least until the Allies brought the war back to them. There were no major acts of resistance perpetrated against the Nazis by homegrown German elements. Contrast this with Soviet peasants, who fought in conditions of near civil war in the countryside when resisting Stalinist collectivization policies.

You are simply wrong about the lack of resistance to the Nazis. I previously cited the book "Beating the Fascists" which deals with this. After achieving power, the Nazis were ruthless in their repression, including against their own Party, and so the resistance became next to impossible.

It is also a bit bizarre, that you focus on the culpability of the German people for voting, when, Hitler never gained a majority in anything resembling a free and fair election, but rather sealed power by appointment by Hindenburg -- aristocrat and military man.

[S.Artesian]

I appreciate the long response and I don't wish to dispute your statistics. However, I wish to dispute the way the scenario unfolds.

First, I think the influence of the oil industry on Bush/Cheney is overestimated; they certainly weren't oil men.

Secondly, there is evidence that oil companies did not want war and prefer stability to the chaos that follows war. Rather than copying and pasting, let me refer you to Ismael Hossein-Zadeh's article on oil wars:

http://www.counterpunch.org/zadeh07092008.html


Sorry, you need to go back and check yourself. Cheney is/was/whatever CEO of Halliburton, which includes major oil servicing subsidiaries in its corporate structure.

Bush most certainly comes from a background of close connections with the oil industry. Texas? Ever hear of that?




Check the contributors to the Bush campaign. Hey, remember Enron, and "Kenny Boy Lay"?

Cheney has extensive connections with energy [coal, oil, and gas] interests in Wyoming, where he started out as a member of the US House of Representatives.

As for the desire of the oil industry for stability in the Mideast... that is complete, and utter horseshit. They desire profits. They made money hand over fist during the war and the run up to the war as the instability was used to whipsaw the markets.

If you actually read the article you cite, you will see that once again you are confusing oil as a value with the existence of oil as a physical substance, a use value. The author of the Counterpunch article specifically and explicitly targets the horseshit hoax of Peak Oil-- i.e. oil is running out, supplies are dwindling-- as a cause for the war. As I stated in the earlier post, I absolutely do not thing supplies, reserves, amounts, quantities, peaks, post-peaks of oil had anything to do with this war.

The authors remarks about "expensive oil" are far less persuasive, since the oil companies enjoyed record profits during the war, capturing tremendous profits... and it is well known that they had complained about Iraq's increased production since in fact it was undermining their profits.

Right the US oil industry wants "stability." All of capitalism wants stability. Sure they do. Everything will be peace and harmony if only the capitalists could have their way. It would be the fucking age of Aquarius, peace, love and understanding... except... How the fuck do the bourgeoisie then get themselves involved in these armed conflicts? Are there Germans everywhere?

I strongly recommend you go back and read the first three chapters of Vol 1 of Capital, follow that with Marx's Economic Manuscripts in vols 33 and 34 of the collected works in order to avoid repeating this same error of confusing oil as a physical quantity with oil as a value.

[S.Artesian]

From:http://www.knowthecandidates.org/ktc/bushcontributors.htm
(http://www.knowthecandidates.org/ktc/bushcontributors.htm)




Oil & Gas: Bush $1,463,799 - Gore $95,460 (Bush once said "You can't get too close to the oil industry")That's 15:1 for Bush, comrade


From: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/industrybucks.htm

Energy and Natural Resources
Bush: $3,938,588
Kerry: $372,842


That's 11:1, obviously the oil industry was looking for stability.

[Robocommie]

This is actually a pretty interesting thread.

[S.Artesian]

From All Honorable Men:


Certain phrases in the Dusseldorf Agreement of 1939 began to take on a new meaning. The Federation of British Industries had felt at that time that Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia made no differenceto the soundness of the wllaboration program with the Reichsgruppe Industrie. Hitler's march had merely "created a situation which, while it lasts, has made further progress impossible."

Now that British troops held the Ruhr, was "further progress"possible? In the Dusseldorf Agreement, the British and German groups had said that their objective was "to ensure that as a result of an agreement between their industries unhealthy competition shall be removed.''

Looking back on chis agreement after the war, the point was not that industries in Britain and Germany had eliminated competition among themselves, but that they had done so as part of a new "way of life." Private industries were to arrange markets to suit their own convenience, and then enlist the help of their governments to beat down opposition. A particular enemy was the antitrust legislation in the United States, which stood in the way of this new form of private world government. As the men at Dusseldorf had put it: "The two organizations realize that in certain cases the advantages of agreements between the industries of two countries or of a group of countries may be nullified by competition from the industries in some other country that refuses to become a party to the agreement. In such circumstances it may be necessary for the organizers to obtain the help of their governments and the two organizations agree to collaborate in seeking that help."

This provision had been so evidently aimed at the United States, whose industries could not legally join in such a scheme, that the head of the British Board of Trade, Mr. Oliver Stanley, was questioned on it in the House of Commons on March 21, 1939. His reply had a double meaning. He said, "There is nothing in this agreement intended to be or that would be in conflict with the interests of American industry."

Now the British element at Berlin, under Sir Percy Mills's direction, was plugging for enough exceptions to make possible a revival of the German cartels and combines under other names. The argument was that the combines in heavy industry should be kept intact
so as to make it easier to ''nationalize'' them. Sir Percy, a hardbitten Tory, was talking like a socialist, as though he favored public ownership of industry. It was centralization of power he was after.

Sir Percy was battling to retain certain focal points of economic power, especially in the Ruhr, to help the British position in international trade. For that, he seemed willing to risk setting the German juggernaut loose again. In the background was the need to make Britain independent of dollar loans.

Before Lend-Lease came to the rescue in the early stages of the war, practically all British foreign investments had heen liquidated to supply the British Treasury with foreign exchange, especially dollars, for military supplies. Now we could expect some desperate gambles on the revival of German power as Britain tried to write the Declaration
of Independence in reverse English.

The wrangling and cross-purposes in the American element at Berlin likewise were not just word battles. Soon after I arrived I was asked to attend a meeting of all branch and section chiefs of the Economics Division, to explain the policies and program of my new branch. We met around the hollow table in General Clay's conference room. My explanation was greeted with a chorus of objections, especially from men like Rufus Wysor, former president of Republic Steel Corporation, who was then head of the Steel Section in the Industry Branch. These objections were not directed merely at my proposed program, but at the whole policy of reorganizing the German cartels and combines. All findings of the wartime investigations wcre rejected as though we had learned nothing. The argument started from the very beginning. "What's wrong with cartels, anyhow?" "Why shouldn't these German
businessmen run things the way they are used to?" "What proof have you that any of these agreements ever restricted any production?" "German business is flat on its hack. Why bother them with all this new stuff?'' pgs 171-173


So to summarize, an agreement British industry had struck with Reichsgruppe Industrie to eliminate competition, and to seek government intervention against "3rd parties," interrupted, unfortunately, by Hitler's march into the Sudetenland, was revived by the same Brit twit who had struck the deal just as soon as he could when the war ended. And he received the support of the Economics section of the US occupying force as embodied by the former president of Republic Steel.

Tell me again how aberrant the German bourgeoisie were. How atavistic they were compared to our proper British industrialists, and our democratic US industrialists.

[Queercommie Girl]

We might be able to; Germany is focused on because it was transformed from a multi-party republic to a one-party state. We have exact figures on working class participation in elections and in NSDAP membership. There is much more responsibility there, since the Nazis had a significant portion of the vote and there was little active resistance and much accomodation, if not outright enthusiasm.

Fact: the majority didn't vote for the Nazi party in the official elections. What stats are you using?

If you are just talking about "popular support" in the vague sense, well then frankly there is at least just as much support for the Emperor of Japan and Japanese imperialism among the ordinary peoples of Japan, if not more. Witness how many fanatical Japanese people were willing to sacrifice their lives against a potential American invasion of the Japanese homeland towards the end of WWII. Many civilians volunteered for the kamikazi strikes on American ships.

In fact, there wasn't even as much resistance against Imperialism in Japan domestically as there was against the Nazis within Germany.

Not to mention to this day the Japanese state still officially refuses to apologise for WWII, whereas Germany has done this long ago. Japan's national religion - Shintoism, still reveres WWII war criminals as saints officially. I never see Christians in Germany, not matter how right-wing, do the same.

So objectively there is more of a case to argue for "Japanese national war guilt" than there is to argue for "German national war guilt", to be frank. The fact that Imperial Japan had a semi-feudal political superstructure and had no popular elections like Germany did is not substantial.

[Die Neue Zeit]

absolutely opposed to assigning any responsibility to the leaders of the official Communist Party for the absolutely hare-brained, self-destructive practices of "social fascism" and "Nach Hitler, Uns."

Social Corporatism is a very real phenomenon. Social Fascism proper just emerged with the likes of Blue Labour.

[Queercommie Girl]

I am amazed at the efforts people go to to avoid the simple admission that Germany was the aggressor and bore responsibility for the war. It is a very convenient position to take because it avoids having to admit that the Soviets were the "good guys" in the war and Soviet reparations were necessary if that conflicts with one's precious political beliefs.

And why just focus on Germany and not Japan? Does this mean you think China were not the "good guys" like the Soviet Union were, or that the Asian battlefront in WWII was less important than the European battlefront?

One shouldn't just talk about a "nation" in a hand-waving way as if it's just a singular entity, without applying any kind of class analysis.

You tell me, what exactly is a "nation"?

[Queercommie Girl]

With the loony "revolutionary" defeatist attitude in that rape thread,

Yes, of course, to argue for the unconditional condemnation of mass rape against working class women is a form of "revolutionary defeatism". :rolleyes:

The great glorious cause of socialist revolution can really be furthered by raping working class women!

Congratulations, you have really progressed since your Caesarean Socialism days.

[Queercommie Girl]

Any shit that puts national boundaries above class boundaries must be criticised by all genuine socialists. This sums up the whole thread.

[Queercommie Girl]

Social Corporatism is a very real phenomenon. Social Fascism proper just emerged with the likes of Blue Labour.

Now as much as I dislike a lot of your other points, you have made a valid observation here. (Only on this narrow issue though)

[Queercommie Girl]

Let's suppose for the sake of argument that international capitalism in the abstract is the real culprit of the war, and that German imperialism was fundamentally no different than the tendencies that existed in England, France, etc. (which I insist is bizarre, given the obsessive antisemitism overt racial supremacy that characterized Nazi foreign policy)


As opposed to what? Systematic racism against non-whites like Blacks, Indians, Native Americans, Chinese by British imperialism and American imperialism? Or even the systematic racism against other Asian ethnicities like the Chinese by Imperial Japan?

So the slaughter of tens of millions of Native Americans is not as bad as anti-Semitism? The Atlantic slave trade is not as bad as anti-Semitism? The brutal military subjugation of India is not as bad as anti-Semitism? The slaughter of 20 million Chinese people by Imperial Japan in WWII is not as bad as anti-Semitism? Contemporary Islamophobic Zionism is not as bad as anti-Semitism? WTF?

The Jews are the only people who have ever suffered at the hands of imperialism right?

In what way is German imperialism fundamentally different from American and British imperialism, or even Japanese imperialism?

[S.Artesian]

Social Corporatism is a very real phenomenon. Social Fascism proper just emerged with the likes of Blue Labour.


Except.... social corporatism was not a foundation of Weimar. Oh.. these pesky details.

I mean Peron certainly integrated the labor movement in Argentina into the corporate state [in his first go round], but even that was based on expelling the left, suppressing socialists, etc.

In his second coming, more correctly by the time of his second coming, the corporatism had cracked apart at the seams, with the right Peronists [supported by Peron himself] teamed up with the AAA [anti-communist alliance], and the "left Peronists," in and out of the labor movement, establishing collaborative relations with Marxist groups, Gueveraists, even some Trotskyists, particularly when the ERP broke with the 4th Intl.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but concrete history is a lot more valuable than these abstractions about "social fascism."

Your slavish adherence to third period Stalinism is exceeded only by your hostility to the working class which is on display in everything you write.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yes, of course, to argue for the unconditional condemnation of mass rape against working class women is a form of "revolutionary defeatism". :rolleyes:

Putting scandalous words into my mouth, are we? I was referring to the notion of workers overthrowing all sides in WWII when they were in no position to do so, of supporting none of the parties in that conflict.

[S.Artesian]

Putting scandalous words into my mouth, are we? I was referring to the notion of workers overthrowing all sides in WWII when they were in no position to do so, of supporting none of the parties in that conflict.


And exactly where did that come up? Where in that thread did you announce your support for the US/British/French/Chinese bourgeoisie?

Where did others espouse "revolutionary defeatism" in that thread?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Except.... social corporatism was not a foundation of Weimar. Oh.. these pesky details.

I mean Peron certainly integrated the labor movement in Argentina into the corporate state [in his first go round], but even that was based on expelling the left, suppressing socialists, etc.

In his second coming, more correctly by the time of his second coming, the corporatism had cracked apart at the seams, with the right Peronists [supported by Peron himself] teamed up with the AAA [anti-communist alliance], and the "left Peronists," in and out of the labor movement, establishing collaborative relations with Marxist groups, Gueveraists, even some Trotskyists, particularly when the ERP broke with the 4th Intl.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but concrete history is a lot more valuable than these abstractions about "social fascism."

Your slavish adherence to third period Stalinism is exceeded only by your hostility to the working class which is on display in everything you write.

I refer you to the spectrum of corporatism here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/uk-labour-party-t155638/index.html?p=2131959


Like what Mussolini thought of as Fascism (the exclusive form of Corporatism), "Social Fascism" wasn't fully developed at the time, yet Corporatism has a broad enough spectrum that ranges from Fascism on the far-right and Social Corporatism ("social democracy") on the left. It is characterized by many aspects, only some of which I'll mention here:

- Policy bias towards economic rentiers of all kinds (commercial and other landlordism, finance capital from vulture/"venture" capital to "bankers," media barons over the broadcast spectrum)
- Granting fictitious "persons" more "rights" than actual people (no, the original idea of limited liability behind the formation of corporations doesn't count)
- Political incorporation, ranging from post-WWII tripartite arrangements in Western Europe (government, businesses, and unions) to non-profit organization fetishes way beyond mere bourgeois philanthropy under neoliberalism

[FYI, Point #1 merely amplifies Michael Hudson's material.]

[RedSunRising]

Your slavish adherence to third period Stalinism is exceeded only by your hostility to the working class which is on display in everything you write.

I and a German comrade here, along with the Communist Party of France Marxist-Leninist-Maoist are sympathetic to the positions taken by the so called "Third Period", however I dont see any slavish adherence to it on DNZ's part. Rather unlike many on this forum who simply dismiss it as "crazy" while having no understanding of it, he can see why it came about and what was of value in it, thats not slavish adherence.

[S.Artesian]

I refer you to the spectrum of corporatism here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/uk-labour-party-t155638/index.html?p=2131959



[FYI, Point #1 merely amplifies Michael Hudson's material.]


So social democracy can include "corporatism.." sure like I suppose FDR tried to incorporate the union movement into his political support... uh, oh wait... I recall Cockschott finding that notion "curious," as clearly the union were solely defensive formations of the working class... oh well so what? So FDR, whose economic advisors admitted to studying Mussolini's fascism in their attempts to refloat the US economy, might share more in common with Peron than Americans want to admit?

But specifically, not all social corporatism is "social fascism." OK? FDR was not a social fascist. Weimar was not social fascism.

Do try and stay in touch with the concrete history here, on more than just a random basis.

PS. And I did look at that thread, and the Tea Party is most definitely NOT, in organization, financing, slupport, or program, a movement of labor, by labor, for labor, populated by laborers.

[S.Artesian]

I and a German comrade here, along with the Communist Party of France Marxist-Leninist-Maoist are sympathetic to the positions taken by the so called "Third Period", however I dont see any slavish adherence to it on DNZ's part. Rather unlike many on this forum who simply dismiss it as "crazy" while having no understanding of it, he can see why it came about and what was of value in it, thats not slavish adherence.

Thanks for that. That is very helpful. You call it rational, dispassionate, objective examination. I call it slavish adherence, infatuation, promotion, etc.

You don't see it because you agree with the politics of that period. I see it because I don't agree with those politics.

Maybe somewhere DNZ has produced a critical analysis of "Nach Hitler, Uns"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Check out the Third-Period Marxist-Leninists usergroup for yourself to read indeed a critical analysis of "Nach Hitler, Uns." :glare:


So social democracy can include "corporatism.."

Wrong. Social Democracy is inherently corporatist.


And I did look at that thread, and the Tea Party is most definitely NOT, in organization, financing, slupport, or program, a movement of labor, by labor, for labor, populated by laborers.

I said the Tea Party was either a fascist or proto-fascist tendency like the EDL.

[JoeySteel]

And why just focus on Germany and not Japan? Does this mean you think China were not the "good guys" like the Soviet Union were, or that the Asian battlefront in WWII was less important than the European battlefront?

One shouldn't just talk about a "nation" in a hand-waving way as if it's just a singular entity, without applying any kind of class analysis.

You tell me, what exactly is a "nation"?

I'm much more familiar with the German war. Part of this is my own bias as a person of European descent who has learned a Eurocentric war history, I am sure. Just the same, my reasons for placing ultimate guilt on the German aggressors were to do with the massive losses of life they inflicted, the role they played in initiating the overall war, etc. FYI, I don't think German imperialism was qualitatively different from other historical imperialisms. That doesn't mean that it was not the primary aggressor and guilty party of the war.

I think we all know in this forum, and it doesn't really need to be pointed out, that the "nation" is not an air tight concept, and that one cannot conceivably attribute ANYTHING to "the nation as a whole" and not have exceptions or holes in the story. This isn't a remarkable revelation. However, the German state, the "legitimate" state power of the territory of the German "nation" did, through exercise of state power, using Germans to exercise the material, military, and political power of the German state, bear responsibility for the major aggressive actions which led to 70 million deaths, all in the name of Germany. This wasn't a fiction.

FYI, I think in reality Japan should have bore responsibility for paying reparations to the Asian countries it terrorized. Of course we both know that what happened is that where the US succeeded, it was more concerned with ensuring politico-economic hegemony or cooperation against the USSR than attempting to replace the damage done. It's sad that in the end, the only state which paid reparations to those who suffered most (the USSR and Soviet people) was the fellow socialist GDR. The reparations paid by the GDR were massive and may have tragically crippled East German development in its infancy. Nevertheless, was it not correct that the inheritors of the aggressor German state pay recompense as the ultimate guilty party? Frankly I think it was inevitable and a bunch of people on an internet forum poking holes in the "theory of the nation" doesn't change history.

[S.Artesian]

This is pointless. Capitalism is inherently corporatist. So what? What counts is how, why, when, and in what forms, that corporatism is expressed. That's called being able to apprehend history, or in the vernacular, distinguish your ass from a hole in the ground.

Let me repeat my earlier question: In the preceding thread on rape, where is there support for your assertion about positions of "revolutionary defeatism"?

[Paul Cockshott]

Even in terms of atrocities during WWII, the Japanese were actually even more brutal than the Germans. The Japanese massacred more Chinese than the Germans massacred the Jews. So why not speak of a Japanese "national war guilt" as well? Surely whatever analysis Paul Cockshott is using towards Nazi Germany can equally apply to Imperial Japan?

Japan was also an agressive imperialist power and engaged in merciless agression against China that led to even more deaths than German agression in Eastern Europe.
The war in Asia had a more complex nature though. It is certainly arguable that in its war with Britain Japan played a progressive role. The liberation of India and Burma from British rule became certain after Signapore fell to Japan. That punctured once and for all the racialist claims that Asians could not defeat white men. But this war against Britain was very much subsidiary to Japan's criminal agession against China.

[Forward Union]

Well, what is "Germany" ? do you mean the Nazi state?

Because if you look at a map of Germany from before 1945, you're realise that Germany today is only two thirds the size it used to be. Konigsberg, a beautiful modern, medieval looking city, with a busy night life, famous for its philosophers and artists, might not be on your holiday list, because it was erased off the face of the earth and turned into a Soviet Port - it's population forced to move to within the borders of the current Germany.

The working class people who lived in Ostprussian Germany (now Poland and Russia) for example, were forced from their homes, beaten, raped and killed, from 1945 onwardin one of the largest forced removals in European history. And I don't think they were responsible for the atrocities committed by their government. Some individuals involved in it may have been, but I don't believe in collective punishment. The German government actually considered the entire north of Poland to be an Allied occupied zone of Germany until the 1990s when it realised Poland was there to stay.

Only those who were actually responsible, who were guilty for the start of the war, the German (and to a less extent; Allied) Bourgeoisie are guilty, and should feel guilty for the war. Why does the Marxist analysis so often get thrown out when we talk about WW2.

[Paul Cockshott]

So the slaughter of tens of millions of Native Americans is not as bad as anti-Semitism?

By modern standards the war waged by the US army against native people also a crime against humanity, I am doubtful though that deaths in that were at the level of tens of millions. There were certainly tens of millions of premature deaths following European settlement in the Americas, but in the main these were the result of the spread of infections too which the American population had no natural immunity.


The Atlantic slave trade is not as bad as anti-Semitism? The brutal military subjugation of India is not as bad as anti-Semitism?


By anti-semitism I take it you mean the systematic extermination of Jews and others by the German state as a matter of policy.
The military subjugation of India was not a crime on this scale. On the other hand there were millions of deaths during famines which were made much worse by the failure of the British colonial administration to deliver aid on any but the most punitive terms. Under Strachey the rations distributed on relief projects, which involved things like road building, were on a level with those later given at Belsen. So if one was to compare Strachey to what was done at Belsen you could argue that his policies were almost as bad. But Belsen was a concentration camp, not an extermination camp. There was nothing comparable to the systematic extermination carried out in the east: Sobibor, Treblinka etc.



The slaughter of 20 million Chinese people by Imperial Japan in WWII is not as bad as anti-Semitism?
Yes that was comparable.


Contemporary Islamophobic Zionism is not as bad as anti-Semitism? WTF?

No definitely not on anything like the same scale.

[JamesH]

Cut the crap, please. Nobody is saying capitalism in the abstract killed anybody. We're saying capitalism in the concrete created this circumstances and drove the actions of the classes and the agents of those classes. Part of that concrete capitalism was:

1) the depression for which the bourgeoisie didn't seem to be able to find a remedy, except through forced labor and the production/destruction brought by the war; at least in the US for the New Deal was pretty much of a bust. Or maybe the depression played no part in creating the setting for WW2? Except in Germany? Do us a favor....

2) US, French, British, Belgian, Dutch industrialists and bankers had actively cooperated, collaborated in industrial cartels, restrictions of production, technical exchanges with their German counterparts. Or maybe the bankers, industrialists really didn't participate in those cartels. Didn't really undertake the protection of their own assets through the protection of German assets from the advance of the workers?

3) These other bourgeoisie did this knowing full well what was the likely outcome of their collaboration with the German counterparts-- war. Or maybe only the German bourgeoisie knew what the outcome would be? Sure that's why everybody was making arrangements in 1938, 39 for the resumption of "normal" relations after the war.

4) these other bourgeoisie hardly suffered as much as the workers in these other countries thrown into this conflagration. Or maybe they did, and only the German bourgeoisie didn't really suffer? Yeah, those bankers assigned as officers in the Allied armies of occupation who moved heaven and earth, or actually tried to stop the movement of earth, in order to protect and restore their German partners, they suffered like motherfuckers. Regular fuckin' grunts, those guys.

5) these other bourgeoisie made strenuous efforts to protect the assets and the livelihoods of their German counterparts during and after the war. See above.

It's business, sonny boy. Get it?

I'm hard pressed seeing what you're trying to argue here.

These points seem to belong more to the moral arguments that are frequently used to castigate American corporations, by showing how they collaborated with the Nazis. But if this collaboration is supposed to immediately translate into capitalism being responsible for the war, I fail to see it.

The increasing interconnectedness of the national bourgeoisies makes war less, not more likely, for war threatens lucrative business deals due to national prohibitions against trading with the enemy. Multinational firms can only lose through the loss of foreign markets. I believe Paul is correct here in noting that Marx does not claim that capitalism leads to violent conflict and war between capitalist nations. From the Manifesto:



The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.


From the same work:


National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto.


I think the main point is the same one that has already been raised. If there is a tendency towards war in capitalism, why do capitalist states in general not make war on one another? Why have the major wars between capitalist states involved German rather than English, French, Dutch, etc. aggression? If war is inherent in capitalism, why do we see, far from greater division, increasing interconnectedness between the capitalist states, with the rise of international organizations like the UN and the European Union?

[JamesH]

You are simply wrong about the lack of resistance to the Nazis. I previously cited the book "Beating the Fascists" which deals with this. After achieving power, the Nazis were ruthless in their repression, including against their own Party, and so the resistance became next to impossible.

It is also a bit bizarre, that you focus on the culpability of the German people for voting, when, Hitler never gained a majority in anything resembling a free and fair election, but rather sealed power by appointment by Hindenburg -- aristocrat and military man.

I agree that the police state may have effectively disarmed any possible resistance once it had been put in place. But, early on, during the process of Nazification, where was the resistance? I again go back to the example of Soviet peasants, who were eventually subdued through deportation and execution, but put up a huge fight at the beginning of collectivization.

The reason that there was a not a huge amount of resistance is that Hitler did have a good measure of popular support from the Germans at large. I cite historian Ian Kershaw in this assessment.

[JoeySteel]

Why does the idea that capitalism encourages war or makes it inevitable conflict with the reality of German war guilt?

[S.Artesian]

I'm hard pressed seeing what you're trying to argue here.

That capitalism in the concrete, by the actions in the concrete of industrialists of various nations participated in all those things you ascribe as so unique and peculiar to the "German nation." That's the point.



The increasing interconnectedness of the national bourgeoisies makes war less, not more likely, for war threatens lucrative business deals due to national prohibitions against trading with the enemy. Multinational firms can only lose through the loss of foreign markets. I believe Paul is correct here in noting that Marx does not claim that capitalism leads to violent conflict and war between capitalist nations. That's just such Kautskyist horseshit. War is so much less likely because of the "interconnectedness" of capitalists. Uh... you don't think the German capitalists were interconnected enough with the French, Dutch, Luxembourg, Belgian, US, UK capitalists?

It seems from the records that they were quite connected through contracts, joint ventures, cartels, technology transfers to all those bourgeoisie. So how does that fit with your tale that the uniquely aberrant, atavistic German capitalists are at fault for the war? Or... maybe they aren't at fault; maybe it was rogue elements in the German bourgeoisie that set up the accounts finance Hitler, that maintained accounts for Himmler's SS?

Moreover, the "lucrative" deals aren't always lucrative are they? Capitalism goes through periods of intense economic contraction, no, when deals aren't quite so lucrative, no? When world trade actually contracts, no? When profits decline? When markets seize up? When bankruptcies soar and loom over entire national treasuries, no? When deals dry up--- like all the merger and acquisition activity dried up in 2008; like the dramatic decline in hedge funds; in international syndicated loans; in the ability of banks to access commercial paper markets.. like.... right now? So how's that working out for our capitalist interconnectedness? Good you think? Maybe the reason Germany and France aren't at it hammer and tongs is that they've been able to shift so much more of the burden onto their working classes, and the workers of Portugal, Spain, Greece, the Ukraine, Hungary [where fascist activity has increased without the aid of Germans]? Maybe?


I believe Paul is correct here in noting that Marx does not claim that capitalism leads to violent conflict and war between capitalist nations


But it most certainly did lead to conflict among capitalist nations themselves, and of capitalist nations against other areas, territories, people where the capitalism was not quite so advanced.... unless of course you think the Mexican-American War had nothing to do with US capitalism, or that slavery had nothing to do with US capitalism; or the Spanish-American war had nothing to do with capitalism; or the Russian-Japanese war had nothing to do with capitalism. How about Africa-- you think maybe all those conflicts have anything to do with the material conditions, and those material conditions have been determined by Africa's relations with the world of capitalism? Or is that just moralism?


I think the main point is the same one that has already been raised. If there is a tendency towards war in capitalism, why do capitalist states in general not make war on one another? Why have the major wars between capitalist states involved German rather than English, French, Dutch, etc. aggression? If war is inherent in capitalism, why do we see, far from greater division, increasing interconnectedness between the capitalist states, with the rise of international organizations like the UN and the European Union?We're not arguing the negative here. Now that's the abstract. We're arguing about the concrete elements leading up to, and continuing beyond WW2, events you think make the entire German population uniquely guilty and deserving, I guess, of collective punishment of some sort.

You think the major wars have involved German aggression? Hmmh... interesting. Cockshott thinks the Germans were the "spark" for "150 years," which since the last time the Germans were involved in a major conflagration in Europe ended in 1945 [of course, Serbia, doesn't count, does it?] puts it back to 1800, and I'll be damned, I didn't know German capitalists were the cause of the anti-revolutionary wars against France, I thought it was the pacific British and their hatred for all things radical. How about that?

So... the Franco-Prussian War... cause by "German" aggression?

WW1... caused by German aggression? I think the Zimmerwald Manifesto addressed that beautifully.

WW2... caused by German aggression? Well you know, since it was worldwide, that seems just about impossible to me, that a single country can start a world war. I know it's just the mystic in me, but somehow, I think economic conditions have to be just so to plunge a world into war. And I think the more capital grows, the more those economic conditions gestate in the very core of that interconnectedness.

Now we can start another thread as to why the Western advanced countries after WW2 have not engaged each other militarily... maybe we should. I tend to think it had something to with the existence of the fSU, and the sort of class unity that they evinced in confronting, actually manufacturing, making up and circulating the threat of a Soviet attack.

Since 1991... [and even before] the world hasn't exactly been a peaceful place, has it? Whatever did happen to the so-called "peace dividend"? No matter, I'm sure that's because the rogue elements of the US bourgeoisie have usurped the democratic, pacific, interconnected machinery of the US economy... because well, they're all German too.

Tell me again how the US petroleum industry wants stability, how all capitalists want stability in the world... sure they do. Capitalists never do anything to destabilize peaceful reproduction; they never do anything to destabilize markets. Have you ever read any US history, about how the bourgeoisie actually built their railroads, financed their factories, subdued their labor?

You want to quote Marx? How about that quote where capitalism comes into the world dripping blood and filth from every pore? Guess what, that isn't just the placenta surrounding capitalism. That blood and that filth are its ongoing sustenance.

[JoeySteel]

Because if you look at a map of Germany from before 1945, you're realise that Germany today is only two thirds the size it used to be. Konigsberg, a beautiful modern, medieval looking city, with a busy night life, famous for its philosophers and artists, might not be on your holiday list, because it was erased off the face of the earth and turned into a Soviet Port - it's population forced to move to within the borders of the current Germany.


:laugh: Whoa whoa wait a second. You are denying German war guilt because the German state frontiers changed? That's a pretty big logical leap. It sounds like crocodile tears about the scary Communists and the tears you're crying are for Nazis. You will never know what the experience of the war meant to the Soviet people, you will never know what it is like to have 20 million of the people around you butchered by the Hitlerites, you will never know what it was like to have the entire industrial civilization you just helped build from nothing over 10 or more years be turned to rubble and scorched in much less time. If you mean to tell me say that because some Germans had to leave their beautiful homes and lose a bit of pretty property to the USSR after the most brutal total war with the highest stakes in human history then I really can't do anything but chuckle. I don't believe in collective punishment either buddy. Apparently you believe in the collective punishment of dozens of millions guilty of nothing but building socialism going unmet :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[S.Artesian]

Why does the idea that capitalism encourages war or makes it inevitable conflict with the reality of German war guilt?


Because not all Germans are capitalists.

[JoeySteel]

Because not all Germans are capitalists.

Eh? I didn't ask why the idea that "capitalism caused WWII" conflicts with the reality of German war guilt. I asked why the idea that capitalism encourages war or makes it inevitable (IE some Marxist and Leninist theories of imperialism) conflicts with the reality of German war guilt. You are starting with the theory of imperialism which I think is solid, and jumping from that to saying that because imperialism exists, there cannot be a particular guilt ascribed to an aggressor party in the war (the most extreme and devastating of our history), even if that was aggression against a socialist country which was not involved in an imperialist war. It just doesn't follow. We know that capitalism and its horrors seem to produce a lot of crime, murder, etc. Nonetheless it doesn't mean that there's no murder with a culprit. You can't just erect the strawman that hey, the entirety of the German nation was not Hitler because no one has argued such a thing. And please no crocodile tears like the story about the scenic German village (NO NAZIS THERE, I PROMISE ;) ;) ).

[S.Artesian]

Eh? I didn't ask why the idea that "capitalism caused WWII" conflicts with the reality of German war guilt. I asked why the idea that capitalism encourages war or makes it inevitable (IE some Marxist and Leninist theories of imperialism) conflicts with the reality of German war guilt. You are starting with the theory of imperialism which I think is solid, and jumping from that to saying that because imperialism exists, there cannot be a particular guilt ascribed to an aggressor party in the war (the most extreme and devastating of our history), even if that was aggression against a socialist country which was not involved in an imperialist war. It just doesn't follow. We know that capitalism and its horrors seem to produce a lot of crime, murder, etc. Nonetheless it doesn't mean that there's no murder with a culprit. You can't just erect the strawman that hey, the entirety of the German nation was not Hitler because no one has argued such a thing. And please no crocodile tears like the story about the scenic German village (NO NAZIS THERE, I PROMISE ;) ;) ).

Eh is right. The war "guilt" as Mr. Cockshott and his crew would have it is applied to ALL GERMANS, regardless of class. Cockshott is exactly arguing that-- that the entire German nation, the civilian population, bears responsibility for German aggression, and should bear the burden of punishment collectively.

This whole shitty discussion of course spun out from the shitty discussion on the mass rape of German women during and after the war by soldiers of the Red Army. In that discussion there was all this crap about how the Germans should have expected it; it was retribution; it was boys being boys; it was based on revenge. In that discussion, Cockshott brought up his claim that the entire German "nation," which means clearly all the German people, are guilty for the "war of aggression."

I don't think so. I think the German bourgeoisie, the German industrialists supported Hitler to crush the labor movement, rearm Germany. At the same time, the records show that the US, UK, French, Dutch etc. bourgeoisie all participated in cartels, combines, syndicates, with the German industrialists, financing them, agreeing on market division with them, and in the particular case of Britain agreeing to use their governments to suppress "unhealthy" 3rd party competition. Well, say what you want, but that sounds ever so much like asking your government to go to war against some competitor, somebody who's violating quotas, stealing market share. Not to mention the cases in the US were companies protected the assets of the German cartels through masking ownership, secret deals, etc. etc.

Just capitalists being capitalists, trying to make a buck? I wholeheartedly agree. Just as the German capitalists were being capitalists and trying to make a Reichsmark. Does this stuff get a little out of the capitalists' control? Mos' def, capitalism is almost always out of the capitalists control, which doesn't absolve any of the capitalists from their participation in the "crimes" of another capitalist.

[Die Neue Zeit]

This is pointless. Capitalism is inherently corporatist. So what?

Translation: You didn't bother to read my criticism of "Nach Hitler Uns" as referenced.


What counts is how, why, when, and in what forms, that corporatism is expressed. That's called being able to apprehend history, or in the vernacular, distinguish your ass from a hole in the ground.

You didn't attempt to prove that bourgeois society is inherently corporatist. Pinochet wasn't a corporatist. Hong Kong under British rule, South Africa, Haiti, etc. weren't corporatist either. I could go on and on.


That's just such Kautskyist horseshit. War is so much less likely because of the "interconnectedness" of capitalists.

You're too one-sided. "Ultra-imperialism" came closest to fruition with the NATO alliance during the Cold War. Although we're seeing a trend back to a multi-polar world, rival blocs, etc. (historically and in the long run benefitting worker struggles much more than earlier Dutch, British, or US hegemony - contrary to musings by apologists of the latter and those wittingly or unwittingly giving polemical cover to them), there are still "ultra-imperialist" signs, most notably in the form of weapons of mass destruction.

[JoeySteel]

Eh is right. The war "guilt" as Mr. Cockshott and his crew would have it is applied to ALL GERMANS, regardless of class. Cockshott is exactly arguing that-- that the entire German nation, the civilian population, bears responsibility for German aggression, and should bear the burden of punishment collectively.

This whole shitty discussion of course spun out from the shitty discussion on the mass rape of German women during and after the war by soldiers of the Red Army. In that discussion there was all this crap about how the Germans should have expected it; it was retribution; it was boys being boys; it was based on revenge. In that discussion, Cockshott brought up his claim that the entire German "nation," which means clearly all the German people, are guilty for the "war of aggression."

I don't think so. I think the German bourgeoisie, the German industrialists supported Hitler to crush the labor movement, rearm Germany. At the same time, the records show that the US, UK, French, Dutch etc. bourgeoisie all participated in cartels, combines, syndicates, with the German industrialists, financing them, agreeing on market division with them, and in the particular case of Britain agreeing to use their governments to suppress "unhealthy" 3rd party competition. Well, say what you want, but that sounds ever so much like asking your government to go to war against some competitor, somebody who's violating quotas, stealing market share. Not to mention the cases in the US were companies protected the assets of the German cartels through masking ownership, secret deals, etc. etc.

Just capitalists being capitalists, trying to make a buck? I wholeheartedly agree. Just as the German capitalists were being capitalists and trying to make a Reichsmark. Does this stuff get a little out of the capitalists' control? Mos' def, capitalism is almost always out of the capitalists control, which doesn't absolve any of the capitalists from their participation in the "crimes" of another capitalist.

Like I said, regardless of how much the "German nation" did or even could bear responsibility as a whole, the primary responsibility of the war lay on the state power controlling German national territory staffed by Germans in the name of Germany. The fact that a state does not represent the whole people is a GIVEN. No state could do such a thing. Nevertheless in history people have thought it worth while to note who attacked who. The only conceivable party to be able to undertake the kind of reparations which would be demanded after the hell inflicted would be the inheritors of the defeated German state. Of course, a state being a state, the instrument of armed violence, where else could the reparations come from but from German people subject to it and the state territory? I don't believe in collective punishment, but the collective punishment of reparations from the East German state, successor to the Nazi state in that part of the territory, harsh as it was, was nothing compared to the collective punishment wrought by the German state in the war in the USSR. I don't "believe in" mass rape either thank you, it is absolutely ridiculous that you insist on hovering this vague association between this conversation and "supporting" (or whatever you think people said) mass rape.

[Paul Cockshott]

That capitalism in the concrete, by the actions in the concrete of industrialists of various nations participated in all those things you ascribe as so unique and peculiar to the "German nation." That's the point.
It relates to the particular history of the German state. It was formed as a state by war and conquest in the aftermath of counter revolution. The failure of the democratic revolution of 48 meant that when a German state was formed, it was formed under the dominance of the Prussian landed aristocracy and the Prussian monarchy, and it was formed not by democratic revolution, but by wars of conquest: blood and steel. Wars against Danemark, Austria, France. This miitarist course had been successful and set the model and precedent for German state policy, The state preserved the interests of the reactionary Prussian landed aristocracy until their estates were confiscated by the DDR and the USSR. Without the DDR and without the USSR the position of democracy in modern Germany would have remained very weak.

[Paul Cockshott]

So war is good for capitalism according to Artesian. I suggest he read some of the books now comming on line on Gutenberg by impecably bourgeois American authors about WWI, these give a snapshot of contemporary bourgeois reaction to the war:

On July 30th, for the first time in history, the stock markets of
the world were all closed at the same time. Heretofore when the
European markets have been closed those on this side of the ocean
remained open. The New York Exchange was the last big stock
market to announce temporary suspension of business. The New York
Cotton Exchange closed, following the announcement of the failure
of several brokerage firms. Stock Exchanges throughout the United
States followed the example set by New York. The Stock Exchanges
in London and the big provincial cities, as well as those on the
Continent, ceased business, owing to the breakdown of the credit
system, which was made complete by the postponement of the Paris
settlement.

Depositors stormed every bank in London for gold, and the runs
continued for a couple of days. In order to protect its dwindling
gold supply the Bank of England raised its discount rate to 8 per
cent. Leading bankers of London requested Premier Asquith to
suspend the bank act, and he promised to lay the matter before
the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In all the capitals of Europe
financial transactions virtually came to a standstill. The slump
in the market value of securities within the first week of the
war flurry was estimated at $2,000,000,000, and radical measures
were necessary to prevent hasty action while the condition of
panic prevailed.

This sudden stoppage of ordinary financial operations was
accompanied by a similar cessation of the industries of peace
over a wide range of territory. The artisan was forced to let
fall the tools of his trade and take up those of war. The
railroads were similarly denuded of their employees except in so
far as they were needed to convey soldiers and military supplies.
The customary uses of the railroad were largely suspended and
travel went on under great difficulties. In a measure it had
returned to the conditions existing before the invention of the
locomotive. Even horse traffic was limited by the demands of the
army for these animals, and foot travel regained some of its old
ascendency.

War makes business active in one direction and in one only, that
of army and navy supply, of the manufacture of the implements of
destruction, of vast quantities of explosives, of multitudes of
death-dealing weapons. Food supplies need to be diverted in the
same direction, the demands of the soldier being considered
first, those of the home people last, the latter being often
supplied at starvation prices. There is plenty of work to do - of
its kind. But it is of a kind that injures instead of aiding the
people of the nations.

(Events Culminating in The Great Conflict (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3779) Marshall)


Thus speaks a representative of American bourgeois industry - his book shows great concern for the plight of American capitalists stranded in the warring countries -- this is repeated refrain of US bourgeois reports of the period.

Compare in contrast the voice of the Prussian Military aristocracy:



(http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3779)
The value of war for the political and moral development of mankind has
been criticized by large sections of the modern civilized world in a way
which threatens to weaken the defensive powers of States by undermining
the warlike spirit of the people. Such ideas are widely disseminated in
Germany, and whole strata of our nation seem to have lost that ideal
enthusiasm which constituted the greatness of its history. With the
increase of wealth they live for the moment, they are incapable of
sacrificing the enjoyment of the hour to the service of great
conceptions, and close their eyes complacently to the duties of our
future and to the pressing problems of international life which await a
solution at the present time.

We have been capable of soaring upwards. Mighty deeds raised Germany
from political disruption and feebleness to the forefront of European
nations. But we do not seem willing to take up this inheritance, and to
advance along the path of development in politics and culture. We
tremble at our own greatness, and shirk the sacrifices it demands from
us. Yet we do not wish to renounce the claim which we derive from our
glorious past. How rightly Fichte once judged his countrymen when he
said the German can never wish for a thing by itself; he must always
wish for its contrary also.

The Germans were formerly the best fighting men and the most warlike
nation of Europe. For a long time they have proved themselves to be the
ruling people of the Continent by the power of their arms and the
loftiness of their ideas. Germans have bled and conquered on countless
battlefields in every part of the world, and in late years have shown
that the heroism of their ancestors still lives in the descendants. In
striking contrast to this military aptitude they have to-day become a
peace-loving--an almost "too" peace-loving--nation. A rude shock is
needed to awaken their warlike instincts, and compel them to show their
military strength.

The agelong dream of the German nation was realized in the political
union of the greater part of the German races and in the founding of the
German Empire. Since then there lives in the hearts of all (I would not
exclude even the supporters of the anti-national party) a proud
consciousness of strength, of regained national unity, and of increased
political power. This consciousness is supported by the fixed
determination never to abandon these acquisitions. The conviction is
universal that every attack upon these conquests will rouse the whole
nation with enthusiastic unanimity to arms. We all wish, indeed, to be
able to maintain our present position in the world without a conflict,
and we live in the belief that the power of our State will steadily
increase without our needing to fight for it. We do not at the bottom of
our hearts shrink from such a conflict, but we look towards it with a
certain calm confidence, and are inwardly resolved never to let
ourselves be degraded to an inferior position without striking a blow.
Every appeal to force finds a loud response in the hearts of all. Not
merely in the North, where a proud, efficient, hard-working race with
glorious traditions has grown up under the laurel-crowned banner of
Prussia, does this feeling thrive as an unconscious basis of all
thought, sentiment, and volition, in the depth of the soul; but in the
South also, which has suffered for centuries under the curse of petty
nationalities, the haughty pride and ambition of the German stock live
in the heart of the people. Here and there, maybe, such emotions slumber
in the shade of a jealous particularism, overgrown by the richer and
more luxuriant forms of social intercourse; but still they are animated
by latent energy; here, too, the germs of mighty national consciousness
await their awakening.

Germany and the Next War, Friedrich von Bernhardi

[Paul Cockshott]

You think the major wars have involved German aggression? Hmmh... interesting. Cockshott thinks the Germans were the "spark" for "150 years," which since the last time the Germans were involved in a major conflagration in Europe ended in 1945 [of course, Serbia, doesn't count, does it?] puts it back to 1800, and I'll be damned, I didn't know German capitalists were the cause of the anti-revolutionary wars against France, I thought it was the pacific British and their hatred for all things radical. How about that?

You have got your dates wrong, I said German state expansion was the root cause of all the major interstate wars in Europe for the last 150 years. Perhaps I should have said 145 years ago, since that would have been more precise. 1800 was not 150 years ago. I gave that figure since that corresponds with the start of Bismark's policy of military agression with the war against Danemark.

[S.Artesian]

Like I said, regardless of how much the "German nation" did or even could bear responsibility as a whole, the primary responsibility of the war lay on the state power controlling German national territory staffed by Germans in the name of Germany. The fact that a state does not represent the whole people is a GIVEN. No state could do such a thing. Nevertheless in history people have thought it worth while to note who attacked who. The only conceivable party to be able to undertake the kind of reparations which would be demanded after the hell inflicted would be the inheritors of the defeated German state. Of course, a state being a state, the instrument of armed violence, where else could the reparations come from but from German people subject to it and the state territory? I don't believe in collective punishment, but the collective punishment of reparations from the East German state, successor to the Nazi state in that part of the territory, harsh as it was, was nothing compared to the collective punishment wrought by the German state in the war in the USSR. I don't "believe in" mass rape either thank you, it is absolutely ridiculous that you insist on hovering this vague association between this conversation and "supporting" (or whatever you think people said) mass rape.

No one said you do. I was pointing out the origins of this debate. Look at the OP.

No... you don't support "collective punishment" in the abstract, but in the concrete of course you do because where else can the reparations come from, and from whom?

You don't support it, until you do. The state power controlling German national territory staffed by Germans is an agency, a refraction, an instrument of class, yes? Was that class smashed, overthrown, disassembled, replaced, forced to bear the burden of the reparations? Or was it reassembled, restored, its property returned to it?


Nevertheless in history people have thought it worth while to note who attacked who.


Nevertheless, in the history of Marxism, Marxists have thought that to be bullshit, and have made it a point of principle to not assign responsibility to a "nation" a people. See previous reference to Zimmerwald.

[S.Artesian]

So war is good for capitalism according to Artesian. I suggest he read some of the books now comming on line on Gutenberg by impecably bourgeois American authors about WWI, these give a snapshot of contemporary bourgeois reaction to the war:
(Events Culminating in The Great Conflict (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3779) Marshall)


Thus speaks a representative of American bourgeois industry - his book shows great concern for the plight of American capitalists stranded in the warring countries -- this is repeated refrain of US bourgeois reports of the period.

Compare in contrast the voice of the Prussian Military aristocracy:
Germany and the Next War, Friedrich von Bernhardi


Well if a bourgeois says it's so, then it must be so. I wonder how the Northern capitalists made so much money then in the Civil War; how the US amassed such a gold surplus at the close of WW1; and how profits increased during WW2.

Fuck it, I must be German to even ask such questions.

But for the record, I never said "war is good for business," nor do I think war is always good for capitalism, and certainly not for all capitalisms. As a matter of fact "good" and "bad" don't really matter. I do argue, war is inherent in capitalism; in the conflict between production for value and the growth of the means of production as useful objects. I think WW1, and WW2 followed on economic contractions engendered by overproduction, which in turn were expressions of capitalism being unable to exploit labor at a sufficient level of intensity to generate adequate profit.

[RED DAVE]

German state expansion was the root cause of all the major interstate wars in Europe for the last 150 years.And of course Germany fought WWI and WWII alone. And of course the expansion of the power of German capitalism had nothing to do with the consolidation of capitalism as a world system.

And the international bankers, including the Americans, who financed Hitler, had nothing to do with the rise of naziism. And the acquiescence of the French and the British with the Germans reoccupying the rhineland had nothing to do with it. And the immense amounts of "trading with the enemy" during WWII had nothing to do with it.

Next time you're caught in a traffic jam, Comrade, make sure to blame the car ahead of you.

RED DAVE

[JoeySteel]

No one said you do. I was pointing out the origins of this debate. Look at the OP.

No... you don't support "collective punishment" in the abstract, but in the concrete of course you do because where else can the reparations come from, and from whom?

You don't support it, until you do. The state power controlling German national territory staffed by Germans is an agency, a refraction, an instrument of class, yes? Was that class smashed, overthrown, disassembled, replaced, forced to bear the burden of the reparations? Or was it reassembled, restored, its property returned to it?



Nevertheless, in the history of Marxism, Marxists have thought that to be bullshit, and have made it a point of principle to not assign responsibility to a "nation" a people. See previous reference to Zimmerwald.

At this rate, your idea of "supporting" something or not is whether one issues blustery denunciations, which I am afraid means nothing.

RE: "Was that class smashed, overthrown, disassembled, replaced, forced to bear the burden of the reparations?"

The German capitalist class was deprived of power in the GDR, and not in the FRG. The individuals staffing the Nazi German state were either moved around or punished from what I can tell. In the case of the GDR, the payment of reparations was indeed aided by the property taken from the former ruling class. The former property of the ruling class in a short time was property of the state, and thus the reparations paid to the USSR would be depriving former Nazi German citizens and the GDR citizens of benefit, we know this.

If you mean to say that it's "right" for only German capitalists to bear the burden of reparations, then yeah, sure, that is extremely admirable of you to want such a thing. In East Germany it seems to me that the property of the defeated German ruling class was nothing more than the property of the state at some point.

If you believe that it would be feasible to pay reparations for Nazi crimes by shaking German capitalists upside down then fine, but I think only state power would be able to coordinate such a thing and it would likely end up taking some from the innocent Germans that you are incredibly concerned about. If reparations had been paid by the FRG it may have been a different story in how it was carried out. Don't know. Didn't happen. Germans were guilty. Not just German capitalists either folks.

[S.Artesian]

Except the GDR was not the whole of Germany or the German bourgeoisie. We were specifically engaged in this thread with the "comparison" of "aggressive," belligerent, racialist German capitalism with the pacific, human, democratic capitalism of the US, UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands etc.

Mere technical detail, I'm sure.

I am not concerned about "innocent Germans" per se. There you go again, ignoring class. I am concerned about the suppression of German workers, imposing penalties on German workers based on assumptions of a "national guilt."

The GDR requires a whole other thread regarding reparations; what was taken, and how that relocation worked out, as certain factories removed had to be returned since there was no integrated structure to support some of these factories in the USSR.

I think reparations, "shaking" down the German capitalists, partitioning Germany was simply part of reconfiguring capitalism, not in the abstract, but in the concrete, and most importantly was organized to prevent the return of independent, radical German working class politics, which the West identified with "Communism."

You can stand with your notions of national guilt and reparations, and annexations if you like.

Cockshott can stand with his mythology of non-expansive capitalists in the UK and US and his fantasy of "peaceful" accumulation as being the bourgeoisie's end all and be all.

I'll stick with Zimmerwald.

[JoeySteel]

Jesus, if you don't think that German imperialism was the aggressor party in the war then what else can I say? You can be as "concerned" as you want about German workers, and continue to falsely claim that I believe in "national guilt," meanwhile, the people who actually suffered from the war had more important things to worry about. I suppose Stalin should have just told the furious and ravaged soviet people that the Germans could not pay anything for the one third of the country they scorched, because many of them are workers (who may or may not have killed your family) :laugh: This thread is a joke at this point... It's a very disturbed view of the 20th century.

[Coach Trotsky]

Uh oh, he brought Stalin (and the bureaucracy under Stalin by extension) into this discussion of WWII war guilt and blame.

Finally, chance to turn this thread around. Any takers?

[S.Artesian]

The
railroads were similarly denuded of their employees except in so
far as they were needed to convey soldiers and military supplies.
The customary uses of the railroad were largely suspended and
travel went on under great difficulties. In a measure it had
returned to the conditions existing before the invention of the
locomotive. God, that brought a tear to my eye. I fucking choked up, really. I mean I know a bit about operating railroads, handling military shipments, operating revenues and costs... and to think those fucking German bastards imposed a hardship on my area of expertise. Those guilty as hell motherfuckers. Where's my bayonet?

So I went back and checked that Bicentennial Edition of Historical Statistics of the United States, part 2, series Q, 367-377, Railroad Income and Expenses...

I'd like to stick to operating revenue as the marker we use-- involves the messiness of what actually constitutes net income, how much that is impacted by claims for DD&A etc.

So for the period 1910-1914, US railroads operating revenue increased about 11 percent.
For the period 1914-1918, the operating revenue increased 60 percent.
There was contraction 1921-1922, with operating revenues peaking again in 1926, declining and flattening out through 27,28,29 [so that the 1929 level is almost the same as the 1920 level.

Then revenues fall off the table, declining to about 42% of the 20/29 levels in the 1930s before......and then?

And then between 1940 and 1945, operating revenues exceed the 1926 peak by another 40 percent. How about that? That sounds to me like the wars had been very, very good to the railroad business.

Just in case, no I don't think the railroads caused these wars in order to reap the benefits.

But I have to hand it to Mr. Cockshott, he is slick. Back when he asked what were the forces I could identify as capitalist, causing WW2, I responded-- overproduction of the means of production, depression, inability to restore or maintain profitablility.

Cockshott neatly translated that as "changing organic composition of capital," and me, I fell for that, didn't even notice how he had substituted his notion for what I had written. Well as we know, overproduction of the means of production and the inability to maintain profit is not solely, exclusively, immediately or always manifested in a changing organic composition of capital.

It is quite possible for overproduction to occur and profits to deteriorate when labor compensation increases, is and when workers can claim and win a greater portion of the total value in its renumeration. But more on that later.

In the meantime, wipe your eyes, and put on your happy smiley face. The railroads weathered the adversity, the disruption of peaceful accumulation by the warlike Germans like thoroughbreds.

[S.Artesian]

Jesus, if you don't think that German imperialism was the aggressor party in the war then what else can I say? You can be as "concerned" as you want about German workers, and continue to falsely claim that I believe in "national guilt," meanwhile, the people who actually suffered from the war had more important things to worry about. I suppose Stalin should have just told the furious and ravaged soviet people that the Germans could not pay anything for the one third of the country they scorched, because many of them are workers (who may or may not have killed your family) :laugh: This thread is a joke at this point... It's a very disturbed view of the 20th century.

And if you think German capitalism functioned with out the aid and comfort of US, UK, French, capitalism, then don't say anything.

The thread's a joke because of all those pseudo-revolutionists, who think that by saying "red" and "soviet" there is no longer any need to say "class."

What I don't think is that all the German people bear a "national" or "collective" guilt for WW2.

[JoeySteel]

How about this one just to make you squirm? I support the soviet red army against Nazis who happen to have been working class.

But really you just have more straw persons. No one claimed that Nazis did not receive aid and comfort from other imperialist powers. Some people have falsely stated again and again that because German National Socialism was accommodated by other imperialists that it could not bear a particular guilt for the war. Sorry, one does not follow from the other.

[RED DAVE]

How about this one just to make you squirm? I support the soviet red army against Nazis who happen to have been working class.The rest of us, of course, believe that the Red Army soldiers should have done a background check on every German soldier they fired at.


But really you just have more straw persons. No one claimed that Nazis did not receive aid and comfort from other imperialist powers.It is not just a matter of aid and comfort. It is a matter that without the aid of the capitalists from the other major industrials, the nazis could never have started the war in the first place.

As a parallel example, does anyone think that Franco could have come to power in Spain without the support of the capitalist class as a whole, internationally?


Some people have falsely stated again and again that because German National Socialism was accommodated by other imperialists that it could not bear a particular guilt for the war. Sorry, one does not follow from the other.Sorry, but from the Marxist point of view, it does. The capitalist class functions as a class. It bears responsibility as a class. WWII was a capitalist war, not a German capitalist war.

RED DAVE

[JoeySteel]

the nazis could never have started the war in the first place.
RED DAVE

It sounds like you just admitted the nazis started the war and it sounds like this is just a matter of semantics now. Obviously a number of preconditions need to be met for things to be possible. In the case of the major industrial state in Europe it would have been pretty extraordinary for there not to be cooperation between its ruling classes and other national ruling classes, to the point of outright enabling and appeasement. The soviet communists also knew and said as much, nevertheless they had great reasons to consider Germany guilty of a war of extermination against them. I don't know where else this can go.

[RED DAVE]

It sounds like you just admitted the nazis started the war and it sounds like this is just a matter of semantics now.It is not a matter of semantics. It is a matter of class politics. Yes, the first army to cross any border was the German army. But how is it that the Germans were able to build such an army in the first place when they were supposed to be disarmed after WWI.


Obviously a number of preconditions need to be met for things to be possible.Wow! That's brilliant.


In the case of the major industrial state in Europe it would have been pretty extraordinary for there not to be cooperation between its ruling classes and other national ruling classes, to the point of outright enabling and appeasement.My point exactly.


The soviet communists also knew and said as much, nevertheless they had great reasons to consider Germany guilty of a war of extermination against them. I don't know where else this can go.It can go into class politics, which is something the USSR, after WWII, failed to deal with. Instead, it engaged in "national" politics, just like the capitalist countries, depending on its existence as a nation instead of its role as the font of world revolution.

We know the result of that.

RED DAVE

[Paul Cockshott]

for Artesian trade and wa are the same. The US trades with Germany in the 30s, Germany later invaded Poland and externinated a large part of the population, so US firms are guilty of genocide.

[Paul Cockshott]

apply Artesians logic now. France and Germany trade with the UK. The UK attacks Iraq. Thus on his logic Germany is guilty of agression against Iraq. And so is every country that trades with the UK.

[S.Artesian]

for Artesian trade and wa are the same. The US trades with Germany in the 30s, Germany later invaded Poland and externinated a large part of the population, so US firms are guilty of genocide.


For Cockshott, the UK, US, French exterminating, suppressing, enslaving indigenous populations in Asia and Africa in the 19th and 20th century, are different from Germany exterminating, suppressing white European populations in the 20th century.

Not just different, but German actions against European people is"shocking."

Because the US and UK and French and Dutch bourgeoisie did not do this to white populations in 20th century, they have earned the designation of pacific capitalisms.

[S.Artesian]

apply Artesians logic now. France and Germany trade with the UK. The UK attacks Iraq. Thus on his logic Germany is guilty of agression against Iraq. And so is every country that trades with the UK.

Apply Cockshott's logic [sic!] now. The entire US population bears a collective, national guilt for theses attacks, and thus should assuage their national guilt through... dismantling factories and shipping them to Iraq? Wait a minute, the US bourgeoisie have been shipping factories out of the US for 25 years, no?

The US should, I have an idea, perform community service... yeah that's it, that's the solution.

[S.Artesian]

How about this one just to make you squirm? I support the soviet red army against Nazis who happen to have been working class.

But really you just have more straw persons. No one claimed that Nazis did not receive aid and comfort from other imperialist powers. Some people have falsely stated again and again that because German National Socialism was accommodated by other imperialists that it could not bear a particular guilt for the war. Sorry, one does not follow from the other.


Now, now, try not to distort what's been said. Nobody has argued that German National Socialism, the German Nazis do not bear a particular responsibility. What has been argued that the responsibility is not the burden of a supposed entire nation. Do try and pay attention to the details.

In addition, we dispute it the claim that the super-aggressive character of German capitalism in comparison to the pacific capitalisms of the US, UK, France, Holland, etc. is just so much bullshit.

How about this one to make you squirm. I support the Soviet workers military organization and combat against the Nazis, whatever their class origin. I also have no illusions as to why the Nazis were able to take power in the first place and inflict such horrific destruction on the Soviet workers and rural producers.

Just to make you squirm.

[S.Artesian]

Applying Cockshott's illogic again, we now conclude that French, Spanish, German, etc etc capitalism is pacific, non-aggressive, non-expansive in that they no longer, or never did, put combat troops on the ground in 2003. Only the US and UK who did put troops on the ground in Iraq are aggressive capitalisms whose national population bears a collective guilt.

The participation in Gulf War 1,however... well we'll just ignore that. It must have been "pre-pacific."

[JoeySteel]

Now, now, try not to distort what's been said. Nobody has argued that German National Socialism, the German Nazis do not bear a particular responsibility. What has been argued that the responsibility is not the burden of a supposed entire nation. Do try and pay attention to the details.

In addition, we dispute it the claim that the super-aggressive character of German capitalism in comparison to the pacific capitalisms of the US, UK, France, Holland, etc. is just so much bullshit.

How about this one to make you squirm. I support the Soviet workers military organization and combat against the Nazis, whatever their class origin. I also have no illusions as to why the Nazis were able to take power in the first place and inflict such horrific destruction on the Soviet workers and rural producers.

Just to make you squirm.

LOL. What is the "Soviet workers military organization"? I have heard of the Red Army and I have heard of the Partisan movement. It sounds like you are hinting at the "soviets made the Nazis win" or something like that which is an even more bizarre conspiracy theory than "international capitalism and not germany started the war." I have been trying to frame my arguments within actual history and not fictional workers militias that fit your pet opposition position better. I have presented simple and good reasons I think why the German state was guilty and how only a German state could realistically (important) be in any position to take responsibility for the crimes but you are just arguing outside of history here.

[S.Artesian]

LOL. What is the "Soviet workers military organization"? I have heard of the Red Army and I have heard of the Partisan movement. It sounds like you are hinting at the "soviets made the Nazis win" or something like that which is an even more bizarre conspiracy theory than "international capitalism and not germany started the war." I have been trying to frame my arguments within actual history and not fictional workers militias that fit your pet opposition position better. I have presented simple and good reasons I think why the German state was guilty and how only a German state could realistically (important) be in any position to take responsibility for the crimes but you are just arguing outside of history here.

That's why I said it. I said S W M O just so the patriotic appeal of "Red Army" might be muted here, and we get to the heart of what is supposed to be the basis for struggle-- class.

You say a German state was responsible, and yet you think that the entire German people have to pay the dues for the state. The class, meanwhile, that that state served for better or for worse was reconstituted, restored, in the West, by the pacific capitalisms of the US and the UK. But.......the German people, they paid reparations to the Jews, so I guess everything's square, right Horst?

[Paul Cockshott]

for Artesian trade and wa are the same. The US trades with Germany in the 30s, Germany later invaded Poland and externinated a large part of the population, so US firms are guilty of genocide.

[S.Artesian]

Get a grip, Cockshott, you're repeating yourself.

[JoeySteel]

That's why I said it. I said S W M O just so the patriotic appeal of "Red Army" might be muted here, and we get to the heart of what is supposed to be the basis for struggle-- class.

You say a German state was responsible, and yet you think that the entire German people have to pay the dues for the state. The class, meanwhile, that that state served for better or for worse was reconstituted, restored, in the West, by the pacific capitalisms of the US and the UK. But.......the German people, they paid reparations to the Jews, so I guess everything's square, right Horst?

Yeah, I am totally against the west German state which still exists today. Regardless of that fact the USA did occupy Germany and set up a capitalist state in most of its territory and protected Nazis, and kept many in power. In this way the USA also blocked the West German state from paying reparations to the East. Are you saying you would oppose the West German capitalist state exacting reparations for Jews, or would be against it exacting reparations from the East, assuming some of it would be squeezed from working class people? Remember, the state is the state, and we can't very well pass around a hat for donations.

[S.Artesian]

There is no way you are getting a bourgeois state to pay reparations at the expense of the bourgeoisie. It's an impossibility, since labor is the source of capitalist value. Can't happen, doesn't happen.

Now on a tactical, class basis, one that points out the centrality of labor, some might see the point of reparations-- like arguing for reparations to be paid for the labor performed by the slaves in the US... but, but we missed the time for that; the time for that was after the Civil War and when it would have meant, shattering, rather that reconstituting the plantation class. It takes a revolution to exact reparations from the oppressing, exploiting class.

That wasn't done. The bourgeoisie in W. Germany were reconstituted. Jews and others that had property stolen from them can organize, agitate, for the return of that property [from our peace-loving Swiss in particular], but I don't see how you could organize a class campagin around that unless you contained that in a revolutionary program aimed at expropriating the personal wealth of the bourgeoisie to do that, rather than simply provide revenues out of the state apparatus.

But we never get that far with Cockshott and company? And why? Because it's oh so convenient to make it a national guilt, avoid the class content of the war, the class alliance that extended to the ruling classes on the opposite sides of the military conflict.

No we make it a national guilt, and say how the Jewish victims should receive something, some gesture to assuage their suffering and who can argue with that? Except we say those things precisely, and specifically to avoid the class issues, and the role of the ruling class as brothers in the plunder and destruction of human life. That's the issue.

[JamesH]

That capitalism in the concrete, by the actions in the concrete of industrialists of various nations participated in all those things you ascribe as so unique and peculiar to the "German nation." That's the point.


That's just such Kautskyist horseshit. War is so much less likely because of the "interconnectedness" of capitalists. Uh... you don't think the German capitalists were interconnected enough with the French, Dutch, Luxembourg, Belgian, US, UK capitalists?


Of course, which is why I say that you must look outside of economic circumstances for a cause of the war. You are the one, contrary to Marx, who is arguing that increasing commerce and trade between nations somehow brings about greater aggression and war.



It seems from the records that they were quite connected through contracts, joint ventures, cartels, technology transfers to all those bourgeoisie. So how does that fit with your tale that the uniquely aberrant, atavistic German capitalists are at fault for the war? Or... maybe they aren't at fault; maybe it was rogue elements in the German bourgeoisie that set up the accounts finance Hitler, that maintained accounts for Himmler's SS?

Again, I'm not the one arguing that World War II came about purely from the German bourgeoisie. In Paul's words, the war was caused "by states which had adopted a policy of militaristic aggression under the influence of reactionary blocks of classes, a hypertrophied military bureaucratic apparatus, a national industrial bourgeoisie seeking sources of raw materials and a social patriotic policy of seeking to relieve internal class conflict by external settlement and emigration"


Moreover, the "lucrative" deals aren't always lucrative are they? Capitalism goes through periods of intense economic contraction, no, when deals aren't quite so lucrative, no? When world trade actually contracts, no? When profits decline? When markets seize up? When bankruptcies soar and loom over entire national treasuries, no? When deals dry up--- like all the merger and acquisition activity dried up in 2008; like the dramatic decline in hedge funds; in international syndicated loans; in the ability of banks to access commercial paper markets.. like.... right now? So how's that working out for our capitalist interconnectedness? Good you think? Maybe the reason Germany and France aren't at it hammer and tongs is that they've been able to shift so much more of the burden onto their working classes, and the workers of Portugal, Spain, Greece, the Ukraine, Hungary [where fascist activity has increased without the aid of Germans]? Maybe?

This is true but I don't see why this is relevant. Are you saying that trade with Germany was becoming unprofitable so war broke out?




But it most certainly did lead to conflict among capitalist nations themselves, and of capitalist nations against other areas, territories, people where the capitalism was not quite so advanced.... unless of course you think the Mexican-American War had nothing to do with US capitalism, or that slavery had nothing to do with US capitalism; or the Spanish-American war had nothing to do with capitalism; or the Russian-Japanese war had nothing to do with capitalism. How about Africa-- you think maybe all those conflicts have anything to do with the material conditions, and those material conditions have been determined by Africa's relations with the world of capitalism? Or is that just moralism?


You are confusing imperial conquest with inter-imperial conflict. Imperialism is the method by which capitalism penetrated into non-commodity producing societies, necessitated by the logic of capital. However, you're claiming that these violent tendencies are also inherent in conflict between mature capitalist states. France and England both conquered pre-capitalist nations and territories to impose their own economic systems but they did not attack one another.



We're not arguing the negative here. Now that's the abstract. We're arguing about the concrete elements leading up to, and continuing beyond WW2, events you think make the entire German population uniquely guilty and deserving, I guess, of collective punishment of some sort.


You have a theory for the origins of the Second World War that involves universal principles that are immanent in the nature of capitalism itself. Yet capital has gone global and war between capitalist states is practically non-existent. This indicates that the theory needs to be revised.



Tell me again how the US petroleum industry wants stability, how all capitalists want stability in the world... sure they do. Capitalists never do anything to destabilize peaceful reproduction; they never do anything to destabilize markets. Have you ever read any US history, about how the bourgeoisie actually built their railroads, financed their factories, subdued their labor?

I can't speak for capital in general but yes, war is not good for the oil industry in terms of gaining access to oil resources. In Hossein-Zadeh's words, " military adventures place the operations of current energy projects at jeopardy....they will also make the future plans precarious and unpredictable"




You want to quote Marx? How about that quote where capitalism comes into the world dripping blood and filth from every pore? Guess what, that isn't just the placenta surrounding capitalism. That blood and that filth are its ongoing sustenance.

I don't know these quotes but for this to have any relevance to our discussion, they must have been said in the context of Marx arguing that capitalism leads to war between capitalist states.

[JoeySteel]

Hmm, I don't buy the argument that people are avoiding class or that Cockshott believes in a cohesive national guilt. I haven't seen that myself. A great many national socialists were not themselves owners of capital and there is good reason to also ascribe guilt to these Germans. When I spoke of reparations from W. Germany this sort of thing would have had to come from overall pressure of the imperialist countries and the balance of forces obviously did not favour the west German state paying for its crimes.

Also, as a matter of fact there were Japanese reparations paid to Asian countries and the USA, though I doubt they were significant enough in the case of the Asian countries, so I'm not sure your claim that reparations could never be paid as a result of war defeat. Or do you mean that capitalists would never allow reparations paid to a socialist country? That may be more likely sure..

[JoeySteel]

True or false: National Socialism and German nationality plus territorial residence were highly correlated for the duration of the second world war.

[S.Artesian]

Of course, which is why I say that you must look outside of economic circumstances for a cause of the war. You are the one, contrary to Marx, who is arguing that increasing commerce and trade between nations somehow brings about greater aggression and war.

Where does Marx ever state that increased commerce and trade between nations brings reduced aggression and lessens the likelihood of war?



Again, I'm not the one arguing that World War II came about purely from the German bourgeoisie. In Paul's words, the war was caused "by states which had adopted a policy of militaristic aggression under the influence of reactionary blocks of classes, a hypertrophied military bureaucratic apparatus, a national industrial bourgeoisie seeking sources of raw materials and a social patriotic policy of seeking to relieve internal class conflict by external settlement and emigration"

No, but you and Paul are arguing that the entire German people bear a particular and collective guilt. Paul's description sounds just like a description that could be made about the US at every point in its history-- reactionary blocks of ex Southern slaveholders allied with the military apparatus [take a look at, historically, how much military spending gets directed to the South]; the seeking of raw materials [doesn't every bourgeoisie do that? WTF? How is that any different from what the US and the UK have have done for 250-300 years? How? Because now with the Germans it, shock of shocks, involves white people.] Social patriotic policy? Fucking A, that's not the stock in trade of the French, the Spanish, the Argentines, the US, the UK?




This is true but I don't see why this is relevant. Are you saying that trade with Germany was becoming unprofitable so war broke out?


No, I'm saying the mythology of interconnectedness is just that. Profitability is the determining factor. When profit is short, the bourgeoisie will use any means available and necessary to turn blood into gold. The notion that trade prevents war is horseshit. There were extensive trading relations among capitalist powers prior to WW1 and WW2.




You are confusing imperial conquest with inter-imperial conflict. Imperialism is the method by which capitalism penetrated into non-commodity producing societies, necessitated by the logic of capital. However, you're claiming that these violent tendencies are also inherent in conflict between mature capitalist states. France and England both conquered pre-capitalist nations and territories to impose their own economic systems but they did not attack one another.



First, this runs counter to your endorsement of Paul's assessment of the peculiarities of German capitalism-- the blocs of reactionary classes, the search for raw materials, the use of social patriotism in the service of the two previous.

Imperial conquest is a function of capitalism. Inter-imperial conflict is a function of capitalism.

And you should review your history of the French and English capture of those pre-capitalist societies, where they were pretty much in armed conflict with each other in those specific areas of the world.

So the best you come up with is what Cockshott said at the getgo: Germany comes late to the international fuckfest, and can't get it's bling through the slave trade, or slavery, so it does the next best thing, empowers the Junkers to use the state as an organizer of accumulation and decides to sustain its industries by doing to Europeans what Europeans did to others. And this is supposed to make the German people, as a people, worse than other people?


You have a theory for the origins of the Second World War that involves universal principles that are immanent in the nature of capitalism itself. Yet capital has gone global and war between capitalist states is practically non-existent. This indicates that the theory needs to be revised.


It ain't over yet. We haven't had an economic contraction on the scale of the great Depression in 75 years... and so... does that mean such contractions are not inherent in capitalism? They're the result of mistakes in policy? In monetary policy? Trade policy?


I can't speak for capital in general but yes, war is not good for the oil industry in terms of gaining access to oil resources. In Hossein-Zadeh's words, " military adventures place the operations of current energy projects at jeopardy....they will also make the future plans precarious and unpredictable"


Specifically, it is clear that you haven't read anything about the history, recent or long ago of the US petroleum industry. And you sure as hell haven't looked at the financial reports between 2003 and 2007.

Hossein-Zadeh's words are contradicted by the performance profiles of the major energy producers. So you stick with his words. I say if we want to understand what's what-- follow the K.A.S.H.



I don't know these quotes but for this to have any relevance to our discussion, they must have been said in the context of Marx arguing that capitalism leads to war between capitalist states.

I never said Marx said that. You're the one who needs to provide the proof that Marx thought expanded trade would reduce the prospects for war.

[S.Artesian]

Hmm, I don't buy the argument that people are avoiding class or that Cockshott believes in a cohesive national guilt. I haven't seen that myself. A great many national socialists were not themselves owners of capital and there is good reason to also ascribe guilt to these Germans. When I spoke of reparations from W. Germany this sort of thing would have had to come from overall pressure of the imperialist countries and the balance of forces obviously did not favour the west German state paying for its crimes.

Also, as a matter of fact there were Japanese reparations paid to Asian countries and the USA, though I doubt they were significant enough in the case of the Asian countries, so I'm not sure your claim that reparations could never be paid as a result of war defeat. Or do you mean that capitalists would never allow reparations paid to a socialist country? That may be more likely sure..


Paying the reparations in the FRG left the bourgeoisie intact, "sanitized" the bourgeoisie as their US, UK, Dutch, etc counterparts desired. If you think Nazis are particularly hideous, and who doesn't? how one assigns blame to an entire German people or nation, but exempts the close collaborators of those Nazis' sponsors, the sponsors being the German industrialists, and the collaborators being US industrialists and bankers, UK bankers and industrialists, Dutch bankers and industrialists, Swiss bankers and industrialists, French bankers and industrialists, from "blame" boggles the mind.

[JoeySteel]

More straw persons as no one has claimed that the ruling classes of various imperialist countries are innocent of cooperating with and aiding Nazis. I'm sure we would all like to punish the international bourgeoisie, including for the crimes of aiding Nazis.

[S.Artesian]

More straw persons as no one has claimed that the ruling classes of various imperialist countries are innocent of cooperating with and aiding Nazis. I'm sure we would all like to punish the international bourgeoisie, including for the crimes of aiding Nazis.

Wrong again. go back and read the posts. Cockshott and others claim that US, French, Dutch, UK capitalism were "non-expansive" capitalisms and were doing no more than engaging in market exchanges with their German counterparts.

[JoeySteel]

And while you are treating them like equal partners others are pointing out that trade and cooperation doesnt make them responsible for Nazi aggression

[S.Artesian]

Of course not, how could US industrialists sharing markets, cartels, production agreements, royalties, licensing, joint ventures, property relations, with IG Farben, United Steel, Rayon be responsible for Nazi aggression? They're just businessmen doing business.

How does capitalism in the US, UK, France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, have anything in common with Farben's, or Krupp's sponsoring of Hitler? Why should US capitalists remitting payments to German industries before and during the war, why should US investment bankers maintaining financial and legal cover for the German industrialists producing Zyklon B etc mean that they were actually responsible for the use of Zyklon B?

Yep, you guys got it all figured out. Using Zyklon B.... bad. Funding Zyklon B... business as usual.

And the German people, who did not tear apart the factory producing Zyklon B, very bad.

[RED DAVE]

And while you are treating them like equal partners others are pointing out that trade and cooperation doesnt make them responsible for Nazi aggressionWhy not? Because you say so?

RED DAVE

[Forward Union]

:laugh: Whoa whoa wait a second. You are denying German war guilt because the German state frontiers changed?

No that's not what I was saying. I'm saying that German working class people should not feel guilty for the crimes of their government. The German people were also victims of Nazism.

That is, unless you agree with the Nazi claims that the Nazis were genuinely representing the collective interests of the German master race, that class in the third Reich had been abolished and thus ALL Germans; workers and Bourgeoisie, have some equal responsibility for the war. It's absurd. Only the ones who formed policy or had commanding roles in carrying it out are guilty for the war.


the tears you're crying are for Nazis.

Actually my "tears" were for German working class people, who, along with soviet working class people, were sent by their rulers to kill and be killed for imperial expansionism. If you
can't distinguish between "Germans" and "Nazis" then there is a serious problem. You see, once you make this distinction (I think Marx called it a Class distinction) then you realise it would be absurd to say that Workers should feel guilty for the crimes of the bourgeoisie they live under. Are Coca Cola workers responsible for the environmental pollution of the Coca Cola Company? are the packagers in the Nestle factory responsible for the debt imposed by nestle on the Congo? Obviously not. You can say that the German people are guilty for not stopping the war, but they did actually try to avert it, on the last ever Mayday before Hitler took power, there were 10,000 armed, uniformed communists protecting a march of over a million - I wonder where they went. But in the same line, I can say that our inability to overthrow capitalism today makes us responsible for all the wars and crimes of NATO today...

[S.Artesian]

Yet capital has gone global and war between capitalist states is practically non-existent. This indicates that the theory needs to be revised.


First off, just not true. Plenty of wars between plenty of capitalist states. You mean to say no full-out military conflicts among the advance European, North American, and Asian capitalist states.

Gee. obviously capitalism has reconciled its conflicts, and really doesn't have an aggressive nature.

Either that, or.........

Or there has been a single dominant military power among the capitalists, so dominant militarily that the bourgeoisie of other countries would rather be under its nuclear umbrella than the target of that nuclear umbrella.

Naah... that ain't it. It's the pacific nature of ultra-imperialism, and the fact that the evil Germans have admitted their collective guilt. Yep, that's it.

[Kotze]

But I have to hand it to Mr. Cockshott, he is slick. Back when he asked what were the forces I could identify as capitalist, causing WW2, I responded-- overproduction of the means of production, depression, inability to restore or maintain profitablility.

Cockshott neatly translated that as "changing organic composition of capital,"Rising organic composition is how a Marxist economist would parse your words.
and me, I fell for that, didn't even notice how he had substituted his notion for what I had written.There's a little problem with claiming you meant something else and failed to notice: You were not only asked once about organic composition in post #30, the question also came up in post #35, post #44, post #51, post #61, post #94, and post #141. You have already replied to questions regarding organic composition, and mentioned it yourself, and said you know about it:
I do have figures on the increased organic composition blahblahblah
I said, I had the numbers on organic composition [and I use fixed assets accumulation as the marker], and profitability for the 1921-1929 period blahblahblahIn conclusion, it's not plausible that S.Artesian took so long to notice what he was asked about, and the only plausible explanation for his behaviour is that he claimed to have expertise where he had not, and when probed about that, he flipped the fuck out (as usual).

[JamesH]

Where does Marx ever state that increased commerce and trade between nations brings reduced aggression and lessens the likelihood of war?


I provided two quotes from the manifesto in an early post where he argued just that.




No, but you and Paul are arguing that the entire German people bear a particular and collective guilt. Paul's description sounds just like a description that could be made about the US at every point in its history-- reactionary blocks of ex Southern slaveholders allied with the military apparatus [take a look at, historically, how much military spending gets directed to the South]; the seeking of raw materials [doesn't every bourgeoisie do that? WTF? How is that any different from what the US and the UK have have done for 250-300 years? How? Because now with the Germans it, shock of shocks, involves white people.] Social patriotic policy? Fucking A, that's not the stock in trade of the French, the Spanish, the Argentines, the US, the UK?
Yes, I would say that the actions of the major powers during the era of imperialism and the scramble for territories. However, at the time of the





No, I'm saying the mythology of interconnectedness is just that. Profitability is the determining factor. When profit is short, the bourgeoisie will use any means available and necessary to turn blood into gold. The notion that trade prevents war is horseshit. There were extensive trading relations among capitalist powers prior to WW1 and WW2.





First, this runs counter to your endorsement of Paul's assessment of the peculiarities of German capitalism-- the blocs of reactionary classes, the search for raw materials, the use of social patriotism in the service of the two previous.

Imperial conquest is a function of capitalism. Inter-imperial conflict is a function of capitalism.

And you should review your history of the French and English capture of those pre-capitalist societies, where they were pretty much in armed conflict with each other in those specific areas of the world.

So the best you come up with is what Cockshott said at the getgo: Germany comes late to the international fuckfest, and can't get it's bling through the slave trade, or slavery, so it does the next best thing, empowers the Junkers to use the state as an organizer of accumulation and decides to sustain its industries by doing to Europeans what Europeans did to others. And this is supposed to make the German people, as a people, worse than other people?



It ain't over yet. We haven't had an economic contraction on the scale of the great Depression in 75 years... and so... does that mean such contractions are not inherent in capitalism? They're the result of mistakes in policy? In monetary policy? Trade policy?



Specifically, it is clear that you haven't read anything about the history, recent or long ago of the US petroleum industry. And you sure as hell haven't looked at the financial reports between 2003 and 2007.


I'm not sure this discussion is fruitful any longer, since we appear to be at sixes and sevens are simply repeating ourselves. So this will be my last reply and you may have the last word, if you wish.

The political stagnation of Imperial Germany led to the domination of the government by a reactionary, landowning aristocracy, at a time when the bourgeois republic was the dominant form of European government. This class was imbued with nationalist and racist fantasies about the superiority of the German race and the need for Germany to dominate Europe. These ideas found their expression in an expansion foreign policy outlook that led to the First World War, an intentional policy of Germany. Thus Germany is uniquely responsible for deliberately instigating the war.

Comparing the imperial states and Nazi Germany is ahistorical. Nazi expansion occurred at a time when the empires of Europe had solidified and general expansionism had ceased. No longer were Belgium or the UK scrambling for Africa. Germany's evil lies in the fact, as Paul pointed out, it's aggression represented a regression to 19th century norms of conduct.

The time that something occurs does matter in our judging it. The re-emergence of slavery in the United States, say, would be judged much harsher than slavery in antiquity, because the norms of our society specifically forbid it and recognize it as a moral evil. This re-emergence of it would turn back our moral clock and legitimize a barbarous institution that should have been completely stamped out.