Dave B
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….appears not to understand the effect of free or subsidised goods and services on wage levels: that if workers don’t have to pay the full price of something then they don’t need to be paid so much by their employer to recreate their labour power and so their money wage will tend to fall (even if their standard of living won’t). …
This isn’t exactly advanced school stuff.
It is kindergarten E. P Thompson stuff
………In 1834, the Report of the Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws 1832 called the Speenhamland System a “universal system of pauperism”. The system allowed employers, including farmers and the nascent industrialists of the town, to pay below subsistence wages, because the parish would make up the difference and keep their workers alive. So the workers’ low income was unchanged and the poor rate contributors subsidised the farmers…….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speenhamland_system
…Cleaver’s view is that interest is a payment for a service and that it is derived from the surplus value produced by bank workers….
This isn’t a revision; it is outrageous
Not read the review or the book and just read the comment.
Might do a fuller response to cleavers response.
But just on this albeit with its caveat ; ‘automatically’
…..First, the assertion that success in lowering consumer prices or making some goods and services free automatically implies that wages will fall just doesn’t hold water. This assertion ignores how both the value of labor power and the level of wages/income are determined by struggle. ….
There is this little read but great article by Fred on the [anticipated ‘automatic’ ] and realised impact on wages of the reduction in the price of bread after the removal of tariffs etc.
The Wages Theory of the Anti-Corn Law League
by Engels in the Labour Standard 1881
……… And when you pressed the subject further it usually came out that the money rate of wages might even fall while the comforts supplied for this reduced sum of money to the working man would still be superior to what he enjoyed at the time. And if you asked a few more close questions as to the way, how the expected immense extension of trade was to be brought about, you would very soon hear that it was this last contingency upon which they mainly relied: a reduction in the money rate of wages combined with a fall in the price of bread, etc., more than compensating for this fall.
Moreover, there were plenty to be met who did not even try to disguise their opinion that cheap bread was wanted simply to bring down the money rate of wages, and thus knock foreign competition on the head. And that this, in reality, was the end and aim of the bulk of the manufacturers and merchants forming the great body of the League, it was not so very difficult to make out for any one in the habit of dealing with commercial men, and therefore in the habit of not always taking their word for gospel. This is what we said and we repeat it. Of the official doctrine of the League we did not say a word. It was economically a “fallacy”, and practically a mere cloak for interested purposes, though some of the leaders may have repeated it often enough to believe it finally themselves…..
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/07/09.htm.
Before even starting on the value of labour power and wages etc there is a deeper problem as you usually have to have this discussion with people who aren’t scientists and thus can’t understand how to properly approach the problem.
There are simplified ideal theories or models, as in science.
And there is the real empirical world.
You take the model or theory derived from the empirical world that has a logical consistency and defies further simplification.
And use that to go back an analyse the empirical world to obtain a deeper understanding.
In fact the model has to contradict certain aspects or differing aspects of the empirical world otherwise it wouldn’t be a model or theory.
There was very informative article at the link below about the new US ‘colour revolution’ modus operandi for regime change re in this case Venuzuela.
It is a bit post Chomsky military coup thing.
It is good to keep to speed on this stuff if nothing else.
or
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/51001.htm
It is all very well us scoffing, re the Chavez experiments, about it just being different versions the same thing.
But the capitalist class to have good reasons to themselves to be appalled by that kind of thing.
Comparing the Russia-gate election meddling; it is, without hyperbole, quite surreal and post Orwellian.
…Genuine commercial people only exist in the interstices of the ancient world, like the gods of Epicurus or like the Jews in the pores of Polish society…..
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/commodity.htm
Wealth as an end in itself appears only among a few trading peoples — monopolists of the carrying trade — who live in the pores of the ancient world like the Jews in medieval society. Wealth is, on the one hand, a thing, realized in things, in material products as against man as a subject. On the other hand, in its capacity as value, it is the mere right to command other people’s labor, not for the purpose of dominion, but of private enjoyment,
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/precapitalist/ch01.htm
I think Poland became a safe place generally persecuted Jews and other religious minorities in 16th century so there was a lot of emigration to there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Commonwealth
You could make the argument that it was an intelligent economic strategy to pull in ‘skilled’ and “commercial?’ labour and tap into it?
The Jews I think tried to fit in by dressing appropriately eg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolpik
Not exactly indigenous headware for the middle-east.
Along with frock coats and black cowboy hats or wide awake hats.
http://hatguide.co.uk/wideawake-hat/
so they are bit like the Amish in the US?
Post January 16, 2019 at 9:36 am
……….Axelrad also claims that the majority of Jews at the time was petit-bourgeois, which mirrors far right rhetoric around ‘Jewish capitalism’. Other Marxists have attempted to trace Nazi anti-Semitism and 20th Century anti-Semitism more generally to a materialist account of the ways that Jews were restricted to particular professions and forced to migrate in the 19th and 20th Centuries, but Axelrad rather than undertaking this just drops an unsubstantiated claim……….
https://libcom.org/library/auschwitz-big-alibi
I normally avoid this stuff like the plague or jumping into a vat of tripe.
But it is has to be considered that 19th century perspectives on this kind of thing can be a little bit different to modern ones.
It is fairly straightforward on the surface of things; there is another group of people who you hate they could be ‘Jew’s , Slavs, Irish , Catholics, Scouser’s or people from Stalybridge.
[If you come from a middle class background you probably won’t have any understanding of these regional hostilities, and how intense they can be, of people who might live 10miles away- I think they are rarer than they were 30 years ago.]
It is probably best described as xenophobia.
Racism normally involves some believe or concern about ‘traits and characteristics’ that are ‘congenital’.
They can obviously get fused and confused.
I will come to anti-semitism in a bit.
Sometime ago one of scions of my family who originate from Liverpool and were orange lodge protestants had a shot gun wedding with a Irish catholic Mancunian.
There was full blooded fight later on at the reception needless to say.
Thus I think you need to take the congenital racism out of the xenophobia?
And?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
And eg
Kirk Douglas acting in a role as an “ayran?” viking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vikings_(1958_film)
This kind of thing ran into difficulties with the Nazi’s as regards ayran.
And Blue eyed blond ‘Jews’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan
Without going into the nonsense around that; these people are never the sharpest tools in the box.
“………The Nazis used the word “Aryan” to describe people in a racial sense. The Nazi official Alfred Rosenberg believed that the Nordic race was descended from Proto-Aryans, who he believed had prehistorically dwelt on the North German Plain and who had ultimately originated from the lost continent of Atlantis.[35] According to Nazi racial theory, the term “Aryan” described the Germanic peoples.[36] However, a satisfactory definition of “Aryan” remained problematic during Nazi Germany…”
In the 19th century a lot of anti- Judaism was ‘focused’ around opposition to the culture, religion, economic role and loyalty to the national identity; or questionable patriotism towards they country that the so happened to be living in?
Karl for instance was somewhat critical of the ‘Jews’ and said somewhere about how they had tended enter the ‘pores’, was I think the word he used, of late feudal societies as petty merchants and traders.
Although it goes back further than that to Roman times.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_diaspora
It was the diaspora thing that probably led to that; rather than any congenital conditioning.
‘They’ had an international common culture and language which had to some extent a self regulating network and a kind of shared commercial jurisprudence integrated into a religious system.
Which facilitated international merchantile trade.
Actually they were favoured as they could be trusted to stick to a contract, even if it was perhaps a shit one.
And they could thus also drift into money lending.
Buying cheap and selling dear, hoarding in scarcity and inflating prices etc didn’t help make ‘them’ popular.
A bit like the shop-keeper in Zola’s Germinal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germinal_(novel)
And there was stuff in the Making of English Working Class about riots and dispossession against ‘corn factors’ or speculators in ‘corn’ prices.
They would forcibly take it off them in exchange for a reasonable price.
But there is nothing necessarily ‘congenital’ about a series of material accidents of history driving a group into a an un popular economic role, sometimes.
Most of the ‘real’ third generation working class in Western ‘Pale Settlement’ Russia and the RSDP party circa 1905 were secular ‘Jew’s’ eg the Bundists.
Probably driven out of petty mechantalism and artisan work into wage labour.
It wasn’t just the ‘Jew’s’ that got into the business of international finance and merchantilism.
Eg The Knights Templars?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38499883
there was a ‘pogrom’ against them in 1306.
“……Rumours about the Templars’ secret initiation ceremony created distrust, and King Philip IV of France – deeply in debt to the order – took advantage of the situation to gain control over them. In 1307, he had many of the order’s members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and burned at the stake.[13] Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312 under pressure from King Philip……”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar
So you start with economic resentment and then develop some kind of ‘identity politics?’ to justify revenge? or economic liberation? or economic oppression.
The problem can be once these kind of concepts or deceit or whatever is drummed into the heads of the masses eg Nothern Ireland in the 17th century.
It is often harder to take them back out again long after the ruling class have any serious interest in it; or even be opposed to it.
There is also the thing about Fred being against the Slavs.
In fact it was more about a stereotyped notion of Slavic culture, as it was perhaps predominantly, as being the last bastion feudal reactionaries.
Thus he had no problem with the Poles; or even Bakunin.
Presuming they were “Slavs” I am often not up to speed on these things.
“Anti-semitism” was the most significant expression of “racism” in England in the 19th century.
So George Elliot who circulated in radical elements of the time wrote an anti anti-Semitism book.
My interpretation of it was that it putting forward a ‘positive’ sympathetic expression of Jewish culture to counter prejudice.
I choose not to agree with the interpretation that she was endorsing Zionism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Deronda
I didn’t like it that much really and I think you have to be at least a “soft anti-Semite” to find it intriguing?
Although you could say Dickens got into that kind of thing earlier?
After Fagin in Oliver Twist of circa 1840.
Riah;
….I reflected that I was doing dishonour to my ancient faith and race. I reflected – clearly reflected for the first time – that in bending my neck to the yoke I was willing to wear, I bent the unwilling necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not in Christian countries with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say ‘This is a bad Greek but there are good Greeks. This is a bad Turk but there are good Turks.’ Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily enough – among what peoples are the bad not easily found? – but they take the worst of us as samples of the best, they take the lowest of us as presentations of the highest, and they say ‘All Jews are alike…….’
….Mr Riah – is a Jew who manages [English and non Jewish] Mr Fledgeby’s money-lending business. He cares for and assists Lizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren when they have no one else. Some critics believe that Riah was meant by Dickens to act as an apology for his stereotyping of Fagin in Oliver Twist, and in particular a response to Mrs. Eliza Davis. She had written to Dickens complaining that “the portrayal of Fagin did ‘a great wrong’ to all Jews.” However, some still take issue with Riah, asserting that he is “too gentle to be a believable human….
Mr Fledgeby – called Fascination Fledgeby is a friend of the Lammles. He owns Mr Riah’s moneylending business and is greedy and corrupt and makes his money through speculation. He provides a contrast with Mr Riah’s gentleness, and underlines the point that “a Jew may be kindly and a Christian cruel”.
The Kurdish YPG have all female battalions.
There is nothing funny about they would put the fear of god into anyone; I watched a documentary on them.
The ISIS people are absolutely terrified by them as they believe if they get killed by a woman in combat they won’t go to heaven.
Marx’s theory still shines with truth: Xi
Xi said Marxism is a scientific theory that reveals the rule of human society development in a creative manner.
Having developed the materialist conception of history and surplus value theory, Marx showed how humanity would leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom and the road for the people to realize freedom and liberation, Xi said.
Marxism, the first ideology for the liberation of the people themselves, is a theory of the people.
“Marxism, for the first time, explored the path for humanity’s freedom and liberation from the stance of the people, and pointed out the direction, with scientific theory, toward an ideal society with no oppression or exploitation, where every person would enjoy equality and freedom,” Xi said.
Stressing that practicality is a prominent characteristic of Marxism that makes it different from other theories, Xi said Marxism is a theory of practices that directs the people to change the world.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-05/04/c_137156127.htm
I think to untangle the middle east and the Iranian/Saudi thing you have to shed some dogma’s , think the unthinkable, do a bit of history repeating itself with the same characters reappearing in similar costumes, think like an autocratic monarch and the big capitalists and go back to the Iranian revolution of 1979.
And let cynicism look after itself sort of thing.
The Iranian revolution of 1979 was like the Bolshevik revolution of 1917/8 with a similar underlying ideological rhetoric.
Overthrow the Tsar or Shah on behalf of and with the support of the poor masses, nationalisation of industries with a dose of NEP for the petty bourgeoisie.
The fact that it was rooted in anti oppression aspects of the Shia religion rather than Karl’s communist manifesto is neither here nor there.
Thus for example?
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, depicted Iranian society as formed by two antagonistic classes: ‘kookh’neshinan’ (those who live in very poor accommodations) against ‘kakh’neshinan’ (those who live in palaces). He also used Quranic terms: ‘mostazafin’, or the oppressed who had been fighting against ‘mostakbarin’, the oppressors, throughout history.
Khomeini mobilised the masses by defending the barefooted (pa berahne ha) against the rich, the exploiters, the capitalists, the palace dwellers, the corrupt, the high and mighty, and morafahin bi’dard (the wealthy who never care about the pain of the poor).
Khomeini argued that the palace-dwellers always favoured unjust and satanic governments.
As an example, he asserted that they opposed Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] and subverted his message, while the poor rallied behind the Prophet [PBUH] and were ready to give up their lives for the Islamic Revolution.
He also contended that Islam had always found its true strength among the dispossessed masses and the lower class. During the Revolution, Khomeini not only portrayed society as a fight between two antagonistic camps, but also promised to redistribute among the deprived masses the ill-gotten wealth of the rich accumulated during the Shah’s tenure.
[That kind of ideological rhetoric didn’t completely die out 20 years later anymore than it did in Russia eg
Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s address to th UN in 2010?]
The stuff about ‘palace dwellers’ was obviously taken a lot more seriously by the palace dwellers in the gulf states and their friends.
As the general ideology threatened to take on an international or at least Arabian perspective.
The first response was to bring on the fascists.
Not that the fascists were the ideal friends of autocratic monarchs or big capitalism.
Just as in Germany in the 1930’s?
There was a convenient one to hand next door in Iraq with a traditional Persian-phobe ideology to spice things up a bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba%27athism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
As that had its own problems they began to cultivate Wahhabism.
And address the ‘political’ problem with a religious solution by following the idea that the Shia were non believers who needed to be killed or whatever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takfiri
|As a spokesperson for the US deep state described it.
Al-Qaeda and Isis etc grew, bacillus like, on the ‘petri dish’ of Wahhabism.
And wasn’t something that was easy to control.
Anyway?
Erosion” of Wahhabism
Islamic Revolution in Iran
The February 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran challenged Saudi Wahhabism in a number of ways on a number of fronts. It was a revolution of Shia, not Sunni, Islam and Wahhabism held that Shia were not truly Muslims. Nonetheless, its massive popularity in Iran and its overthrow of a pro-American secular monarchy generated enormous enthusiasm among pious Sunni, not just Shia Muslims around the world.[171] Its leader (Ruhollah Khomeini) preached that monarchy was against Islam and America was Islam’s enemy, and called for the overthrow of al-Saud family. (In 1987 public address Khomeini declared that “these vile and ungodly Wahhabis are like daggers which have always pierced the heart of the Muslims from the back”, and announced that Mecca was in the hands of “a band of heretics“.[172] )[173] All this spurred Saudi Arabia – a kingdom allied with America – to “redouble their efforts to counter Iran and spread Wahhabism around the world”, and reversed any moves by Saudi leaders to distance itself from Wahhabism or “soften” its ideology.[174]
Grand Mosque seizure
Main article: Grand Mosque Seizure
In 1979, 400–500 Islamist insurgents, using smuggled weapons and supplies, took over the Grand mosque in Mecca, called for an overthrow of the monarchy, denounced the Wahhabi ulama as royal puppets, and announced the arrival of the Mahdi of “end time“. The insurgents deviated from Wahhabi doctrine in significant details,[175] but were also associated with leading Wahhabi ulama (Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz knew the insurgent’s leader, Juhayman al-Otaybi).[176]
Their seizure of Islam‘s holiest site, the taking hostage of hundreds of hajj pilgrims, and the deaths of hundreds of militants, security forces and hostages caught in crossfire during the two-week-long retaking of the mosque, all shocked the Islamic world[177] and did not enhance the prestige of Al Saud as “custodians” of the mosque.
The incident also damaged the prestige of the Wahhabi establishment. Saudi leadership sought and received Wahhabi fatawa to approve the military removal of the insurgents and after that to execute them,[178] but Wahhabi clerics also fell under suspicion for involvement with the insurgents.[179] In part as a consequence, Sahwa clerics influenced by Brethren’s ideas were given freer rein.
Their ideology was also thought more likely to compete with the recent Islamic revolutionism/third-worldism of the Iranian Revolution.[179]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism#Islamic_Revolution_in_Iran
The situation for the US and the petrodollar military industrial complex is now perilous and now hangs on the political stability of Saudi Arabia.
If the Saudi regime collapses into chaos the US will be in big trouble.
As rather than cutting their loses and Obama style [one fraction of the US ruling class] bringing Iran into the club, they have gone all in against Iran and for the Saudi regime.
To be fair to the Chinese leadership they are after all only continuing to pursue Mao’s 1953 policy.
THE ONLY ROAD FOR THE TRANSFORMATION
OF CAPITALIST INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE[*]September 7, 1953
The transformation of capitalism into socialism is to be accomplished through state capitalism.
- In the last three years or so we have done some work on this, but as we were otherwise occupied, we didn’t exert ourselves enough. From now on we should make a bigger effort.
<ol start=”2″>- With more than three years of experience behind us, we can say with certainty that accomplishing the socialist transformation of private industry and commerce by means of state capitalism is a relatively sound policy and method.
<ol start=”3″>- The policy laid down in Article 31 of the Common Programme should now be clearly understood and concretely applied step by step. “Clearly understood” means that people in positions of leadership at the central and local levels should first of all have the firm conviction that state capitalism is the only road for the transformation of capitalist industry and commerce and for the gradual completion of the transition to socialism. So far this has not been the case either with members of the Communist Party or with democratic personages. The present meeting is being held to achieve that end.
<ol start=”4″>- Make steady progress and avoid being too hasty. It will take at least three to five years to lead the country’s private industry and commerce basically onto the path of state capitalism, so there should be no cause for alarm or uneasiness.
<ol start=”5″>- Joint state-private management; orders placed by the state with private enterprises to process materials or manufacture goods, with the state providing all the raw materials and taking all the finished products; and similarly placed orders, with the state taking not all but most of the finished products — these are the three forms of state capitalism to be adopted in the case of private industry.
<ol start=”6″>- State capitalism can also be applied in the case of private commerce, which cannot possibly be dismissed by “excluding it”. Here our experience is limited and further study is needed.
<ol start=”7″>- With approximately 3,800,000 workers and shop assistants, private industry and commerce are a big asset to the state and play a large part in the nation’s economy and the people’s livelihood. Not only do they provide the state with goods, but they can also accumulate capital and train cadres for the state.
http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/TC53.html
[Although when I presented that to a Maoist on revleft several years ago they speculated that it was a forgery produced later by the gang of four or something.]
But I guess the leadership have at least dropped the workers overalls and haircuts and are now wearing Armani suits.
“…An uproar of voices was coming from the farmhouse. They rushed back and looked through the window again. Yes, a violent quarrel was in progress. There were shoutings, hangings on the table, sharp suspicious glances, furious denials. The source of the trouble appeared to be that Napoleon and Mr Pilkington had each played an ace of spades simultaneously.
Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again: but already it was impossible to say which was which…..”
http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/eaf_go
I suppose it can appear to be a bit strange with them holding onto a Marxist ideology.
I would be a bit like the Ferengi capitalists paying lip service to a religion that said that the rich and those who worshipped money would go to hell.
Jesus, could you imagine that!
“We cannot declare war on everyone at once but we need to be smart in how we play our enemies while still sticking to our values,”
Anarchy in the YPG:
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/revolution-volunteers-form-anarchist-brigade-ypg-1459563614
“…………Yet the Trump administration’s continued support for the YPG is not as entirely baseless as portrayed. The militants’ objectives in the region complement many of those stated by Tillerson and the group has largely shown itself as a willing proxy for the US to aid. But whilst such support may make sense in principle, in practice, the effects could be more detrimental to America than predicted………….”
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180130-what-is-behind-the-us-support-of-the-ypg/
YPG ????
“……….The brigade is composed mostly by communists, socialists and anarchists from Europe……….”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Protection_Units
politically associated with the PKK?
“…..the movement included and cooperated with other ethnic groups, including ethnic Turks, who were following the radical left. The organization initially presented itself as part of the worldwide communist revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party
So it is/was a bit like the US supporting the Vietcong and Sandinista’s this time?
We had a discussion about communist Jesus on this forum with the author of that book ; Roman Montero.
His thesis was JC was plugging the debt forgiveness thing.
After the incorporation of Judea or whatever into the Roman Empire and application of Roman financial law etc.
The Judean peasantry would have periodic cash flow problems and be forced to borrow money.
Eventually getting in over their heads and having the farm foreclosed and being forced into agricultural wage slavery by the new owners of their land.
It looks like Michael Hudson has picked up on it.
Karl included a quote in capital as below;
“Capital is said by a Quarterly Reviewer to fly turbulence and strife, and to be timid, which is very true; but this is very incompletely stating the question. Capital eschews no profit, or very small profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum.
With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent., positive audacity; 100 per cent. will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged……………..”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm#15a
The US depends on the super profits of the Saudi oil industry that get re-circulated via the petro dollar system back into the US economy and subsidises the arms industry with its generous and safe profits.
And Russia and Iran depend on it for foreign exchange revenue.
The sun blocking geo engineering plan was originally a British idea from Bristol university a few years ago I think.
They got attacked for the idea even though they themselves didn’t like the idea for all the expected reasons.
They expected that nothing would be done in time and at least it made sense to have a albeit crappy plan B in place for when things got really dire.
FYI;
Harvard Scientists Are Really Launching a Sun-Blocking Geoengineering Experiment
A proposal to spray particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and lower temperatures is actually getting the green light.
