Bob Feldman 68: Who Rules NPR?- A Guest Commentary

Markin comment: I have always thought the late songwriter/storyteller Utah Phillips' little spoken ditty-"Talking NPR Blues" hit the nail on the head. And with none of the endless NPR begging for money either. Thanks Utah.

The Talking NPR Blues

By U. Utah Phillips

Spoken in time

I turned on my radio… spun the dial
Thought I'd listen to some news for a while
I grabbed the knob, spun it around,
Got NPR… here's what I found…

Real news? Hardly a trace
Just one damn marathon market place
The Nasdaq's up, the Dow's in the cellar
And NPR sold out to Rockefeller

Hostile take over… Real hostile.

Well I hear about all the anti trust
And all the day traders who bit the dust
Mergers, buyouts and acquisitions
Low down crooks in high positions

Wheelers, dealers, and CEO's
Fired and paid off through the nose
Buying yachts and fancy homes
With the bail out money from the savings and loans

And I get pissed… Off that is.

It's dot com this and dot com that
The underwriters are getting fat
On airwaves stole from you and me
By a bunch of thieves called the FCC
They don't give a damn what we want and need
They've all caved in to corporate greed
And sold us out to the ruling class
Well the whole damn bunch can kiss my… …Dot Com!

This is a family show folks
The FCC says watch your language
English
What's yours?

I got tired of being treated like a veg
So I called up the station and canceled my pledge
In a mighty act of liberation
Sent the money off to my community station

I said "I love you"

But if you blow it
I'll sure as hell let you know it
I'll knock the radio off the shelf
Buy a transmitter and do it myself

Whitebeard the Pirate

This is radio station H O B O
Broadcasting on a vagrancy of 60 to 90 days
Signing off
For now.

***The Wheels Of Capitalism In Its Swaddling Clothes- Fernand Braudel’s View

 ***The Wheels Of Capitalism In Its Swaddling Clothes- Fernand Braudel’s View

Book Review


Civilization & Capitalism:15th-18th Century, Fernand Braudel, Harper&Row, New York 1979




Karl Marx, the 19th century revolutionary socialist and dissector of the underpinnings of the capitalist mode of production, is most famous for his inflammatory pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto, a programmatic outline of, and rationale for, the socialist reconstruction of society beyond the current capitalist market system. Not as well known, and certainly not as widely read, was his equally important Das Capital that, painstaking, gives a historical analysis of the rise of capitalism based on the appropriation of surplus value by private owners. Where Marx worked in broad strokes to lay out his theory relying mainly on (and polemizing against) bourgeois economists the work under review, the second volume of a three volume study of the evolution of capitalism, Fernand Braudel’s Wheels of Commerce, fills in the spaces left by Marx’s work. Although Braundel, of necessity, tips his hat to Marx’s insights his work does not depend on a Marxist historical materialist concept of history, at least consciously, although in its total effect it is certainly comparable with that interpretation of history.

Braudel digs deep into the infrastructure of medieval society to trace the roots of capitalism to the increased widespread commerce that the rise of rudimentary production of surplus goods permitted. He highlights, rightly I think, the important role of fairs, other lesser adjunct forms of commercial endeavor like peddling and shop keeping, and the rise of fortunately located (near rivers, the ocean, along accessible roadways) cities committed full-time to creating a market for surplus goods being produced in the those cities, on the land and, most importantly, in far-off places. Naturally, such activity as the creation of markets kept creating demand for more and varied products making more expansive (and expensive) journeys necessary. The opening of wide-flung trade routes, over land and on the seas, exploited by merchant-adventurers (in the widest sense of that term) thereafter became practical, if still highly risky, for those committed to those activities.

Needless to say in a densely written six hundred page volume the number of examples of commercial endeavors (some presented in more than in one context) that Braudel highlights is beyond anything a short review could do justice to. A quick outline here will have to suffice. The already noted rise of a merchant class ready to do business over great stretches and under trying circumstances; the still controversial basis for the rise of a distinct capitalist ethic that drove the markets(think Max Weber and the Protestant ethic); the importance of double bookkeeping of accounts and the introduction of bills of exchange to facilitate payment; the exploitation of vast colonial areas for minerals and other natural resources such as gold and silver used as physical value in every day market exchanges; the rise and fall of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism based on the gold and silver mines and slave trade; the successive rises of the Dutch and English colonialisms based on that slave trade and control of the sea lanes; the rise of joint-stock companies and other forms of collective capitalist ventures; the introduction of a stock exchange to place value on those enterprises; the increased role of a national state in the emergence of capitalism as defender of private property, as purchaser of goods, and insurer of last resort against hard times; the shifts in class status away from feudal norms and rise in class consciousness in society; and, the applicability of the capitalism to non-European societies such as Japan, and non-Christian cultures such as Islam.

Just to outline some of the topics as I have just done will give one a sense that this is an important work (and act as an impetus to read volume one and three) for those who want to get the feel of what the dawn of capitalism looked like. And for those who want to move beyond capitalism a very good companion to that not widely read Das Capital of Marx.

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO-THE FOUNDATION OF MODERN COMMUNISM- A Book Review

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO-THE FOUNDATION OF MODERN COMMUNISM-A Book Review

BOOK REVIEW

THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS, PENQUIN CLASSICS: NEW EDITIONS, NEW YORK, 2002

If you are a revolutionary, a radical or merely a liberal activist you must come to terms with the theory outlined in the Communist Manifesto. Today’s political activists are obviously not the first to face this challenge. Radicals, revolutionaries and liberals have had to come to terms with the Manifesto at least since 1848, when it was first published. That same necessity; perhaps surprisingly to some given the changes in the political landscape since then, is true today. Why surprisingly? On the face of it, given the political times, it would appear somewhat absurd to make such a claim about the necessity of coming to terms with the overriding need for the revolutionary overturn of the capitalist order outlined in the Manifesto. It, however, is.

With the collapses of the Soviet Union and the Soviet-influenced Eastern European states about fifteen years ago, which were supposedly based on Marxist concepts, one would think that Marxism was a dead letter. But hear me out. Even the less far-sighted apologists for the international capitalist order are now worrying about the increasing gap between rich and poor, not only between the so-called first and third worlds but also within the imperial metropolitan centers themselves. Nowhere is that more evident that in the United States where that gap has dramatically increased over the last thirty years. Thus, despite the carping of the ‘death of communism’ theorists after the decisive capitulation of international Stalinism in the early 1990’s, an objective criterion exists today to put the question posed by the ongoing class struggle and of the validity of a materialist concept of history back on the front burner.

Whether one agrees with the Marxian premises about the need for revolution and for a dialectical materialist conception of the workings of society or not one still must, if for no other reason that to be smart about the doings of the world, confront the problem of how to break the stalemate over where human history is heading. 'Globalization' has clearly demonstrated only that the 'race to the bottom' inherent in the inner workings of capitalism is continuing at full throttle. Moreover, the contradictions and boom/bust cycles of capitalism have not been resolved. And those results have not been pretty for the peoples of the world.

Experience over the last 160 years has shown that those who are not armed with a materialist concept of history, that is, the ability to see society in all its workings and contradictions, cannot understand the world. All other conceptual frameworks lead to subjectivist idealism and utopian concepts of social change, at best. One may ultimately answer the questions posed by the Manifesto in the negative but the alternatives leave one politically defenseless in the current one-sided international class war.

So what is the shouting over Marxism, pro and con, all about? In the middle of the 19th century, especially in Europe, it was not at all clear where the vast expansion and acceleration of industrial society was heading. All one could observe was that traditional society was being rapidly disrupted and people were being uprooted, mainly from the land, far faster than at any time in previous history. For the most part, political people at that time reacted to the rise of capitalism with small plans to create utopian societies off on the side of society or with plans to smash the industrial machinery in order to maintain an artisan culture (the various forms of Ludditism). Into this chaos a young Karl Marx stepped in, and along with his associate and co-thinker Friedrich Engel, gave a, let us face it, grandiose plan for changing all of society based on the revolutionary overthrow of existing society.

Marx thus did not based himself on creation of some isolated utopian community but rather took the then current level of international capitalist society as a starting point and expanded his thesis from that base. Now that was then, and today still is, a radical notion. Marx, however, did not just come to those conclusions out of the blue. As an intellectual (and frustrated academian) he took the best of German philosophy (basically from Hegel, then the rage of German philosophical academia), French political thought and revolutionary tradition especially the Great French Revolution of the late 1700’and English political economy.

In short, Marx took the various strands of Enlightenment thought and action and grafted those developments onto a theory, not fully formed at the time, of how the proletariat was to arise and take over the reins of society for the benefit of all of society and end class struggle as the motor force of history. Unfortunately, given the rocky road of socialist thought and action over the last 160 years, we are, impatiently, still waiting for that new day.

In recently re-reading the Manifesto this writer was struck by how much of the material in it related, taking into account the technological changes and advances in international capitalist development since 1848, to today’s political crisis of humankind. Some of the predictions and some of the theory are off, no question, particularly on the questions of the relative staying power of capitalism, the relative impoverishment of the masses, the power of the nation-state and nationalism to cut across international working class solidarity and the telescoping of the time frame of capitalist development but the thrust of the material presented clearly speaks to us today. Maybe that is why today the more far-sighted bourgeois commentators are nervous at the reappearance of Marxism in Western society as a small but serious current in the international labor movement. Militant leftists can now argue- Stalinism (the horrendous distortion of Marxism) never again, to the bourgeois commentators' slogan of - socialist revolution, never again.

As a historical document one should read the Manifesto with the need for updating in mind. The reader should nevertheless note the currency of the seemingly archaic third section of the document where Marx polemicized against the leftist political opponents of his time. While the names of the organizations of that time have faded away into the historical mist the political tendencies he argued against seem to very much analogous to various tendencies today. In fact, in my youth I probably argued in favor of every one of those tendencies that Marx opposed before I was finally won over to the Marxian worldview. I suggest that not only does humankind set itself the social tasks that it can reasonably perform but also that when those tasks are not performed there is a tendency to revert to earlier, seemingly defeated ideas, of social change. Thus the resurgent old pre-Marxian conceptions of societal change have to be fought out again by this generation of militant leftists. That said, militant leftists should read and reread this document. It is literarily the foundation document of the modern communist movement. One can still learn much from it. Forward.

Revised September 26, 2006

In The Age Of “The World Turned Upside Down”- D.H. Pennington’s “Europe In The Seventeenth Century”- A Book Review

Book Review

Europe In The Seventeenth Century, Second Edition, D.H. Pennington, Longman,
London, 1970

No question when I think of 17th century European history I am drawn immediately to think about the English bourgeois revolution of the mid-century. That event put paid to the notion that a ruler could rule by divine right and that through various twists and turns, not all of them historically progressive by any means, some rough semblance of democratic rule would work best. Work best then in tandem with an emerging capitalist order (of course the process stretched out for some two centuries but the shell was established then) as the means of creating a stable society.

Aside from kings and queens having to worry, worry to death, about their pretty little necks (ask Charles I and Louis XVI, among others) and having rough-hewn, warts and all, rulers like Oliver Cromwell enter the scene many other things were going on in Europe in the 17th century that would contribute as well to what we would recognize as a modern Europe. What those events were, and their importance, was why when I was first seriously looking at the English Revolution back in the late 1970s I picked up Professor Pennington’s nice little survey (well maybe not so little at six hundred plus pages). And a recent re-reading only confirms (with the obvious acknowledgement of a need for some updating given the immense increase in scholarship in this area since then) its worth as a primer.

Perhaps the most dramatic social change of the 17th century was the long term (very long term globally as it is still working its way through the whole planet) trend toward more efficient agriculture leading to the lessening need for farmer workers (and large farm families as well) freeing up a surplus population to head to the bright lights of the city (maybe) and availability to work in the newly emerging industries that were just beginning to be formed in a way that we would recognize. The old feudal lord-serf relations were beginning to become attenuated, very attenuated with this movement away from the land and its seemingly eternal fixed relationships. Starting with textiles and working through to almost every possible commodity it became easier to buy machine-made products, and usually, except in times of not infrequent economic duress, cheaper.

That little spurt into what we would now call the industrial revolution changed many other aspects of the European outlook as well. Science became a more pressing social concern as the need to understand the physical work and its laws became more pressing. Religion which drove conflicts of the previous century, while still important to the plebeian masses, was lessening its grip on a more urbanized population. And, of course with that change, without becoming enthralled with a “Whig” onward and upward progressive interpretation of history came a dramatic increase in more secular interest for the arts, education, thinking of new ways of governing beyond the old time divine right of kings theories, other more radical political ideas about the family and other social relationships, and the extremely important fact that the a “right to rebellion” if not in official dogma then in practice became a legitimate form of plebeian expression.



Needless to say, as with every century, wars, wars for possession, succession, or just plain hubris, highlighted by the Thirty Years War, get plenty of attention. And, at the governmental level, that way to resolve conflicts not unexpectedly takes up much of the book. But the real importance of Professor Pennington’s survey is that it gives the “losers” in that century, places like Spain, Portugal, Sweden and Denmark their “fifteen minutes of fame,” information that when I first read the book I was not award of since many presentations, including general surveys, are front-loaded toward looking at the “winners” in various periods. England and France get plenty of attention, especially at the end of the book (and the end of the century setting up the big rivalries of the next couple of centuries. I will admit though that trying to keep up with the various partitions, dissections, intersections, and the like would drive me mad-if I was a cartographer. If your grasp of 17th century European history could use a little brushing up this survey is just fine. Then you can use the extensive bibliography and end notes (over one hundred pages between them) and move on to get the inside story of places, people and events that interest you.

*From The Archives Of "Women And Revolution"- Ciudad Juárez, Mexico-Capitalism and Anti-Woman Terror

Click on the headline to link to the article described above

Markin comment:

The above-linked article is from an archival issue of Women and Revolution that may have some historical interest for old "new leftists", perhaps, and well as for younger militants interested in various cultural and social questions that intersect the class struggle. Or for those just interested in a Marxist position on a series of social questions that are thrust upon us by the vagaries of bourgeois society. I will be posting more such articles from the back issues of Women and Revolution during Women's History Month and periodically throughout the year.

* Hard Times In Babylon, Again- "Poor Man's Heaven"- Song Of The Great Depression Of The 1930's (The Other One)

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Clip of Yip Harburg's "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" done by Bing Crosby.

CD REVIEW

Poor Man's Heaven: Songs Of The Great Depression, various artists,When The Sun Goes Down series, BMG, 2003

Banks are failing. Stock markets are in a nose dive. Unemployment is way up. Housing values are headed toward the floor. More and more people are seeking welfare and food stamps. Consumers are “tightening their belts” waiting for the other show to fall. And that is only the grim news on an average day. Other days ratchet up the doom and gloom from there. Oh, you thought I was talking about today’s headlines. No I am referring to the Great Depression of the 1930’s which in song is the subject matter of this CD review. Does sound familiar though, doesn’t it? The only thing I haven’t heard about lately is “Bushvilles” or "Obamavilles” to replace the “Hooverville” shanty towns of the 1930’s. But they could be on the way.

Even in the worst of times, at least to this reviewer’s understanding of the human endeavor, people have turned to song to relieve what ails them. Sometimes, as some selection here, it could be with a funny twist on the idiocy of the markets like old time comedian Eddie Cantor’s “Tips On The Stock Market” or Frank Crumit’s “Tale Of The Ticker”. Sometimes it could be the pathos expressed in “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?’ or “Remember My Forgotten Man”

Other times it can be ironic as on “Hallelujah, I’m A Bum” or the title track “Poor Man’s Heaven”. Or it can express social or personal reality like “Raising The Rent”, “Ten Cents A Dance” or “The Farm Relief Song”. And sometimes, it can express just pure desperation or frustration as in Alfred Reed’s “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?’, Daddy Stovepipe’s “35 Depression” or Joe Stone’s “It’s Hard Time”. Yes, we need our songs to get us through but here is the kicker. It’s not enough. We cannot sing these bad time blues away. For that we need to take social action. By and for ourselves. But that is a question for another day. Today we speak of our hard times musical heritage. Listen up.

*****

A Tale of A Ticker

By Frank Crumit and Frank O'Brien

A Tale of A Ticker , a 1929 novelty song foreshadowing the 1929 stock-market crash, has music by Frank Crumit and lyrics by Frank O'Brien.

This little pig went to market,
Where they buy and sell the stocks,
This little pig came home again,
With his system full of shocks.

I don’t understand their language,
Don’t know what it’s all about,
For a bull buys up and a bear sells down and a broker sells you out;

And here is the song they sing the whole day long;
Oh! the market’s not so good today,
Your stocks look kind of sick,
In fact they all dropped down a point time the tickers tick;

We’ll have to have more margin now,
There isn’t any doubt,
So you better dash with a load of cash,
Or we’ll have to sell you out.

The stock exchange is a funny place,
It’s the strangest place in town,
The seats cost half a million cash,
But the brokers won’t sit down.

There’s the broker the bull and bear,
It’s queer but it’s not a joke,
For you get the bull till your bank-roll’s bare
and the broker says you’re broke,

And here is the song I hear the whole day long;
Oh! The market’s not so good today,
Your stocks look kind of sick,
In fact they all dropped down a point time the tickers tick;

We’ll have to have more margin now,
There isn’t any doubt,
So you better dash with a load of cash,
Or we’ll have to sell you out.

The market simply goes to prove,
That we still have loco weeds,
For the bull buys what he doesn’t want,
And the bear sells what he needs,

I bought an elevator stock,
And thought that I did well,
And the little bears all ran down-stairs
and rang the basement bell,

And here is the song I hear the whole day long;
Oh! The market’s not so good today,
Your stocks look kind of sick,
In fact they all dropped down a point time the tickers tick;

We’ll have to have more margin now,
There isn’t any doubt,
So you better dash with a load of cash,
Or we’ll have to sell you out.

HOW CAN A POOR MAN STAND SUCH TIMES AND LIVE ?

Blind Alfred Reed - 1929

There once was a time when everything was cheap,
But now prices nearly puts a man to sleep.
When we pay our grocery bill,
We just feel like making our will --
I remember when dry goods were cheap as dirt,
We could take two bits and buy a dandy shirt.
Now we pay three bucks or more,
Maybe get a shirt that another man wore --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?
Well, I used to trade with a man by the name of Gray,
Flour was fifty cents for a twenty-four pound bag.
Now it's a dollar and a half beside,
Just like a-skinning off a flea for the hide --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Oh, the schools we have today ain't worth a cent,
But they see to it that every child is sent.
If we don't send everyday,
We have a heavy fine to pay --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Prohibition's good if 'tis conducted right,
There's no sense in shooting a man 'til he shows flight.
Officers kill without a cause,
They complain about funny laws --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Most all preachers preach for gold and not for souls,
That's what keeps a poor man always in a hole.
We can hardly get our breath,
Taxed and schooled and preached to death --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Oh, it's time for every man to be awake,
We pay fifty cents a pound when we ask for steak.
When we get our package home,
A little wad of paper with gristle and a bone --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Well, the doctor comes around with a face all bright,
And he says in a little while you'll be all right.
All he gives is a humbug pill,
A dose of dope and a great big bill --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931)

They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,

When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.

They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,

Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad; now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower, up to the sun, brick, and rivet, and lime;

Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,

Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,

And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.

Why don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum,

Half a million boots went slogging through Hell,

And I was the kid with the drum!

Say, don't you remember, they called me Al; it was Al all the time.

Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal? Buddy, can you spare a dime?


Ten Cents a Dance

From Simple Simon

Lyrics by Lorenz Hart, music by Richard Rodgers

VERSE

I work at the Palace Ballroom,
but, gee that Palace is cheap;
when I get back to my chilly hall room
I'm much to tired to sleep.
I'm one of those lady teachers,
a beautiful hostess, you know,
the kind the Palace features
for only a dime a throw.

REFRAIN

Ten cents a dance
that's what they pay me,
gosh, how they weigh me down!
Ten cents a dance
pansies and rough guys
tough guys who tear my gown!
Seven to midnight I hear drums.
Loudly the saxophone blows.
Trumpets are tearing my eardrums.
Customers crush my toes.
Sometime I think
I've found my hero,
but it's a queer romance.
All that you need is a ticket
Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance.

PATTER

Fighters and sailors and bowlegged tailors
can pay for their ticket and rent me!
Butchers and barbers and rats from the harbors
are sweethearts my good luck has send me.
Though I've a chorus of elderly beaux ,
stockings are porous with hole at the toes.
I'm here till closing time.
Dance and be merry, it's only a dime.

TAG

Sometime I think
I've found my hero,
but it's a queer romance.
All that you need is a ticket
Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance.

*In “Honor” Of AIG- Poster Child For Modern Capitalism- “A Tale Of The Ticker”

Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for "Das Capital" Karl Marx's classic exposition on the inner workings of the capitalist system as it was evolving during his time. While it needs some up-dating to take into account the question of "globalization-modern version" and the enhanced role of the state the fundamentals are sound. The question, as he posed it in the late 19th century, still holds true- how to get rid of it as the way we conduct our lives on a societal basis.

Commentary

On a day when even the most ardent capitalists, their ideological defenders, sundry paid private and governmental officials and assorted hangers-on are in a tizzy about the huge bonuses that are to be given, or have already been given, to the financial division of the insurance giant AIG that caused more than its share of havoc over the past year or so it seems to me more than appropriate that this little song, “A Tale Of The Ticker”, that I have culled from the CD, “Poor Man’s Heaven”, should grace this space. The CD is filled with Great Depression songs (You know that old depression way back in the day, the one that is not suppose to happen anymore under modern capitalist conditions. Somebody, apparently, forgot to read their copy of Karl Marx’s “Das Capital” at Harvard Business School, or where ever they went.). I am in the process of writing a review on the whole CD for this space at a later time. The thing that is interesting in this song, as well as many of the others songs in this compilation, is that many of them truly could have been written today, with a little updating of course. For example, on this one notice the stock market business practices that are cited. Sound familiar?

A Tale of A Ticker

By Frank Crumit and Frank O'Brien

A Tale of A Ticker , a 1929 novelty song foreshadowing the 1929 stock-market crash, has music by Frank Crumit and lyrics by Frank O'Brien.

This little pig went to market,
Where they buy and sell the stocks,
This little pig came home again,
With his system full of shocks.

I don’t understand their language,
Don’t know what it’s all about,
For a bull buys up and a bear sells down and a broker sells you out;

And here is the song they sing the whole day long;
Oh! the market’s not so good today,
Your stocks look kind of sick,
In fact they all dropped down a point time the tickers tick;

We’ll have to have more margin now,
There isn’t any doubt,
So you better dash with a load of cash,
Or we’ll have to sell you out.

The stock exchange is a funny place,
It’s the strangest place in town,
The seats cost half a million cash,
But the brokers won’t sit down.

There’s the broker the bull and bear,
It’s queer but it’s not a joke,
For you get the bull till your bank-roll’s bare
and the broker says you’re broke,

And here is the song I hear the whole day long;
Oh! The market’s not so good today,
Your stocks look kind of sick,
In fact they all dropped down a point time the tickers tick;

We’ll have to have more margin now,
There isn’t any doubt,
So you better dash with a load of cash,
Or we’ll have to sell you out.

The market simply goes to prove,
That we still have loco weeds,
For the bull buys what he doesn’t want,
And the bear sells what he needs,

I bought an elevator stock,
And thought that I did well,
And the little bears all ran down-stairs
and rang the basement bell,

And here is the song I hear the whole day long;
Oh! The market’s not so good today,
Your stocks look kind of sick,
In fact they all dropped down a point time the tickers tick;

We’ll have to have more margin now,
There isn’t any doubt,
So you better dash with a load of cash,
Or we’ll have to sell you out.

*From The Archives- Marx vs. Keynes- A Guest Commentary

Click on title to link to archival article about the current "hot" topic of Keynesian economic policy and a Marxist response (from history) to its re-emergence as a bourgeois panacea, of sorts.

A NOTE ON THE CURRENT MARKET VOLATILITY

COMMENTARY

FOR A MORATORIUM ON MORTAGE FORECLOSURES

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY!

In a commentary earlier this year I argued for a moratorium on home mortgage foreclosures as a defensive act on behalf of the ‘little people’ who were being squeezed out by their inability to pay the adjustable interest rate hikes that came with many such housing loans. That call is still appropriate today. Obviously this demand has nothing to do with the fight for socialism, as such, but if we had workers party congressmen or senators we would have them submit such legislation to Congress. Moreover, I believe that we would also want to introduce legislation for regulation of the unchecked financial services industry that has wrecked havoc on the backs of working people, wittingly or unwittingly. Since I first argued for the moratorium the fallout from the bad loans and other problems that have trickled down as a result has created an extremely volatile, and potentially destructive, economic situation for working people who depend on credit to make ends meet. Thus a couple of notes on episodic economic fluctuations seem appropriate.

I make no bones about the fact that I am not an economist, Marxist or otherwise. My relationship with the ‘dismal’ science of political economy is weighted toward the political end not the economic one. Oh sure, I have read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and, of course, Karl Marx’s Das Capital and some of the commentaries on these works. Thus I have a sense of the classical underpinning of the capitalist mode of production but as for the various instruments, especially the financial ones, which drive the day to day modern capitalist economies I admit my ignorance. In my defense I would argue that while some Marxists had better study these workings (just not this writer) getting caught up in the minutia of the capitalist mode of production is not decisive. If one assumes, as I do, that the capitalist mode of production has played out its progressive historic role then the real fight is not over the ramifications of the day to day fluctuations of the market but the need to overthrow it-a political question. The capitalist mode of production, its operators, apologists and hangers-on need to be pushed out-there is no other way.

As if to underline the above sentiment I have been recently reading Irving Howe and Lewis Coser’s History of the American Communist Party that I will review in this space later. The most interesting section of that work concerns the ‘third period’ Communist International strategy and tactics. This policy, that held sway from about 1928 until 1935 as the official international line, was predicated on a ‘final collapse’ of capitalism. For those not familiar with the period this is the time when the Communist International was calling virtually any non-Stalinist politcal formation ‘social fascist’. The most famous, or rather infamous, result of that strategy was the refusal of the German Communists to unite with the Social Democrats to form a workers united front in order to fight off Hitler’s advances in the early 1930’s. We are all painfully aware of the results. The point for today, and I have seen it come up enough to note it, is to not directly tie general economic trends with political action. If not opposed and defeated the capitalist will muddle through one way or another. Thus, in the end the economic issues dominate but in the meantime it is about politics.


As a kind of subset of that last idea the fact that many of our ‘people’ are being squeezed to the wall by today’s credit crunch would seemingly create conditions for a fight back. Right? Alas, in the short run those affected are too demoralized to fight and the next layer above them is afraid they are next so economic downturns do not necessarily favor militant political action. Along this same line I would note, however, that their ‘people’ –the capitalist investors, jobbers and brokers are not going to the wall on this. It is our ‘people’ who wind up with the bad credit record, monetary losses and loss of whatever sense of self worth home ownership brings. To dramatically bring this point home a recent article in the financial section of a Boston newspaper highlighted the demise of one of their ‘best and brightest’ capital managers who had to close his financial operation at the end of July when the creditors clamored for cash. This manager was no ‘fly by night’ operator but had been a star in the management of Harvard University’s 29 billion dollar endowment fund (now 34 billion, as of August 23). This brought many rewards among them a nice house in the very exclusive town of Wellesley, a suburb of Boston. At some point this manager left Harvard’s management team and went out to run his own financial operation and snagged 500 million from the Harvard endowment to work with, among other high end clients. When the crash came this operator had to close up not however before losing 350 million dollars of the Harvard endowment and smaller sums for other clients. His response- a heartfelt e-mail message of sorrow to all those who had lost money through his poor management. Yes, I can see the tears streaming down your eyes after hearing this story. Not to worry though- he is NOT losing his house. Enough said.

*FOR A MORATORIUM ON HOME FORECLOSURES- And A Note On The Housing Question From Friedrich Engels

Click on the headline to link to the "Marx-Engels Internet Archives" for an online copy of Friedrich Engels' "On The Housing Question."

COMMENTARY

NEW HOMEOWNERS NEED SOME RELIEF NOW!

There has bee a recent spike in home foreclosures, particularly in New England, due to several factors including predatory borrowing practices by banks and other lending institutions and housing price declines as a result of oversupply. A call for a foreclosure moratorium as featured in the headline would, however, seem unlikely as a cause for action and comment by a left-wing propagandist. Traditionally the left-wing position on home ownership has been, as spelled out by Frederich Engels, Karl Marx’s close collaborator, don’t do it. The rationale behind that position, not an unreasonable political one, was that the struggle to make house payments in an uncertain capitalist economic environment sapped the political energies of the working class and therefore tended to make workers and their families more conservative.

A later practical example of this was cited by American Socialist Workers Party leader James P. Cannon in the early 1950’s during a faction fight involving a significant section of that party's trade union cadre when he noted that their revolutionary edge had been blunted by concerns over keeping their homes. From another political perspective, also from the 1950’s, Bill Levitt, the capitalist developer and builder of the hugely successful suburban tract houses of the period known as Levittowns, noted that no one who owned his own home was likely to become a communist. Those points are all well and good but, as the Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin pointed out, the task of socialists is to act as ‘tribunes of the people’. And damn, on this one it is the ‘people’ who are being squeezed out.

One of the great enduring myths of American capitalist society is that with a little bit of effort every person can own their own home. Moreover, that condition is one of the prerequisites for having ‘made it’ in America. The long and short of it is that many layers of society have in the past, are now, and will probably in the future desire to have their own homes. Using this notion as a wedge banking institutions has created a huge number of ways to ‘own’ a home as long a one was willing, knowingly or not, to pay extra for this privilege. Gone are the days when a family saved for a certain time to make a reasonable down payment and bought a house based on reasonable expectations of being able to pay off the mortgage, or upgrade, etc. So be it.

Although I have not been privy to all the data concerning who is being foreclosed on, I have observed where the foreclosure auctions are taking place and it is not in the wealthy neighborhoods and towns in my area. The net seems to be dragging those first-time minority and working class buyers who with just the slightest downward shift in economic conditions are pushed to the wall. That, dear reader, is why this is an issue for socialists. While we definitely have our own ideas about how housing will be distributed under socialism-and it will not look like today’s absurdly inequitable distribution- these people need relief now. Is this a revolutionary demand? Hell, no. Is it a just demand? Hell, yes. STOP THE FORECLOSURES.