robbo203
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Rosa Luxembourg was mistaken and trying to question Marx she created more problems for herself, and it has been proven that the collapse theory is completely wrong and the main cause of the capitalist crisis is not the fall of the rate of profits, it is overproduction
==========================As I understand it, Luxemburg did not think capitalism would collapse as a result of the falling rate of profit. That would have been Henryk Grossman, I think, whose views she opposed. Nevertheless, she did believe capitalism would collapse but from a quite different standpoint of underconsumptionist theory or a particular version of it based on the idea of the non-capitalist world being incorporated capitalism via imperialism and so providing the system no more room for expansion
This is simply unbelievable. That pathetic excuse for a human being, Michael Gove, suggesting that a state terrorist entity like the IDF should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize….
One does not have to have the slightest sympathy whatsoever for a reactionary nationalist outfit like Hamas to appreciate this has got to be some kind of sick joke
https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/the-idf-should-be-nominated-for-the-nobel-peace-prize-xmppkld8
´A “peace prize” for killing 17,400 little kids. Yeah right. You couldnt make this up if you tried
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2024/11/20/an-a-z-of-the-children-israel-killed-in-gaza
And apparently, the numbers murdered by the IDF have been underestimated….
It seems that the Venezuelan regime might be running into what is called a “legitimation crisis”. It is very curious that Machado was briefly arrested and then released after addressing a huge protest rally on the eve of Maduro’s inauguration. Caracas has been militarised apparently with the aid of some amongst the “collectivos” (others have come out against Maduro) but just lately the approach of the regime to protest seems to have softened slightly. I wonder why?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyv3vlz01g3o
The top brass in the military have sworn allegiance to Maduro but there is apparent discontent among those lower down the hierarchy. Is there the possibility of a “junior offices revolt” – a coup – and the regime is aware of this? Or is Maduro looking for some face-saving formula whereby he and his gangster capìtalist cronies could keep their millions and maybe relocate to some safe haven in exchange for relinquishing power and handing it over to the opposition who clearly won the election by a huge majority?
It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few days….
Now Russia is taking an interest in Trump´s imperialist ambitions re Greenland. Maybe Denmark can call on the services of a few Russian brigades when the US marines move in LOL LOL
“French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said “there is obviously no question that the European Union would let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders”.
LOL. Its war brewing up – against the Yankee imperialists!
Jeezua. Talk about blatant, unabashed imperialism …
“President-elect Donald Trump declined on Monday to rule out military or economic action as part of his avowed desire to have the U.S. take back control of the Panama Canal and acquire Danish-controlled Greenland.”
There is also this: Greenland´s response.
Alf
How is the election of Trump a “clear product of the advancing decomposition of capitalism”? I mean, I wish it was but it strikes me that if millions of American workers are willing to put their trust in a snake oil salesman cum billionaire charlatan like Trump, capitalism still has a got some mileage to look forward to.
It’s the same with the so-called revolutionary wave in the 1920s in Germany and elsewhere inspired by the Bolshevik bourgeois revolution. The vast majority had no inkling of, or desire for, socialism. Capitalism in some form remained the only possibility at the time
Sadly, I cannot see much that is different today…
It looks like the (Anti)Labour Party is heading for the doldrums
“I think it is fair to say that Trotsky didn’t really understand what socialism was”
__________________________________________But the quote from Terrorism and Communism written by Trotsky indicates that he, at least, understood that socialism would be a stateless society. There is another quote from him (which I will try to track down) where he talks about the feasibility of a system of purely voluntary labour (which corresponds to our definition of socialism).
My reason for saying that he must have known about this definition of socialism is because it was so widely circulated at the time. For example, before the Bolshevik-Menshevik split the Russian social democrats published a text in 1897 called A Short Course of Economic Science, written by A Bogdanoff, that talked of socialism being “the highest stage of society we can conceive”, in which such institutions as taxation and profits will be non-existent and in which “there will not be the market, buying and selling, but consciously and systematically organised distribution”. A revised edition, published in August 1919, was used as a textbook in study circles of the Russian Communist Party.
I would be inclined to say not that Trotsky – or Lenin or Stalin for that matter – were unaware of the Marxian definition of socialism but rather, that they sought instead to displace it with their own essentially state-capitalist definition of “socialism”. Their goal was state capitalism – and their view of socialism was purely academic, meaning they were not really interested in it as a goal. Nevertheless, as a goal it was endorsed at the time by the various social democratic parties (the maximum programme of the German SDP) and so it suited them to opportunistically pay lip service to socialism as we understand the term but only as some ultimate long-term goal that they were not really interested in realising themselves (Lenin talked about socialism in our sense being 500 years into the future)
Lenin saw state capitalism as a kind of preparation for socialism to the point where he saw it as being part of the very definition of “socialism”. It was just a dishonest way of trying to elicit support for his own programme of state capitalism.
Perhaps, one can say that while Lenin and Trotsky were aware of the formal definition of socialism as we understand the term, they were not aware of what it entails or in what way it is flatly incompatible with the state capitalism they advocated. In that sense, perhaps, we can say they did not really understand socialism….
If their leader known as Leon Trotsky was confused his followers are more confused too. Trotsky never knew what socialism really is
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I am not quite sure that this is the case. It would actually be very surprising if he did not know about socialism as it was much more widely understood back then in Trotsky’s day than it is today. Same with Lenin. Kautsky referred to Lenin´s idea of a moneyless version of socialism but of course, Lenin defined socialism in other ways too that contradicted each other. For example, he talked of socialism as being a form of “state capitalist monopoly” run in the interest of the whole people and also a society in which everyone is an employee of the state. That is a non-Marxist definition of socialism, clearly.
I think both these individuals knew of socialism in its classical Marxian sense but decided to put forward another definition of it or else advocated an approach that would allegedly lead to socialism (but could not possibly do so). In that sense, they were not really socialists but propagandists for state capitalism. But even non-socialists or anti-socialists can “know about” socialism without being socialists themselves.
In Trotsky´s case, there is a passage in his book on Terrorism and Communism (Ch 8) where he actually talks of socialism being a non-statist society just as Stalin did (as you point out) in his book on Anarchism (1906)
Here´s the passage;
In point of fact, under Socialism there will not exist the apparatus of compulsion itself, namely, the State: for it will have melted away entirely into a producing and consuming commune. Nonetheless, the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the State. And you and I are just passing through that period. Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the State, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction (25)
Came across this quite interesting post on X (Twitter) by some geezer called
Arnaud Bertrand:“What’s happening Syria is probably the most incoherent geopolitical event I’ve come across, and the more you look into it, the more confusing it gets.
I mean, just look at this list:
– First of all, the speed of Assad’s collapse still makes very little sense: after successfully holding out against multiple enemies for 13 years with Russian and Iranian backing in a brutal civil war, his regime suddenly crumbled in just 11 days with almost no bloodshed.
– The “liberators” of Syria being celebrated by the West are Islamist groups on their own official terrorist lists. The country’s new leader, Al-Julani, still has a $10 million bounty on his head as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” for founding the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda.
– Biden called this “a historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build a better future” while his administration continues to occupy a third of Syria, control its oil fields, maintain crippling sanctions, and bomb its territory… thereby obviously very much compromising this better future.
– Assad’s Prime Minister immediately agreed to work with the rebels and they accepted him – despite being mortal enemies in a brutal 13-year civil war.
– Al-Julani, after years of orchestrating suicide bombings and sectarian massacres against civilians, is now suddenly positioning himself as “diversity friendly”.
– Russia, despite being in an alliance with Syria dating back to the Soviet era, billions invested in protecting Assad, and their only Mediterranean naval base in Tartus, essentially shrugged it all and let their ally fall.
– Syria’s new leaders remain bizarrely silent about Israel invading their territory and the U.S. bombing and occupying their country. They’ve said nothing about their strategic assets – including the entire navy and air force – being destroyed in U.S. and Israeli air raids.
– The U.S. maintains its occupation of a third of Syria (including most oil fields), claiming it’s necessary to “ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS” – despite Trump declaring in 2019 (and the U.S. repeatedly confirming since) that “we have defeated ISIS in Syria”. Western media largely ignore this ongoing occupation while celebrating Syria’s “liberation”.
– Hamas, while in the middle of a war with Israel, took time to congratulate the Syrian rebels – even though Assad was their (and Iran’s) longtime ally and Syria’s fall significantly weakens their own strategic position.
– The U.S. celebrates the liberation of Syrian prisoners while operating its own concentration camps in the country (https://newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/18/the-open-air-prison-for-isis-supporters-and-victims) holding tens of thousands indefinitely without trial – half of them children – but that apparently doesn’t count as oppression.
– Türkiye is fighting against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with apparent U.S. approval, while the SDF was fighting Assad (which the U.S. wanted) – meaning U.S.-backed forces are effectively fighting other U.S.-backed forces.
– Iran, normally eager to defend its regional interests, suddenly abandoned billions in investments and a crucial strategic ally in their “Axis of Resistance”, evacuating their personnel and citizens within hours.Truly one of the strangest chapters in modern geopolitical history. Every possible explanation contains its own contradictions, and most players are acting against their own stated principles and interests.
At this stage it looks like the simplest explanation might go something like this: the U.S. welcomes the fall of a longtime opponent; neighboring powers like Israel and Türkiye see an opportunity for territorial gain; rebel leaders seem willing to accept loss of sovereignty and territory in exchange for domestic control over a diminished Syria; Russia and Iran chose to cut their losses given other regional priorities; and smaller players like Hamas are scrambling to adapt. Still, the unprecedented speed and coordination of these events suggests we’re missing some crucial pieces of this very strange puzzle.”
There´s nothing like war to bring out the hypocrisy and double standards of the politicians
Israel has just grabbed a chunk of Syria about twice the size of Gaza and has continued bombing the country after the Assad regime has fallen.
Yet far from Israel being condemned by the West as Russia was condemned for its invasion of Ukraine, the regime continues to receive military support
W
You couldn’t get more blatant than this. The future trump regime put to the service of the billionaire parasite class
