Can the housing question create a new internationa

[peaccenicked]

http://www.pww.org/article/view/11534/

Looking at the present situation and learning from this thead here. http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=69693I have been thinking that the bridge that might coagulate the international working class is the housing question. The extend which foreclosure is in our face should be monitored internationally.

Revleft is not a party, but potentially it can be an influence, and who knows what google search might bring more people to the table.
There is the anti-war movement, of course, but unfortunately it is fragmented somewhat and it has lost the momentum of it earlier mass demos.
Socialists should try to merge the issues but if the housing struggle has a different base of support at least initially, I think it is practical to focus on the housing problem as an independent field until such time these movements make contact and relate their commonalities to one another.

My only experience of direct struggle in housing was during the UK poll tax dispute.
We stopped physically the Baillifs or the city councils henchmen from entering peoples houses for to issue warrant sales. This I think helped to reform that tax, and cut to practically zero as far as I know poundings ie the selling off of tenants furniture.
We might need to develop similar tactics of human barricades.
Anyhow, I would be interested to know if anybody has any ideas this area.

This being early in this coming development in the class struggle. It might be appropiate to hear both theoretical and practical comments.

This is from Rosa's blog on the Subprime crisis.


The implications of a crash, in other words, are that economic autarky will be accompanied by increasingly militarised drives to facilitate the export of capital as well as access to energy resources. Aside from that, the condition of the labour movement is not optimal, and its ability to resist the inevitable attempts to make the working class pay for a recession with pay cuts and degraded conditions is weak. Not that it couldn't be done, not that a populist or anticapitalist challenge couldn't be renewed, but we'd have to re-learn some old lessons extremely fucking quickly.

[BreadBros]

I don't understand what Rosa is saying: how can autarky be accompanied by militarized drives to expand trade or energy access? That seems to be contradictory but I'm probably simply not getting what shes saying.

What exactly would you propose for action around this? Certainly I'm not happy about people being economically hurt by this, but at the same time prices are so absurdly high (putting housing out of the reach of a lot of working-class people, or forcing them to finance and arm and a leg to manage to get it) that prices coming down would seem to ultimately be a good thing. I would support some sort of education campaign for the wider public...to show how and why (if a recession happens) the recession occurred. While we're good on Marx too many here lack understanding of modern practical economics (me included a lot of times, tbh, although I make an effort).

[Tower of Bebel]

What exactly would you propose for action around this? Certainly I'm not happy about people being economically hurt by this, but at the same time prices are so absurdly high (putting housing out of the reach of a lot of working-class people, or forcing them to finance and arm and a leg to manage to get it) that prices coming down would seem to ultimately be a good thing. I would support some sort of education campaign for the wider public...to show how and why (if a recession happens) the recession occurred. While we're good on Marx too many here lack understanding of modern practical economics (me included a lot of times, tbh, although I make an effort).

Low prices will be a short term achievement. in the long term capitalists will have to react. This means lower wages for example, and of course again several attacks on social security.

[capstop]

I don't understand what Rosa is saying: how can autarky be accompanied by militarized drives to expand trade or energy access? That seems to be contradictory but I'm probably simply not getting what shes saying.

What exactly would you propose for action around this? Certainly I'm not happy about people being economically hurt by this, but at the same time prices are so absurdly high (putting housing out of the reach of a lot of working-class people, or forcing them to finance and arm and a leg to manage to get it) that prices coming down would seem to ultimately be a good thing. I would support some sort of education campaign for the wider public...to show how and why (if a recession happens) the recession occurred. While we're good on Marx too many here lack understanding of modern practical economics (me included a lot of times, tbh, although I make an effort).


EL KABLAMO on the ‘Market meltdown' thread said: “I'm scared that when the market collapses I will just not know enough.” Now BreadBros has put his hand up.
Well, you can add me to the list of inadequate communist economists (and that would constitute a healthy faction in most left organisations these days.)

Joking aside, I think the recognition of our own shortcomings in this area opens up an another opportunity to sharpen-up theoretical understanding. “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity.” Lenin

For those trained in the dark arts of capitalist economics or with a natural aptitude for ingesting reams of, often dry, unfamiliar language, the prospect of educating untutored workers can be tricky. But if we want communist workers and students to be able to explain events its going to have to be insisted on and at the risk of ruffling some academic fathers, done better than it has been so far.

The first problem you might have is how to avoid being condescending/patronising and the second is how to do it without talking over our heads. One thing worse than being lectured in the ’Janet & John’ style is having to use our biros for stabbing ourselves awake in meetings etc.

We know there is no easy way or substitute for disciplined struggle with this stuff but I think the struggle can be made more rewarding if the education was conducted in class war terms exemplified in the Lenin quote above. The paragraph, like much of Lenin’s writing, doesn’t just state the main idea about revolutionary theory, it takes a good swipe at the political opposition. So if there is anyone who can combine a good knowledge of economics with a robust polemical style, I think it would be well received by workers everywhere who are thirsty for a sharp understanding of all this.

If its happening already, post it up!

[capstop]

Below is an extract from ‘Marx’s Kapital for beginners’ in the ‘Theory’ slot.

If this destruction is the case for the ‘overproduction‘ of commodities in general and is also true of ‘overproduction’ of capital itself, what ways other than war does the system have for reducing or destroying the massive ‘surplus’ capital internationally.



4. Overproduction

Still another example of how exchange-value eclipses use-value is evident in so-called ‘overproduction’. Periodically, production results in what business regards as an ‘excess’ of commodities. The consequence is that prices and profits fall – to the chagrin and mortal fury of capitalists. The market, they say, is ‘glutted’. To reverse matters, business intentionally and cheerfully destroys part of its product. Why? Simply to raise prices and profits. Never mind that people lack adequate housing, medical care, or food. From the profit-standpoint of business, the market ‘glut’ is a catastrophe. It must be disposed of. Not by making surplus use-values freely available to people – heavens, no! Rather, by destroying them.

This is what happened, for example, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Agribusiness found itself burdened with an ‘excess’ of pigs and milk, causing prices to fall. The result was that pigs were killed and milk disposed of, in vast quantities, to safeguard profits – though many went hungry. To keep profits up, supply is kept down. Production is restricted as a matter of course.

In the US, for example, barely 70% of the total productive capacity is used. Much of the general production apparatus remains idle – to say nothing of the millions of unemployed workers. As we see, capitalism requires products universally endowed with exchangeability. Business places a premium not on what the object is, but on its value.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 03:22 am
For those trained in the dark arts of capitalist economics or with a natural aptitude for ingesting reams of, often dry, unfamiliar language, the prospect of educating untutored workers can be tricky. But if we want communist workers and students to be able to explain events its going to have to be insisted on and at the risk of ruffling some academic fathers, done better than it has been so far.
Perhaps Comrade Red and I could chip in (though he's a physicist, he's got a penchant for statistics)? :huh:

BTW, don't focus too much on capitalist economics - micro, macro, or monetary. That isn't as relevant to the CEOs and big-time capitalists as accounting and finance, which are my "dark arts"). ;)

If you're about to head into post-secondary education, I suggest you pick up a major in accounting instead of the stereotypical humanities and liberal arts areas that most leftists tend to take. For your minor, try economics.

I realize that this is risky and could result in ideological "casualties" (with all the right-wing business profs et all), but those who come out of it as hardened socialists will have practically eliminated the shortcomings you mentioned.

[BreadBros]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 08:44 am

What exactly would you propose for action around this? Certainly I'm not happy about people being economically hurt by this, but at the same time prices are so absurdly high (putting housing out of the reach of a lot of working-class people, or forcing them to finance and arm and a leg to manage to get it) that prices coming down would seem to ultimately be a good thing. I would support some sort of education campaign for the wider public...to show how and why (if a recession happens) the recession occurred. While we're good on Marx too many here lack understanding of modern practical economics (me included a lot of times, tbh, although I make an effort).

Low prices will be a short term achievement. in the long term capitalists will have to react. This means lower wages for example, and of course again several attacks on social security.
Social Security is already effectively dead. I don't really think lower prices will be short-term. It's very hard to foresee housing prices returning to say 2004-levels for quite a long time. Yes, a recession would mean lower wages. The fact is, if this plays out to it's fruition I think the entire US economy would require a massive re-vamping since its clear that much of this country's wealth at all levels was financed via paper debt with little correlation to real life.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Suppose the mortage companies get smart and cut the rates, and the federal reserves inject a some more money-- then what?

[Wilfred]

Originally posted by EL [email protected] 19, 2007 08:52 pm
Suppose the mortage companies get smart and cut the rates, and the federal reserves inject a some more money-- then what?
Well, I don't think they will get smart, how else did they get into this? Although short term greed also played a role. I also doubt the fed will lower rates. Lots of poor people will simply lose their houses and land on the street.
I just hope those poor people will stick together and create real communities.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Never underestimate your opponents, even Donald Trump knows that.