Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el 99% -Dewey Square, Cercerde South Station
#Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
******
Below I am posting, occasionally, comments on the Occupy movement as I see or hear things of interest, or that cause alarm bells to ring in my head. The first comment directly below from October 1, which represented my first impressions of Occupy Boston, is the lead for all further postings.
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Markin comment October 1, 2011:
There is a lot of naiveté expressed about the nature of capitalism, capitalists, and the way to win in the class struggle by various participants in this occupation. Many also have attempted to make a virtue out of that naiveté, particularly around the issues of effective democratic organization and relationships with the police (they are not our friends, no way, when the deal goes down). However, their spirit is refreshing, they are acting out of good subjective anti-capitalist motives and, most importantly, even those of us who call themselves "reds" (communists), including this writer, started out from liberal premises as naive, if not more so, than those encountered at the occupation site. We can all learn something but in the meantime we must defend the "occupation" and the occupiers. More later as the occupation continues.
**********
Markin comment October 22, 2011
As part of my comment, dated October 20, 2011, I noted the following:
“… The idea of the General Assembly with each individual attendee acting as a “tribune of the people” is interesting and important. And, of course, it represents, for today anyway, the embryo of what the “new world” we need to create might look like at the governmental level.”
A couple of the people that I have talked to were not quite sure what to make of that idea. The idea that what is going on in Occupy Boston at the governmental level could, should, would be a possible form of governing this society in the “new world aborning” with the rise of the Occupy movement. Part of the problem is that there was some confusion on the part of the listeners that one of the possible aims of this movement is to create an alternative government, or at least provide a model for such a government. I will argue here now, and in the future, that it should be one the goals. In short, we need to take power away from the Democrats and Republicans and their tired old congressional/executive/judicial form of governing and place it at the grassroots level and work upward from there rather than, as now, have power devolve from the top. (And stop well short of the bottom.)
I will leave aside the question (the problem really) of what it would take to create such a possibility. Of course a revolutionary solution would, of necessity, have be on the table since there is no way that the current powerful interests, Democratic, Republican or those having no politics, is going to give up power without a fight. What I want to pose now is the use of the General Assembly as a deliberative executive, legislative, and judicial body all rolled into one. In that sense previous historical models come to mind; the short-lived but heroic Paris Commune of 1871 that Karl Marx tirelessly defended against the reactionaries of Europe as the prototype of a workers government; the early heroic days of the Russian October Revolution of 1917 when the workers councils (soviets in Russian parlance) acted as a true workers' government; and the period in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 where the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias acted, de facto, as a workers government. All the just mentioned examples had their problems and flaws, no question. However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.
And as always-everybody, young or old, needs to stand by this slogan - An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers Everywhere! Hands Off Occupy Boston !
**********
Markin comment October 26, 2011:
Recently (see October 22, 2011 comment above) I noted the following while arguing for the General Assembly concept as a form of alternate government using historic examples like the Paris Commune (1871), the early Soviets in Russia (1905 and 1917), and early antifascist militias in the Spanish Civil War (1936-37:
“However, merely mentioning the General Assembly concept in the same paragraph as these great historic examples should signal that thoughtful leftists and other militants need to investigate and study these examples.”
In order to facilitate the investigation and study of those examples I will, occasionally, post works in this space that deal with these forbears from several leftist perspectives (rightist perspectives were clear- crush all the above examples ruthlessly, and with no mercy- so we need not look at them now). I started with Karl Marx’s classic defense and critique of the Paris Commune, The Civil War In France. Today I am posting C.L.R James' Leon Trotsky’s 1921 appreciation of the lessons of the Paris Commune.
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Karl Marx and the Paris Commune - CLR James
Submitted by libcom on Jan 3 2006 11:58
From 18 March 1946 issue of Labor Action, newspaper of the Workers Party of the United States
C.L.R. James-They Showed the Way to Labor Emancipation:
On Karl Marx and the 75th Anniversary of the Paris Commune (1946)
The American working class is not yet as familiar as the European working class with the history and traditions of the revolutionary socialist movement. March 14, anniversary of the death of Karl Marx, and March 18, anniversary of the Paris Commune will be celebrated by only a small minority.
U.S. Workers and Marx's Heritage
As the international crisis deepens, the American proletariat will rapidly increase its interest in the great thinker whose whole work was based upon the proletariat as the most progressive force in modern society and the irreconcilable enemy of capitalist barbarism. As the class struggle sharpens in the U.S. Marxism will come into its own as a great popular study. The American proletariat will then learn to celebrate in its own vigorous style the anniversary of those workers in Paris who in 1871, to use Marx's phrase, stormed the heavens. They gave to the world, for the first time, the "political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labor."
Karl Marx's life was all of a piece. He devoted himself to a scientific demonstration of the inevitable decline of capitalist society. But side by side with this decline there emerged the socialist proletariat, the class destined to overthrow capitalism, establish the socialist society, and wipe away for good and all the exploitation of man by man.
In Marx there was not the slightest trace of mysticism. He was a master of English political economy, German philosophy, and French political science. These he used in his monumental labors to establish that the social movement had the inevitability of a process of natural history, that it was "governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness, and intelligence, but rather on the contrary determining that will, consciousness., and intelligence." By this he did not mean to say that the future of human society was predestined in all its events and occurrences. He knew that men made their own history. He knew that social life proceeded by the conflict of interests and passions, complicated by all the bewildering phenomena which attend the daily activity of hundreds of millions of human beings. But he, more than any other thinker, established the fact that all these multitudinous actions took place according to certain laws. For him the most important law was the organic movement of the proletariat to overthrow bourgeois society.
Perhaps today it would be as well to recall an aspect of his doctrine too often forgotten. No man had a more elevated conception of the destiny of the human race. This for him was the greatest crime of capitalism, that while, on the one hand, it created the possibility of a truly human existence for all mankind, by the very nature of the process of capitalist production, it degraded the individual worker to the level of being merely an appendage to a machine.
A New Vision for the Working People
In his great work, CAPITAL, over and over again, he pointed out that as capitalist production became more scientific, the actual labor of the worker was more and more deprived of intellectual content and educational potentiality. So far was Marx from being a vulgar materialist that in his denunciation of the evils of capitalist production, he did not hesitate (for the moment) to brush aside the wages of the worker. "In proportion as capital accumulates," he insisted, "the lot of the laborer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse." On the basis of economic analysis he drew the conclusion that modern society would perish if it did not replace the worker of today, condemned to automatic repetition of mechanical movement, by the highly developed individual. Such a man, according to Marx, would be fit for a variety of labors, ready to face any change of production, a man to whom the different social functions he performed were but so many means of giving free scope to his own natural and acquired powers. This for him would be a workers in a civilized society but that could come only by the destruction of capital.
Such was his vision that this student of political economy and the labor process has unfolded perhaps the most poetic and far- seeing perspective for human society ever propounded by any philosopher or poet. According to him it was only with the creation of the socialist society that the real history of humanity would begin. Thus at a single stroke, he thrust into insignificance the painfully acquired knowledge and culture of thousands of years of civilization, which he, more than most other men, had studied and understood. All this, he said, would be as nothing in comparison with the perspective which would be opened to human society by the abolition of the exploitation of classes on the basis of a world-wide cooperation. Yet scientist and philosopher as he was, with the unquenchable faith in the inevitability of socialism, Marx was no mere man of the study. He took part in the German revolution of 1848, was active in the preparation of the revolution of that year, and to the end of his days participated, whenever possible, in the workers struggles against capitalism which he always knew as preparation for social revolution. In 1871, when the workers of Paris established the Commune, Marx hailed it as one of the greatest events in human history. Let us briefly recall the circumstances.
The First Working-Class Government
France had been defeated by the armies of Germany which stood at Versailles, a few miles away from Paris. The leaders of French capitalism, statesmen, and soldier, were on their knees before the German conquerors, anxious to save their hides and the plunder that they had accumulated during the war. They were ready to sell out France to the conquered. The French people had proclaimed the French republic, and these capitalist politicians knew that one great obstacle stood in the way of their conspiracy with Bismarck. This obstacle was the armed republicans of Paris. Working in the closest association with the German invader, the French ruling class attempted to disarm the Parisians but the workers of Paris, emaciated by a five month's famine, did not hesitate for a single moment. They seized the power in Paris and established the Paris Commune. What exactly was this Commune? There have been many interpretations. The interpretation of Karl Marx remains unchallenged in its simplicity and its penetration. "It was essentially a working class government, the product of the producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of man."
What the Paris Commune Symbolized
The Paris Commune was first and foremost a democracy. The government was a body elected by universal suffrage. None of its functionaries was paid more than the wages of a skilled worker. It did not expropriate the property of the bourgeoisie, but it handed to associations of workingmen all closed workshops and factories, whether the capitalist owners had run away or simply had decided to stop work. It lasted for 71 days. It was destroyed by a combination of its own weaknesses, chiefly a lack of decision, and the treacheries of the French bourgeoisie in shameless alliance with the German army. The murderous brutality with which the fighters of the Commune were shot, tortured, and deported, remained a landmark in European civilization, until the days of Hitler and Stalin. Today, to the American proletariat, there are many lessons to be drawn for the history of the Commune. Perhaps the most important for the advanced workers are the methods by which Marx approached its study and conclusions which he drew. For him, the Commune, despite its failure, was a symbol of inestimable value. It was a symbol in that it showed the real women of Paris -- heroic, noble, and devoted like the women of antiquity. It was a symbol in that it showed to the world: "working, thinking, fighting, bleeding Paris -- almost forgetful, in its incubation of a new society, of the cannibals at its gates -- radiant in the enthusiasm of its historical initiative." It was a symbol in that it admitted all foreigners to the honor of dying for the immortal cause. It was a symbol because even before peace had been signed with Germany, the Commune made a German working man the Minister of Labor. It was a symbol because under the eyes of the conquering Prussians on the one hand, and the Bonapartist army on the other, it pulled down the great Vendome column which stood as a monument to the martial glory of the first Napoleon. Marx saw in these actions not accidental gestures but organic responses of the revolutionary proletariat to the barbarous practices and ideology of bourgeois society.
The Important Conclusion
Most important, however, Marx drew a great theoretical conclusions from the experience of the Commune. He showed that the capitalist army, the capitalist state, the capitalist bureaucracy, cannot be seized by the revolutionary proletariat and used for its own purposes. It had to be smashed completely and a new state organized, based upon the organization of the working class. In 1871, he drew this as a theoretical conclusion. In 1905, and later in 1917, the Russian working class, by the formation of Soviets, or workers councils, laid the basis of a new type of social organization. It was by his studies of Marx's analysis of the Commune that Lenin able to recognize so quickly the significance of the Soviets and to establish them as the basis of the new workers' state. Today the advanced American worker needs to know the history of the international struggles of the proletariat. From these he will most quickly learn to understand his own. Marx's pamphlet on the Commune, THE CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE, is a profound and moving piece of writing. The worker who has not yet begun the study of Marxism will never forget this double anniversary if he celebrates it by reading what Karl Marx had to say about the great revolution of the Paris working-class.
Friday, November 11, 2011
From #Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-Day Forty-Three-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers!–General Assembly-The Embryo Of An Alternate Government-Learn The Lessons Of History-C.L.R. James-They Showed the Way to Labor Emancipation:On Karl Marx and the 75th Anniversary of the Paris Commune (1946)
Thursday, November 10, 2011
From #Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-Day Forty-Two- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers!–No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn-There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-Random Sights From Life At Dewey Square
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website.Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el 99% -Dewey Square, Cercerde South Station
#Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
********
Markin comment November 9, 2011:
“Hey brother, can you help me put this tarp over my tent? It got cold as hell last night and the winds were blowing fierce,” yelled a youthfully-faced male, but now a few weeks-seasoned Occupy Boston grizzly veteran resident to a middle-aged man casually walking by. “Sure thing, let’s get to it” replied that passer-by.
“Can you bring this hot pot of soup to the kitchen? Some lady, a lady who would not give her name and would not acknowledge anything but thanks, drove up on the Atlantic Avenue side and asked me to unload some stuff for her,” said one young woman in shorts to another young woman dressed for colder climates.
“If you want a meal, a nice hot meal, could you wash some dishes to help us out,” barked, barked above the din in front of him, a man who had daily volunteered to help out in the makeshift kitchen. And a couple of older guys, older guys who knew the streets and the lore of the streets backward and forward, stepped behind the tent and got to work while another passed on the request.
“Man, play us a Hendrix tune on that thing, ‘cause you are smokin’, man” earnestly requested a young bearded man, obviously a student, an ardent musical student from the look of him. “Okay man, if you play a little drum behind me.” came the reply from the reincarnation of Jimi, complete with tie-dyed headband to hold his head together.
“Say, can I have cigarette, man, I’m out?” said another older man weary, street weary, getting ready to enter a tent to catch a few winks. “I’m rolling Bull, okay?,” answered a red-headed dread-locked young man.
Such were, are, the random sights and sounds of the Occupy Boston encampment on any given day, or any given minute if you can be in seven places at one time, as the camp continues to organize itself in the tradition of the old westward pioneers seeking that great American west night, and still are seeking it generations later.
“Hey man, don’t be cheap give me a fucking cigarette, I’m all shaky,” shouted out a razor- edged guy, obviously working off some hang-over, although not necessarily an alcoholic or drug one. “I’m down to my last one, what the fuck do you want from me,” came the surly reply. And the tension passed away in the midday air.
“This place is neat, three squares and a cot, and nobody hassles you and you don’t have to work for your grub, or nothing,” murmured a street veteran to no one in particular in a crowd of suburban tourists who have made the site at Dewey Square a place on their “must see” map.
“You had better stay the fuck away from my woman, and stay way away,” threatened a young guy, a young white guy, not a street guy, not a student but just the kind of guy who drifts in and out of things. “Fuck you and your woman,” came the reply from a young Spanish-looking dude who had daggers in his eyes as the two nearly came to blows. Just then someone yelled “rainbow” and several people appeared to calm the situation down.
This too is a part of the “new world a-borning” as not everybody is quite ready yet to shift gears, or just has too much, much too much, baggage from old bourgeois society to make the leap of faith just yet.
Five minutes ago the sidewalk along the Atlantic Avenue side of the encampment was deserted, a lonely yellow-jacketed cop shifting back and forth on his heels to make his duty time pass more quickly. Now the first sign of the day, “Tax The Rich,” along with it human holder, here a well-dressed, well-reserved older woman, a woman who looks like she has seen many battles for social justice in her time hits the sidewalk. And her action acts as a catalyst because now here come a couple of young students carrying a banner-“Banks got bailed out, we got sold out,” one of the anthems of the Occupy movement, to stand beside her. They smile, she smiles, nothing more is needed they understand each other completely.
Then a convoy of about twelve middle-aged and older Universalist-Unitarians from out in some suburban town, who have rented a bus for the occasion, begin filling in the sidewalk with their “peace, this,” “peace, that,” “good will toward all” signs. Upon investigation this group had made a solemn decision to come weekly to Boston to stand in solidarity with the efforts in Dewey Square.
A few minutes later, from out of nowhere, came a nomadic resident of the “village” with a plateful of cookies, chocolate chip perhaps, and offers them to those “working the line” on Atlantic Avenue.
An older model automobile, frankly a heap, driven by a menacing-looking man in lumberjack jacket with fierce eyes stopped just in front of the entrance to the encampment and yells out, “Hey, when do I put these sleeping bags, tarps, shovels, and pots? I can’t stay but I am with you, with you all the way.” Of such acts by such desperate looking men, revolutions are made, big-time revolutions.
Toward late afternoon the Atlantic Avenue traffic gets heavier, bumper to bumper, as people try to leave the city, and city cares behind. A guy in a big dump truck, a flat-top hair cut showing yells out, “Get a job” at a group of street people standing on the avenue. Later a pedestrian muttered to that cop on duty, who was still rocking his heel, about how he payed taxes and isn’t it a shame what these people are up to. The call of the day though goes to a guy, a light-skinned Cuban-looking guy in a late model sports car driving on the far right lane away from the encampment, who yells out, “Commies, go back to where you came from.” Ya, I know not everybody got the news, not everybody gets what is going on, and not everybody, despite the sleek street slogan of ninety-nine percent is with us. But just remember that guy, that lumberjack jacket guy who gave what he had, and gave all the way.
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el 99% -Dewey Square, Cercerde South Station
#Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
********
Markin comment November 9, 2011:
“Hey brother, can you help me put this tarp over my tent? It got cold as hell last night and the winds were blowing fierce,” yelled a youthfully-faced male, but now a few weeks-seasoned Occupy Boston grizzly veteran resident to a middle-aged man casually walking by. “Sure thing, let’s get to it” replied that passer-by.
“Can you bring this hot pot of soup to the kitchen? Some lady, a lady who would not give her name and would not acknowledge anything but thanks, drove up on the Atlantic Avenue side and asked me to unload some stuff for her,” said one young woman in shorts to another young woman dressed for colder climates.
“If you want a meal, a nice hot meal, could you wash some dishes to help us out,” barked, barked above the din in front of him, a man who had daily volunteered to help out in the makeshift kitchen. And a couple of older guys, older guys who knew the streets and the lore of the streets backward and forward, stepped behind the tent and got to work while another passed on the request.
“Man, play us a Hendrix tune on that thing, ‘cause you are smokin’, man” earnestly requested a young bearded man, obviously a student, an ardent musical student from the look of him. “Okay man, if you play a little drum behind me.” came the reply from the reincarnation of Jimi, complete with tie-dyed headband to hold his head together.
“Say, can I have cigarette, man, I’m out?” said another older man weary, street weary, getting ready to enter a tent to catch a few winks. “I’m rolling Bull, okay?,” answered a red-headed dread-locked young man.
Such were, are, the random sights and sounds of the Occupy Boston encampment on any given day, or any given minute if you can be in seven places at one time, as the camp continues to organize itself in the tradition of the old westward pioneers seeking that great American west night, and still are seeking it generations later.
“Hey man, don’t be cheap give me a fucking cigarette, I’m all shaky,” shouted out a razor- edged guy, obviously working off some hang-over, although not necessarily an alcoholic or drug one. “I’m down to my last one, what the fuck do you want from me,” came the surly reply. And the tension passed away in the midday air.
“This place is neat, three squares and a cot, and nobody hassles you and you don’t have to work for your grub, or nothing,” murmured a street veteran to no one in particular in a crowd of suburban tourists who have made the site at Dewey Square a place on their “must see” map.
“You had better stay the fuck away from my woman, and stay way away,” threatened a young guy, a young white guy, not a street guy, not a student but just the kind of guy who drifts in and out of things. “Fuck you and your woman,” came the reply from a young Spanish-looking dude who had daggers in his eyes as the two nearly came to blows. Just then someone yelled “rainbow” and several people appeared to calm the situation down.
This too is a part of the “new world a-borning” as not everybody is quite ready yet to shift gears, or just has too much, much too much, baggage from old bourgeois society to make the leap of faith just yet.
Five minutes ago the sidewalk along the Atlantic Avenue side of the encampment was deserted, a lonely yellow-jacketed cop shifting back and forth on his heels to make his duty time pass more quickly. Now the first sign of the day, “Tax The Rich,” along with it human holder, here a well-dressed, well-reserved older woman, a woman who looks like she has seen many battles for social justice in her time hits the sidewalk. And her action acts as a catalyst because now here come a couple of young students carrying a banner-“Banks got bailed out, we got sold out,” one of the anthems of the Occupy movement, to stand beside her. They smile, she smiles, nothing more is needed they understand each other completely.
Then a convoy of about twelve middle-aged and older Universalist-Unitarians from out in some suburban town, who have rented a bus for the occasion, begin filling in the sidewalk with their “peace, this,” “peace, that,” “good will toward all” signs. Upon investigation this group had made a solemn decision to come weekly to Boston to stand in solidarity with the efforts in Dewey Square.
A few minutes later, from out of nowhere, came a nomadic resident of the “village” with a plateful of cookies, chocolate chip perhaps, and offers them to those “working the line” on Atlantic Avenue.
An older model automobile, frankly a heap, driven by a menacing-looking man in lumberjack jacket with fierce eyes stopped just in front of the entrance to the encampment and yells out, “Hey, when do I put these sleeping bags, tarps, shovels, and pots? I can’t stay but I am with you, with you all the way.” Of such acts by such desperate looking men, revolutions are made, big-time revolutions.
Toward late afternoon the Atlantic Avenue traffic gets heavier, bumper to bumper, as people try to leave the city, and city cares behind. A guy in a big dump truck, a flat-top hair cut showing yells out, “Get a job” at a group of street people standing on the avenue. Later a pedestrian muttered to that cop on duty, who was still rocking his heel, about how he payed taxes and isn’t it a shame what these people are up to. The call of the day though goes to a guy, a light-skinned Cuban-looking guy in a late model sports car driving on the far right lane away from the encampment, who yells out, “Commies, go back to where you came from.” Ya, I know not everybody got the news, not everybody gets what is going on, and not everybody, despite the sleek street slogan of ninety-nine percent is with us. But just remember that guy, that lumberjack jacket guy who gave what he had, and gave all the way.
From #Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers!–Stand In Solidarity With Occupy Harvard-The One Percent Better Watch Out We Are Coming Closer To Your Door-In Honor Of John Reed, Harvard Class Of 1910-And Revolutionary
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website. Today including the latest from the struggle at Occupy Harvard. Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
Fight-Don't Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el 99%-Dewey Square, Cercerde South Station
#Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
******
Markin comment
And as always-everybody, young or old, needs to stand by this slogan - An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers Everywhere! Hands Off Occupy Harvard!
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Markin comment November 10, 2011:
I like the part of the press release from Occupy Harvardthat says we come from part of the 1% and from part of the 99%. Yes, yes indeed we can use a few class traitors-step right up! Remember John Reed, Harvard Class of 1910-and revolutionary.
********
Fight-Don't Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el 99%-Dewey Square, Cercerde South Station
#Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
******
Markin comment
And as always-everybody, young or old, needs to stand by this slogan - An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers Everywhere! Hands Off Occupy Harvard!
*******
Markin comment November 10, 2011:
I like the part of the press release from Occupy Harvardthat says we come from part of the 1% and from part of the 99%. Yes, yes indeed we can use a few class traitors-step right up! Remember John Reed, Harvard Class of 1910-and revolutionary.
From The Marxist Archives-On The Anniversary Of Greensboro 1979-From The Pages Of "Young Spartacus" December 1979-"For Mass Labor/Black Action To Smash The KKK!-Avenge Greensboro!"
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Greensboro 1979 events.
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
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Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
******
From Young Spartacus, December 1979-"For Mass Labor/Black Action To Smash The KKK!-Avenge Greensboro!"
GREENSBORO, North Carolina—On November 3, carloads of Ku Klux Klansmen replaced their hooded robes with shotguns and semi-automatic rifles as they stormed an anti-Klan rally here, murdering five demonstrators and wounding many others. Over 100 onlookers watched in horror while the Klan carried out an unprecedented assassination attack in broad daylight on an integrated crowd of anti-racist demonstrators.
They drove their cars into the middle of the peaceful rally on their mission of death. Dropping their old tactics of midnight cross burnings, hooded intimidations and terroristic night-riding, the Klan in Greensboro opted for murder— cold-blooded murder. The killers methodically pulled their guns from the trunks of their cars, looking very much like -a group of deer hunters on a weekend outing. But then they opened fire, and within minutes, the streets were covered with the blood of the anti-Klan protesters. Killed were five long-time prominent labor and civil rights activists, supporters of Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO, which recently changed its name to the Communist Workers Party, USA), the sponsor of the rally. The attackers knew what they were doing, were well-organized and made a bloody declaration to their enemies that the K K K is very much alive and deadly.
Two days after the massacre 12 of the murderers were arraigned on multiple counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and two others were charged only with conspiracy. Other than two of those charged, who are members of a Nazi paramilitary storm-trooper group, all the assailants are reportedly members of one of North Carolina's five Klan organizations. As they waited for their hearing to begin, the fascist triggermen sang "My Country Tis of Thee" and "Onward Christian Soldiers," obviously feeling that their cold-blooded attack was a victory for their forces. So now the Klan killers are encouraged by the "successful" shooting, just as they were emboldened by the racist mobilizations that defeated bus¬ing in the streets of Boston, Louisville and Chicago. Across the country the fascists' appetite for more violence has been whetted. They succeeded in murdering five militant anti-racists; now they'd love to go after the rest of their enemies—the blacks, the communists, the Jews and the labor movement.
Uphold the Right of Armed Self-Defense!
This fascist campaign of terror and murder has got to be stopped. Socialists and militants in the labor movement must call on organized labor to mobilize its tremendous social power, in alliance with black and other minority organizations and the left, to stop the Klan in its tracks. A step in this direction was taken on November 10 in Detroit where trade-union militants and the Spartacist League/Spartacus Youth League organized a powerful rally of 500 blacks, trade unionists and socialists in a militant protest against Klan and Nazi attacks. Only massive labor/black action to smash the Nazis and the Klan can prevent another Greensboro massacre!
But it is crystal clear that no union, black or leftist organization can defend itself against a repeat of this outrageous and shocking event without the right to armed self-defense. The capitalist state demands a monopoly on the means of violence. It has been busy passing gun control laws, which leave racist murderers unhindered while citizens are deprived of the democratic right to defend themselves. Uphold the right to armed self-defense! No to gun control!
The Klan's Escorts—Racists in Blue
The press has portrayed the vicious massacre by the KKK assassins as a "shootout" between two "fringe" extremist groups. So anxious to ensure the right of "free speech" for the racist terrorists, much of the bourgeois press is now apologizing sympathetically for the Klan, implying that the Klansmen were simply standing up to the communists' insults, and that the demonstrators "got what they deserved." The attitude of the bourgeois press makes it even more urgent that the labor movement protest the Greensboro cold-blooded massacre and uphold the right of armed self-defense.
It clearly was murder, and the cops are apparently complicit. At the time of the attack the Greensboro police more than a block away from the demonstration rallying point. It was only alter the killings that they finally arrived at the rally site which by then was bathed in blood—and arrested three of the survivors! The cops have blood on their hands: Greensboro police chief William Swing admitted at a November 4 press conference that there was police surveillance of the Klan on their way to the demonstration area "where by law they had every right to be." Actually, the cops' "surveillance" amounted to an escort service for the armed convoy as they drove through the black community into the rally site! The State Secretary of Crime Control defended the cops by stating,
"They had no authority to stop the cars... until some law was violated. Very tragically, in this case, the first law that had been violated involved the murder."
—UP dispatch, 4 November
One can assume that the Greensboro racists in blue would have responded very differently had they "carefully watched" carloads of blacks load automatic weapons into car trunks and drive into a demonstration of Klansmen! The cops have proven time and again that they will side with the Klan and the Nazis. On the very day of the Klan massacre in Greensboro, hundreds of cops played the role of defense guards for a march of 50 Klansmen through the streets of Dallas. The police are paid to defend the racist capitalist state—from gunning down the Black Panthers and Jackson State students to arresting the victims of Klan terror in Greensboro.
The role of the state in defending and protecting fascist scum shows the dangerous stupidity of the demand to "ban the Klan" put forward by liberals and the reformist Communist Party. Any anti-"extremist" law will be used to attack the left. Even now, the FBI and North Carolina undercover police are investigating the "possibility" that the demonstrators' civil rights were violated—investigations which are undoubtedly aimed at increasing the harassment of left organisations. And when Workers Viewpoint announced that they would hold a funeral march through Greensboro on November 11, the mayor immediately declared a state of emergency in the town, calling in 250 state troopers and 500 National Guard riot troops. The troops frisked every one of the 500 protesters at the funeral march. They arrested at least 25, mostly on charges of transporting weapons, and would allow WVO's armed "honor guard" into the procession only if their weapons were unloaded!
Labor Must Smash the Klan
Besides the danger of illusions in cop protection, the other lesson made clear by the Greensboro massacre is that a handful of people cannot successfully take on the Klan by holding small adventurist demonstrations. WVO is a crazed and hysterically disoriented Stalinist/Maoist outfit. They may have held "Death to the Klan" rallies, but they are equally capable of holding a "Death to the Trots and Down with the USSR" rally. They hate the Soviet Union, Trotskyists and the Klan—in that order. In their politics and social attitudes WVO resembles nothing so much as "left-wing" boat people. A recent Workers Viewpoint centerfold went so far as to demand the execution of Trotskyists in Iran! As one of the most viciously sectarian and wildly adventurist groups on the left, they specialize in virulent thug violence, often directed against Trotskyists. And now, even after five of their comrades lie dead they have taken to attacking the SYL campus rallies protesting the massacre of their comrades!
But the Klan in Greensboro was not out to attack only this particular Maoist splinter group. Because of the weakness of the left in this country, WVO happened to be the "reds" in Greensboro. These racists were gunning for all the "commies," "n----r lovers" and "labor agitators." Their guns are still aimed at all blacks and minorities, at every trade unionist and socialist, at everyone they consider to be a social "deviant" in this country.
The Klan and Nazis cannot be defeated by reliance on the state to ban them, reliance on the cops to protect anti-racist demonstrators or by small adventurist rallies. The massive social power of the labor movement must be mobilized in alliance with black organizations to smash these fascist scum and demand: Drop the charges against the anti-Klan protesters and jail the killer Klansmen! No to gun control! Uphold the right of armed self-defense! Avenge Greensboro—for massive labor/black mobilizations across America to smash the Nazis and the Klan!
anti-fascism, anti-fascist struggle, ANTI-IMPERIALISM, anti-capitalism, lumpenproletariat, an injury to one is an injury to all,
Markin comment:
The events of Greenboro, North Carolina 1979, today more than ever as we gear up our struggles in the aftermath of the spark of the Occupy movement, should be permanently etched in our minds. We had best know how to deal with the fascists and other para-military types that rear their heads when people begin to struggle against the bosses. The article below points the way historically.
*******
Markin comment on this article :
Every year, and rightfully so, we leftist militants, especially those of us who count ourselves among the communist militants, remember the 1979 Greensboro, North Carolina massacre of fellow communists by murderous and police-protected Nazis, fascists and Klansmen. That remembrance, as the article below details, also includes trying to draw the lessons of the experience and an explanation of political differences. For what purpose? Greensboro 1979-never again, never forget-or forgive.
Although right this minute, this 2011 minute, the Nazis/fascists are not publicly raising their hellish ideas, apparently “hiding” just now on the fringes of the tea party movement, this is an eternal question for leftists. The question, in short, of when and how to deal with this crowd of locust. Trotsky, and others, had it right back in the late 1920s and early 1930s-smash this menace in the shell. 1933, when they come to power, as Hitler did in Germany (or earlier, if you like, with Mussolini in Italy) is way too late, as immediately the German working class, including its Social-Democratic and Communist sympathizers found out, and later many parts of the rest of the world. That is the when.
For the how, the substance of this article points the way forward, and the way not forward, as represented by the American Communist Party’s (and at later times other so-called “progressives” as well, including here the Communist Workers Party) attempts to de-rail the street protests and rely, as always, on the good offices of the bourgeois state, and usually, on this issue the Democrats. Sure, grab all the allies you can, from whatever source, to confront the fascists when they raise their heads. But rely on the mobilization of the labor movement on the streets to say what’s what, not rely on the hoary halls of bourgeois government and its hangers-on, ideologues, and lackeys.
******
From Young Spartacus, December 1979-"For Mass Labor/Black Action To Smash The KKK!-Avenge Greensboro!"
GREENSBORO, North Carolina—On November 3, carloads of Ku Klux Klansmen replaced their hooded robes with shotguns and semi-automatic rifles as they stormed an anti-Klan rally here, murdering five demonstrators and wounding many others. Over 100 onlookers watched in horror while the Klan carried out an unprecedented assassination attack in broad daylight on an integrated crowd of anti-racist demonstrators.
They drove their cars into the middle of the peaceful rally on their mission of death. Dropping their old tactics of midnight cross burnings, hooded intimidations and terroristic night-riding, the Klan in Greensboro opted for murder— cold-blooded murder. The killers methodically pulled their guns from the trunks of their cars, looking very much like -a group of deer hunters on a weekend outing. But then they opened fire, and within minutes, the streets were covered with the blood of the anti-Klan protesters. Killed were five long-time prominent labor and civil rights activists, supporters of Workers Viewpoint Organization (WVO, which recently changed its name to the Communist Workers Party, USA), the sponsor of the rally. The attackers knew what they were doing, were well-organized and made a bloody declaration to their enemies that the K K K is very much alive and deadly.
Two days after the massacre 12 of the murderers were arraigned on multiple counts of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and two others were charged only with conspiracy. Other than two of those charged, who are members of a Nazi paramilitary storm-trooper group, all the assailants are reportedly members of one of North Carolina's five Klan organizations. As they waited for their hearing to begin, the fascist triggermen sang "My Country Tis of Thee" and "Onward Christian Soldiers," obviously feeling that their cold-blooded attack was a victory for their forces. So now the Klan killers are encouraged by the "successful" shooting, just as they were emboldened by the racist mobilizations that defeated bus¬ing in the streets of Boston, Louisville and Chicago. Across the country the fascists' appetite for more violence has been whetted. They succeeded in murdering five militant anti-racists; now they'd love to go after the rest of their enemies—the blacks, the communists, the Jews and the labor movement.
Uphold the Right of Armed Self-Defense!
This fascist campaign of terror and murder has got to be stopped. Socialists and militants in the labor movement must call on organized labor to mobilize its tremendous social power, in alliance with black and other minority organizations and the left, to stop the Klan in its tracks. A step in this direction was taken on November 10 in Detroit where trade-union militants and the Spartacist League/Spartacus Youth League organized a powerful rally of 500 blacks, trade unionists and socialists in a militant protest against Klan and Nazi attacks. Only massive labor/black action to smash the Nazis and the Klan can prevent another Greensboro massacre!
But it is crystal clear that no union, black or leftist organization can defend itself against a repeat of this outrageous and shocking event without the right to armed self-defense. The capitalist state demands a monopoly on the means of violence. It has been busy passing gun control laws, which leave racist murderers unhindered while citizens are deprived of the democratic right to defend themselves. Uphold the right to armed self-defense! No to gun control!
The Klan's Escorts—Racists in Blue
The press has portrayed the vicious massacre by the KKK assassins as a "shootout" between two "fringe" extremist groups. So anxious to ensure the right of "free speech" for the racist terrorists, much of the bourgeois press is now apologizing sympathetically for the Klan, implying that the Klansmen were simply standing up to the communists' insults, and that the demonstrators "got what they deserved." The attitude of the bourgeois press makes it even more urgent that the labor movement protest the Greensboro cold-blooded massacre and uphold the right of armed self-defense.
It clearly was murder, and the cops are apparently complicit. At the time of the attack the Greensboro police more than a block away from the demonstration rallying point. It was only alter the killings that they finally arrived at the rally site which by then was bathed in blood—and arrested three of the survivors! The cops have blood on their hands: Greensboro police chief William Swing admitted at a November 4 press conference that there was police surveillance of the Klan on their way to the demonstration area "where by law they had every right to be." Actually, the cops' "surveillance" amounted to an escort service for the armed convoy as they drove through the black community into the rally site! The State Secretary of Crime Control defended the cops by stating,
"They had no authority to stop the cars... until some law was violated. Very tragically, in this case, the first law that had been violated involved the murder."
—UP dispatch, 4 November
One can assume that the Greensboro racists in blue would have responded very differently had they "carefully watched" carloads of blacks load automatic weapons into car trunks and drive into a demonstration of Klansmen! The cops have proven time and again that they will side with the Klan and the Nazis. On the very day of the Klan massacre in Greensboro, hundreds of cops played the role of defense guards for a march of 50 Klansmen through the streets of Dallas. The police are paid to defend the racist capitalist state—from gunning down the Black Panthers and Jackson State students to arresting the victims of Klan terror in Greensboro.
The role of the state in defending and protecting fascist scum shows the dangerous stupidity of the demand to "ban the Klan" put forward by liberals and the reformist Communist Party. Any anti-"extremist" law will be used to attack the left. Even now, the FBI and North Carolina undercover police are investigating the "possibility" that the demonstrators' civil rights were violated—investigations which are undoubtedly aimed at increasing the harassment of left organisations. And when Workers Viewpoint announced that they would hold a funeral march through Greensboro on November 11, the mayor immediately declared a state of emergency in the town, calling in 250 state troopers and 500 National Guard riot troops. The troops frisked every one of the 500 protesters at the funeral march. They arrested at least 25, mostly on charges of transporting weapons, and would allow WVO's armed "honor guard" into the procession only if their weapons were unloaded!
Labor Must Smash the Klan
Besides the danger of illusions in cop protection, the other lesson made clear by the Greensboro massacre is that a handful of people cannot successfully take on the Klan by holding small adventurist demonstrations. WVO is a crazed and hysterically disoriented Stalinist/Maoist outfit. They may have held "Death to the Klan" rallies, but they are equally capable of holding a "Death to the Trots and Down with the USSR" rally. They hate the Soviet Union, Trotskyists and the Klan—in that order. In their politics and social attitudes WVO resembles nothing so much as "left-wing" boat people. A recent Workers Viewpoint centerfold went so far as to demand the execution of Trotskyists in Iran! As one of the most viciously sectarian and wildly adventurist groups on the left, they specialize in virulent thug violence, often directed against Trotskyists. And now, even after five of their comrades lie dead they have taken to attacking the SYL campus rallies protesting the massacre of their comrades!
But the Klan in Greensboro was not out to attack only this particular Maoist splinter group. Because of the weakness of the left in this country, WVO happened to be the "reds" in Greensboro. These racists were gunning for all the "commies," "n----r lovers" and "labor agitators." Their guns are still aimed at all blacks and minorities, at every trade unionist and socialist, at everyone they consider to be a social "deviant" in this country.
The Klan and Nazis cannot be defeated by reliance on the state to ban them, reliance on the cops to protect anti-racist demonstrators or by small adventurist rallies. The massive social power of the labor movement must be mobilized in alliance with black organizations to smash these fascist scum and demand: Drop the charges against the anti-Klan protesters and jail the killer Klansmen! No to gun control! Uphold the right of armed self-defense! Avenge Greensboro—for massive labor/black mobilizations across America to smash the Nazis and the Klan!
anti-fascism, anti-fascist struggle, ANTI-IMPERIALISM, anti-capitalism, lumpenproletariat, an injury to one is an injury to all,
The Latest From The “Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox” Blog
Click on the headline to link to Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox blog for the latest from her site.
Markin comment:
I find Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox rather a mishmash of eclectic politics and basic old time left-liberal/radical thinking. Not enough, not nearly enough, in our troubled times but enough to take the time to read about and get a sense of the pulse (if any) of that segment of the left to which she is appealing. One though should always remember, despite our political differences, her heroic action in going down to hell-hole Texas to confront one President George W. Bush when many others were resigned to accepting the lies of that administration or who “folded” their tents when the expected end to the Iraq War did not materialize. Hats off on that one, Cindy Sheehan.
Markin comment:
I find Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox rather a mishmash of eclectic politics and basic old time left-liberal/radical thinking. Not enough, not nearly enough, in our troubled times but enough to take the time to read about and get a sense of the pulse (if any) of that segment of the left to which she is appealing. One though should always remember, despite our political differences, her heroic action in going down to hell-hole Texas to confront one President George W. Bush when many others were resigned to accepting the lies of that administration or who “folded” their tents when the expected end to the Iraq War did not materialize. Hats off on that one, Cindy Sheehan.
The Latest From The Boston Veterans For Peace Smedley D. Butler Brigade- Veterans' Day-November 11th Anti-War March In Boston
Click on the headline to link to the Smedley D. Butler Brigade of Veterans for Peace website.
JOIN US In BOSTON
Friday, November llth
To participate in pre-parade actions at the State House and military recruiters, meet at 10:00AM at the corner of Beacon and Charles across from the Starbucks. Bring signs.
The American Legion parade starts 1PM. We will assemble at noon on the corner of Beacon and Charles and march immediately after them.
Participate in a pre-parade picket of the military recruiting offices on 141 Tremont Street as well as the State House
March with us behind the "official" parade
Join us for a post-parade rally at Faneuil Hall with speakers and live music
Meet us at 10:OOAM on Boston Commons at the corner of Beacon Street and Charles Street across from the Starbucks.
Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Veterans For Peace
Contact us at: info@massvfp.org Facebook: Smedley D. Butler Brigade
http://smedleyvfp.org of Veterans for Peace
Phone: 617-942-0328
Twitter: Smedley Butler VFP
VETERANS' DAY 2011
*********
Markin comment 2011:
I am re-posting this entry from last year's Veterans' Day anti-war march as it hits all the main points I want to make on this year's march. Be there!
******
Thursday, November 11, 2010
*A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists, and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.
Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstools”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Smedley Butler Brigagde of the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.
Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old I’ll take my ball and bat and go home by the "officials" was in the air on that one.
But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in the world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the "street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
JOIN US In BOSTON
Friday, November llth
To participate in pre-parade actions at the State House and military recruiters, meet at 10:00AM at the corner of Beacon and Charles across from the Starbucks. Bring signs.
The American Legion parade starts 1PM. We will assemble at noon on the corner of Beacon and Charles and march immediately after them.
Participate in a pre-parade picket of the military recruiting offices on 141 Tremont Street as well as the State House
March with us behind the "official" parade
Join us for a post-parade rally at Faneuil Hall with speakers and live music
Meet us at 10:OOAM on Boston Commons at the corner of Beacon Street and Charles Street across from the Starbucks.
Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Veterans For Peace
Contact us at: info@massvfp.org Facebook: Smedley D. Butler Brigade
http://smedleyvfp.org of Veterans for Peace
Phone: 617-942-0328
Twitter: Smedley Butler VFP
VETERANS' DAY 2011
*********
Markin comment 2011:
I am re-posting this entry from last year's Veterans' Day anti-war march as it hits all the main points I want to make on this year's march. Be there!
******
Thursday, November 11, 2010
*A Stroll In The Park On Veterans Day- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. Troops From Iraq and Afghanistan!
Markin comment:
Listen, I have been to many marches and demonstrations for democratic, progressive, socialist and communist causes in my long political life. However, of all those events none, by far, has been more satisfying that to march alongside my fellow ex-soldiers who have “switched” over to the other side and are now part of the struggle against war, the hard, hard struggle against the permanent war machine that this imperial system has embarked upon. From as far back as in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) days I have always felt that ex-soldiers (hell, active soldiers too, if you can get them) have had just a little bit more “street cred” on the war issue than the professors, pacifists, and little old ladies in tennis sneakers who have traditionally led the anti-war movements. Maybe those brothers (and in my generation it was mainly only brothers) and now sisters may not quite pose the questions of war and peace the way I do, or the way that I would like them to do, but they are kindred spirits.
Now normally in Boston, and in most places, a Veterans Day parade means a bunch of Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) or American Legion-types taking time off from drinking at their post bars (“the battle of the barstools”) and donning the old overstuffed uniform and heading out on to Main Street to be waved at, and cheered on, by like-minded, thankful citizens. And of course that happened this time as well. What also happened in Boston this year (and other years but I have not been involved in previous marches) was that the Smedley Butler Brigagde of the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organized an anti-war march as part of their “Veterans Day” program. Said march to be held at the same place and time as the official one.
Previously there had been a certain amount of trouble, although I am not sure that it came to blows, between the two groups. (I have only heard third-hand reports on previous events.) You know the "super-patriots" vs. “commie symps” thing that has been going on as long as there have been ex-soldiers (and others) who have differed from the bourgeois party pro-war line. In any case the way this impasse had been resolved previously, and the way the parameters were set this year as well, was that the VFP took up the rear of the official parade, and took up the rear in an obvious way. Separated from the main body of the official parade by a medical emergency truck. Nice, right? Something of the old I’ll take my ball and bat and go home by the "officials" was in the air on that one.
But here is where there is a certain amount of rough plebeian justice, a small dose for those on the side of the angels, in the world. In order to form up, and this was done knowingly by VFP organizers, the official marchers, the bands and battalions that make up such a march, had to “run the gauntlet” of dove emblem-emblazoned VFP banners waving frantically directly in front of their faces as they passed by. Moreover, although we formed the caboose of this thing the crowds along the parade route actually waited as the official paraders marched by and waved and clapped at our procession. Be still my heart. But that response just provides another example of the "street cred” that ex-soldiers have on the anti-war question. Now, if there is to be any really serious justice in the world, if only these vets would go beyond the “bring the troops home” and embrace- immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./Allied Troops from Iraq and Afghanistan then we could maybe start to get somewhere out on those streets. But today I was very glad to be fighting for our communist future among those who know first-hand about the dark side of the American experience. No question.
From The “Occupy Oakland” Website-The November 2, 2011 Oakland General Strike-We Take The Offensive- Defend The Oakland Commune-Happy One Month Birthday!
Click on the headline to link to Occupy Oakland website for the latest from the vanguard battleground in the struggle for social justice.
Markin comment November 3, 2011:
We have won a tremendous victory in Oakland. No, no the big dent in the capitalist system that we are all looking for but the first step. And that first step is to put the words “general strike” in the political vocabulary in our fight for social justice. This is Liberation Day One. From now on we move from isolated tent encampments to the struggle in the streets against the monster, the streets where some of the battles will be decisively decided. Yes, our first day was messy, we took some casualties, we took some arrest, we made some mistakes but we now have a road forward, so forward. No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-We Take The Offensive-Liberation Day One-Defend The Oakland Commune-Drop All Charges Against The Oakland Protesters!
P.S. (November 4, 2011) I noted above some of the actions were messy in Oakland. This was so partly because it was seen as a celebration as much as demand-ladened, hard-nosed general strike started as a prelude to anything immediately bigger (like the question of taking state power and running things ourselves) but also because people are after all new at this way of expressing their latent power. 1946 in Oakland, and anywhere else, is a long political time to go without having a general strike in this country. Even the anti-war mass actions of the 1960s, which included school-centered general strikes, never got close to the notion of shutting down the capitalists where they live-places like the Port Of Oakland. There are some other more systematic problems that I, and others, are starting to note and I will address them as we go along. Things like bourgeois electoral politics rearing its ugly head, keeping the thing together, and becoming more organizationally cohesive without becoming bureaucratic. Later.
Markin comment November 3, 2011:
We have won a tremendous victory in Oakland. No, no the big dent in the capitalist system that we are all looking for but the first step. And that first step is to put the words “general strike” in the political vocabulary in our fight for social justice. This is Liberation Day One. From now on we move from isolated tent encampments to the struggle in the streets against the monster, the streets where some of the battles will be decisively decided. Yes, our first day was messy, we took some casualties, we took some arrest, we made some mistakes but we now have a road forward, so forward. No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-We Take The Offensive-Liberation Day One-Defend The Oakland Commune-Drop All Charges Against The Oakland Protesters!
P.S. (November 4, 2011) I noted above some of the actions were messy in Oakland. This was so partly because it was seen as a celebration as much as demand-ladened, hard-nosed general strike started as a prelude to anything immediately bigger (like the question of taking state power and running things ourselves) but also because people are after all new at this way of expressing their latent power. 1946 in Oakland, and anywhere else, is a long political time to go without having a general strike in this country. Even the anti-war mass actions of the 1960s, which included school-centered general strikes, never got close to the notion of shutting down the capitalists where they live-places like the Port Of Oakland. There are some other more systematic problems that I, and others, are starting to note and I will address them as we go along. Things like bourgeois electoral politics rearing its ugly head, keeping the thing together, and becoming more organizationally cohesive without becoming bureaucratic. Later.
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
The Class Struggle Heats Up, A Victory For Our Side For Once-Public unions win in Ohio referendum on Gov. John Kasich restrictions on bargaining
Markin comment:
After last week’s Oakland General Strike and the closing down of the Port of Oakland I thought we were on the offensive, finally. And I was not wrong. The molecular process that has been going on down at the base of society after years of being beaten down in the one-sided class struggle has finally gotten some push back, if ever so slightly just now.
The Ohio referendum vote was a sweet victory to put the breaks on this “in your face” right-wing slide that we having been dealing with for a long time. While, in the final analysis, hard struggles, hard street struggles, still lie ahead we will take our victories, small or large, wherever we can. I don’t think that the bourgeoisie is ready to make reservations to some island and let us take over yet but I would think that some of the more far-sighted elements might be checking their frequent-flyer mileage status. Nor am I so intoxicated by Ohio that I would raise the propaganda slogan to build workers councils now. But I will raise right here, well in advance of the 2012 bourgeois electoral fist-fight, the need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. And I am not wrong on that.
P.S. Anytime anybody anywhere says labor and its supporters need to spent union dues to elect bourgeois "friends" like Obama just point to Ohio. That is the way to spend our dough-and not have it wasted. That, and putting a ton of money into organizing the unorganized.
******
Post by Peter Callaghan / The News Tribune on Nov. 8, 2011 at 6:47 pm | November 8, 2011 6:47 pm
This from the Associated Press:
COLUMBUS, Ohio The state’s new collective bargaining law was defeated Tuesday after an expensive union-backed campaign that pitted firefighters, police officers and teachers against the Republican establishment.
In a political blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, voters handily rejected the law, which would have limited the bargaining abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers.
Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, and turnout was high for an off-year election.
The law hadn’t taken effect yet. Tuesday’s result means the state’s current union rules will stand, at least until the GOP-controlled Legislature determines its next move. Republican House Speaker William Batchelder predicted last week that the more palatable elements of the collective bargaining bill Ñ such as higher minimum contributions on worker health insurance and pensions Ñ are likely to be revisited after the dust settles.
Kasich and fellow supporters promoted the law as a means for local governments to save money and keep workers. Their effort was supported by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business-Ohio, farmers and others.
We Are Ohio, the largely union-funded opponent coalition, painted the issue as a threat to public safety and middle-class workers, spending millions of dollars on TV ads filled with images of firefighters, police officers, teachers and nurses.
Celebrities came out on both sides of the campaign, with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and singer Pat Boone urging voters to retain the law and former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn and the Rev. Jesse Jackson urging them to scrap it.
Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, with the law’s opponents far outspending and outnumbering its defenders.
Opponents reported raising $24 million as of mid-October, compared to about $8 million raised by the committee supporting the law, Building a Better Ohio.
Tuesday’s result in the closely divided swing state was expected to resonate from statehouses to the White House ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
Ohio’s bill went further than a similar one in Wisconsin by including police officers and firefighters, and it was considered by many observers to be a barometer of the national mood on the political conundrum of the day: What’s the appropriate size and role of government, and who should pay for it?
Kasich has vowed not to give up his fight for streamlining government despite the loss.
For opponents of the law, its defeat is anticipated to energize the labor movement, which largely supports Democrats, ahead of President Barack Obama’s re-election effort.
After last week’s Oakland General Strike and the closing down of the Port of Oakland I thought we were on the offensive, finally. And I was not wrong. The molecular process that has been going on down at the base of society after years of being beaten down in the one-sided class struggle has finally gotten some push back, if ever so slightly just now.
The Ohio referendum vote was a sweet victory to put the breaks on this “in your face” right-wing slide that we having been dealing with for a long time. While, in the final analysis, hard struggles, hard street struggles, still lie ahead we will take our victories, small or large, wherever we can. I don’t think that the bourgeoisie is ready to make reservations to some island and let us take over yet but I would think that some of the more far-sighted elements might be checking their frequent-flyer mileage status. Nor am I so intoxicated by Ohio that I would raise the propaganda slogan to build workers councils now. But I will raise right here, well in advance of the 2012 bourgeois electoral fist-fight, the need to fight for a workers party that fights for a workers government. And I am not wrong on that.
P.S. Anytime anybody anywhere says labor and its supporters need to spent union dues to elect bourgeois "friends" like Obama just point to Ohio. That is the way to spend our dough-and not have it wasted. That, and putting a ton of money into organizing the unorganized.
******
Post by Peter Callaghan / The News Tribune on Nov. 8, 2011 at 6:47 pm | November 8, 2011 6:47 pm
This from the Associated Press:
COLUMBUS, Ohio The state’s new collective bargaining law was defeated Tuesday after an expensive union-backed campaign that pitted firefighters, police officers and teachers against the Republican establishment.
In a political blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, voters handily rejected the law, which would have limited the bargaining abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers.
Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, and turnout was high for an off-year election.
The law hadn’t taken effect yet. Tuesday’s result means the state’s current union rules will stand, at least until the GOP-controlled Legislature determines its next move. Republican House Speaker William Batchelder predicted last week that the more palatable elements of the collective bargaining bill Ñ such as higher minimum contributions on worker health insurance and pensions Ñ are likely to be revisited after the dust settles.
Kasich and fellow supporters promoted the law as a means for local governments to save money and keep workers. Their effort was supported by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business-Ohio, farmers and others.
We Are Ohio, the largely union-funded opponent coalition, painted the issue as a threat to public safety and middle-class workers, spending millions of dollars on TV ads filled with images of firefighters, police officers, teachers and nurses.
Celebrities came out on both sides of the campaign, with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and singer Pat Boone urging voters to retain the law and former astronaut and U.S. Sen. John Glenn and the Rev. Jesse Jackson urging them to scrap it.
Labor and business interests poured more than $30 million into the nationally watched campaign, with the law’s opponents far outspending and outnumbering its defenders.
Opponents reported raising $24 million as of mid-October, compared to about $8 million raised by the committee supporting the law, Building a Better Ohio.
Tuesday’s result in the closely divided swing state was expected to resonate from statehouses to the White House ahead of the 2012 presidential election.
Ohio’s bill went further than a similar one in Wisconsin by including police officers and firefighters, and it was considered by many observers to be a barometer of the national mood on the political conundrum of the day: What’s the appropriate size and role of government, and who should pay for it?
Kasich has vowed not to give up his fight for streamlining government despite the loss.
For opponents of the law, its defeat is anticipated to energize the labor movement, which largely supports Democrats, ahead of President Barack Obama’s re-election effort.
From #Occupied Boston (#TomemonosBoston)-Day Forty-One- An Injury To One Is An Injury To All!-Defend All The Occupation Sites And All The Occupiers!–No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-Drawing Some Lessons In Light Of The Oakland General Strike Struggle!
Click on the headline to link to updates from the Occupy Boston website.Occupy Boston started at 6:00 PM, September 30, 2011. I will post important updates as they appear on that site.
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el 99% -Dewey Square, Cercerde South Station
#Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
************
Markin comment November 3, 2011:
We have won a tremendous victory in Oakland. No, no the big dent in the capitalist system that we are all looking for but the first step. And that first step is to put the words “general strike” in the political vocabulary in our fight for social justice. That is the sense that I used the dating Liberation Day One in recent posts. From now on we move from isolated tent encampments to the struggle in the streets against the monster, the streets where some of the battles will be decisively decided. Yes, our first day was messy, we took some casualties, we took some arrest, we made some mistakes but we now have road forward, so forward. No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-We Take The Offensive-Liberation Day One-Defend The Oakland Commune-Drop All Charges Against The Oakland Protesters!
P.S. (November 4, 2011) I noted above some of the actions were messy in Oakland. This was so partly because it was seen as a celebration as much as a demand-heavy, hard-nosed general strike started as a prelude to anything immediately bigger (like the question of taking state power and running things ourselves) but also because people are after all new at this way of expressing their latent power. 1946 in Oakland, and anywhere else, is a long political time to go without having a general strike in this country. Even the anti-war mass actions of the 1960s, which included school-centered general strikes, never got close to the notion of shutting down the capitalists where they live-places like the Port Of Oakland. There are some other more systematic problems that I, and others, are starting to note and I will address them as we go along. Things like bourgeois electoral politics rearing its ugly head, keeping the thing together, and becoming more organizationally cohesive without becoming bureaucratic. Later.
**********
Markin comment November 5, 2011 :
I am posting this entry here because it expresses some of the same things that I find disconcerting about the direction of the Occupy movement. Although I have some differences with the author's direction as well and am not familiar with the program of this particular group, Workers Action, I find his points well worth pondering. I will add my own in the future as we settle in to learn the lessons of the Oakland General Strike for our struggles.
A Sober Voice From The Occupy Movement :
The Way Forward for Occupy Portland by Shamus Cooke, Workers ActionVia Boston IndyMedia
Email: portland (nospam) workerscompass.org (unverified!) 01 Nov 2011
In Portland, Oregon, all the promise and pitfalls of the Occupy Movement are on public display. Portland is second only to New York when it comes to sustained Occupy power, but in a newly born social movement strength is not something to take for granted. The vast amounts of public support in Portland, earned through large demonstrations and strategic outreach, can be frittered away by the internal contradictions of the movement.
Portland began its occupation with a 10,000-person rally that shook the city's foundation and disorientated the Mayor, who had no choice but to "allow" the occupation to stay at the park they had taken without asking. There have since been several large Portland rallies and marches that have proven the wider population's support: On October 26 a labor union-led Occupy march turned out thousands of union members with ecstatic morale; the same week showcased a "This Land is Our Land" Occupy rally by Portland band Pink Martini, which attracted nearly 10,000 people.
But the speeches of the Pink Martini rally were hardly Occupy worthy, since they showcased two members of Oregon's Congressional House of Representatives, politicians of the political establishment that the Occupy movement rose up against. As Representative Earl Blumenauer spoke, a group of activists chanted "This is what hypocrisy looks like,” in response to his voting in favor for the recently passed pro-corporate free trade agreements.
If Portland's Occupy movement had a strong list of demands — or even a firm statement of principles — the Democrats in Oregon would be unable to associate with Occupy, since the Democrats’ objectives would so obviously clash with those of the anti-corporate movement. But for now "99%" is vague enough for political impostors to enter the fray and inject ideas from the wealthiest 1%.
Portland's 1% has been chipping away at the Occupy movement through their control of the local media; a steady stream of negative editorials and slanted reporting has focused on the minority of internal problems of the Occupation spot, blasting headlines of drug abuse and assaults while ignoring the larger aspirations of the protesters.
Thus far, Portland's 1% has been unable to establish the "rule of law" and evict the protesters because of the wider backlash that would ensue; the media have been pushing the Mayor to create a "timeline" for the protesters to leave. Thus far the Mayor remains too jarred to act, leaving the initiative to the protesters.
But initiative is something easily lost. There are sections of Occupiers who are impatient and want more "direct action,” including an expansion of the occupation to other parks. This would not be such a bad thing if masses of people were aggressively behind the action. Instead, on October 30th in the wee hours of the morning, the "new" occupation spot had only a couple dozen protesters who were promptly arrested, giving the police and Mayor an easy victory and the Occupy movement a small but bitter defeat. The illusion of the Mayor having "control" was upheld while the message of the protesters was muzzled.
Some protesters will argue that the arrests were a victory, but civil disobedience must be looked at from a strategic lens that is most effective with masses of people involved and specific goals in mind. The era of tiny protests and limited results belongs to the past. This movement has large scale potential, and the larger 99% will feel impelled to join if they see a strong, mass movement capable of winning demands.
Another way that Occupy Portland could lose mass support is through political disunity. There are different committees and working groups within Occupy Portland trying to build some political cohesiveness to broadcast to the wider community. The movement's long-term objectives and immediate demands remain unclear; indeed the two are being confused. There is an urge for many people to demand the end to "corporate personhood,” an increasingly popular demand on the political left that remains mostly unknown to the larger 99%.
This is precisely the problem. The Occupy movement claims to speak for the 99%, but the main leaders/organizers are students, recent graduates, or long-time members of the activist left. These groups have come into the movement with ready-made ideas in mind, many of them good. But the left has been plagued by issue-based divisiveness for years, where the many different groups are pushing their individual issues into a movement that began by appealing to the 99% at large. It is healthy for left groups to advocate the end of animal cruelty, corporate personhood, and police brutality, but these are not the immediate demands that will spur the 99% to actively join the movement.
What will get people in the streets? The 99% supports the Occupy Movement because of the economic crisis that has directly affected them, not because they have ideological problems with capitalism at the moment, or want to take legal rights from corporations. The most progressive 5% cannot impose their demands on the larger 99%, since the majority of the 99% already have demands of their own.
What are these demands? The Washington Post explains: "How many times does this message have to be delivered? In poll after poll, Americans have said their top concern is the jobs crisis." (August 11, 2011).
Poll after poll has also declared mass opposition to cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and other social programs, while declaring support for taxing the rich to solve these national problems.
And these issues have even greater potential to galvanize the 99% because of their centrality to organized labor. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently declared the cuts to Social Security, Medicare or to Medicaid, which have been proposed by the bipartisan “Super Committee,” are unacceptable. The proposed cuts, Trumka says, prove why people around the country “are raising their voices in protest because they’re fed up with a system that is stacked in favor of the richest one percent of Americans – at the expense of the other 99 percent of us.”
The Occupy Movement will grow or die based on its ability to relate to these demands of the larger 99%. It is these issues that reflect the most urgent needs, where the demands are held in common by the vast majority and that affect working people on a city, state, and national level. No long-term demands — like ending corporate personhood — can be won outside of a mass movement, and no mass movement can grow without the focus on immediate, basic demands; these demands must come before the former.
There is plenty of time for the Occupy Movement to work out the details of its long-term mission, but there is no time to waste to fight for the most popular demands of working people. The Occupy Movement is still struggling for existence, and its life cannot be maintained in a political environment unattractive to the broader 99%. If the Occupy Movement demanded that the wealthy and corporations be taxed to create jobs and prevent cuts to social programs, the 99% would see a movement built in its own image, and working people would fight for themselves while learning to fight alongside each other for the good of all working people.
This work is in the public domain
*******
Markin comment November 7 2011:
I noted in yesterday’s comment (see above) that I would have my own points to make about my observations of the progress (or lack of progress in the Occupy movement). Today I just want to outline the concerns that I will go into greater detail as things get clear (or murkier). Remember these comments are made in the light of the lessons to be learned from the great Oakland General Strike of November 2, 2011 which is now the vanguard axis of the struggle.
One, the seemingly endless and somewhat haphazard marches, rallies, and guerilla theater antics of the past few weeks, while important as a catalyst for actions and publicity, have reached something like a saturation point. Actions like the glorious march to close down the Port of Oakland-a direct challenge to capitalist rule and as a way to hit them where they live is where we should be heading.
Two, while the "Occupy everywhere" theme is right in the long haul establishing eight million small, poorly planned, poorly attended, and merely episodic sites in small towns which have increasing been picked off by the local authorities, and rather easily suppressed, is self-defeating especially as winter closes in and we need to have a serious mainline cities presence.
Three, the Oakland General Strike, if it stands for anything, stands for the proposition that the working class is central to any concrete actions that will bring this monster down. The labor, minority and other oppressed segments of the movement who will be key to creating our new, more just society have until now not played a central but rather an auxiliary role and reflects a bad trend in the movement.
Four, while the question of electoral politics, bourgeois electoral politics, is not pressing right this minute there are distinct tom-toms being heard from bourgeois candidates (example, the Elizabeth Warren campaign for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts) trying to corral this movement into the straitjacket of electoral politics. The Occupy slogan should be Candidate X, Y, Z is part of the problem, not part of the solution. The slogan noted in the Workers Action article when bourgeois politicians tried to drum up support at Occupy Portland hits the point correctly- "This is what hypocrisy looks like.”
Five, the question of no demands, or even a firm statement of principles, is beginning to sap away the strength of the movement as people do their own thing with at least one case of repetitive action on the student loan showing a lack of national co-ordination as well. You can try to run from politics at your peril, and hide behind an anti-politics stance, as witness the general daily atmosphere at Occupy Boston and which you can read about read about through the General Assembly minutes at many other sites, but it is still politics-bad politics.
Six, I will repeat the Workers Action statement here and just universalize it. The 1% has been chipping away at the Occupy movement through their control of the local media; a steady stream of negative editorials and slanted reporting has focused on the minority of internal problems of the Occupation spot, blasting headlines of drug abuse and assaults while ignoring the larger aspirations of the protesters. There is moreover a very big gap between the political operatives who defend the Occupy movement (including this writer) and a large number of those who actually camp out.
Seven, the movement's long-term objectives and immediate demands remain unclear; indeed the two are being confused. There is an urge for many people to demand the end to "corporate personhood,” an increasingly popular demand on the political left that remains mostly unknown to the larger 99%. This brings up the division that is becoming more apparent between those who want to tweak at the capitalist system and those who want to throw the bums out and create another type of society, including this writer.
Eight, The Occupy movement claims to speak for the 99%, but the main leaders/organizers are students, recent graduates, or long-time members of the activist left. There is precious little outreach to the broader working class milieu. I see precious few “soccer moms and dads,” except an occasional thoughtful donor dropping off food or other supplies. This is a political generational problem, a problem of the missing generation between the oldsters (me and my generation) and the youth, the generation who bought into anti-activist notions of the world, except to not be bothered as much as possible.
Nine, and here is where my major different with the brother from Workers Action comes in. Program is necessary for any political movement and as I have noted above this movement will, in the end, not be able to evade that norm. However, that norm does not include some mythical search for a grab bag of demands that will make the soccer moms and dads jump up and salute our movement. Smart politics will raise the right set of demands and then those who now stand on the sidelines will come over, assuming some victories for us in the meantime.
Ten, right now the most progressive 5% has to speak for their demands and can direct them to the larger audience since the majority of those we are trying to reach do not have demands of their own, or have been unable to articulate them. In fact the 99 percent figure while attractive as a street slogan should no blind us to the reality that we have more natural enemies than the one percent and that most people are not part of the political “nation”. That is why we speak up now to push the “silent majority” forward but make no mistake what we are doing is the pushing so caution is warranted about going too fast, for now.
Ah, ten points seems enough for now. I will write more on each point as I think about things a little more.
********
Fight-Don’t Starve-We Created The Wealth, Let's Take It Back! Labor And The Oppressed Must Rule!
********
#TomemonosBoston
Somos la Sociedad conformando el 99% -Dewey Square, Cercerde South Station
#Tomemonos Boston se reuniarin en el Dewey Square en Downtown Boston a discutir cambios que la ciudadania puede hacer en el gobierno que afecte un cambio social positivo.
************
Markin comment November 3, 2011:
We have won a tremendous victory in Oakland. No, no the big dent in the capitalist system that we are all looking for but the first step. And that first step is to put the words “general strike” in the political vocabulary in our fight for social justice. That is the sense that I used the dating Liberation Day One in recent posts. From now on we move from isolated tent encampments to the struggle in the streets against the monster, the streets where some of the battles will be decisively decided. Yes, our first day was messy, we took some casualties, we took some arrest, we made some mistakes but we now have road forward, so forward. No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-We Take The Offensive-Liberation Day One-Defend The Oakland Commune-Drop All Charges Against The Oakland Protesters!
P.S. (November 4, 2011) I noted above some of the actions were messy in Oakland. This was so partly because it was seen as a celebration as much as a demand-heavy, hard-nosed general strike started as a prelude to anything immediately bigger (like the question of taking state power and running things ourselves) but also because people are after all new at this way of expressing their latent power. 1946 in Oakland, and anywhere else, is a long political time to go without having a general strike in this country. Even the anti-war mass actions of the 1960s, which included school-centered general strikes, never got close to the notion of shutting down the capitalists where they live-places like the Port Of Oakland. There are some other more systematic problems that I, and others, are starting to note and I will address them as we go along. Things like bourgeois electoral politics rearing its ugly head, keeping the thing together, and becoming more organizationally cohesive without becoming bureaucratic. Later.
**********
Markin comment November 5, 2011 :
I am posting this entry here because it expresses some of the same things that I find disconcerting about the direction of the Occupy movement. Although I have some differences with the author's direction as well and am not familiar with the program of this particular group, Workers Action, I find his points well worth pondering. I will add my own in the future as we settle in to learn the lessons of the Oakland General Strike for our struggles.
A Sober Voice From The Occupy Movement :
The Way Forward for Occupy Portland by Shamus Cooke, Workers ActionVia Boston IndyMedia
Email: portland (nospam) workerscompass.org (unverified!) 01 Nov 2011
In Portland, Oregon, all the promise and pitfalls of the Occupy Movement are on public display. Portland is second only to New York when it comes to sustained Occupy power, but in a newly born social movement strength is not something to take for granted. The vast amounts of public support in Portland, earned through large demonstrations and strategic outreach, can be frittered away by the internal contradictions of the movement.
Portland began its occupation with a 10,000-person rally that shook the city's foundation and disorientated the Mayor, who had no choice but to "allow" the occupation to stay at the park they had taken without asking. There have since been several large Portland rallies and marches that have proven the wider population's support: On October 26 a labor union-led Occupy march turned out thousands of union members with ecstatic morale; the same week showcased a "This Land is Our Land" Occupy rally by Portland band Pink Martini, which attracted nearly 10,000 people.
But the speeches of the Pink Martini rally were hardly Occupy worthy, since they showcased two members of Oregon's Congressional House of Representatives, politicians of the political establishment that the Occupy movement rose up against. As Representative Earl Blumenauer spoke, a group of activists chanted "This is what hypocrisy looks like,” in response to his voting in favor for the recently passed pro-corporate free trade agreements.
If Portland's Occupy movement had a strong list of demands — or even a firm statement of principles — the Democrats in Oregon would be unable to associate with Occupy, since the Democrats’ objectives would so obviously clash with those of the anti-corporate movement. But for now "99%" is vague enough for political impostors to enter the fray and inject ideas from the wealthiest 1%.
Portland's 1% has been chipping away at the Occupy movement through their control of the local media; a steady stream of negative editorials and slanted reporting has focused on the minority of internal problems of the Occupation spot, blasting headlines of drug abuse and assaults while ignoring the larger aspirations of the protesters.
Thus far, Portland's 1% has been unable to establish the "rule of law" and evict the protesters because of the wider backlash that would ensue; the media have been pushing the Mayor to create a "timeline" for the protesters to leave. Thus far the Mayor remains too jarred to act, leaving the initiative to the protesters.
But initiative is something easily lost. There are sections of Occupiers who are impatient and want more "direct action,” including an expansion of the occupation to other parks. This would not be such a bad thing if masses of people were aggressively behind the action. Instead, on October 30th in the wee hours of the morning, the "new" occupation spot had only a couple dozen protesters who were promptly arrested, giving the police and Mayor an easy victory and the Occupy movement a small but bitter defeat. The illusion of the Mayor having "control" was upheld while the message of the protesters was muzzled.
Some protesters will argue that the arrests were a victory, but civil disobedience must be looked at from a strategic lens that is most effective with masses of people involved and specific goals in mind. The era of tiny protests and limited results belongs to the past. This movement has large scale potential, and the larger 99% will feel impelled to join if they see a strong, mass movement capable of winning demands.
Another way that Occupy Portland could lose mass support is through political disunity. There are different committees and working groups within Occupy Portland trying to build some political cohesiveness to broadcast to the wider community. The movement's long-term objectives and immediate demands remain unclear; indeed the two are being confused. There is an urge for many people to demand the end to "corporate personhood,” an increasingly popular demand on the political left that remains mostly unknown to the larger 99%.
This is precisely the problem. The Occupy movement claims to speak for the 99%, but the main leaders/organizers are students, recent graduates, or long-time members of the activist left. These groups have come into the movement with ready-made ideas in mind, many of them good. But the left has been plagued by issue-based divisiveness for years, where the many different groups are pushing their individual issues into a movement that began by appealing to the 99% at large. It is healthy for left groups to advocate the end of animal cruelty, corporate personhood, and police brutality, but these are not the immediate demands that will spur the 99% to actively join the movement.
What will get people in the streets? The 99% supports the Occupy Movement because of the economic crisis that has directly affected them, not because they have ideological problems with capitalism at the moment, or want to take legal rights from corporations. The most progressive 5% cannot impose their demands on the larger 99%, since the majority of the 99% already have demands of their own.
What are these demands? The Washington Post explains: "How many times does this message have to be delivered? In poll after poll, Americans have said their top concern is the jobs crisis." (August 11, 2011).
Poll after poll has also declared mass opposition to cutting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security and other social programs, while declaring support for taxing the rich to solve these national problems.
And these issues have even greater potential to galvanize the 99% because of their centrality to organized labor. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently declared the cuts to Social Security, Medicare or to Medicaid, which have been proposed by the bipartisan “Super Committee,” are unacceptable. The proposed cuts, Trumka says, prove why people around the country “are raising their voices in protest because they’re fed up with a system that is stacked in favor of the richest one percent of Americans – at the expense of the other 99 percent of us.”
The Occupy Movement will grow or die based on its ability to relate to these demands of the larger 99%. It is these issues that reflect the most urgent needs, where the demands are held in common by the vast majority and that affect working people on a city, state, and national level. No long-term demands — like ending corporate personhood — can be won outside of a mass movement, and no mass movement can grow without the focus on immediate, basic demands; these demands must come before the former.
There is plenty of time for the Occupy Movement to work out the details of its long-term mission, but there is no time to waste to fight for the most popular demands of working people. The Occupy Movement is still struggling for existence, and its life cannot be maintained in a political environment unattractive to the broader 99%. If the Occupy Movement demanded that the wealthy and corporations be taxed to create jobs and prevent cuts to social programs, the 99% would see a movement built in its own image, and working people would fight for themselves while learning to fight alongside each other for the good of all working people.
This work is in the public domain
*******
Markin comment November 7 2011:
I noted in yesterday’s comment (see above) that I would have my own points to make about my observations of the progress (or lack of progress in the Occupy movement). Today I just want to outline the concerns that I will go into greater detail as things get clear (or murkier). Remember these comments are made in the light of the lessons to be learned from the great Oakland General Strike of November 2, 2011 which is now the vanguard axis of the struggle.
One, the seemingly endless and somewhat haphazard marches, rallies, and guerilla theater antics of the past few weeks, while important as a catalyst for actions and publicity, have reached something like a saturation point. Actions like the glorious march to close down the Port of Oakland-a direct challenge to capitalist rule and as a way to hit them where they live is where we should be heading.
Two, while the "Occupy everywhere" theme is right in the long haul establishing eight million small, poorly planned, poorly attended, and merely episodic sites in small towns which have increasing been picked off by the local authorities, and rather easily suppressed, is self-defeating especially as winter closes in and we need to have a serious mainline cities presence.
Three, the Oakland General Strike, if it stands for anything, stands for the proposition that the working class is central to any concrete actions that will bring this monster down. The labor, minority and other oppressed segments of the movement who will be key to creating our new, more just society have until now not played a central but rather an auxiliary role and reflects a bad trend in the movement.
Four, while the question of electoral politics, bourgeois electoral politics, is not pressing right this minute there are distinct tom-toms being heard from bourgeois candidates (example, the Elizabeth Warren campaign for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts) trying to corral this movement into the straitjacket of electoral politics. The Occupy slogan should be Candidate X, Y, Z is part of the problem, not part of the solution. The slogan noted in the Workers Action article when bourgeois politicians tried to drum up support at Occupy Portland hits the point correctly- "This is what hypocrisy looks like.”
Five, the question of no demands, or even a firm statement of principles, is beginning to sap away the strength of the movement as people do their own thing with at least one case of repetitive action on the student loan showing a lack of national co-ordination as well. You can try to run from politics at your peril, and hide behind an anti-politics stance, as witness the general daily atmosphere at Occupy Boston and which you can read about read about through the General Assembly minutes at many other sites, but it is still politics-bad politics.
Six, I will repeat the Workers Action statement here and just universalize it. The 1% has been chipping away at the Occupy movement through their control of the local media; a steady stream of negative editorials and slanted reporting has focused on the minority of internal problems of the Occupation spot, blasting headlines of drug abuse and assaults while ignoring the larger aspirations of the protesters. There is moreover a very big gap between the political operatives who defend the Occupy movement (including this writer) and a large number of those who actually camp out.
Seven, the movement's long-term objectives and immediate demands remain unclear; indeed the two are being confused. There is an urge for many people to demand the end to "corporate personhood,” an increasingly popular demand on the political left that remains mostly unknown to the larger 99%. This brings up the division that is becoming more apparent between those who want to tweak at the capitalist system and those who want to throw the bums out and create another type of society, including this writer.
Eight, The Occupy movement claims to speak for the 99%, but the main leaders/organizers are students, recent graduates, or long-time members of the activist left. There is precious little outreach to the broader working class milieu. I see precious few “soccer moms and dads,” except an occasional thoughtful donor dropping off food or other supplies. This is a political generational problem, a problem of the missing generation between the oldsters (me and my generation) and the youth, the generation who bought into anti-activist notions of the world, except to not be bothered as much as possible.
Nine, and here is where my major different with the brother from Workers Action comes in. Program is necessary for any political movement and as I have noted above this movement will, in the end, not be able to evade that norm. However, that norm does not include some mythical search for a grab bag of demands that will make the soccer moms and dads jump up and salute our movement. Smart politics will raise the right set of demands and then those who now stand on the sidelines will come over, assuming some victories for us in the meantime.
Ten, right now the most progressive 5% has to speak for their demands and can direct them to the larger audience since the majority of those we are trying to reach do not have demands of their own, or have been unable to articulate them. In fact the 99 percent figure while attractive as a street slogan should no blind us to the reality that we have more natural enemies than the one percent and that most people are not part of the political “nation”. That is why we speak up now to push the “silent majority” forward but make no mistake what we are doing is the pushing so caution is warranted about going too fast, for now.
Ah, ten points seems enough for now. I will write more on each point as I think about things a little more.
From The “Occupy Oakland” Website-The November 2, 2011 Oakland General Strike-We Take The Offensive- Defend The Oakland Commune-Hands Off The Oakland Commune
Click on the headline to link to Occupy Oakland website for the latest from the vanguard battleground in the struggle for social justice.
Markin comment November 3, 2011:
We have won a tremendous victory in Oakland. No, no the big dent in the capitalist system that we are all looking for but the first step. And that first step is to put the words “general strike” in the political vocabulary in our fight for social justice. This is Liberation Day One. From now on we move from isolated tent encampments to the struggle in the streets against the monster, the streets where some of the battles will be decisively decided. Yes, our first day was messy, we took some casualties, we took some arrest, we made some mistakes but we now have a road forward, so forward. No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-We Take The Offensive-Liberation Day One-Defend The Oakland Commune-Drop All Charges Against The Oakland Protesters!
P.S. (November 4, 2011) I noted above some of the actions were messy in Oakland. This was so partly because it was seen as a celebration as much as demand-ladened, hard-nosed general strike started as a prelude to anything immediately bigger (like the question of taking state power and running things ourselves) but also because people are after all new at this way of expressing their latent power. 1946 in Oakland, and anywhere else, is a long political time to go without having a general strike in this country. Even the anti-war mass actions of the 1960s, which included school-centered general strikes, never got close to the notion of shutting down the capitalists where they live-places like the Port Of Oakland. There are some other more systematic problems that I, and others, are starting to note and I will address them as we go along. Things like bourgeois electoral politics rearing its ugly head, keeping the thing together, and becoming more organizationally cohesive without becoming bureaucratic. Later.
Markin comment November 3, 2011:
We have won a tremendous victory in Oakland. No, no the big dent in the capitalist system that we are all looking for but the first step. And that first step is to put the words “general strike” in the political vocabulary in our fight for social justice. This is Liberation Day One. From now on we move from isolated tent encampments to the struggle in the streets against the monster, the streets where some of the battles will be decisively decided. Yes, our first day was messy, we took some casualties, we took some arrest, we made some mistakes but we now have a road forward, so forward. No Mas- The Class-War Lines Are Being Drawn- There Is A Need To Unite And Fight-We Take The Offensive-Liberation Day One-Defend The Oakland Commune-Drop All Charges Against The Oakland Protesters!
P.S. (November 4, 2011) I noted above some of the actions were messy in Oakland. This was so partly because it was seen as a celebration as much as demand-ladened, hard-nosed general strike started as a prelude to anything immediately bigger (like the question of taking state power and running things ourselves) but also because people are after all new at this way of expressing their latent power. 1946 in Oakland, and anywhere else, is a long political time to go without having a general strike in this country. Even the anti-war mass actions of the 1960s, which included school-centered general strikes, never got close to the notion of shutting down the capitalists where they live-places like the Port Of Oakland. There are some other more systematic problems that I, and others, are starting to note and I will address them as we go along. Things like bourgeois electoral politics rearing its ugly head, keeping the thing together, and becoming more organizationally cohesive without becoming bureaucratic. Later.
The Latest From The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan and Iraq!
Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website for more information about various anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist actions around the country.
Markin comment:
Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan and Iraq!
BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com
Markin comment:
Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan and Iraq!
BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now!-Bradley Manning supporters face judge for attempting to lay flowers outside Quantico Marine base
Click on the headline to link to the Private Bradley Manning Support Network for the lates information in his case.
Markin comment:
Free Bradley Manning! Free all class-war prisoners!
******
Bradley Manning supporters face judge for attempting to lay flowers outside Quantico Marine base
November 7, 2011. Bradley Manning Support Network.
Four supporters of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower PFC Bradley Manning appeared today before a judge in Manassas, Virginia, to face charges stemming from their arrests in March outside of a Marine military brig in Quantico, Virginia. These supporters were arrested along with many others who are outraged at the abusive confinement conditions to which PFC Manning was subjected during the eight months he was held at the Quantico Pre-Trial Confinement Facility. They were detained after military officials reneged on their offer to allow flowers to be placed at an Iwo Jima Memorial located at the entrance to the base.
Among those arrested attempting to lay flowers were veterans and family members of veterans, including Daniel Ellsberg, the “Pentagon Papers” whistle-blower. Instead of accepting their charges and paying fines, these four supporters pleaded not-guilty and chose to assert their First Amendment rights inside the courtroom.
Speaking before her scheduled appearance today, retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright explained why she felt obliged to speak out:
“I felt the pre-trial conditions of solitary confinement and nudity that PFC Bradley Manning was subjected to in the Quantico brig for many months were outrageous and that public action by veterans and citizens to show their concern for the rights of this soldier was necessary.”
Following sustained public pressure, Bradley Manning was moved to a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is no longer being held in solitary confinement. Military officials have denied speculation that the recent announcement of the impending closure of the confinement facility at Quantico was a result of widespread condemnation of the mistreatment.
Circuit Court Judge Mary Grace O’Brien dismissed the charge against Col. Wright of “remaining at place of riot or unlawful assembly after warning to disperse,” finding insufficient evidence. Various minor traffic-related charges were upheld against the other three defendants. The defendants testified that they were compelled to directly petition the Quantico military detention center, because PFC Manning was being subjected to severe mistreatment in violation of his constitutional rights and international standards of human rights.
The Commonwealth Attorney, arguing on behalf of the state, claimed that the defendants should be found guilty because they were engaging in civil disobedience. Drawing parallels to the civil rights movement, the Commonwealth Attorney argued that the defendants should accept their punishments instead of challenging them. Speaking in his own defense, Mr Obuszewski, a long-time peace and justice activist from Baltimore, Maryland, clarified that the demonstrators at Quantico were engaging in “civil resistance” and not “civil disobedience.” He noted that civil disobedience typically refers to deliberately breaking a law that one considers to be unjust, and that they found nothing inherently unjust about the normal application of traffic laws. Civil resistance, on the other hand, entails the use of direct action to challenge unjust abuses of power. Demonstrators had engaged in civil resistance by shutting down the entrance to the Marine base for several hours.
In announcing her findings, Justice O’Brien concurred that the case “does bring in larger questions” about the motivations of the demonstrators. Although she agreed that these larger issues are relevant, she felt that they “would not be appropriate for me to consider.”
The guilty parties were each ordered to pay fifteen dollars in fines and court costs.
Markin comment:
Free Bradley Manning! Free all class-war prisoners!
******
Bradley Manning supporters face judge for attempting to lay flowers outside Quantico Marine base
November 7, 2011. Bradley Manning Support Network.
Four supporters of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower PFC Bradley Manning appeared today before a judge in Manassas, Virginia, to face charges stemming from their arrests in March outside of a Marine military brig in Quantico, Virginia. These supporters were arrested along with many others who are outraged at the abusive confinement conditions to which PFC Manning was subjected during the eight months he was held at the Quantico Pre-Trial Confinement Facility. They were detained after military officials reneged on their offer to allow flowers to be placed at an Iwo Jima Memorial located at the entrance to the base.
Among those arrested attempting to lay flowers were veterans and family members of veterans, including Daniel Ellsberg, the “Pentagon Papers” whistle-blower. Instead of accepting their charges and paying fines, these four supporters pleaded not-guilty and chose to assert their First Amendment rights inside the courtroom.
Speaking before her scheduled appearance today, retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright explained why she felt obliged to speak out:
“I felt the pre-trial conditions of solitary confinement and nudity that PFC Bradley Manning was subjected to in the Quantico brig for many months were outrageous and that public action by veterans and citizens to show their concern for the rights of this soldier was necessary.”
Following sustained public pressure, Bradley Manning was moved to a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is no longer being held in solitary confinement. Military officials have denied speculation that the recent announcement of the impending closure of the confinement facility at Quantico was a result of widespread condemnation of the mistreatment.
Circuit Court Judge Mary Grace O’Brien dismissed the charge against Col. Wright of “remaining at place of riot or unlawful assembly after warning to disperse,” finding insufficient evidence. Various minor traffic-related charges were upheld against the other three defendants. The defendants testified that they were compelled to directly petition the Quantico military detention center, because PFC Manning was being subjected to severe mistreatment in violation of his constitutional rights and international standards of human rights.
The Commonwealth Attorney, arguing on behalf of the state, claimed that the defendants should be found guilty because they were engaging in civil disobedience. Drawing parallels to the civil rights movement, the Commonwealth Attorney argued that the defendants should accept their punishments instead of challenging them. Speaking in his own defense, Mr Obuszewski, a long-time peace and justice activist from Baltimore, Maryland, clarified that the demonstrators at Quantico were engaging in “civil resistance” and not “civil disobedience.” He noted that civil disobedience typically refers to deliberately breaking a law that one considers to be unjust, and that they found nothing inherently unjust about the normal application of traffic laws. Civil resistance, on the other hand, entails the use of direct action to challenge unjust abuses of power. Demonstrators had engaged in civil resistance by shutting down the entrance to the Marine base for several hours.
In announcing her findings, Justice O’Brien concurred that the case “does bring in larger questions” about the motivations of the demonstrators. Although she agreed that these larger issues are relevant, she felt that they “would not be appropriate for me to consider.”
The guilty parties were each ordered to pay fifteen dollars in fines and court costs.
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night, Kind Of- Beauty Is Only Skin Deep, Right, “Stolen Face” –A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film Stolen Face.
DVD Review
Stolen Face, starring Paul Henreid, Lizabeth Scott, Hammer Film Productions, 1952
Love, as almost everybody knows from personal experience, will make you do crazy thing sometimes. It will drive a seemingly rational calm and thoughtful man or woman over edge every once in while. Make “evil” in the world without missing a beat. That, my friends, is the premise behind the film under review, Stolen Face, one of a long line of films that portray the bad results of fooling around with Mother Nature too much, and with getting fogged up in that love embrace.
A British doctor, a plastic surgeon, (played Paul Henreid last seen leading the anti-fascist resistance as Victor Lazlo in early World War II in the film Casablanca) in post-World War II London working apparently for the National Health Service, and working very hard and diligently, thank you, takes a little vacation to the wilds of coastal England. He winds up in an inn along the way, an inn which also is hosting a beautiful American pianist ready to go on a European tour (played by smoky-voiced Lizabeth Scott) with a cold. Well, naturally, Doc comes to the rescue, and as part of the "cure" they fall head over heels in love. However, Lizabeth is already “spoken for,” leaving Doc very unhappy. So back to work he goes with a vengeance.
And that vengeance, as previously, entailed working on the faces of criminal types to give them a chance to change their ways (okay, Doc, if you say so). As part of that work he runs up against a disfigured dregs of the working-class young woman (okay, lumpenproletarian), Lily, whom he thinks that he can help by use of the surgeon’s scalpel. After much ado he gives her a new beautiful face, a face that is strangely very, very, very similar to his lost love’s. On top of that he goes off and marries her. But here is where things get dicey and the scriptwriter proves to be no Marxist or other believer in the ever upward rise of human progress. Lily, skin beautiful or not, goes back to her old ways “proving” that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Worst Lizabeth comes back; ready to get back into Doc’s arms. Fortunately Lily, drunk as a skunk riding on the train with hubby Doc, falls out of the train door (or was she pushed) just as Lizabeth shows up. Very convenient, very convenient indeed although no one is looking to make a court case out of it. Yes I guess beauty is really only skin deep, but no question love can drive you screwy. No question.
DVD Review
Stolen Face, starring Paul Henreid, Lizabeth Scott, Hammer Film Productions, 1952
Love, as almost everybody knows from personal experience, will make you do crazy thing sometimes. It will drive a seemingly rational calm and thoughtful man or woman over edge every once in while. Make “evil” in the world without missing a beat. That, my friends, is the premise behind the film under review, Stolen Face, one of a long line of films that portray the bad results of fooling around with Mother Nature too much, and with getting fogged up in that love embrace.
A British doctor, a plastic surgeon, (played Paul Henreid last seen leading the anti-fascist resistance as Victor Lazlo in early World War II in the film Casablanca) in post-World War II London working apparently for the National Health Service, and working very hard and diligently, thank you, takes a little vacation to the wilds of coastal England. He winds up in an inn along the way, an inn which also is hosting a beautiful American pianist ready to go on a European tour (played by smoky-voiced Lizabeth Scott) with a cold. Well, naturally, Doc comes to the rescue, and as part of the "cure" they fall head over heels in love. However, Lizabeth is already “spoken for,” leaving Doc very unhappy. So back to work he goes with a vengeance.
And that vengeance, as previously, entailed working on the faces of criminal types to give them a chance to change their ways (okay, Doc, if you say so). As part of that work he runs up against a disfigured dregs of the working-class young woman (okay, lumpenproletarian), Lily, whom he thinks that he can help by use of the surgeon’s scalpel. After much ado he gives her a new beautiful face, a face that is strangely very, very, very similar to his lost love’s. On top of that he goes off and marries her. But here is where things get dicey and the scriptwriter proves to be no Marxist or other believer in the ever upward rise of human progress. Lily, skin beautiful or not, goes back to her old ways “proving” that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Worst Lizabeth comes back; ready to get back into Doc’s arms. Fortunately Lily, drunk as a skunk riding on the train with hubby Doc, falls out of the train door (or was she pushed) just as Lizabeth shows up. Very convenient, very convenient indeed although no one is looking to make a court case out of it. Yes I guess beauty is really only skin deep, but no question love can drive you screwy. No question.
The Latest From The "Jobs Not Cuts" Website-National Week Of Actions-November 16-23 -In Boston November 17th At The Boston Common
NATIONAL WEEK OF ACTIONS November 16-23
JOIN THE RALLY AND PROTEST:
JOBS NOT CUTS
Thursday Nov. 17th @ 4pm-6pm Bandstand, Boston Common Near Park St. T station and Then We'll March on Kerry's Office
WE DEMAND:
Hands off Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid! No cuts to education and social services!
We need jobs, not cuts! Fund a federal public works program to create millions of jobs for the millions unemployed.
Make Big Business Pay! For major tax hikes on the super-rich and corporations!
End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan! Slash Pentagon spending!
For the impressive growing list of endorsers check out
www.jobsnotcutsprotest.org
*******
End the Dictatorship of Wall Street!
A Socialist Strategy to Build the Movement
All around the world attention has been drawn to the occupation of Wall Street. The protests have captured the imagina¬tion of thousands and inspired new occupations which are spreading across the U.S.
The police crackdown in New York, in¬tended to intimidate this movement, completely failed to break our spirit. Now we are more determined than ever to fight. Inspired by the revolutionary upheavals in Egypt and across North Africa, as well as the mass youth occupations in Spain and Greece, protesters have taken to the streets of New York and cities across the U.S. to stand up to the domination of Wall Street and Big Business over our lives.
Below the surface there is deep anger in U.S. society which only seemed to be getting a twisted expression in the right-wing lunacies of the Tea Party. But the mass movement in Wisconsin this spring, and now the occupation of Wall Street provide a glimpse of the enormous potential to turn that anger into a progressive social movement.
How can we take the struggle forward?
Many are occupying to "liberate space" in order to build a new, more equal and just community, hoping it will inspire others to follow. While the Wall Street occupation is an example of a community based on democracy, cooperation and solidarity, unfortunately the occupation alone will not be enough to build a mass movement capable of changing society.
Many have alluded to Egypt saying that a growing occupation with one basic de¬mand is how the dictator was overthrown. But in fact, the situation was more complicated than that. In the week before Egypt's dictator Mubarak was ousted, the working class entered the scene with decisive strike action paralyzing key parts of the economy.
The occupations in Spain and Greece have been much bigger than Wall Street, but they too need the more powerful forces of the working class to move into action in order to win. In Wisconsin, a huge occupation of the Capitol lasted for over 3 weeks and was at the center of mass demonstrations of the workers and youth. They could have won if that movement had moved toward a general strike of public sector workers to shut the state economy down.
Instead the Wisconsin battle was consciously derailed by the Democratic Party and the top union leadership by diverting the mass movement into a campaign to recall the Republicans from power in order to elect Democrats in their place. However, the Democrats, like the Republicans, are a party of Wall Street and Big Business, and they offer no solutions. We need an independent struggle which seeks to draw in the widest layers of workers and youth. United we have the power to withdraw our labor, stop "business as usual," and hit the banks, corporations and ruling elite where it counts.
We need to build up the confidence to take such bold measures. That's why Occupy Wall Street needs to call for mass demonstrations around key demands that address the burning issues that working people and youth face like jobs, education, healthcare and so on.
System Change
Not only the economy but society as a whole is in a deep crisis. Global capitalism is a failed system that cannot overcome the problems of growing inequality, poverty, mass unemployment, environmental destruction, and war which it creates. The movement has to challenge Wall Street and both parties of big business. We must stand up to their policies where they try to solve their economic crisis on our backs in order to maintain a system which only benefits the elite in the first place.
But we must also provide a clear alternative. We need to fundamentally trans¬form society to one not based on profit but instead on meeting everyone's basic human needs. The only real alternative to corporate greed and capitalism is democratic socialism where the economy, workplaces, and society as a whole are democratically run by and for the vast majority of people.
Join Socialist Alternative! We say:
Spread the occupations across the U.S. and into schools and communities. For systematic, mass campaigning to mobilize the widest layer of workers, young people and labor unions into struggle.
•Organize weekend mass demonstrations that call for: No cuts
to social services, A massive jobs creation program, Major tax
hikes on the super-rich and big business, End the wars, Slash
the military budget, and Defend union and democratic rights.
•Build up to the November 16-23 National Week of Action to combat the
Congressional Super Committee plan for $1.5 trillion in cuts to social
services. We demand jobs not cuts!
•Prepare to run independent anti-corporate, working-class candidates in
2012 to challenge the policies of the two parties of Wall Street as a first
step towards forming a new party of the 99%, a mass workers' party.
End the dictatorship of Wall Street! Bring the big banks that dominate the U.S. economy into public ownership and run them under the democratic management of elected representatives of their workers and the public. Compensation to be paid on the basis of proven need to small investors, not millionaires.
Build the movement to replace the rotten system of capitalism with democratic socialism and create a new society based on human need.
*****
Markin comment:
Some of the demands stated are supportable although the method of achieving them seems unclear since the march is on Congressional Committee of 12 member Senator John "War" (Iraq and Afghanistan support) Kerry's office. Do the sponsors really still expect that parliamentary action (nudging the Congress to do the right thing, or else) is the way forward after last summer's debacle? Christ, let's learn something right now. You only get what you fight for-and are ready to take. We created the wealth-let's take it back! Labor and the oppressed must rule!
JOIN THE RALLY AND PROTEST:
JOBS NOT CUTS
Thursday Nov. 17th @ 4pm-6pm Bandstand, Boston Common Near Park St. T station and Then We'll March on Kerry's Office
WE DEMAND:
Hands off Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid! No cuts to education and social services!
We need jobs, not cuts! Fund a federal public works program to create millions of jobs for the millions unemployed.
Make Big Business Pay! For major tax hikes on the super-rich and corporations!
End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan! Slash Pentagon spending!
For the impressive growing list of endorsers check out
www.jobsnotcutsprotest.org
*******
End the Dictatorship of Wall Street!
A Socialist Strategy to Build the Movement
All around the world attention has been drawn to the occupation of Wall Street. The protests have captured the imagina¬tion of thousands and inspired new occupations which are spreading across the U.S.
The police crackdown in New York, in¬tended to intimidate this movement, completely failed to break our spirit. Now we are more determined than ever to fight. Inspired by the revolutionary upheavals in Egypt and across North Africa, as well as the mass youth occupations in Spain and Greece, protesters have taken to the streets of New York and cities across the U.S. to stand up to the domination of Wall Street and Big Business over our lives.
Below the surface there is deep anger in U.S. society which only seemed to be getting a twisted expression in the right-wing lunacies of the Tea Party. But the mass movement in Wisconsin this spring, and now the occupation of Wall Street provide a glimpse of the enormous potential to turn that anger into a progressive social movement.
How can we take the struggle forward?
Many are occupying to "liberate space" in order to build a new, more equal and just community, hoping it will inspire others to follow. While the Wall Street occupation is an example of a community based on democracy, cooperation and solidarity, unfortunately the occupation alone will not be enough to build a mass movement capable of changing society.
Many have alluded to Egypt saying that a growing occupation with one basic de¬mand is how the dictator was overthrown. But in fact, the situation was more complicated than that. In the week before Egypt's dictator Mubarak was ousted, the working class entered the scene with decisive strike action paralyzing key parts of the economy.
The occupations in Spain and Greece have been much bigger than Wall Street, but they too need the more powerful forces of the working class to move into action in order to win. In Wisconsin, a huge occupation of the Capitol lasted for over 3 weeks and was at the center of mass demonstrations of the workers and youth. They could have won if that movement had moved toward a general strike of public sector workers to shut the state economy down.
Instead the Wisconsin battle was consciously derailed by the Democratic Party and the top union leadership by diverting the mass movement into a campaign to recall the Republicans from power in order to elect Democrats in their place. However, the Democrats, like the Republicans, are a party of Wall Street and Big Business, and they offer no solutions. We need an independent struggle which seeks to draw in the widest layers of workers and youth. United we have the power to withdraw our labor, stop "business as usual," and hit the banks, corporations and ruling elite where it counts.
We need to build up the confidence to take such bold measures. That's why Occupy Wall Street needs to call for mass demonstrations around key demands that address the burning issues that working people and youth face like jobs, education, healthcare and so on.
System Change
Not only the economy but society as a whole is in a deep crisis. Global capitalism is a failed system that cannot overcome the problems of growing inequality, poverty, mass unemployment, environmental destruction, and war which it creates. The movement has to challenge Wall Street and both parties of big business. We must stand up to their policies where they try to solve their economic crisis on our backs in order to maintain a system which only benefits the elite in the first place.
But we must also provide a clear alternative. We need to fundamentally trans¬form society to one not based on profit but instead on meeting everyone's basic human needs. The only real alternative to corporate greed and capitalism is democratic socialism where the economy, workplaces, and society as a whole are democratically run by and for the vast majority of people.
Join Socialist Alternative! We say:
Spread the occupations across the U.S. and into schools and communities. For systematic, mass campaigning to mobilize the widest layer of workers, young people and labor unions into struggle.
•Organize weekend mass demonstrations that call for: No cuts
to social services, A massive jobs creation program, Major tax
hikes on the super-rich and big business, End the wars, Slash
the military budget, and Defend union and democratic rights.
•Build up to the November 16-23 National Week of Action to combat the
Congressional Super Committee plan for $1.5 trillion in cuts to social
services. We demand jobs not cuts!
•Prepare to run independent anti-corporate, working-class candidates in
2012 to challenge the policies of the two parties of Wall Street as a first
step towards forming a new party of the 99%, a mass workers' party.
End the dictatorship of Wall Street! Bring the big banks that dominate the U.S. economy into public ownership and run them under the democratic management of elected representatives of their workers and the public. Compensation to be paid on the basis of proven need to small investors, not millionaires.
Build the movement to replace the rotten system of capitalism with democratic socialism and create a new society based on human need.
*****
Markin comment:
Some of the demands stated are supportable although the method of achieving them seems unclear since the march is on Congressional Committee of 12 member Senator John "War" (Iraq and Afghanistan support) Kerry's office. Do the sponsors really still expect that parliamentary action (nudging the Congress to do the right thing, or else) is the way forward after last summer's debacle? Christ, let's learn something right now. You only get what you fight for-and are ready to take. We created the wealth-let's take it back! Labor and the oppressed must rule!
From The Pages Of Workers Vanguard-"Economics of a Workers State in Transition to Socialism"
Click on the headline to link to the International Communist League (ICL) website.
Markin comment:
If any of the grandiose talk about "pure" democracy, participatory democracy, and the like that has exploded on the scene recently with the rise of the Occupy movement has any meaning then a careful read of this article is in order. Workers democracy is what democracy looks like if we are not to take a step back in the struggle for a more just society.
*******
Workers Vanguard No. 989
28 October 2011
Economics of a Workers State in Transition to Socialism
(Young Spartacus pages)
We are pleased to publish a class by Spartacist League Central Committee member Joseph Seymour given for our SYC members in Oakland, California, on 6 August 2005. It has been edited for publication and slightly expanded by Young Spartacus in collaboration with comrade Seymour.
The fundamental goal of the early, pre-Marx socialist movement was economic equality, considered to be both immediately achievable and ultimately desirable. That is, there was no conception of a higher level of economic development made possible by the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. The Conspiracy of Equals was the first revolutionary communist organization, emerging in the latter phase of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. Its program was a communism of consumption and distribution. The revolutionary government would provide larger houses and proportionally more food, clothing and other necessities to families with more children.
One of Marx’s great theoretical contributions was to shift the axis of the socialist movement from equality in the sphere of consumption to entirely overcoming economic scarcity through progressively raising the level of productive forces. To be sure, in a classless, communist society, everyone will have equal access to consumable resources. But there will undoubtedly be a huge diversity of individual lifestyles corresponding to very different levels of individual utilization of those resources.
I’m beginning this educational with that point because, in some important ways, we have been thrown back into the intellectual universe of the early Marx. If you take a survey of 100 students and you ask them what socialism means, the overwhelming majority will say it’s about economic equality. They will tell you it means that everyone has more or less the same living standard. Very few of them would reply that the goal of socialism is to raise the level of production and labor productivity to such an advanced level that the division of consumable resources among individuals will no longer be a source of social conflict or even social concern. But that is our ultimate goal.
Unfortunately, getting there will require a relatively lengthy historical period after the proletarian socialist revolution has expropriated the capitalist class. In that society in transition to socialism, economic scarcity—and therefore certain kinds of economic inequality—will continue to exist. When you think about it, this is obviously true at the international level. It will take generations of an internationally planned socialist economy to raise the living standards of the populations of China, India, other Asian countries, Latin America and Africa to those of the so-called First World.
But even in a workers state in an advanced area like North America or Europe there would still be certain kinds of economic inequality. Marx spoke about this in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875). People would still have to expend a lot of time and a lot of energy doing what Marx called alienated labor, that is, working at jobs that they would not do unless they got paid for them. Some jobs are physically harder, dirtier, more boring, more unpleasant or, in some cases, more dangerous than others. So coal miners and construction workers would command higher wages than data processors who work in comfortable offices. Workers who have economically valuable skills acquired through lengthy training, such as airline pilots, would get higher wages than flight attendants and baggage handlers. That’s just the overhead cost of what Marx called the initial phase of communism in society.
There is another important source of economic inequality in the initial phase after the proletarian revolution. A fundamental goal and feature of a fully communist society is the replacement of the nuclear family by collective institutions for nurturing and socializing children. But this most fundamental of all social transformations is, again, going to be the work of generations. For a historically significant period the family will still be the basic social unit and therefore the basic economic spending unit.
So take two families, both of whom have the equivalent income of $70,000 a year. The first has one child, and the second has three children. The first family will have a somewhat higher standard of living. The difference will be nowhere near as great as under capitalism. There will be free medical care. There will be affordable housing. There will be free, quality education from day-care centers through university and beyond. But income will not be simply proportional to family size. Again, Marx mentioned this in his Critique of the Gotha Programme.
Economic Planning by Workers Democracy
Eliminating economic inequality in all its forms requires overcoming economic scarcity through progressively raising the level of production. This will be achieved by using a portion of society’s total output and investing it in the expansion of productive equipment that embodies the most developed technology.
But herein lies a contradiction. The more a workers government spends on building new factories, retooling existing factories, expanding and modernizing infrastructure (e.g., electric power grids, water supply systems, highways and railroads), the less it has available for direct personal and familial consumption. So, it will face the choice between a somewhat higher level of consumption in the short term versus a much higher level of consumption in the long term.
In the absence of international socialist revolution in the advanced capitalist countries, this choice obviously would be especially painful and conflict-ridden in a nationally isolated and economically backward workers state. But even in a future workers state in the U.S. or West Europe with much greater resources at its disposal, the division between consumption and investment would still be a politically divisive issue, in which there are likely to be strongly held differences within the working class. “I want as much as I can have now, man, not in ten or twenty years from now. For all I know, I may be dead by then.” You are going to get that argument.
In order for the democratic organs of a workers government to make rational decisions concerning the division of total output between consumption and investment, the trade-off between the two has to be quantified. If we increase investment in productive capacity from 13 to 15 percent of total output, how much greater will the output of consumable resources be in five years, in ten years, in fifteen years?
Fortunately for us, these types of questions were discussed and investigated in depth in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. A rich economic literature, written from a Marxist perspective, was generated in the course of the debate and factional struggle over the establishment of a centrally planned, collectivized economy. One Soviet economist, G.A. Feldman, developed a theoretical model for a long-term economic plan, that is, covering 20 to 40 years. In my opinion, Feldman’s work “On the Theory of Growth Rates of National Income” is an extremely important contribution to a Marxist understanding of the economics of the transition period. You can find the English translation in Nicolas Spulber, ed., Foundations of Soviet Strategy for Economic Growth (1964). Feldman adapted a model developed much earlier by Marx to a centrally planned, collectivized economy, while making certain important extensions and modifications of it.
In the second volume of Capital, Marx developed a theoretical model of expanded production under capitalism. Marx divided the economy into two basic sectors: consumer goods and producer (or capital) goods. Consumer goods and services are things that directly satisfy personal needs and desires. Producer goods are things that directly or indirectly generate consumer goods. A shirt is a consumer good. A sewing machine that makes the shirt is a producer good, as is a power loom that weaves the cotton cloth from which the shirt is made. A loaf of bread is a consumer good. The oven in which it is baked and the agricultural combine which harvests the wheat or oats from which it is made are producer goods.
Feldman extended Marx’s model to a workers state by dividing the producer goods sector into two basic subsectors. There are producer goods that make consumer goods and there are producer goods that make additional producer goods. A sewing machine is an example of the former. Machine tools such as lathes, which make machinery, including sewing machines, fall into the latter category. Many producer goods are not technologically specific, but can be used to expand either the capacity of the consumer goods sector or the capacity of the producer goods sector. A steel mill can make steel for automobiles or for construction equipment. Cement mixers and earthmovers can be used to construct apartment houses or factories. A hydroelectric plant can generate electricity to run household appliances as well as factory assembly lines.
Thus there are two basic factors that determine the growth rates of total output of productive capacity and consumable resources. One is the division of the total output between the consumer goods sector and producer goods sector. The second is the division of the producer goods sector between producer goods geared to the consumer goods sector and producer goods geared to expanding more producer goods.
Take two socialist economies, both of which expend 25 percent of total output in the producer goods sector. In the first economy, 75 percent of this investment in producer goods is geared to expanding the output of the consumer goods sector; in the second, 50 percent. In the first economy, consumption will increase faster in the initial period of the economic plan but more slowly later on. In the second it’s just the opposite. By adjusting the proportions it is possible to develop a range of alternative economic plans, ranging from those which maximize short-term consumption to those that maximize productive resources (and therefore consumption) in the long term.
So the planning authority would present to the highest body of a workers government, i.e., the central assembly of workers councils, a range of maybe six alternative long-term plans to be debated and decided upon. This is likely to be a contentious issue. Some delegates are going to argue: “Our workers and poor people have just made a revolution. They expect and demand a big, dramatic improvement in their living standards, not just promises of a big improvement 15 or 20 years from now. We want Plan A.” Other delegates will say: “Let’s not be shortsighted about this. Our goal is to expand productive capacity and labor productivity. Plan C does that the best. Granted, consumption will increase more slowly in the immediate period than it otherwise could, but we think that is the price we want to pay.”
Once the long-term growth rates of total output, the means of production and the consumable resources are all determined, it is then possible to work out a comprehensive economic plan for the various intervening periods—one year, two years, five years. Say a plan is adopted by the central assembly of workers councils. According to this plan, in five years the annual per capita income will be the equivalent of $60,000. On the basis of existing consumption patterns, consumer surveys and consultation with consumer cooperatives, one can more or less accurately project the basic pattern corresponding to that level of income. For example, $15,000 is estimated for housing, $10,000 for food, $10,000 for automotive and other modes of transportation, etc.
Another key element in the economic planning of a workers state, especially in the more advanced countries like the U.S., Germany and Japan, is to invest some of its total output in providing crucial resources, money and technological expertise to the underdeveloped countries to help them to qualitatively raise the level of production on the road to building socialism.
For Market Calculation, Not Market Competition
Once the basic pattern of final goods is projected, it then becomes possible to figure out the inputs of basic raw materials and intermediate products. How much steel, aluminum and other metals do you need? How much plastic, cotton and synthetic cloth, cement, rubber and the like?
The technology and information for this, incidentally, already exists. There are theoretical models and empirical studies which relate the output of raw materials and intermediate goods necessary to produce a given array of final goods. This is called input-output analysis. Significantly, the pioneer theorist and initial investigator of input-output analysis, Wassily Leontief, was a student at the University of Leningrad in the mid 1920s. So clearly his development of input-output analysis was conditioned by the rich discussion and debate among Soviet economists and other intellectuals about how a centrally planned, collectivized economy would work in practice.
In the early 1930s, Trotsky was extremely critical of the Stalin regime’s destructive economic adventurism and bureaucratic commandism. In the course of an article attacking this, Trotsky made a sort of statement of general principles: “Only through the inter-reaction of these three elements, state planning, the market, and Soviet democracy, can the correct direction of the economy of the transitional epoch be attained” (“The Soviet Economy in Danger,” October 1932). This is true for a future American workers state as well as for the Soviet Union at the time. The Soviet Union in 1932 was a degenerated workers state ruled by a conservative, parasitic Stalinist bureaucracy, which a workers state after a proletarian revolution in the U.S. would presumably not be.
Thus far, I have mainly discussed aspects of state planning. I’ve introduced the question of workers democracy mainly in terms of deciding the basic parameters of economic growth at the highest level. But I have not yet talked about the role of the market. It’s a complicated question. One area where the market is important, and in certain respects dominant, is in determining the specific output mix of consumer goods.
There are literally tens of thousands of types, styles and sizes of apparel. I became painfully aware of this a few weeks ago when I helped my daughter move into a new place with her boyfriend. I swear she has at least 80 pairs of shoes, all of them different styles. There are thousands of different kinds of household appliances, utensils and furniture. Even in a collectivized economy there will be dozens of types and models of automobiles. Not everyone is going to want to drive the same kind of car. So it makes no sense to subject the detailed output of consumer goods to even a short-term plan. Output should be constantly adjusted to the changing structure of demand.
However, rapidly and efficiently coordinating the supply and demand in a collectivized economy does not require atomized competition between state-owned enterprises. In Stalinist-ruled workers states, such as the former Soviet Union or China today, the terms “market socialism” and “market reforms” mean subjecting enterprises to competition with one another. Managers are given the authority to decide what to produce in what quantities, and they are instructed to sell their products at the highest available price in the market, either to consumers or to other enterprises. The stated goal is to maximize enterprise profitability, and usually the income of the managers and also the workers is tied to profitability (or negatively to losses). We are opposed to this system because it replicates many of the inequities and irrationalities of the capitalist market system.
In honor of my daughter, I will give the example of the shoe industry operated under the conditions of “market socialism” in a bureaucratically deformed workers state such as China. There are two shoe factories—we’ll call them A and B—and they both produce standard men’s dress shoes (which probably none of you in this room has ever worn nor intends to wear). Let’s say that Factory A is relatively new, so that its equipment is much more technologically advanced than Factory B. Therefore, Factory A can produce the same pair of shoes using 25 percent less labor time than Factory B can.
The market price for a pair of shoes is equal to the average cost of production for the industry as a whole. Factory A is producing below the average cost, so it is making a handsome profit. Its managers are getting a nice salary and bonuses, and its workers are also getting substantial wage increases because it’s making money. On the other hand, Factory B, which makes the same thing, is chronically losing money because its costs are above the average of the industry and the going market price. Unless the government then subsidizes this factory, some workers are going to be laid off or all workers will have to take cuts in wages and benefits just like under capitalism, through no fault of their own.
We are opposed to atomized competition between state enterprises. We are for using market calculation but not market competition. We advocate what can be called a centrally managed market system in the consumer goods sector. How would this operate? Again I will go back to my shoe industry example. There would be a central distribution agency that commands the output of several shoe factories. It supplies shoes to retail outlets and consumer cooperatives. You could even buy them on the Internet.
Let’s say that as a result of miscalculation or changing demand there is an oversupply of dress shoes and an undersupply of sporting goods shoes (running shoes, hiking boots, basketball shoes, especially those that are endorsed by Michael Jordan). So what happens with this system? The directors of the distributive agency call up some factories and say, “OK, cut back production of dress shoes, increase production of sporting goods shoes. If you need special equipment that you don’t have, if your workers need retraining, fine. We’ll provide it.” End of story. The basic point is that management remains centralized but utilizes market calculation in order to mesh supply and demand in this particular sector.
Syndicalism vs. Workers Government
I want to discuss the differences between our Marxist program and the syndicalist program for the post-revolutionary organization of the economy. Before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, revolutionary syndicalism was the main left-wing alternative to Marxism. A number of leading figures in the early communist movement, who later became supporters of the Trotskyist Left Opposition, started out not as Marxists but as revolutionary syndicalists: James P. Cannon in the U.S., Alfred Rosmer in France, Andrés Nin in Spain.
The crux of the syndicalist program for the post-capitalist reorganization of the economy is that the workers should exercise total managerial authority in autonomous enterprises or at least in some branches of the economy. There would be no higher governmental authority above the industrial syndicates. In a sense syndicalism is a proletarian or industrial version of anarchism. It was described as such by a British anarchist intellectual, George Woodcock, writing in the 1940s:
“The syndicate, on the other hand, is based on the organization of the workers by industry at the place of work. The workers of each factory or depot or farm are an autonomous unit, who govern their own affairs and who make all the decisions as to the work they will do. These units are joined federally in a syndicate which serves to coordinate the actions of the workers in each industry. The federal organization has no authority over the workers in any branch, and cannot impose a veto on action like a trade union executive.”
— George Woodcock, Railways and Society (1943), excerpted in Woodcock, ed., The Anarchist Reader (1977)
In other words, the classic Bakuninite anarchist program of a federation of autonomous communes is here replaced by a federation of autonomous industrial or other economic units.
At the present time, neither in the United States nor anywhere else that I know of do we encounter and compete with significant syndicalist tendencies. So why do I want to talk about syndicalism? I have two reasons. One is that, if there is a significant upsurge of labor struggle in this country, many of the left-radical youth who are currently in and around the anarchist milieu will become workerist. Trust me on this, I’ve been through it. They will therefore subscribe to some kind of syndicalist program, which is an amalgam of anarchism and workerism.
The other reason is China. When the political situation in China opens up, and it will, I think that syndicalist ideas and even tendencies may gain a sympathetic hearing among Chinese workers. Chinese workers have already experienced a large dose of capitalism, and by all available evidence they don’t like it. At the same time, many Chinese workers may well identify Marxism-Leninism and central planning with bureaucratic commandism, not to speak of corruption. So when things open up, some leftist-minded Chinese workers as well as intellectuals may say, “Let’s kick out the capitalists and the CCP bureaucrats and the workers will take over and run by themselves the factories, construction sites, coal mines and railroads.”
There has never been and will never be an economy organized on syndicalist principles, just as there has never been and will never be a society organized on anarchist principles. But if we encounter a serious-minded leftist who subscribes to a syndicalist program, it is insufficient to say that such a program can never be realized. We also want to convince him that even if it were possible, in practice it would operate in a way contrary to the interests of the workers and of society in general.
The problem with syndicalism is very similar to that of “market socialism.” A syndicalist program would necessarily replicate many of the inequities and irrationalities of capitalism. If economic units are genuinely autonomous of one another, they can only interact through market relations governed by changing conditions of supply and demand. Inevitably, this means that some workers will have to be unemployed or have to take cuts in income when the market turns against them.
At the risk of sounding like a shoe fetishist, let’s consider the shoe industry again. (You can see that carrying shoe boxes up and down the stairs for a couple of weeks addled my brain!) This time we will examine it under the model of a syndicalist economy. The shoe-producing industry is organized as a single autonomous syndicate. This syndicate gets revenue by selling shoes to individuals and stores. In turn, it purchases leather, rubber, plastic and other inputs from other autonomous syndicates.
Let’s say leather happens to be in oversupply. More leather is produced than is demanded by the shoe-producing syndicate for its current output and the consumer demand. The directors of the shoe-producing syndicate tell their counterparts in the leather processing syndicate, “We only need 80 percent of your leather, we’re not going to buy any more because we don’t need any more than that.” So what is going to happen? These are autonomous enterprises. Some of the workers in the leather-producing industry are going to have to be laid off or, alternatively, all or some of them are going to have to take cuts in income and benefits because it is suffering reduced revenue.
For Workers Democracy in the Control of Production
Even though people who advocate syndicalism think they are militantly anti-capitalist, their program would actually reproduce many of the inequities and irrationalities of capitalism, despite their good intentions. We are opposed to the syndicalist program of workers’ management of autonomous enterprises. But we are for the maximal democratic participation of the workers in economic decision-making at the level of the factory, the construction site, the warehouse, the supermarket and the airport. The section on the Soviet Union in the 1938 Transitional Program states: “Factory committees should be returned the right to control production.” This is our program, not only in the past but also in the future.
What does this mean concretely? How does it differ from the syndicalist program of workers management? What we mean by workers control of production in a socialized economy is that the democratically elected representatives of the workers would have an authoritative, consultative voice in all economic decisions at the enterprise as well as higher levels. Let’s say that the industrial ministry in charge of aircraft production proposes to spend a couple of hundred million dollars retooling an older aircraft factory, replacing its antiquated machines with more up-to-date equipment. The managers, engineers, technicians would get together with the elected factory committee and jointly work out a concrete plan for retooling the enterprise. This would then be presented to the industrial ministry. The plan will not just come down from on high, with the workers having no say.
Another important area where elected factory committees would play an important role, even replacing direct managerial intervention, is in maintaining labor discipline. How to deal with a worker who is a perpetual goof-off or who is so incompetent that he disrupts production and maybe even endangers other workers? How do you deal with a worker who abuses sick leaves, who calls in sick just because he wants a day off to go fishing? It is much better that this kind of problem is handled by direct representatives of fellow workers who are more politically advanced and more socially responsible.
The basic point is that a centrally planned, collectivized economy is in no way incompatible with the very active and full participation of the workers at the most basic levels of the economy, as well as in the election of delegates to the soviets.
But unlike “workers management” schemes, workers control in a socialist economy does not allow individual factory committees to have the final say on the scope and composition of investment, since particular groups of workers cannot have unlimited claims on the state budget, i.e., on the collective social surplus. Resources for the replacement and expansion of the means of production, provision for the elderly and disabled, expenditure on schools and hospitals, etc., must be deducted from the total social product before distribution to individual workers. As Marx pointed out, “What the producer is deprived of in his capacity as a private individual benefits him directly or indirectly in his capacity as a member of society.”
As Isaac Deutscher said in his speech “On Socialist Man” (1966):
“We do not maintain that socialism is going to solve all predicaments of the human race. We are struggling in the first instance with the predicaments that are of man’s making and that man can resolve. May I remind you that Trotsky, for instance, speaks of three basic tragedies—hunger, sex and death—besetting man. Hunger is the enemy that Marxism and the modern labour movement have taken on.... Yes, socialist man will still be pursued by sex and death; but we are convinced that he will be better equipped than we are to cope even with these.”
Markin comment:
If any of the grandiose talk about "pure" democracy, participatory democracy, and the like that has exploded on the scene recently with the rise of the Occupy movement has any meaning then a careful read of this article is in order. Workers democracy is what democracy looks like if we are not to take a step back in the struggle for a more just society.
*******
Workers Vanguard No. 989
28 October 2011
Economics of a Workers State in Transition to Socialism
(Young Spartacus pages)
We are pleased to publish a class by Spartacist League Central Committee member Joseph Seymour given for our SYC members in Oakland, California, on 6 August 2005. It has been edited for publication and slightly expanded by Young Spartacus in collaboration with comrade Seymour.
The fundamental goal of the early, pre-Marx socialist movement was economic equality, considered to be both immediately achievable and ultimately desirable. That is, there was no conception of a higher level of economic development made possible by the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. The Conspiracy of Equals was the first revolutionary communist organization, emerging in the latter phase of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. Its program was a communism of consumption and distribution. The revolutionary government would provide larger houses and proportionally more food, clothing and other necessities to families with more children.
One of Marx’s great theoretical contributions was to shift the axis of the socialist movement from equality in the sphere of consumption to entirely overcoming economic scarcity through progressively raising the level of productive forces. To be sure, in a classless, communist society, everyone will have equal access to consumable resources. But there will undoubtedly be a huge diversity of individual lifestyles corresponding to very different levels of individual utilization of those resources.
I’m beginning this educational with that point because, in some important ways, we have been thrown back into the intellectual universe of the early Marx. If you take a survey of 100 students and you ask them what socialism means, the overwhelming majority will say it’s about economic equality. They will tell you it means that everyone has more or less the same living standard. Very few of them would reply that the goal of socialism is to raise the level of production and labor productivity to such an advanced level that the division of consumable resources among individuals will no longer be a source of social conflict or even social concern. But that is our ultimate goal.
Unfortunately, getting there will require a relatively lengthy historical period after the proletarian socialist revolution has expropriated the capitalist class. In that society in transition to socialism, economic scarcity—and therefore certain kinds of economic inequality—will continue to exist. When you think about it, this is obviously true at the international level. It will take generations of an internationally planned socialist economy to raise the living standards of the populations of China, India, other Asian countries, Latin America and Africa to those of the so-called First World.
But even in a workers state in an advanced area like North America or Europe there would still be certain kinds of economic inequality. Marx spoke about this in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875). People would still have to expend a lot of time and a lot of energy doing what Marx called alienated labor, that is, working at jobs that they would not do unless they got paid for them. Some jobs are physically harder, dirtier, more boring, more unpleasant or, in some cases, more dangerous than others. So coal miners and construction workers would command higher wages than data processors who work in comfortable offices. Workers who have economically valuable skills acquired through lengthy training, such as airline pilots, would get higher wages than flight attendants and baggage handlers. That’s just the overhead cost of what Marx called the initial phase of communism in society.
There is another important source of economic inequality in the initial phase after the proletarian revolution. A fundamental goal and feature of a fully communist society is the replacement of the nuclear family by collective institutions for nurturing and socializing children. But this most fundamental of all social transformations is, again, going to be the work of generations. For a historically significant period the family will still be the basic social unit and therefore the basic economic spending unit.
So take two families, both of whom have the equivalent income of $70,000 a year. The first has one child, and the second has three children. The first family will have a somewhat higher standard of living. The difference will be nowhere near as great as under capitalism. There will be free medical care. There will be affordable housing. There will be free, quality education from day-care centers through university and beyond. But income will not be simply proportional to family size. Again, Marx mentioned this in his Critique of the Gotha Programme.
Economic Planning by Workers Democracy
Eliminating economic inequality in all its forms requires overcoming economic scarcity through progressively raising the level of production. This will be achieved by using a portion of society’s total output and investing it in the expansion of productive equipment that embodies the most developed technology.
But herein lies a contradiction. The more a workers government spends on building new factories, retooling existing factories, expanding and modernizing infrastructure (e.g., electric power grids, water supply systems, highways and railroads), the less it has available for direct personal and familial consumption. So, it will face the choice between a somewhat higher level of consumption in the short term versus a much higher level of consumption in the long term.
In the absence of international socialist revolution in the advanced capitalist countries, this choice obviously would be especially painful and conflict-ridden in a nationally isolated and economically backward workers state. But even in a future workers state in the U.S. or West Europe with much greater resources at its disposal, the division between consumption and investment would still be a politically divisive issue, in which there are likely to be strongly held differences within the working class. “I want as much as I can have now, man, not in ten or twenty years from now. For all I know, I may be dead by then.” You are going to get that argument.
In order for the democratic organs of a workers government to make rational decisions concerning the division of total output between consumption and investment, the trade-off between the two has to be quantified. If we increase investment in productive capacity from 13 to 15 percent of total output, how much greater will the output of consumable resources be in five years, in ten years, in fifteen years?
Fortunately for us, these types of questions were discussed and investigated in depth in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. A rich economic literature, written from a Marxist perspective, was generated in the course of the debate and factional struggle over the establishment of a centrally planned, collectivized economy. One Soviet economist, G.A. Feldman, developed a theoretical model for a long-term economic plan, that is, covering 20 to 40 years. In my opinion, Feldman’s work “On the Theory of Growth Rates of National Income” is an extremely important contribution to a Marxist understanding of the economics of the transition period. You can find the English translation in Nicolas Spulber, ed., Foundations of Soviet Strategy for Economic Growth (1964). Feldman adapted a model developed much earlier by Marx to a centrally planned, collectivized economy, while making certain important extensions and modifications of it.
In the second volume of Capital, Marx developed a theoretical model of expanded production under capitalism. Marx divided the economy into two basic sectors: consumer goods and producer (or capital) goods. Consumer goods and services are things that directly satisfy personal needs and desires. Producer goods are things that directly or indirectly generate consumer goods. A shirt is a consumer good. A sewing machine that makes the shirt is a producer good, as is a power loom that weaves the cotton cloth from which the shirt is made. A loaf of bread is a consumer good. The oven in which it is baked and the agricultural combine which harvests the wheat or oats from which it is made are producer goods.
Feldman extended Marx’s model to a workers state by dividing the producer goods sector into two basic subsectors. There are producer goods that make consumer goods and there are producer goods that make additional producer goods. A sewing machine is an example of the former. Machine tools such as lathes, which make machinery, including sewing machines, fall into the latter category. Many producer goods are not technologically specific, but can be used to expand either the capacity of the consumer goods sector or the capacity of the producer goods sector. A steel mill can make steel for automobiles or for construction equipment. Cement mixers and earthmovers can be used to construct apartment houses or factories. A hydroelectric plant can generate electricity to run household appliances as well as factory assembly lines.
Thus there are two basic factors that determine the growth rates of total output of productive capacity and consumable resources. One is the division of the total output between the consumer goods sector and producer goods sector. The second is the division of the producer goods sector between producer goods geared to the consumer goods sector and producer goods geared to expanding more producer goods.
Take two socialist economies, both of which expend 25 percent of total output in the producer goods sector. In the first economy, 75 percent of this investment in producer goods is geared to expanding the output of the consumer goods sector; in the second, 50 percent. In the first economy, consumption will increase faster in the initial period of the economic plan but more slowly later on. In the second it’s just the opposite. By adjusting the proportions it is possible to develop a range of alternative economic plans, ranging from those which maximize short-term consumption to those that maximize productive resources (and therefore consumption) in the long term.
So the planning authority would present to the highest body of a workers government, i.e., the central assembly of workers councils, a range of maybe six alternative long-term plans to be debated and decided upon. This is likely to be a contentious issue. Some delegates are going to argue: “Our workers and poor people have just made a revolution. They expect and demand a big, dramatic improvement in their living standards, not just promises of a big improvement 15 or 20 years from now. We want Plan A.” Other delegates will say: “Let’s not be shortsighted about this. Our goal is to expand productive capacity and labor productivity. Plan C does that the best. Granted, consumption will increase more slowly in the immediate period than it otherwise could, but we think that is the price we want to pay.”
Once the long-term growth rates of total output, the means of production and the consumable resources are all determined, it is then possible to work out a comprehensive economic plan for the various intervening periods—one year, two years, five years. Say a plan is adopted by the central assembly of workers councils. According to this plan, in five years the annual per capita income will be the equivalent of $60,000. On the basis of existing consumption patterns, consumer surveys and consultation with consumer cooperatives, one can more or less accurately project the basic pattern corresponding to that level of income. For example, $15,000 is estimated for housing, $10,000 for food, $10,000 for automotive and other modes of transportation, etc.
Another key element in the economic planning of a workers state, especially in the more advanced countries like the U.S., Germany and Japan, is to invest some of its total output in providing crucial resources, money and technological expertise to the underdeveloped countries to help them to qualitatively raise the level of production on the road to building socialism.
For Market Calculation, Not Market Competition
Once the basic pattern of final goods is projected, it then becomes possible to figure out the inputs of basic raw materials and intermediate products. How much steel, aluminum and other metals do you need? How much plastic, cotton and synthetic cloth, cement, rubber and the like?
The technology and information for this, incidentally, already exists. There are theoretical models and empirical studies which relate the output of raw materials and intermediate goods necessary to produce a given array of final goods. This is called input-output analysis. Significantly, the pioneer theorist and initial investigator of input-output analysis, Wassily Leontief, was a student at the University of Leningrad in the mid 1920s. So clearly his development of input-output analysis was conditioned by the rich discussion and debate among Soviet economists and other intellectuals about how a centrally planned, collectivized economy would work in practice.
In the early 1930s, Trotsky was extremely critical of the Stalin regime’s destructive economic adventurism and bureaucratic commandism. In the course of an article attacking this, Trotsky made a sort of statement of general principles: “Only through the inter-reaction of these three elements, state planning, the market, and Soviet democracy, can the correct direction of the economy of the transitional epoch be attained” (“The Soviet Economy in Danger,” October 1932). This is true for a future American workers state as well as for the Soviet Union at the time. The Soviet Union in 1932 was a degenerated workers state ruled by a conservative, parasitic Stalinist bureaucracy, which a workers state after a proletarian revolution in the U.S. would presumably not be.
Thus far, I have mainly discussed aspects of state planning. I’ve introduced the question of workers democracy mainly in terms of deciding the basic parameters of economic growth at the highest level. But I have not yet talked about the role of the market. It’s a complicated question. One area where the market is important, and in certain respects dominant, is in determining the specific output mix of consumer goods.
There are literally tens of thousands of types, styles and sizes of apparel. I became painfully aware of this a few weeks ago when I helped my daughter move into a new place with her boyfriend. I swear she has at least 80 pairs of shoes, all of them different styles. There are thousands of different kinds of household appliances, utensils and furniture. Even in a collectivized economy there will be dozens of types and models of automobiles. Not everyone is going to want to drive the same kind of car. So it makes no sense to subject the detailed output of consumer goods to even a short-term plan. Output should be constantly adjusted to the changing structure of demand.
However, rapidly and efficiently coordinating the supply and demand in a collectivized economy does not require atomized competition between state-owned enterprises. In Stalinist-ruled workers states, such as the former Soviet Union or China today, the terms “market socialism” and “market reforms” mean subjecting enterprises to competition with one another. Managers are given the authority to decide what to produce in what quantities, and they are instructed to sell their products at the highest available price in the market, either to consumers or to other enterprises. The stated goal is to maximize enterprise profitability, and usually the income of the managers and also the workers is tied to profitability (or negatively to losses). We are opposed to this system because it replicates many of the inequities and irrationalities of the capitalist market system.
In honor of my daughter, I will give the example of the shoe industry operated under the conditions of “market socialism” in a bureaucratically deformed workers state such as China. There are two shoe factories—we’ll call them A and B—and they both produce standard men’s dress shoes (which probably none of you in this room has ever worn nor intends to wear). Let’s say that Factory A is relatively new, so that its equipment is much more technologically advanced than Factory B. Therefore, Factory A can produce the same pair of shoes using 25 percent less labor time than Factory B can.
The market price for a pair of shoes is equal to the average cost of production for the industry as a whole. Factory A is producing below the average cost, so it is making a handsome profit. Its managers are getting a nice salary and bonuses, and its workers are also getting substantial wage increases because it’s making money. On the other hand, Factory B, which makes the same thing, is chronically losing money because its costs are above the average of the industry and the going market price. Unless the government then subsidizes this factory, some workers are going to be laid off or all workers will have to take cuts in wages and benefits just like under capitalism, through no fault of their own.
We are opposed to atomized competition between state enterprises. We are for using market calculation but not market competition. We advocate what can be called a centrally managed market system in the consumer goods sector. How would this operate? Again I will go back to my shoe industry example. There would be a central distribution agency that commands the output of several shoe factories. It supplies shoes to retail outlets and consumer cooperatives. You could even buy them on the Internet.
Let’s say that as a result of miscalculation or changing demand there is an oversupply of dress shoes and an undersupply of sporting goods shoes (running shoes, hiking boots, basketball shoes, especially those that are endorsed by Michael Jordan). So what happens with this system? The directors of the distributive agency call up some factories and say, “OK, cut back production of dress shoes, increase production of sporting goods shoes. If you need special equipment that you don’t have, if your workers need retraining, fine. We’ll provide it.” End of story. The basic point is that management remains centralized but utilizes market calculation in order to mesh supply and demand in this particular sector.
Syndicalism vs. Workers Government
I want to discuss the differences between our Marxist program and the syndicalist program for the post-revolutionary organization of the economy. Before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, revolutionary syndicalism was the main left-wing alternative to Marxism. A number of leading figures in the early communist movement, who later became supporters of the Trotskyist Left Opposition, started out not as Marxists but as revolutionary syndicalists: James P. Cannon in the U.S., Alfred Rosmer in France, Andrés Nin in Spain.
The crux of the syndicalist program for the post-capitalist reorganization of the economy is that the workers should exercise total managerial authority in autonomous enterprises or at least in some branches of the economy. There would be no higher governmental authority above the industrial syndicates. In a sense syndicalism is a proletarian or industrial version of anarchism. It was described as such by a British anarchist intellectual, George Woodcock, writing in the 1940s:
“The syndicate, on the other hand, is based on the organization of the workers by industry at the place of work. The workers of each factory or depot or farm are an autonomous unit, who govern their own affairs and who make all the decisions as to the work they will do. These units are joined federally in a syndicate which serves to coordinate the actions of the workers in each industry. The federal organization has no authority over the workers in any branch, and cannot impose a veto on action like a trade union executive.”
— George Woodcock, Railways and Society (1943), excerpted in Woodcock, ed., The Anarchist Reader (1977)
In other words, the classic Bakuninite anarchist program of a federation of autonomous communes is here replaced by a federation of autonomous industrial or other economic units.
At the present time, neither in the United States nor anywhere else that I know of do we encounter and compete with significant syndicalist tendencies. So why do I want to talk about syndicalism? I have two reasons. One is that, if there is a significant upsurge of labor struggle in this country, many of the left-radical youth who are currently in and around the anarchist milieu will become workerist. Trust me on this, I’ve been through it. They will therefore subscribe to some kind of syndicalist program, which is an amalgam of anarchism and workerism.
The other reason is China. When the political situation in China opens up, and it will, I think that syndicalist ideas and even tendencies may gain a sympathetic hearing among Chinese workers. Chinese workers have already experienced a large dose of capitalism, and by all available evidence they don’t like it. At the same time, many Chinese workers may well identify Marxism-Leninism and central planning with bureaucratic commandism, not to speak of corruption. So when things open up, some leftist-minded Chinese workers as well as intellectuals may say, “Let’s kick out the capitalists and the CCP bureaucrats and the workers will take over and run by themselves the factories, construction sites, coal mines and railroads.”
There has never been and will never be an economy organized on syndicalist principles, just as there has never been and will never be a society organized on anarchist principles. But if we encounter a serious-minded leftist who subscribes to a syndicalist program, it is insufficient to say that such a program can never be realized. We also want to convince him that even if it were possible, in practice it would operate in a way contrary to the interests of the workers and of society in general.
The problem with syndicalism is very similar to that of “market socialism.” A syndicalist program would necessarily replicate many of the inequities and irrationalities of capitalism. If economic units are genuinely autonomous of one another, they can only interact through market relations governed by changing conditions of supply and demand. Inevitably, this means that some workers will have to be unemployed or have to take cuts in income when the market turns against them.
At the risk of sounding like a shoe fetishist, let’s consider the shoe industry again. (You can see that carrying shoe boxes up and down the stairs for a couple of weeks addled my brain!) This time we will examine it under the model of a syndicalist economy. The shoe-producing industry is organized as a single autonomous syndicate. This syndicate gets revenue by selling shoes to individuals and stores. In turn, it purchases leather, rubber, plastic and other inputs from other autonomous syndicates.
Let’s say leather happens to be in oversupply. More leather is produced than is demanded by the shoe-producing syndicate for its current output and the consumer demand. The directors of the shoe-producing syndicate tell their counterparts in the leather processing syndicate, “We only need 80 percent of your leather, we’re not going to buy any more because we don’t need any more than that.” So what is going to happen? These are autonomous enterprises. Some of the workers in the leather-producing industry are going to have to be laid off or, alternatively, all or some of them are going to have to take cuts in income and benefits because it is suffering reduced revenue.
For Workers Democracy in the Control of Production
Even though people who advocate syndicalism think they are militantly anti-capitalist, their program would actually reproduce many of the inequities and irrationalities of capitalism, despite their good intentions. We are opposed to the syndicalist program of workers’ management of autonomous enterprises. But we are for the maximal democratic participation of the workers in economic decision-making at the level of the factory, the construction site, the warehouse, the supermarket and the airport. The section on the Soviet Union in the 1938 Transitional Program states: “Factory committees should be returned the right to control production.” This is our program, not only in the past but also in the future.
What does this mean concretely? How does it differ from the syndicalist program of workers management? What we mean by workers control of production in a socialized economy is that the democratically elected representatives of the workers would have an authoritative, consultative voice in all economic decisions at the enterprise as well as higher levels. Let’s say that the industrial ministry in charge of aircraft production proposes to spend a couple of hundred million dollars retooling an older aircraft factory, replacing its antiquated machines with more up-to-date equipment. The managers, engineers, technicians would get together with the elected factory committee and jointly work out a concrete plan for retooling the enterprise. This would then be presented to the industrial ministry. The plan will not just come down from on high, with the workers having no say.
Another important area where elected factory committees would play an important role, even replacing direct managerial intervention, is in maintaining labor discipline. How to deal with a worker who is a perpetual goof-off or who is so incompetent that he disrupts production and maybe even endangers other workers? How do you deal with a worker who abuses sick leaves, who calls in sick just because he wants a day off to go fishing? It is much better that this kind of problem is handled by direct representatives of fellow workers who are more politically advanced and more socially responsible.
The basic point is that a centrally planned, collectivized economy is in no way incompatible with the very active and full participation of the workers at the most basic levels of the economy, as well as in the election of delegates to the soviets.
But unlike “workers management” schemes, workers control in a socialist economy does not allow individual factory committees to have the final say on the scope and composition of investment, since particular groups of workers cannot have unlimited claims on the state budget, i.e., on the collective social surplus. Resources for the replacement and expansion of the means of production, provision for the elderly and disabled, expenditure on schools and hospitals, etc., must be deducted from the total social product before distribution to individual workers. As Marx pointed out, “What the producer is deprived of in his capacity as a private individual benefits him directly or indirectly in his capacity as a member of society.”
As Isaac Deutscher said in his speech “On Socialist Man” (1966):
“We do not maintain that socialism is going to solve all predicaments of the human race. We are struggling in the first instance with the predicaments that are of man’s making and that man can resolve. May I remind you that Trotsky, for instance, speaks of three basic tragedies—hunger, sex and death—besetting man. Hunger is the enemy that Marxism and the modern labour movement have taken on.... Yes, socialist man will still be pursued by sex and death; but we are convinced that he will be better equipped than we are to cope even with these.”
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