Don't By Books from Pathfinder Press

[RedCeltic]

This is kind of an old issue, but when I saw the Socialist Workers Party selling Pathfinder Press books as usual in Washington DC this weekend, I was reminded by a friend, that they are not an organisation worth supporting.

Why? Well, Socialist Worker's Party (USA) is not really much more than a publishing company these days, and a few years ago had sued the Marxist internet archive for making Castro's speaches free, and available to the public. The Socialist Worker's Party (origionally Trotskyite) has a pro-Cuba ideology, and makes money by selling books about cuba, and Castro's speaches. Besides a few candidates they run now and than, that's pretty much all the group does these days.

Now, The Cuban Government has always rejected the notion that Fidel's, and Che's speaches carry a copywrite, so, it is quite hypocritical of this so called pro-Cuban organisation, to maintain that they somehow hold copywrite over the English translation of these speaches.

That's why I always just pass by their table when I see them at Protests like Saturday. Although Saturday, I was mostly standing near them in order to get a good laugh at the idiots with the "You are all Sodomites and Drunkards" sign across the street... haha...

[truthaddict11]

hey RC welcome back, only Marxist book ive ever bought has been Marx Engels Reader most of the time I use the library. If you dont mind this looks like it belongs in Literature. I'll move it there if you disagree move it back to CC.

[RedCeltic]

yeah, I've been off the internet for quite some time.

Anyway, Pathfinder press books are only available through the Socialist Worker's Party, when they table at protests. I've purchased some books from them in the past, some speaches from Fidel, and Che, and "The Revolution Betrayed" by Trotsky. However, Pathfinder press if quite overpriced and really turns me off with their attitudes on copywrite.

Since most Marxist writing that you would want to read has been around for a long time, and reprinted dozens of times, avoiding buying any Marxist books new, is fairly easy anyway.

And, Thanks for moving the thread Truthaddict11. I was just kind of wondering what was said here about the protest in DC this weekend, and thought that info on Pathfinder press may interest some.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

The Marx and engels Reader is quite good. I have it myself. It's not Pathfinder, I believe.
I have 2 Manifestos.
One I carry aroudn with me religiously.
It's published by Penguin and has about 200 pages of introduction, then several prefaces by Trotsky, Marx, Engels, etc., and finaly the manifesto.
The other is published by Pathfinder :( .

[praxis1966]

You're better off going and finding a copy of Essential Works of Marxism. Although this is somewhat a misnomer since it includes some writing by Stalin. I bought it simply out of historian's curiosity, since I'm a syndicalist if anything.

[Severian]

That's factually inaccurate. It was stuff by Trotsky that Pathfinder holds a copyright on, not Castro speeches that are obviously public domain, and the MIA was preparing to sell 'em on CD, not just post 'em on the web. But I'm not going to quibble.

(Edit: IIRC it was Trotsky, and of course Pathfinder does not hold the copyright on Castro speeches. It's possible Pathfinder holds the copyright on translations and editing work on Castro speeches, and wants to be compensated for this by those reprinting its versions. But that's all quibble.)

Core issue: the SWP, by supporting Pathfinder Press, keeps in print a lot of communist literature that nobody else is interested in printing. There will be more and more literature that only Pathfinder is interested in publishing - by Lenin for example, as the Stalinist forces lose interest in it. A while back Pathfinder organized to buy up a whole lotta collected works of Marx, Engels and Lenin from the Soviet Union, where it was going to be pulped because the nomenklatura had no further use for it. As they were in the process of dropping their always-false claim to be Marxist and Leninist.

Various leftist forces, who have no interest in the hard work of publishing this stuff, are jealous of the fact that Pathfinder does. So they call for boycotting Pathfinder. Uh, yeah, that helps spread communist ideas.

Their was a similar business around Malcolm X a few years back...by black nationalist forces, who, again, had no interest in publishing Malcolm X themselves. When Bruce Perry dug up some new Malcolm X material some years back, he shopped it to everyone, and ended up with Pathfinder 'cause no-one else was interested. Didn't stop Amiri Baraka and others to call for a boycott of the only publisher who does bring this stuff out. In practice, a call for people not to read Malcolm X speeches. Makes sense, actually, people might find out what a fraud it is for Baraka and that lot to claim to be following in Malcolm X's footprints.

Oh, BTW, the idea that Pathfinder makes money for the SWP is ridiculous. In fact, the SWP subsidized Pathfinder, with money and labor. Along with doing a lot of other stuff: activity in the labor movement, publishing the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, election campaigns to give the broadest possible publicity to communist ideas, etc.

If it was so profitable to publish communist and revolutionary books, capitalist businesses would be bringing out a lot more of them.

[Severian]

OK, I did a Google search, and dug up a response to this whole business by someone who was willing to spend a little more time addressing the substance of it than I am, a fellow by the name of Fred Feldman:

Well, I know many people are preoccupied with sitting shiva for the
Milosevic regime right now, buy I want to make a few comments on the
discussion carrying the highly premature headline, "Barnesites suing
MIA," the Marxist I nternet Archive. This discussion is being carried
out in the calm, objective, fact-oriented tone that characterizes
discussions of matters that touch on the Socialist Workers Party in
the mailing llist ("Barnes is real scum."}. I'm a former party member
and that definitely colors how I look at it.

The entire discussion of intellectual property is beside the point.
The SWP is not Time Warner, any more than MIA is Napster. Nor,
contrary to some assertions, can any guidance be found on how the
workers movement should handle copyright problems in the framework of
a capitalist society in the writings of Marx and Engels.

The Socialist Workers Party, which supports Pathfinder politically, is
a an organization of several hundred cadres and a few hundred more
organized youth and supprters. Pathfinder books make no profit but
have to be heavily subsidized by voluntary contributions of supporters
of these publications. What is involved here is not intellectual
property in the cloudy sense that term is usually used but enormous
quantities of human labor power (12-hour days by editors, translators
and printers, the activities of the volunteers on the digitization
project, the wages of contributors, and so on..

If the copyrights are lost, Pathfinder would become much more
difficult if not impossible to sustain. Copyrights that are not
respected and protected are lost. That is the law. The loss of
Pathfinder would be an enormous loss to the availability of the
writings of Trotsky, Castro, Malcolm X and others. Pathfinder is not
restricting their circulation but to a large extent making it
possible.

Consulting Pathfinder for permission to use materials they have
published ought to be a reflex of solidarity among people considering
themselves Marxists. I suspect that the failure to adhere to this has
something to do with political antagonism to the current that
politicaly supports Pathfinder.

It is true that Pathfinder books are not primarily aimed at those who
already regard themselves as Marxists, but are actively distributed
among union fighters in the meatpackiing, garment, coal and other
industries.

As for those wicked Park Avenue lawyers, its always been my view that
if you decide to hire a lawyer, it is wise to employ a good one rather
than an incompetent. I know that if I am ever framed up for murder, I
plan to call Johnnie Cochran first. The rest will just have to wait
their turn.

This is the not the first time that people who disagreed politically
with the SWP attempted to challenge Pathfinder's copyrights. In the
early 1990s a group of Black nationalists attempted to put out a book
about Malcolm X including long quotations taken without permission
from Pathfinder books. As a matter of self-defense Pathfinder had to
take action similar to what has happened in this case. The
nationalist group attempted to scandalize Pathfinder in the media and
even proclaimed a boycott of Pathfinder books. in Harlem. This effort
bombed. In the end the author and Pathfinder reached a settlement out
of court that appeared to be satisfactory to all concerned.

I think the MIA should recognize Pathfinder's rights in this matter
and settle the differences on that basis.

The yelling about intellectual property and Marxist opposition to the
same reminds me a lot of the people I would meet selling on
streetcorners who would claim that if I was a sincere communist I
would give the Militant away rather than sell it. They were not my
favorite people. As long as capitalist society exists, the labor
theory of value cannot be wished out of existence even for communist
newspapers or the writings of Trotsky and Castro.

[RedCeltic]

Severian

Thank you for providing more information on this!