alanjjohnstone
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http://mailstrom.blogspot.com/2016/01/animal-lib.htmlFor John to use where he thinks fitting(i would have pasted the pic here but it seems unwilling to let me. I hope the new upcoming website has a forum that permits members to upload photos and videos much more easily)
Is this not settled yet? Has there not been a resolution?As far as i can detect there has not been any member from our companion parties willing to take responsibility. Is there a problem with access and passwords? If not, then i suggest Vin simply goes ahead and if volunteer(s) from a companion party appear he can either stand down or collaborate.If no-one opposes this, i suggest it is a aye vote.
Sepehr, as well you know, a correct interpretation and application of socialist ideas are not a popularity contest. When you argue that only a few Iranians have heard of the WCPI you may well be right, and you may well disagree with them but you should know better than use it as a claim for right or wrong positions. Those who knew of Marx and Engels much less read them were also a handful for much of their lives. Public recognition scarecly validated or invalidated their ideas.Also it was either hyperbole or a typo that you seem to think there are thousand of Iranian Marxist groups… i'm sure you meant thousands in Iranian Marxist groups but we all face the fact that Marxist parties are insignificant and of inconsequencial importance today in all countries. It seems you fail to appreciate any offer of additional information, since i assume you do not have 100% knowledge despite the considerable amount of reading you have done so i have raised authors i think you may not have studied. You should note i included links Amin's rebuttal to the criticism as proper balance.Have you read Andrew Kliman's lecture here, for instance, which i found very useful. http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/video-the-incoherence-of-transitional-society.htmlI think we should be careful of citing Marx's authority or approval for co-ops. I think in every post i have declared that he is not infallible and we must always judge from conditions we face today. He expressed his sympathy for them at the IWMA in 1866 "We acknowledge the co-operative movement as one of the transforming forces of the present society based upon class antagonism. Its great merit is to practically show, that the present pauperising, and despotic system of the subordination of labour to capital can be superseded by the republican and beneficent system of the association of free and equal producers.’ In Volume 3 of Capital Marx argued of co-operatives that ‘the antithesis between capital and labour is overcome within them, if at first only by way of making the associated labourers into their own capitalist, i.e., by enabling them to use the means of production for the employment of their own labour.’But again, as with his support for national independence for certain nations and not all, he offered no carte blance.‘…however… excellent in principle and however useful in practice, co-operative labour, if kept within the narrow circle of the casual efforts of private workmen, will never be able to arrest the growth in geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses, nor even to perceptibly lighten the burden of their miseries. … To save the industrious masses, co-operative labour ought to be developed to national dimensions, and, consequently, to be fostered by national means. Yet the lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defence and perpetuation of their economic monopolies. So far from promoting, they will continue to lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labour. …To conquer political power has, therefore, become the great duty of the working classes.’ (IWMA 1864)‘Restricted, however, to the dwarfish forms into which individual wages slaves can elaborate it by their private efforts, the co-operative system will never transform capitalist society. To convert social production into one large and harmonious system of free and co-operative labour, general social changes are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society, never to be realised save by the transfer of the organised forces of society, viz., the state power, from capitalists and landlords to the producers themselves.’ (IWMA 1866)‘The co-operative factories of the labourers themselves represent within the old form the first sprouts of the new, although they naturally reproduce, and must reproduce, everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system’ (Capital, Vol.3)So perhaps in the 19th c they were a useful tactic but Marx's longer term actual prognosis for them was more pessimisticAs you say in your post "Mondragon and coops are realities, quite palpable and observable. Is that utopian or your insipid and fruitless reiteration of a purely imaginary future?" and i respond by saying as such, we have almost 200 years of hard bitter experience of their successes and failures in all sorts of social situations to make a political and economic judgement. The criticisms of coops are not based upon an imaginary future but history and it isn't it rather Wolff's proposals for WSDEs based on an imaginary future. Mondragon's model has already been falling apart, no crystal ball is required to conclude its failure as an aspiration for the working class. Wolff’s solution of WSDEs is no solution. Changing the legal form of private ownership of a business does not change the essence – capital is a social relation that expresses itself as a form of exchange value. Capitalism is generalised commodity production, wealth being produced for sale on a market. Wolff declines to challenge this and a WSDE is just as in much need to make a profit and required to compete with rival workers as current capitalists. He may succeed in making the tread-mill more humane but humanity will still be engaged in a rat-race. My own criticisms of Wolff which i am sure you will reject have been blogged here a few years ago. http://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2011/05/sheep-in-wolffs-clothing.htmlAnyways, i look forwards to your reply.
I know a little about some of Iran's history and the 1953 US/UK orchestrated coup. I think you will be aware of the Workers Communist Party of Iran and how they are very unsympathetic to the present theocracy in Iran so do you dismiss their analysis as reductionist ?I think you mistaken my comment that i merely need to open my door and talk to my neighbours…The advantage of the internet is that you can contribute from wherever you are located and i departed the UK near-on a decade ago. I am afraid that you are very versed in sharing your advice and recommendations but less so when you do not listen to other peoples reading lists – such as i tried to ask you about – Andrew Kliman and Paul Mattick. I could have added to the list such as Paresh Chattopadhyay analysis of state-capitalism.Perhaps you have read this critical essay of Samir Amin. http://libcom.org/library/national-formation-arab-region-critique-samir-amin-mohammad-jafarAnd Amin's reply to ithttp://libcom.org/files/Mohammad%20Jafar%20brief%20comment%20SA.pdf Some people would suggest that it should be you, yourself, who should be be careful about a Wolff masquerading in Marxist clothing. Wolff's so-called pragmatic solutions such as workers co-operatives along the lines of Mondragon as a realistic solution to the problems of workers simply is utopian and outlandish views for a Marxist to hold but more importantly when described as socialism then it will be socialism that will be discredited once the inevitable happens and these co-ops collapse or regress back to "normal" capitalist practices. ‘Socialism-lite’ greases the path to right-wing reaction.
Yet another developmentThe Ugandan government has banned its citizens from taking jobs as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, claiming they are often abused by their employers.Muruli Wilson Mukasa, minister of gender, labour and social development, said on Friday that the government continued "to receive information of our people being subjected to inhuman treatment at the hands of the employers in Saudi Arabia".Uganda becomes the fourth country after Indonesia, Ethiopia and the Philippines to ban their nationals from traveling to Saudi to work as domestic workers, over concerns of abuse.http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/uganda-bans-housemaids-working-saudi-arabia-160123051600447.html
But i think there will be many who will see this IMF report as confirmation that employers use migrants to under-cut indigenous wages,See SOYMB bloghttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/01/imf-pay-refugees-less.html
Welcome to the forum and i hope we can be of helpDon't expect a short and quick explanation, and bear with us as there are several aspects to the answers you will recieve. But the website itself should offer some explanation if you use its tabs and also the search facility for articles from our archives.We represent now a very under-represented tradition of socialism, the Impossiblists, because we reject the need for reforms and insist that full socialism/communism is possible right now…so we should technically be called the Possiblists and those who think a series of reforms offer stepping stones towards socialism are the real Impossiblists
Many thanks for your reply. There are things that i think we can disagree upon in a comradely fashion, one being the Zionist terrorism against the British mandate in Palestine or that the Iranian's are not using the cover of Shi'ites to advance their national interests and strengthen their regional influence. As i said i cut my previous message short since it was indeed too lengthy, as this one is too. I was about to bring Hilferding into the discussion but you pre-empted me.Lenin possessed a fairly run-of-the-mill analysis of imperialism and colonialism and it was heavily based on Hilferding. Due to the higher profits to be made in the colonies and less developed countries than at home. Lenin and Hilferding gave detailed accounts of the supposedly unstoppable growth of monopoly in industry and banking but carried it much further, crediting the banks with dominating industry and the cartels with fixing prices and dividing up world markets among themselves. Lenin wrote: "Cartels become one of the foundations of the whole economic life. Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism." Hilferding wrote: "An ever-increasing proportion of the capital used in industry is finance capital, capital at the disposition of the banks which is used by the industrialists". Lenin quoted and endorsed this. Hilferding said that it was only necessary to take over six large Berlin banks to take possession of ". . . the most important spheres of large-scale industry". It is worth noticing that in the depression of the 1930s most of the big German banks collapsed, or almost did so, along with the industrial companies in which the banks' money was tied up. Among other forecasts forecasts made by Lenin was that because of the dominance of finance capital "there was a decrease in the importance of the Stock Exchange". Kautsky, thought that the end result would be "a single world monopoly . . . a universal trust", followed by socialism. Hilferding thought that this single world monopoly was "thinkable economically, although socially and politically such a state appears unrealisable, for the antagonism of interests . . . would necessarily bring about its collapse". But Hilferding thought that world cartels would result in "longer . . . periods of prosperity" and shorter depressions. The long depression of the 1930s and others since belie this. How far this process will go remains to be seen, but the belief of Hilferding and Lenin that competition was dead, has been disproved. Hilferding, Lenin and all failed to allow for the sectional divisions of interest in the capitalist class. Hilferding treated the monopolist industries as representing a united capitalist class. Lenin made a valid point in his Imperialism about some annexationist wars. He wrote that sometimes the powers try to annexe regions "not so much for their own direct advantage as to weaken an adversary and undermine its hegemony". Lenin and Hilferding both saw the growth of monopoly and its resulting wars as a prelude to socialism, and insisted that socialism was the only answer. But Hilferding found himself acting as Finance Minister in a German coalition government, trying vainly to solve the problems of German capitalism. And Lenin's "socialism" has resulted in Russia becoming a capitalist super-power.It was only in 1920, in a preface to the French and German editions, of his ‘Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism’ that Lenin introduced the idea that a section of the working class in the imperialist countries shared in the booty extracted from capitalists, the so-called “aristocracy of labour” of skilled workers – shares in the proceeds of the exploitation of colonial and now ‘Third World’ countries, workers and peasants in the rest of the world. Basically, he argued that as profits were greater in the undeveloped parts of the world capitalists were eager to invest there; this brought the capitalist states into continual conflict over the division of the world. Part of the "super-profits" of this imperialist exploitation were used to pay higher wages and provide social reforms for sections of the workers at home. They were thus led away from revolutionary socialism towards opportunism. His anti-imperialism was to try to secure the support of anti-colonial movements for his beleaguered regime in Russia. If they succeeded, he believed, they would deprive the imperialist state concerned of its super-profits and so also of its ability to buy off its workers. Deprived of their share the workers' standard of living would drop and they would once again become revolutionary, affording a chance for a Bolshevik-type vanguard to seize power. It was a political manoeuvre – “workers and colonial peoples unite” – that went against the basic principle of Marxian economics that wages represent the value of the labour-power a worker sells and contain no element of surplus value. Wages paid to skilled workers here reflect the higher quality – due to more education, training and skill – of the labour power they have to sell. Marx had a quite different explanation as to why wages were higher in these countries. Both productivity and the rate of exploitation (ratio of paid to unpaid labour) were higher there:It was Louis Boudin in his ‘Socialism and War’ who put in its most crude form the theory on imperialism and war. He argued that the turning point was the replacement of such industries as textiles by iron and steel. He wrote: "Modern imperialism . . . is the expression of the economic fact that iron and steel have taken the place of textiles as the leading industry of capitalism, and imperialism means war. Textiles, therefore mean peace, iron and steel – war." The argument was that exports of textiles and similar consumer goods are paid for at once but iron and steel exported to build railways, factories, ports and so on are long-term investments needing the protection provided by the home government turning importing countries into colonies. Boudin's theory to explain competition for markets was the basis of all capitalist industrial development is the fact that the working class produces not only more than it consumes, but more than society as a whole consumes. Therefore, said Boudin, developed countries cannot find markets inside the capitalist world but only on the fringes of capitalism, first in primitive agriculture at home and, when that too is developed, only in the countries not yet developed. These countries themselves develop and have to seek non-existent markets for their "surplus" products. It is only necessary to look at what actually takes place to see that Boudin's theory is demonstrably false. The working class do not produce more than society itself consumes. Or rather, they alternately produce more than society currently consumes and then less than society currently consumes. At the onset of a depression stocks pile up of the goods some industries have overproduced for their markets but later on, as recovery begins, stocks run down again. It is clear that Boudin was wrong in their belief that the competitive struggle for markets results from an inbuilt deficiency of demand in the home market. The profit motive behind the search for overseas markets by the export capitalists is no different from the profit motive behind the home producers for the home market, and the import capitalists.Rosa Luxemburg’s theory on imperialism was based on an equally faulty analysis of capitalism: that it suffered from a chronic shortage of home purchasing power that drove capitalist countries to seek markets outside capitalism, in the less developed parts of the world.(no-one is perfect as i have said in other messages and despite my favourable citations from her, she too had many flaws)Bukharin developed the idea of a single capitalist world economy and anticipated the role that the state was to play in supporting the overseas economic interests (markets, raw material resources, investment outlets, trade routes) of the capitalist firms established within its borders.Many Leftists assert that socialists should support any movement, even if it is not socialist, that weakens "American imperialism" which they say is the main threat to social revolution throughout the world, just as Marx supported moves against Tsarist Russia. Second, the anti-imperialists and workers in the West are fighting the same enemy—imperialism—and so we should support each other.It is true that in the middle of the nineteenth century Marx saw Tsarist Russia, (and i have returned to this a few times,) the "gendarme of Europe", as a great threat to the further social progress of mankind. He felt that if Russia overran Western Europe it would crush the democratic movement and put the social revolution back for years. Therefore, he was ready to support any moves that might weaken the power of Tsarist Russia. He supported Britain, France and Turkey in the Crimean war. He stood for an independent Polish state, to be a buffer between Russia and the rest of Europe. He did all he could to expose the pro- Russia policies and intrigues of Lord Palmerston. These activities I have criticised Marx for – So in regards to that aspect, then as you say , i am no Marxist!!.Marx the way i read him and you say this is early Marx and not Later but that is debateable, argued that before socialism is possible society must pass through the capitalist stage. But this is no automatic process; it depends on the outcome of human struggles. Russia was "reactionary" in the proper sense of the word in that it was a threat to the development even of capitalism. Marx opposed Tsarist Russia, not because it was the strongest capitalist power, but because it was the strongest anti-capitalist power. Looking back now we can see that Marx was over-optimistic as to the prospects of a socialist revolution in Europe. In time the capitalist states of western Europe grew stronger and the Tsarist Empire weaker, finally to be destroyed along with Austro- Hungary and Imperial Germany in the first world war. Before that even, Russia in a bid to keep its armed forces up to date had become indebted to the capitalists of France and Belgium. Well before the turn of the century we can say that conditions had changed since Marx's day. Capitalism was firmly established as the new world order. Russia was no longer a threat. Anti-imperialism is not the same as anti-capitalism. The task of socialists is clear – to oppose all wars and nationalist movements and to work to build up a world-wide workers' movement with socialism as its aim. We find that government today is in reality the executive committee of the trusts and affiliated banks who use diplomacy and armed force if not actually to annex countries, at least to secure markets, excluding competition in their self-allotted spheres of interests. Imperialism aims at the control of all the small nations to exploit them for its own benefit. "Anti-imperialism" is the slogan of local aspiring capitalists who wish to dominate the region in place of the US/UK/EU, a situation which would still leave the mass of the population there exploited and oppressed with the eternal problem of finding enough money to buy the things they need to live.Anti-imperialist struggles are class struggles under an ideological smokescreen, but not of the working class. They are either struggles by an aspiring capitalist class to establish themselves as a new national ruling class or struggles by an established but weak national ruling class to gather a bigger share of world profits for themselves. There is no reason why socialists should support them. We should not allow ourselves to be used as tools of some capitalist state. Our position in society is to transform the private ownership of the means of production and distribution into social ownership, producing for use instead of for profit. A few quick observation on your reply, Sepehr, and they are briefI take your point on Japan and perhaps go even further with the unique history of Japan in suggesting the Meiji Revolution (Restoration) may well supports the case of a fairly constitutional peaceful transformation of social systems…in Japan from feudalism to capitalism…today, from capitalism to socialism.As regards the bribe reference you transposed the " apostrophes" …i don't accept we are bribed or that we are an aristocracy of labour. This is the conclusion i accuse those who accepts Lenin. I think one wag when explained Lenin's implication that the Western worker is bought off by the British Empire, answered, "just tell me which amount of my wages is and i will gladly give it back."…I don't readily dismiss the class struggle in North America or Europe as being contributory factor to concessions and compromises made by the ruling class and often it was merely the fear of such a struggle that brought such great gains such as the 1945 British Welfare State when all the bourgeois parties Tories Liberals and Labour politicians joined together because they did not seek a repeat of 1919 and the possibility of revolution arising But I think it is also a sign of the current weakness of unions in safeguarding decent wages and conditions in the US that outsourced jobs are now returning to some degree…Where the Southern red 'right to work' states are indeed at Third World levels these days Without dwelling upon my personal circumstances, i have been a very close observer of the daily struggle of people in the developing countries, i need only open the door and look out and talk with my neighbours to understand what they face, so in the politest of ways and with no dis-respect…there is no need to teach your granny to suck eggs, as the saying goes I am well aware of varying living standards between nations but of course i am also very painfully aware of the existence of a yawning wealth gap within nations and how oligarchs versus plutocrats use people as political pawnsWe do possess differing ideas on Marx, i think. Too far apart to be compatible. Perhaps your views are right. Perhaps mine may be. But one thing i hope we both agree upon is that when we put our repective ideas to our fellow workers, it is they who will decide who they think is right and that no intelligensia substitutes itself for them by declaring the correct party line.
Sepehr, we are straying from the thread topic but once again I must defend my position despite you raising another useful quote from Marx. Also my apologies for this lengthy reply. As I implied by referring to Luxemburg, whatever Marx says must be measured against the condition and circumstances of today. Similarly with Lenin.Marx's analysis of capitalism, as I read it, was that the workers movement would first triumph in the economically advanced parts of the world, not in a relatively backward economic area like Russia. Lenin explained away this contradiction by arguing that Marx had been describing the situation in the pre—imperialist stage of capitalism whereas, in the imperialist stage which had evolved after his death, the capitalist state had become so strong that the breakthrough would not take place in an advanced capitalist country but in the weakest imperialist state. Tsarist Russia had been the weakest link in the chain of imperialist countries and this explained why it was there that the first "workers revolution" had taken place. This was tantamount to saying that the Russian revolution was the first "anti-imperialist" revolution, and in a sense it was. Russia was the first country to escape from the domination of the Western capitalist countries and to follow a path of economic development that depended on using the state to accumulate capital internally instead of relying on the export of capital from other countries. In the early days of the Bolshevik regime, when Russia was faced with a civil war and outside intervention by the Western capitalist powers, Lenin realised that this was a card he could play to try to save his regime. Playing the anti -imperialist card meant appealing to the "toiling masses" of Asia not to establish socialism but to carry out their own anti-imperialist revolutions. The 'super-exploited" countries were to be encouraged to seek independence as this would weaken the imperialist states, who were putting pressure on Bolshevik Russia. This strategy was presented to the workers movement in the West as a way of provoking the socialist revolution in their countries. Deprived of their super— profits, the ruling class in the imperialist countries would no longer be able to bribe their workers with social reforms and higher wages; the workers would therefore turn away from reformism and embrace revolution. Lenin's theory of imperialism pitted the working class of undeveloped countries against that of the developed ones.Lenin argued in ‘Imperialism – Highest Stage of Capitalism’ that, through a process which had been completed by the turn of the century, capitalism had changed its character. Industrial capital and bank capital had merged into finance capital, and competitive capitalism had given way to monopoly capitalism in which trusts, cartels and other monopolistic arrangements had come to dominate production. Faced with falling profits from investments at home, these monopolies were under economic pressure to export capital and invest it in the economically backward parts of the world where higher than normal profits could be made. Hence, Lenin went on, the struggle by the most advanced industrial countries to secure colonies where such "super-profits" could be made. When, after 1917, Lenin became the head of the Bolshevik regime in Russia the theory was expanded to argue that the imperialist countries were exploiting the whole population of the backward areas they controlled and that even a section of the working class in the imperialist countries benefited from the super—profits made from the imperialist exploitation of these countries in the form of social reforms and higher wages, Lenin argued that imperialism was in part a conscious strategy to buy off the working classes in the imperialist countries. His evidence consists of one quote from arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes, and one from Engels to the effect that the workers of England "merrily share the feast" of its colonies. I would suggest that his analysis is out of date when applied to the current situation. The Labour Aristocracy theory had the political purpose of enabling the Bolsheviks to argue for the workers in the colonies to form united fronts with their local ruling classes against Imperialism. This in turn had the aim of dividing the working class internationally, and turning it into cannon fodder for capitalist war. Lenin's expanded theory made the struggle in the world not one between an international working class and an international capitalist class, but between imperialist and anti—imperialist states. The international class struggle which socialism preached was replaced by a doctrine which preached an international struggle between states.Marx and Engels had little to say on the subject of imperialism. Their remarks on colonialism and foreign trade, particularly the section on counter-tendencies to the tendency of the Falling Rate of Profit, have been used to give authority to other theories and blown up out of proportion (Capital Volume 3 ) These three pages were used to justify anti-imperialism, but all they basically say is that a national capital tries to avoid the crisis caused by the Falling Rate of Profit, which in turn is caused by the increase in the ratio of constant to variable capital, of machinery to workers, by investing in foreign countries. Briefly, The Falling Rate of Profit is explained by the fact that capitalists are forced by competition to produce cheaper goods by increasing the ratio of machinery to workers. Because labour is the only source of value, the rate of profit is given by dividing the proportion of living labour in the product by the proportion of dead labour, or machinery. This rate must fall as the proportion of machinery rises. Capital invested "at home", in production for foreign trade, can also yield a higher rate of profit"because it competes with commodities produced by other countries with less developed production facilities, so that the more advanced country sells its goods above their value". This enables the more advanced country to dominate the less advanced, by making more profit. Capital invested directly in production in the colonies also produces more profit: "the reason why this can yield higher rates of profit is that the profit rate is generally higher there on account of the lower degree of development, and so too is the exploitation of labour, through the use of slaves and coolies, etc." What this passage means is that a higher rate of profit is obtainable in countries where exploitation is less developed, where more variable capital (labour) is required to turn out a given quantum of value from a given unit of constant capital (machinery).Marx doesn't make too much of this counter-tendency to the Falling Rate of Profit. He adds that though the more advanced country "receives more labour in exchange for less", it is all "pocketed by a particular class, just as in the exchange between labour and capital in general". Both foreign trade and capital export are just particular examples of capitalism in general. They are not qualitatively different from what capital does within its "home" country. The "super-profits" of anti-Imperialist theory are, in other words, simply larger quantities of ordinary profits. Taking over competitors with less developed production facilities by destroying them by selling cheaper goods, and taking advantage of these less developed facilities to make more profit, is part of capital's daily life. Moralistic protest about the unfairness of imperialism, as opposed to ordinary capitalism, is an attempt to confuse us about the nature of the beast. (The enslavement of Africans was qualitatively worse than the forced deportations of the English, Scots and Irish poor, but if a capitalist power is more savage and parasitic abroad than it is at home, that is only because the class struggle at home has restrained it. If "First World" workers have been "bribed", that is because they have forced the bosses to bribe them.)Marxian economics does not measure the level of exploitation by how high or low wages are but by reference to the amount of surplus value produced as compared with the amount of wages paid, whether high or low. By this measure the workers of the advanced countries were more exploited than those of the colonies, despite their higher wages, because they produced more profits per worker. Lenin failed to understand why different rates of wages prevail in different countries. According to him, wages are higher in imperialist countries because the capitalists there bribe their workers out of the superprofits which they earn from exploiting the subjugated countries. Marx's explanation as to why wages were higher in these countries. Both productivity and the rate of exploitation (ratio of paid to unpaid labour) were higher there:"The more productive one country is relative to another in the world market, the higher will be its wages compared with the other. In England, not only nominal wages but (also) real wages are higher than on the continent. The worker eats more meat, he satisfies more needs. This, however, only applies to the industrial worker and not the agricultural labourer. But in proportion to the productivity of the English workers their wages are not higher (than the wages paid in other countries)" (Theories of Surplus Value).A lower rate of wages does not make any one country any less capitalist than another: The ruling class in all countries pay workers as much as they think they have to, calculated from:a) the need for workers to stay alive and, to a greater or lesser degree, healthy,b) the shortage or otherwise of workers capable of doing the job, andc) the class struggle(Where does a wage rise gained by struggle end and a bribe begin? Lenin's position implies that British workers should deduce what proportion of their pay checks are the proceeds of the exploitation of the colonies, and hand that proportion back to their employers, declaring their refusal to be bribed.)"The different states of the different civilised countries, in spite of their motley diversity of form, all have this in common, they are based on modern bourgeois society, only one more or less capitalistically developed" (Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875).A country may be highly industrialised or a developed agricultural one or the chief supplier of raw materials for industry or whatever. This happens due to the division of labour amongst the various capitalist countries.Another member of the Bolshevik party, Nikolai Bukharin, presented a different theory of imperialism which paid lip-service to the labour aristocracy position, but placed more emphasis on the necessity for revolution. The reasoning behind Bukharin's theory was if it could be shown that capitalism was inevitably divided into war-mongering states, that hence the horrors of the first world war were going to be repeated until capitalism was overthrown, this would constitute a convincing case for revolution. Bukharin tried to show a contradiction between nation states and international capitalism. Capitalism has created the world economy, the material basis of communism, but "national economies" and "state capitalist trusts" contradict this, leading to imperialism and war. Nation states were the "forms" which helped develop the "forces of production", but now they are "fetters" on their further development. His book Imperialism and World Economy was intended to show that imperialism is an inevitable stage of capitalism, in order to refute the possibility of a peaceful solution to the first world war. This was in turn necessary in order to oppose the "centrists" among social democracy, who were trying to sit on the fence on the question of the necessity of a proletarian revolution to end the war.Lenin and Bukharin both claimed that Kautsky had completely abandoned Marxism, and now believed that capitalism could reform itself, eliminating its nasty bits, and evolve into a peaceful new world order. Kautsky actually said "What Marx said of capitalism can also be applied to imperialism: monopoly creates competition and competition monopoly. The frantic competition of giant firms, giant banks and multi-millionaires obliged the great financial groups, who were absorbing the small ones, to think up the notion of the cartel. In the same way, the result of the World War between the great imperialist powers may be a federation of the strongest, who renounce their arms race. Hence from the purely economic standpoint it is not impossible that capitalism may still live through another phase, the translation of cartellization into foreign policy: a phase of ultra-imperialism, which of course we must struggle against as energetically as we do against imperialism." Of the two theories, imperialism and Kautsky's concept of ultra-imperialism which has best stood the test of time? Capitalism has proved itself more flexible than many of its critics realised. Is there any reason why single capitalist firms should be tied to one state? It is possible for capitalism to dissolve particular national states and replace them with larger entities, such as the European Community?Rosa Luxemburg's contribution to the debate on imperialism, which i don't dismiss somply because it went against Lenin, was her opposition to the idea that imperialism could be opposed by supporting national liberation struggles. Luxemburg's arguments, based on the experience of the Polish working class in its struggle against "its" poor oppressed national bourgeoisie, have been largely forgotten yet a significant section of the Bolsheviks supported her views against Lenin's "right of nations to self-determination". Rosa Luxemburg accused Lenin as having "thrown the greatest confusion into the ranks of socialism," and goes on to state: "The Bolsheviks have supplied the ideology which has masked the campaign of counter-revolution; they have strengthened the position of the bourgeoisie and weakened that of the proletariat … With the phrase about the self-determination of nations the Bolsheviks furnished water for the mills of counter-revolution and thus furnished an ideology not only for the strangling of the Russian Revolution itself, but for the planned counter-revolutionary liquidation of the entire World War." She describes how during the course of the Russian Revolution "Contrary to what the Bolsheviks expected, one after another the liberated "nations" took advantage of the freshly granted freedom to take a position of deadly enmity to the Russian Revolution, combining against it with German Imperialism… of course it is not the 'nations' by whom that reactionary policy is carried on, but only the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois classes … who have converted the national right of self-determination into an instrument of their counterrevolutionary class policy."But eventually Lenin's views did win the day. The most obvious reason for the success of Lenin's views was the power of the Bolshevik state. It had both the means and very good reasons for supporting national liberation struggles. The self-determination of countries national policy of Lenin did not prove fatal to Bolshevik rule although it was true that large areas remained separate from Russia and become reactionary States, but the power of the Bolshevik state proved stronger than ever. Bolshevik Russia existed not as what it was at the beginning, not as the starting point of the world revolution, but as a bulwark against it. Lenin's theory of imperialism had contained the seeds of such a shameful outcome from the start as it made the most significant struggle at world level not the class struggle but the struggle between states, between so-called anti— imperialist and progressive states and so— called imperialist and reactionary states. This was a dangerous diversion from the class struggle and led to workers supporting the killing in wars of other workers in the interest of one or other state and its ruling class.Anti-imperialism is a doctrine long used by capitalists in relatively weak countries to try and pursue their own ends. We reject nationalism as anti-working class because it has always tied the proletariat to its class enemy and divided it amongst itself: the workers have no country. Anti-imperialist nationalism is the ideology of an actual or aspirant capitalist class that seeks the way to its own independent state blocked by imperialism and therefore must mobilize the masses to help break down this obstacle. The logic of such movements is to subordinate the interests of workers to those of the bourgeois leadership and that such movements can tie their movement to presently supportive states that may well be prepared to use it as a bargaining chip in their pursuit of their own geopolitical interests. Different regimes that may now present themselves as anti-imperialist have a history of collaborating with imperialism. It is of the essence of bourgeois nationalists that, when imperialism prevents them for building their own independent capitalist state, they may lead struggles against it, but they are striving to carve out a place for themselves within the existing system, not to overthrow it. This means that, sooner or later, they will come to terms with imperialism. Successful anti-imperialism becomes imperialism. This is well illustrated by the example of Germany. The Communist International actually offered some support to the Nazis in the early twenties on the grounds that they were a national liberation struggle. Germany was an oppressed nation, occupied and looted by French and British imperialism. The Nazis fought the occupying troops, so the Comintern supported the former, militarily and politically. A decade later, this anti-imperialist movement had become German Imperialism. Israel was founded in a national struggle against the British Empire and resulted in the forced removal of Palestinians and the occupation of the Palestine. Indonesia does not remotely correspond to any pre-colonial domain, and possesses an enormous variety of peoples, cultures, languages and religions. The people at one end have far more in common with their neighbours across the national frontier than with their fellow "Indonesians", its shape was determined by the last Dutch conquests. We witnessed the result in East Timor. The bourgeoisie is a global class. Nations mostly emerged after capitalism. Consciously or not, and there are numerous examples of conscious strategy, capitalism created nations.A key feature of global capitalism is that the world is organized into a system of states in which a few – the imperialist powers – dominate the rest economically, politically, and militarily." and this poses the question "…what stance Marxists should take when states fight eachother?"Either – since the conflicting parties are all capitalist states the left should, as a matter of principle, take no interest in who wins.Or – to follow Marx, Engels , Lenin and Trotsky and support wars that are judged to advance the interests of the international working class and support the country whose victory would be the least harmful to the interests of the international working class.Yes, Marx and Engels did support certain nationalist movements and some wars – TO BRING CAPITALISM TO FEUDAL STATES, to usher the capitalist class into political power so they could create the pre-requisites of socialism; an actual working class within an industrialised society. Prussia against the Slavs. Britain and France against Tsarist Russia. Even Prussia against France so as to strengthen unification of Germany. But can anyone seriously think that such a policy is required in to-days world where capitalism is now the predominant system and its the working class that is the decisive class not the capitalists.What may have been right in the 19thCentury for Marx and Engels, may not now be the right choice in this century under changed circumstances. What was perhaps provident for backward Russia in the eyes of Lenin or Trotsky need not be applicable or advisable for the rest of us. I could continue but I think I have said more than enough for you to respond to, if you choose.
I have to stick to my guns and disagree, despite your interesting citation, sepehr.You do not comment upon my point that Marx’s support for nationalism was not unconditional. Marx did not apply a general right of self-determination but only supported some forms of nationalism from a strategic and tactical point of view, for example supporting Polish nationalism as a check to Russian reaction. Marx had a criteria of what he described as viable nations such as Hungary, Italy and Germany, nationalism which would establish a nation-state and capitalist development and the growth of the working class. Of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating whether Marx can be considered correct. Nationalism has not led to any form of revolutionary social democracy, but to the destruction of the workers’ movement. Surely the primary socialist objective is to liberate humanity, not liberate nations, even if suc a stance proves unpopular.Luxemburg’s view was that
Quote:“the methods which Marx and Engels used with respect to the nationality question, methods not dealing in abstract formulae, but only in the real issues of each individual case. That method did not, though, keep them from making a faulty evaluation of the situation, or from taking a wrong, position in certain cases. The present state of affairs shows how deeply Marx was in error in predicting, sixty years ago, the disappearance of the Czech nationality, whose vitality the Austrians today find so troublesome. Conversely, he overestimated the international importance of Polish nationalism: this was doomed to decay by the internal development of Poland, a decay which had already set in at that time… It was possible for Marx to be mistaken in his position with respect to certain national movements, and the author of the present work tried to show in 1896 and 1897 that Marx’s views on the Polish question, as on the Eastern question, were outdated and mistaken. But it is this former position of Marx and Engels on the question of Turkey and the South Slavs, as well as on the national movement of the Czechs and Poles, that shows emphatically how far the founders of scientific socialism were from solving all nationality questions in one manner only, on the basis of one slogan adopted a priori. It also shows how little they were concerned with the “metaphysical” rights of nations when it was a matter of the tangible material problems of European development.”In other words she too says Marx was no Nostradamus, that he had educated guesses about the future of nations like us all but it was not infallible predictions, as history has shown and the development of nations have demonstratedYour quotation from Marx “It is historically impossible for a great people even to discuss internal problems of any kind seriously, as long as it lacks national independence.” raises the suggestion that before we can have socialism then all the peoples striving for independence should be free before they turn their attention to socialism (i think at the last count the number was nearing 200 peoples seeking sovereignty).Again, Luxemburg I think would rightly ask, where was the discussion of internal problems in the newly founded Irish Free State and the Cumann na nGaedheal government. Emmet O' Connor describes how thousands of paramilitary police (Special Infantry Corps) were deployed so that by 1923 ‘military intervention was becoming a routine response to factory seizures or the disruption of essential services’. The Irish working class did not emerge any the stronger from achieving independence but weaker. There have been 29 general elections to Ireland’s parliament, since independence and Ireland’s Labour Party have won precisely zero. When workers interests goes up against nationalism in a country where civic politics is all about the nation, then labour stands little chance. M. N. Roy, who was one time prominent in the Communist International, said that when India and other countries achieved independence, "absolutely nothing changed except the personnel of the State machinery."Nationalism continues to appeal and dominate politics simply because the prospects of socialism appear so bleak…and it becomes even bleaker when we relegate it to a secondary goal with national independence taking precedence. I could change my signature to "The working men have no country" but i suppose Marx would point to my possession of a passport
So according to this report, i'm wrong to suggest the blame is because of the Chinese bubble burstinghttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/21/dont-blame-china-global-west-economic-recovery-asset-bubbles "…Unless you are a developing economy whose export basket is mainly made up of primary commodities destined for China, you cannot blame your economic ills on its slowdown…"
Back to blaming the banks againhttp://www.independent.co.uk/voices/oil-is-a-goldilocks-problem-there-s-no-right-price-and-we-can-t-predict-what-will-happen-to-the-a6826351.html
And it has really pissed me off, too…I took out an investment bond to provide a monthly income when i sold my house and got my redundancy money to move abroad…and the 2008 hit just months later, wiping out its expected returns for a number of years and now on the eve of it maturing you tell me another slump in the offing which will dramatically reduce its value, yet again….workers just can't win, can we?…arrrggggggggggg..So who do i blame?…the Chinese capitalist class ..the oil producing countries now joined by Iran…Or me for believing i should save it instead of spending it while i could?
Quote:I will have to ask you to go and check what Marx himself did during his political activism."Did he not vindicate coalition with the bourgeoisie at some stages?" He certainly did but being adherents to the material conception of history we have to place this support in its proper context of time and circumstances. He viewed the relics of feudalism as a hinderance to the development of industry and the growth of the working class and the rise of the bourgeois democratic form. But most of all he emphasised their political independence from the bourgeois starting from his 1850 Address to the Communist League, a position that he maintained throughout his life. IMHO he wouldn't be supporting Sanders Democratic Party presedential candidate nominee bid but that is speculation on my part. Did he not vindicate nationalism? Again this was conditional and not carte blanche as we see by his attitude towards Slavic nationalism. His support for Polish independence was that it would weaken Tsarism. Whereas he viewed Slav freedom as proxy support for Russia.Closer to home, is support for Irish independence was for it would weaken the position of the English landed aristocracy. The English landed aristocracy still enjoyed considerable political power. The majority of the working class were still vote-less, there were not yet secret ballots, the House of Lords could still reject any Bill it objected to as long as it was not financial.As he put it in a letter dated 9 April,1870:
Quote:"Ireland is the bulwark of the English landed aristocracy. The exploitation of that country is not only one of the main sources of the aristocracy’s material welfare; it is its greatest moral strength. It, in fact, represents the domination of England over Ireland. Ireland is therefore the great means by which the English aristocracy maintains its domination in England itself. If, on the other hand, the English army and police were to withdraw from Ireland tomorrow, you would at once have an agrarian revolution there. But the overthrow of the English aristocracy in Ireland involves as a necessary consequence its overthrow in England. And this would fulfil the preliminary condition for the proletarian revolution in England"Marx may well have been right about the effect of Irish independence in 1870. Since the English landlords only retained their power to exploit the Irish peasants by force of British arms, a British withdrawal from Ireland could well have led to their expropriation. But this was never put to the test and the Irish land question was solved in quite a different way even before Ireland got independence. The series of Land Purchase Acts introduced between 1885 and 1903 enabled the government to buy out the Anglo-Irish landowners and then lend the peasants the money to buy their farms. By 1921 Ireland was largely a country of small farmers. In the meantime the political power of the English landed aristocracy had finally been broken by a series of reform measures .What this meant was that by the time Ireland was about to get independence after the World War 1, the changes Marx had expected it to bring—land reform in Ireland and a weakening of aristocratic power in England—had already been brought about by other means. His particular case for supporting Irish independence was thus no longer relevant. Marx’s strategy on Ireland was concerned with furthering the establishment of political democracy in England. Marx realised that the struggle of the Irish Nationalists for Home Rule was bound to help the evolution in Britain of political democracy because both struggles were directed against: the same class enemy, the English landed aristocracy. It was not an anticipation of the Leninist theory of imperialism according to which independence for colonies will help precipitate a socialist revolution in the imperialist countries, though it is sometimes misunderstood to be this by many on the Left.Did he not support peasant communes in Russia?He certainly shared Kropotkin’s optimism that they may well be of use in building socialism. Marx shows himself not to be a determinist and confirms his materialist approach. Marx's hopes of the emancipatory possibilities of the "peasant commune" in Russia was, however, not reflected by the Bolshevik’s or by their practices. Today we should neither should be manacled by dogma, as you so rightly say…What Marx said and did in the 19th C, has to be weighed up in regard to the conditions of today. That is Marxism.
Sepehr, How do you rate Andrew Kliman as a Marxist teacher? I believe he engaged in some polemics with Wolff. He fairly recently addressed a meeting of this Party which you can watch herehttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/video/andrew-kliman-failure-capitalist-production-pt1http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/video/andrew-kliman-failure-capitalist-production-pt2Having read a fair amount on Mondragon Co-op, I think i must agree with you that Wolff's endorsement of that model in an over-simplification using it more as a propaganda piece for WSDEs by softening his criticisms of Mondragon. Sepehr, another question on another Marxist economist. What do you think of Paul Mattick's (and now his son Paul Jnr's) contribution to Marxist economic interpretation, Paul Snr. was very critical of Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran's analysis. https://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1966/monopoly-capital.htm
