Dan Little: Coarse-graining of complex systems

Dan Little writes about Coarse-graining of complex systems.

I am not sure whether these debates have relevance for the modeling of social phenomena. Recall my earlier discussion of the modeling of rebellion using agent-based modeling simulations (link, link, link). These models work from the unit level — the level of the individuals who interact with each other. A coarse-graining approach would perhaps replace the individual-level description with a set of groups with homogeneous properties, and then attempt to model the likelihood of an outbreak of rebellion based on the coarse-grained level of description. Would this be feasible?

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Marxists use coarse-graining as a matter of course. We have the ideas of classes with the possibility of dividing those classes into strats.

For example, we divide a Capitalist society into two (2) major classes:

1. Capitalists
2. Workers

There are other classes, but they do not figure in the major dynamic of the class struggle between Capitalists and Workers.

The Capitalist class can be further divided into two (2) major strata:

1. Big Capitalists
2. Small Capitalists

Even though Donald Trump, Mark Cuban, Eric Schmidt, and Bill Gates have wildly different temperments, histories, world-views, and political philosophies, they have enough similarities to be lumped together as Big Capitalists. Here the coarse-graining is concentrating on those attributes that are essential to model the behaviour of a typical Big Capitalist.

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Chris Dillow: On class politics

Chris Dillow writes On class politics.

There is, however, a more intelligent form of class politics. This starts from the fact that class isn’t a state of mind but an objective fact: if you’re in a position of subordination to an employer, you’re working class whatever you feel. This means that being working class unites otherwise disparate people. The immigrant chambermaid, the skilled coder whose boss is a twat, and the academic facing the neoliberalization of the university are all working class.

This means they have some common interests. All would benefit from increased control in the workplace and increased bargaining power.

In this sense, class politics should be a unifying force. And there needn’t be a conflict between class politics in this sense and identity politics, for at least three reasons:

…

Of course, all this is easier said than done. One challenge for the left – which is as great today as in Marx’s time – is to build class consciousness. Politics isn’t just a marketing exercise aimed at getting our person into office. It’s about building a constituency for intelligent class politics. This is a long game.

But let’s remember the underlying fact here. The interests of the working class are, to a fair extent, the interests of most people. In this sense, the working class is not a problem in politics. It’s the solution.

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Thank you, Donald J. Trump, for overthrowing identity politics, and allowing class politics to reappear.

No more, the soothing voice of Barak Obama lulling us into a prison of apathy.

Trump has truly awaken us.

Now what are we going to do with this opportunity?

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Chris Dillow: Ideology in economics

Chris Dillow writes about Ideology in economics.

Now, you might find this surprising. We Marxists are supposed to be spittle-flecked ideologues, and yet here I am demanding facts and utility.

But of course, there’s no paradox at all. As a Marxist, I have no skin in the game of whether the CAPM or efficient theory is right or not: such matters are orthogonal to my concerns qua Marxist. And in fact even if Robert Lucas’s main points were right — that business cycles are an optimum response to technology shocks with little welfare cost — a lot of Marxism would survive. Such claims are consistent with the notion that capitalism is exploitative and alienating and leads to unacceptable inequalities of wealth and power.

It’s sometimes said that Marxism brings ideology into economics. For me, though, it takes it out.

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Dillow is correct to insist that theory fit the facts.

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Ted Rall: Trump’s Fascism Picks Up Where Obama’s Leaves Off

Ted Rall writes that Trump’s Fascism Picks Up Where Obama’s Leaves Off.

Could President Trump deploy drones against American citizens (or non-citizens) on American soil? Yes, he could, says Obama’s attorney general Eric Holder. Obama could have declared that he — and future presidents — did not have that power. Better still, he could have asked Congress to pass a law banning domestic drone killings. Instead, he went golfing.

From what we know of Trump’s likely cabinet appointments, the next few years promise to devolve into a dystopian nightmare of authoritarian repression the likes of which few Americans ever imagined possible. As we head into the maelstrom, it will be tempting to look back fondly upon the Obama years as a period of relative calm and liberalism.

But don’t forget the truth. Fascism under Trump will merely continue Obama’s fascism with a smiley face — a fascism that we let him get away with for far too long.

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Rall is correct to point out that the instruments of State terror have been accumulating for some time. The smiling face of Obama has made them seem quaint.

The election of Trump has awaken some people to the fear that these instruments could be used against them.

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Ted Rall: No, Everything Is Really Not Going To Be Alright

Ted Rall writes that No, Everything Is Really Not Going To Be Alright.

Now add the situation. Imagine 6 or 12 or 18 months from now, when these characters face the inevitable political crisis: terrorist attack. Natural disaster. Economic meltdown. Race riot. Nuclear crisis.

These aren’t personalities predisposed to respond to these challenges with introspection or compromise. Beginning with Trump himself, these are people with a cop mentality who, like a hammer, see everything as a nail to be pounded into submission.

Bear in mind, they’ll be 6 to 12 to 18 months inside the Washington Beltway bubble. Trump’s canny campaign instincts, his intuitive understanding of populist anger that got him elected, will have been dulled by lack of interaction with the public. Moreover, Team Trump will be 6 to 12 to 18 months into an unprecedented period of constant left-wing criticism and street protest. Think Richard Nixon: they’ll be deep inside a bunker mentality.

Everyone in the cabinet room will favor moves to curtail civil liberties: tracking and cracking down on leftists, preventative detentions, new police forces to protect the state and ferret out illegal immigrants and those who hide them, the use of drones to kill Americans on American soil (something Obama said was OK), even more abusive NSA surveillance.

In my book “Trump: A Graphic Biography,” I described the president-elect as “an accidental authoritarian.” He thinks of himself as a patriot, a good man. He hasn’t been planning to lead a plot against America.

Trump’s fascism will come about naturally, caused by the perfect storm of his ego, his CEO mentality, the politics and personalities of the men and women with whom he is surrounding himself, and a set of developments that are all but inevitable.

Canceling the next election? For these characters, it will be an easy call.

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Running any company, one has to be an authoritarian as one has to place Capital over People. Trump's instincts have been honed by his business experience.

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Joan Williams: What So Many People Don't Get About the U.S. Working Class

Scott Adams agrees mostly with what Joan C. Williams reveals about What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class.

For months, the only thing that’s surprised me about Donald Trump is my friends’ astonishment at his success. What’s driving it is the class culture gap.

One little-known element of that gap is that the white working class (WWC) resents professionals but admires the rich. Class migrants (white-collar professionals born to blue-collar families) report that “professional people were generally suspect” and that managers are college kids “who don’t know shit about how to do anything but are full of ideas about how I have to do my job,” said Alfred Lubrano in Limbo. Barbara Ehrenreich recalled in 1990 that her blue-collar dad “could not say the word doctor without the virtual prefix quack. Lawyers were shysters…and professors were without exception phonies.” Annette Lareau found tremendous resentment against teachers, who were perceived as condescending and unhelpful.

Michèle Lamont, in The Dignity of Working Men, also found resentment of professionals — but not of the rich. “[I] can’t knock anyone for succeeding,” a laborer told her. “There’s a lot of people out there who are wealthy and I’m sure they worked darned hard for every cent they have,” chimed in a receiving clerk. Why the difference? For one thing, most blue-collar workers have little direct contact with the rich outside of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. But professionals order them around every day. The dream is not to become upper-middle-class, with its different food, family, and friendship patterns; the dream is to live in your own class milieu, where you feel comfortable — just with more money. “The main thing is to be independent and give your own orders and not have to take them from anybody else,” a machine operator told Lamont. Owning one’s own business — that’s the goal. That’s another part of Trump’s appeal.

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Williams seems to be saying that the WWC wants to be part of the petite-bourgeoisie. She also notes that there is very little contact between the working-class and the Capitalists. Indeed, the hated face of the current system is the professionals who are also part of the petite-bourgeoisie.

Class trumps gender, and it’s driving American politics. Policy makers of both parties — but particularly Democrats if they are to regain their majorities — need to remember five major points.

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Williams lists these points as:

1. Understand That Working Class Means Middle Class, Not Poor
2. Understand Working-Class Resentment of the Poor
3. Understand How Class Divisions Have Translated into Geography
4. If You Want to Connect with White Working-Class Voters, Place Economics at the Center
5. Avoid the Temptation to Write Off Blue-Collar Resentment as Racism

Williams concludes that:

Saying this is so unpopular that I risk making myself a pariah among my friends on the left coast. But the biggest risk today for me and other Americans is continued class cluelessness. If we don’t take steps to bridge the class culture gap, when Trump proves unable to bring steel back to Youngstown, Ohio, the consequences could turn dangerous.

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One of the good things to come out of Trump's victory is demolition of identity politics. In its place, people should cultivate their class consciousness.

Workers have to understand how the Capitalist system works. Their dream of becoming self-directed workers is being crushed by Capitalism, and can only be realised through Communism.

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Ted Rall: Here Comes the Rise of the Anti-Trump Left

Ted Rall writes that Here Comes the Rise of the Anti-Trump Left.

Meanwhile, out in the streets where real political change can happen, I expect to see an anti-Trump resistance incorporating anarchists, veterans of the Occupy Wall Street movement, communists and socialists, radicalized left-wing Democrats, old hippies from the 1960s, Black Lives Matter activists, pro-immigrant people, work together and individually to oppose the radical right policies that we are going to see flying out of Washington over the next few years.

Out on the streets, Trump’s repressive tone will prompt brutal police tactics to which nonviolence will no longer be seen as the only acceptable counteraction. The “peace police” of the wimpy protests of the 1990s and 2000s will go extinct. Nonviolence will retake its rightful place as a noble and desirable tactic, but no longer the exclusive approach to taking on repressive government goons.

Donald Trump will be atrocious for the United States, especially with the Republican House and Senate. He’ll attack immigrants, Latinos, Muslims, victims of police brutality, God knows who else.

But he’ll be good for the Left. And, in the long run, the Left will be great for us.

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Trump might be good for the Left, but he will con those who do not have a grounding in Marxism. He is a Capitalist through and through. In looking out for himself, he is looking out for Capitalism.

The opposition to Trump must be based on principles, not on what we think he said. Trump has undergone a great journey that his own supporters do not comprehend. They think he is still the racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and islamophobic misogynist bigot that they had come to love.

They do not understand that Capitalism uses racism, homophobia, xenophobia, islamophobia, misogynism, and bigotry as tools of social control to divide workers against themselves. These tools are only useful in that they keep society under control, and will be abandoned once they cease to be useful.

I predict that Trump will legalise Gay Marriage in the USA before Australia does. Homophobia is losing its edge as a means of social control.

Even if Capitalism stripped itself of racism, homophobia, xenophobia, islamophobia, misogynism, and bigotry, we would still oppose Capitalism and work to replace it with Socialism, because the underlying social relations in Capitalism prevents people from reaching their full potential as human beings.

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Hanson wants Assange released

Hanson wants Assange released..

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson will petition the Australian and American governments to work on the immediate release of "political prisoner" Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for four years fearing extradition to Sweden then the US.

"I hope that in light of his great service towards freedom and truth, President-elect Donald Trump will consider granting Mr Assange a full presidential pardon," Senator Hanson said in a statement on Thursday.

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I was stunned when I read about this on Twitter. Some of the comments that followed were ignorant in they said that Donald Trump was not the President of Sweden (should be Prime-Minister). They missed the point that Hanson raised: extradition to Sweden would surely be followed by extradition to the USA to suffer the same fate as Chelsea Manning.

This appeal should be extended to:

1. Edward Snowden
2. Chelsea Manning

It is especially important in Manning's case because she is suicidal, and needs to be released from torture.

Even though some of the people who are now campaigning for Assange's pardon are racists, I agree with their reasoning.

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US election: Donald Trump rules out US presidential debate with Bernie Sanders

US election: Donald Trump rules out US presidential debate with Bernie Sanders.

US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has ruled out a one-on-one debate with second-place Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders, killing off a potentially high-ratings television spectacle.

The suggested debate would have sidelined likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton but given Mr Sanders a huge platform ahead of California's June 7 primary.

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Trump is afraid of Sanders because a debate would show Sanders to be a compelling candidate against him. Sanders is able to articulate policy positions that align with the values of the American voters without being condescending. His ordinariness would contrast strongly with Trump's garishness.

If this debate ran before the California and New Jersey primaries, Democratic voters would probably vote for Sanders over Hillary Clinton. This might even give Sanders a majority in the pledged delegates.

With a majority or close count in pledged delegates, the super-delegates would come under great pressure to choose Sanders. Clinton may still win the Democratic Party nomination because she has managed to give the sanction of the Democratic Party machine from whom the super-delegates are chosen.

If that were the case, then Trump would benefit from the perceived corruption of the Democratic Party nomination process, and may even attract sufficient Sanders supporters to win the Presidental Election.

Agreeing to this debate would be a high-risk strategy for Trump, as:

• Sanders has to be convincing enough for voters in the remaining primaries to vote for him over Clinton;
• Sanders has to be damaged enough by Trump so that the super-delegates choose Clinton over him;
• Sanders' supporters have to remain upset enough to vote for Trump over Clinton.

There are too many moving parts for this to work for Trump successfully.

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Eric Blanc: Party, class, and Marxism: Did Kautsky advocate 'Leninism'?

Eric Blanc discusses Party, class, and Marxism: Did Kautsky advocate 'Leninism'?.

Experience over the past decades would seem to demonstrate that while non-Marxist broad parties cannot effectively transcend capitalism, projects of building Marxist parties will likely flounder if they are divorced from wider efforts to promote a mass political representation of and for the working-class majority. Socialists today might do well to rediscover Kautsky’s forgotten 1909 contribution and to reconsider its strategic conclusion:

It is not a question as to whether we prefer a small resolute Social-Democratic Party to a big class party with no definite programme … A Socialist organisation of the S.D.P. type is as insufficient by itself as the Labour Party. We must encourage both.

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This would mean that the Socialist Alliance should continue with other parties like the Greens and with groups within the Australian Labour Party on common issues like Workers' Rights, defending Trade Unions, Refugees, Environmental Issues, etc.

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Salar Mohandesi: The Afterbern: How Bernie Sanders has changed the US and what we do now

Salar Mohandesi writes about The Afterbern: How Bernie Sanders has changed the US and what we do now.

What we have emerging, then, is a new, diverse cohort of predominantly young people, the majority of whom belong to the working class or a collapsing “middle class,” now open to socialist ideas, clamoring for systematic change, and who are increasingly networked, trained, and experienced in organizing. The vast majority of these people are, like Bernie, not socialists in any specific historical sense, but they are willing to fight for major changes. The potential here is enormous, and for this, we have to thank the Sanders campaign, whether or not we like Bernie’s social democratic politics.

The major question, of course, is what happens next. It’s very possible that these young, politicized Sanders supporters will be incorporated into the Democratic Party. If Bernie wins the nomination, the risks are enormous. But even if he doesn’t, which seems far more likely now, he may produce the same effect if he throws his weight behind Clinton at the Convention in July. Or possibly, if Hillary emerges victorious, she may tap someone like Elizabeth Warren to serve as Vice President as part of some calculated strategy to win over Bernie’s supporters. It is also safe to assume that the Democratic Party will itself try to make the most of this opportunity by organizing many of these young people into its ranks. All this highlights the great contradiction of Bernie’s campaign: he would not have reached — and radicalized — such a vast audience if he did not run as a Democrat, but in working within the Democratic Party, he has potentially wedded this new audience to perhaps the greatest counter-revolutionary force in the United States.

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This is normal for the start of a revolutionary process. People want to fix the system from within. When this fails, then they either choose despair or radicalization.

It is significant that people are still relatively radical after seven (7) of Obama's inertia. The desire for change generated by George W Bush was channelled by Barak Obama into a safe Democratic presidency. Obama was successful in limiting the damage from the radical demands of the people.

Our chances for such a qualitative leap are more propitious than they have been in decades. The established political configuration in the United States hasn’t been this vulnerable since the 1970s. The Republican Party is undergoing a profound structural transformation, and Trump’s impending nomination has provoked defections and a potential mutiny. The Democratic Party is being pulled in two directions and may be headed for a contested convention. Record numbers of Americans are leaving both parties ­— 43% now identify as Independents, as opposed to 30% as Democrats and only 26% as Republican. Across the board tens of millions of Americans are rejecting “establishment politics,” turning to either Trump or Sanders.

We should also be encouraged by the fact that many of these newly radicalized Sanders supporters may already be prepared to break with the logic of the political system — according to one poll, for instance, one third of Sanders supporters say they won’t vote for Clinton in the general election. But without a viable alternative in the form of an organizational presence, we won’t be able to transform this inchoate #BernieOrBust sentiment into revolutionary politics. And if, against all odds, Sanders wins, it is very likely that only a unified, alternative organization embedded in today’s many ongoing struggles can prevent radicalized Sanders supporters from integrating into a fundamentally unreformable Democratic Party. In short, we need an organization to fuse together the millions of enthusiastic people who may otherwise disperse or find themselves subsumed and then disorganized by the state apparatuses.

With such exceptionally high stakes, the far left, usually so minuscule and ineffectual in this country, needs to devise a shared, coherent organizational strategy. Now, more than ever, we need an organization to continue radicalizing newer generations, keep people engaged in contemporary struggles, unite disparate movements, articulate different sectors of the working class, preserve continuity between waves of struggles, fashion a common project, and, above all, seize power — by which I do not mean simply winning a couple seats in Congress as some purely electoral party, but overthrowing capitalism through a mass revolutionary upheaval that unfolds both against and within the state apparatuses. There hasn’t been this much interest in radical change, nor this much anger against capitalism in the United States since the 1970s. If we, as committed socialists, miss this moment, the future will never forgive us.

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Co-option by the Democratic Party has been successfully used in the past to defuse radicals. Will it work in future?

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Jim Casey: Thanks Daily Telegraph, I welcome a debate about the overthrow of capitalism

Jim Casey writes “Thanks Daily Telegraph, I welcome a debate about the overthrow of capitalism”.

As a union leader used to speaking shorthand to comrades, I framed capitalism as an idea that could be overthrown. On reflection, it is something that is more likely to collapse under its own weight — we cannot adhere to a belief that is so obviously unable to make the transition into the future that awaits many of us and all of our children.

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This is a dangerous attitude to have—the collapse of Capitalism would be catastrophic. There would be mass starvation, mass migrations, genocide, reversion to a much more primitive economic system that Socialists called Barbarism.

We cannot simply wait for Capitalism to collapse. We must prepare an alternative economic and associated political system in order to save humanity from disaster.

This is not about a gotcha moment for Rupert Murdoch, it’s about having a national conversation about the kind of economic system we think will work in the challenging times ahead.

Economic policy is developed by communities and national conversations, not individuals or the most powerful elites.

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Casey is being too bland here. Yes, we need a discussion, but about a new economic and political system.

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Doug Enaa Greene: The rise of Marxism in France

Doug Enaa Greene describes The rise of Marxism in France.

Engels recognized the danger of a Boulangist dictatorship as spelling the end not only to the socialist movement in France, but the Third Republic itself. For him, the question was not just how to analyze Boulangism, but how to fight it.

Engels was enraged at the passivity of the POF, writing of the general's ties to royalists and that his threat of war would be used to kill off the workers' movement. Engels warned the socialists not to let their hatred of the radicals and the Republic blind them to the threat of dictatorship.

You will get him all the same, the good Boulanger whom you crave, and the Socialists will be his first victims. For a First Consul has got to be impartial and, for every time he lets the blood of the Stock Exchange, he will place another curb on the proletariat, if only to even things out.[39]

Engels told the workers that the defense of democracy was vital, so vital in fact, that its defense could not be left to the bourgeoisie. Rather the preservation of democratic freedoms needed to be led by the socialists, utilizing revolutionary means.

However, Engels' castigated Lafargue's tailing of Boulanger, warning that it was not the job of socialists to just go along with the tide, even if it appeared momentarily popular, stating that such a course was bankrupt. Rather, socialists needed to take a long-term view and not just follow whatever was popular:

But if we are not to go against the popular current of momentary tomfoolery, what in the name of the devil is our business?[40]

MWhat Engels stressed to Lafargue and Guesde was that the options before them were not simply between the Opportunists and Boulanger, but that there was a third option of independent political action by the working class. He urged the socialists to put up their own candidates, opposed to those of both camps. When the Marxists put up their own candidate in Paris in 1889, Engels hailed it as “at least one step in the right direction by proclaiming the necessity of an independent socialist candidature.”[41] As Engels, reminded Lafargue, “For the past twenty years we have been advocating the formation of a Party that was distinct from and opposed to all bourgeois parties.”[42]

What Engels advocated to the POF, was not renouncing the fight against Boulanger or seeing it as just another inter-bourgeois affair, but that the working class needed to protect democratic freedoms with their own revolutionary means, as opposed to relying on the good graces of the ruling class or the ballot box. And in order to defeat reaction, the working class needs their own flag in the field — an independent political party with its own revolutionary agenda.

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Engels' critique of the POF (French Workers' Party) proved to right as later events revealed:

By the early 1890s, the POF had its first electoral breakthroughs, winning control of several municipal governments and electing Guesde and Lafargue to the Chamber of Deputies. The socialists seemed poised for greater gains in wake of the Panama Corruption scandal, which exposed the underlying bourgeois nature of the Third Republic. However, the POF suffered a serious setback by remaining aloof from the Dreyfus Affair. Guesde believed that the Dreyfus Affair, similar to the Boulanger Crisis, was a feud between two bourgeois factions in which workers had no stake. This time, their neutrality backfired as it became clear that reactionaries, conservatives and royalists were threatening to overthrow the Republic itself. Reformist socialists, such as the great orator Jean Jaures, thus stepped into the breach and rallied to the defense the Republic. Many Guesdists abandoned the movement's neutrality in order to collaborate with bourgeois republicans and reformists in a pact of “Republican Defense“ to defeat reaction.

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As revolutionaries, we can stand aloof from the democratic struggle. Politics is in both the mass movements and the electoral process.

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Links Magazine: Thinking and voting outside the two-party box: Interview with US Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein

Thinking and voting outside the two-party box: Interview with US Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein.

We say that not only do we have to bring the revolution to our workplaces, our schools and our streets, but we have to amplify that power in the context of the elections. The elections should not be allowed to silence what's really happening in the struggles that our frontline communities are leading.

Elections need to be used as a megaphone for the struggles for social, climate and racial justice. That's how we've defined the purpose of our campaign from the very start.

At the end of the day, the real engines of change are the social movements, but it's critical that they fight for power in the electoral arena, because that's where you can concretize change.

Just look at the labor movement in the first half of the 20th century. Not only was it alive and well in the streets and in workplaces, but it expressed itself in the voting booth with the Socialist and Communist Parties, and with the Farmer-Labor Parties and the Progressives and Populists. It really fought the battle on all fronts.

In fact, one can argue that the day the labor movement gave up its own political voice—by joining the Democratic Party as part of a New Deal coalition—was the day real progress ended. The third parties lost their agenda and identity inside the Democratic Party, and social and economic justice has been backsliding ever since.

Third parties are not only legitimate, they are absolutely necessary, because they, along with social movements on the ground, create the conditions for real change. So now is the time to gather our courage and stand up—just like the workers at Verizon, the students on the campuses, and the young people in Black Lives Matter.

Now is the time to bring that kind of courage into the voting booth—to forget the lesser evil and fight for the greater good.

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Political parties should be the voice of the social movements. Social movements are not beholden to political parties.

It is the duty of revolutionary parties to gather and preserve the experiences of mass movements so that they can educate future generations of revolutionaries. It is also the responsibility of these parties manage the dialetic between Marxist theory and revolutionary practice arising from these movements.

For an alternative in the coming Australian elections, vote Socialist Alliance.

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Chris Dillow: The errors of the oppressed

Chris Dillow explores The errors of the oppressed.

It is of course true that one of the great problems for Marxism has been that the working class has not developed the class consciousness that Marx hoped for. But why should other oppressed groups fare any better?

Now, this is NOT to say that such groups should not be heard and should instead be represented by wiser heads such as um, well white male PPE graduates. For one thing, the more privileged have weaker incentives to fight inequality. And for another, they/we too are also prone to cognitive biases: one of the sillier if unintended implications of the “nudge” agenda has been the idea that rulers are free of cognitive error.

Instead, we much distinguish sharply between two questions: “what do you think?” and “what do you know?” It’s the latter that matters. For example, the everyday sexism project has awakened me to the troubles that women face far more than windy feminist theory has done.

Which brings me to the problem. The institutions that might give voice to the lives of the most oppressed — the poor both here and globally; women and gays in backward communities and so on — are to say the least under-developed. One of the symptoms of genuine oppression is that one’s voice is not heard. When this absence is combined with the lack of mechanisms to counter false consciousness, it is small wonder that injustice is perpetuated.

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This is why an alternative media, such as Green Left Weekly, is so important as it allows the voices of the oppressed to be heard.

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Dick Nichols: Greece: vulture creditors jostling for their next feed

Dick Nichols writes that vulture creditors jostling for their next feed in Greece.

The strategy is to increase the pain that the SYRIZA-led government has to inflict on its support base as the price of getting each new tranche of desperately needed funding: in this way, the government will hopefully become so unpopular that the conservative New Democracy can defeat it at the next election, which could be brought on early by the refusal of some SYRIZA MPs to support the next wave of austerity measures.

At the same time the idea of a radical left alternative can be discredited across Europe, especially with a view to undermining the position of anti-austerity forces in the repeat Spanish election due for June 26. If Germany and the IMF reject Tsakalotos' alternative to the creditors' “contingent” cuts package — the commitment to meet deficit targets in case of shortfall but with flexibility for the Greek government to decide how — it will be clear confirmation of their intention to remove SYRIZA from government as soon as politically practicable.

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The brutality imposed on the Greek people is a warning to everyone else that change is not possible within the Capitalist system.

Nonetheless, only six months after its September election win and despite its best efforts, SYRIZA's message looks to be wearing thin. In a context of ongoing social revolt voices expressing concern at growing popular alienation with the government are more and more heard within the radical coalition.

On April 15, according to the Macropolis web site, the “movement of 53”, the most left-leaning of the groupings within SYRIZA and with 11 MPs including Tsakalotos, issued a statement which said that, while SYRIZA had been able to argue convincingly enough at the September poll that it had been forced into signing the third bailout, the memorandum was now increasingly seen as the left coalition’s own program rather than one imposed by Greece’s creditors. The group also criticised slow progress in implementing the parallel program and stressed that much more was needed to maintain the belief of SYRIZA's supporters.

Most tellingly, it said that it disagreed with the opinion of the Tsipras leadership that SYRIZA should try to stay in government at all costs, stating that the government should “fall heroically resisting the internal or external troika rather than humiliatingly at the hands of [Greek] society itself.”

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This is the main problem of a reformist program—all of your efforts are tied to working within the Capitalist system while having minimal power. People should see that the attainment of government power does not lead to a better world. The Capitalists would not allow this.

The conclusion is:

What factors, then, would possibly prevent the German-IMF position from prevailing in the negotiations? As always, the creditors must calculate what the political price of that hard line might be. It might:

• Deepen the struggle of resistance inside Greece, strengthening forces to the left of SYRIZA and complicating the job of installing a more reliable New Democracy-centred administration;
• Revive the spectre of Grexit and of euro instability at a time when the European establishment is committed to avoiding Brexit;
• Provide another example of the brutality of the European Union powers-that-be that would become a factor in the June 26 Spanish election, at which it is not excluded that alliances of Podemos, the United Left and various left nationalist formations could overtake the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), setting it down the road to PASOK-like irrelevance; and
• Even help produce a left-wing government in the Spanish state after June 26, shifting the balance of forces on a European scale and potentially turning debt cancellation from a nice idea into a definite possibility.

All of that adds to Greece's narrow room to manoeuvre against its creditors. Given that, will the SYRIZA-led government resist or succumb to their aggression?

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I agree that only a widening of the left-wing revolt throughout Europe can give relief to the suffering of the Greek people. When the Capitalists see people revolting against their brutality, they begin to consider concessions in order to allow passions to cool.

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Michael Klare: The Coming World of "Peak Oil Demand," Not "Peak Oil"

Michael Klare writes that The Coming World of "Peak Oil Demand," Not "Peak Oil".

At the beginning of this century, many energy analysts were convinced that we were at the edge of the arrival of “peak oil”; a peak, that is, in the output of petroleum in which planetary reserves would be exhausted long before the demand for oil disappeared, triggering a global economic crisis. As a result of advances in drilling technology, however, the supply of oil has continued to grow, while demand has unexpectedly begun to stall.  This can be traced both to slowing economic growth globally and to an accelerating “green revolution” in which the planet will be transitioning to non-carbon fuel sources. With most nations now committed to measures aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases under the just-signed Paris climate accord, the demand for oil is likely to experience significant declines in the years ahead. In other words, global oil demand will peak long before supplies begin to run low, creating a monumental challenge for the oil-producing countries.

This is no theoretical construct.  It’s reality itself.  Net consumption of oil in the advanced industrialized nations has already dropped from 50 million barrels per day in 2005 to 45 million barrels in 2014. Further declines are in store as strict fuel efficiency standards for the production of new vehicles and other climate-related measures take effect, the price of solar and wind power continues to fall, and other alternative energy sources come on line. While the demand for oil does continue to rise in the developing world, even there it’s not climbing at rates previously taken for granted. With such countries also beginning to impose tougher constraints on carbon emissions, global consumption is expected to reach a peak and begin an inexorable decline. According to experts Thijs Van de Graaf and Aviel Verbruggen, overall world peak demand could be reached as early as 2020.

In such a world, high-cost oil producers will be driven out of the market and the advantage — such as it is — will lie with the lowest-cost ones. Countries that depend on petroleum exports for a large share of their revenues will come under increasing pressure to move away from excessive reliance on oil. This may have been another consideration in the Saudi decision at Doha. In the months leading up to the April meeting, senior Saudi officials dropped hints that they were beginning to plan for a post-petroleum era and that Deputy Crown Prince bin Salman would play a key role in overseeing the transition.

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Overall, this is relatively good news for the environment as less oil consumption means less carbon-dioxide emissions. However, the amount of carbon-dioxide is still far too high to stop the onrush of global warning.

On the geopolitical front, this drop in oil consumption is bad news for the Venezuelan Revolution as there is not enough money to pay for the needed social reforms. This will sharpen the class conflicts there as the wealthy can no longer be tolerated in a contracting economy. The wealthy are banking on the myth that they are better managers of the contracting economy in order to seize power back from the revolution.

In the USA, this oncoming peak in oil demand means the end of the shale oil goldrush and the decline in fracking. Both of these were extremely bad for the environment. Yet, the political establishment was wedded to the idea of energy independence. Ideology is going to collide with reality over this.

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Peter Dorman: The Lesson of Carrier: America Needs a Real Socialist Agenda

Peter Dorman writes that The Lesson of Carrier: America Needs a Real Socialist Agenda.

To put it in a nutshell, the actions of Carrier and the rest of corporate America reflect a system in which investors come first, and the primary goal of business is to maximize profits. We need a system in which investors are just one of many constituencies, and the financial goal is to maximize the probability of remaining profitable over an extended time horizon. Profit has to become a means, not an end.

The socialist agenda, as I understand it, is about the many reforms that move us closer to such a world. It includes worker participation in corporate governance, but also representation of other community interests. It can include measures to broaden ownership, including a role for public and social ownership vehicles along with private ones. Financial reform also has a large contribution to make, especially if it expands the role of public and cooperative banking. Consideration should also be given to measures that would alter the incentives to issue preferred rather than common stock or otherwise attenuate the connection between ownership and control—in other words, perform a Reverse Jensen.

And this is just the beginning: once you start thinking about it, you can see the agenda is enormous, especially because it’s been in mothballs for generations. I wish there were a socialist running for president right now.

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Dorman is not yet appreciating the political context (Marxism) in which his observations arise. It is almost like Marxism has faded into the background and yet informs all political and economic commentary. This would be a shock to the Ideological State Appartuses (ISA) who have been actively suppressing Marxism for over 150 years.

Dorman's observations need to extended with a class analysis to explain why these actions make sense to Capitalists, and why the proposed remedies make sense to workers.

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Chris Dillow: Hillsborough: the class context

Chris Dillow writes about Hillsborough: the class context.

In all these cases, the police were brutal enforcers of this class-based hatred — and unlawfully so. After the battle of Stonehenge in 1985 Wiltshire Police were found guilty of ABH, false imprisonment and wrongful arrest. And after Orgreave South Yorkshire Police — them again — paid £500,000 compensation for assault, unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution. As James Doran says:

The British state is not a neutral body which enforces the rule of law — it is a set of social relations which uphold the rule of the capital. Law is a matter of struggle — ordinary people are automatically subject to the discipline of the repressive apparatus of the state.

All this poses a question. Have things really changed? Of course, the police and Tories have much better PR than they did then. But is it really a coincidence that the police still turn up mob-handed to demos whilst giving a free ride to corporate crime and asset stripping? When the cameras are off and they are behind closed doors, do the police and Tories retain a vestige of their 1980s attitudes? When Alan Duncan spoke of those who aren’t rich as “low achievers”, was that a minority view, or a reminder that the Tories haven’t really abandoned their class hatred?  

Many younger lefties might have abandoned class in favour of the politics of micro-identities.  For those of us shaped by the 80s, however, class matters. And I suspect this is as true for the Tories as it is for me.

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Despite the efforts of the Ideological State Appartuses (such as Universities) to convince us that identity is important, I agree with Dillow that we should focus on class as the battleground for ideas in our struggle against Capitalism.

Even Clinton's campaign is part of this distraction away from class and concentrating on her identity as a woman. This is why the continuation of the Sanders' campaign is so important — it pushes class warfare to the forefront of politics.

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Tom Engelhardt: Has The American Age of Decline Begun?

Tom Engelhardt asks Has The American Age of Decline Begun?.

And yet in recent years it has become a commonplace of Republicans and Democrats alike. In other words, as the country has become politically shakier, the rhetoric about its greatness has only escalated in an American version of “the lady doth protest too much.” Such descriptors have become the political equivalent of litmus tests: you couldn’t be president or much of anything else without eternally testifying to your unwavering belief in American greatness.

This, of course, is the line that Trump crossed in a curiously unnoticed fashion in this election campaign. He did so by initially upping the rhetorical ante, adding that exclamation point (which even Reagan avoided). Yet in the process of being more patriotically correct than thou, he somehow also waded straight into American decline so bluntly that his own audience could hardly miss it (even if his critics did).

Think of it as an irony, if you wish, but the ultimate American narcissist, in promoting his own rise, has also openly promoted a version of decline and fall to striking numbers of Americans. For his followers, a major political figure has quit with the defensive BS and started saying it the way it is.

Of course, don’t furl the flag or shut down those offshore accounts or start writing the complete history of American decline quite yet. After all, the United States still looms “lone” on an ever more chaotic planet. Its wealth remains stunning, its economic clout something to behold, its tycoons the envy of the Earth, and its military beyond compare when it comes to how much and how destructively, even if not how successfully. Still, make no mistake about it, Donald Trump is a harbinger, however bizarre, of a new American century in which this country will indeed no longer be (with a bow to Muhammad Ali) "the Greatest" or, for all but a shrinking crew, exceptional.

So mark your calendars: 2016 is the official year the U.S. first went public as a declinist power and for that you can thank Donald — or rather Donald! — Trump.

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A great power in decline is dangerous. This has been evident for the past fifteen (15) years. Irrational wars have been commonplace. Disregard for international law is rampant.

The more the USA flails around, the quicker it sinks. The faster it sinks, the more urgent the need to demonstrate power.

Whomever is elected president will face the same pressures to demonstrate US power and relevance to the world. The danger lies not in who is elected, but in the failure of the US political and economic system.

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Sanders' Presidemcy Would be a Disaster

I think that a Sanders' presidency would be a disaster for the Left.

The primary reason for this opinion is that the American civil service is politicized in that the top positions are vacated on the election of a new president and filled by appointment and confirmation by the Senate.

Unfortunately for the American, there is a severe lack of suitable candidates to fill this positions with sufficient competency.

Were Sanders to become US President, filling this patronage positions would be very problematic and fraught with ideological intrigue. Trump would have the same, but not to the same extent as there are far Capitalists than Socialists among the upper echelons of the technocracy. Clinton would have the easiest task of filling this positions because of her deep and wide connections throughout the establishment.

Even if Sanders were to find sufficient competent people to fill this positions, he would suffer the same fate as SYRIZA when it tried to implement a Socialist agenda in a Capitalist society.

Power in a Capitalist society does not reside in the State. This is the mistake that killed Allende back in 1973 in Chile.

Power in a Capitalist revolves around control of the means of production. This is where the Venezuelan Revolution is stalled. The State is supposed to serve the Capitalists, not the other way around.

An electoral victory for Sanders would lead to disillusionment among his supporters as happened in Greece and in Venezuela. It is this despair that drains the life out of the Left.

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Seth Godin: The tidal wave is overrated

Seth Godin writes that The tidal wave is overrated .

We can definitely spend time worrying about/building the tsunami, but it's the drip, drip, drip that will change everything in the long run.

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We have had several potential tsunamis in recent years:

1. Anti-globalization protests from 1999-2001
2. Largest anti-war protest in history in 2003
3. The Occupy Movement from 2011-2012

But Godin is correct in saying that the steady building up of movements and training of cadre is far important than hoping for the next political and social tsunami to occur. Waiting for the general strike is the primary weakness of the Anarchist position.

As Mickey Z once said, "Building a social revolution is marathon rather than a sprint". We should pace ourselves accordingly.

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Nina Leger: France: With Nuit debout, a new mass movement rises

Nina Leger reviews recent events in France: With Nuit debout, a new mass movement rises.

How do we create a democratic space that would involve as many people as possible?

It is important to highlight that things have never been that easy on the technical front. Citizens who are competent in the field are currently trying to create digital tools in order to extend the debate online. A few have already been set up.

In the square, people are talking about how to bring these discussion spaces together. We can also be certain that Nuit debout has a lot to teach us on this subject.

How do we create a democratic space that would involve as many people as possible in its tangible construction as well as its actions and decisions? This is the question that needs to be answered.

Admittedly, not being able to see past structural issues can seem like an obstacle. But beside the fact that this issue is not unusual for a mobilisation that has lasted only two weeks, this question can actually be seen as preliminary to all others that follow. The content of discussions will depend on the importance given to each and every one of us, and creating a framework together is the only way to ensure the greatest possible involvement.

This new, horizontal way of debating and taking action and the coming together of thousands of people to think collectively is something worth learning from as much as it is worth participating in.

Because this is where we belong; because these goals are the reasons why we decided to become involved politically; because we are fighting precisely in order to give a voice and power back to the people — and, lest we forget, we too are the people.

That is the reason why we can say “us” when we talk about the citizens gathered on the square, and we will not be able to reinvent the world without this plural “we”, which encompasses a large group of diverse and creative individuals.

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Nuit Debout is a worthy successor to the Occupy Movement. It has taken some important lessons from the latter:

• Horizontal decision-making — still a work-in-progress
• General assembly
• Occupation of public places — although more as a guerrilla tactic

Leger also makes a very important point that activists should involve themselves in such movements in order to learn over that of preaching. Lenin was continually interested in knowing the mind of the people as accurately as possible in a timely manner. Without this, the 1917 Revolution would have failed.

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Dan Little: Large structures and social change

Dan Little examines the relationship between Large structures and social change.

The core they identify has to do with the "ways in which multiple relations of domination, subordination and exploitation intersect with and reproduce each other".

From this perspective we argue that capitalism is best understood as a set of configurations, assemblages, or bundles of social relations and processes oriented around the systematic reproduction of the capital relation. (8-9)

Robert Brenner's treatment of the emergence of English capitalism is particularly instructive (link). (Anievas and Nişancıoğlu offer considerable criticism of Brenner's approach.) In two important articles in the 1970s and 1980s Brenner cast doubt on the classic Marxian derivation of capitalism from feudalism; he argued that it was precisely differences in feudal regimes that accounted for the different trajectories taken by English and French capitalism. Ironically, the social power held by French peasants impeded the emergence of managerial farming, which was itself an important step on the way to industrial revolution. As a consequence the proletarianization of English peasants proceeded much more rapidly than French society.

There is an important historiographical issue here that is illustrated in these works by Dobb, Anievas and Nişancıoğlu, and Brenner: to what extent is it feasible to look for large macro-processes and transitions in history? Should we expect large social and economic factors writing out social change? Or is history more contingent and more multi-pathed than that? My own view is that the latter approach is correct (link). Neither technology (link) nor population (link) nor class conflict (link) suffices to explain large historical change. Rather, large structures and small innovations add up to contingent and variable pathways of historical development. We've gotten past the "agent-structure" debate; but perhaps we still have the "large factor, small factor" debate standing in front of us (link). And the solution may be the same: both large structures and contingent local arrangements are involved in the development of new social systems.

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I am somewhat confused by Little's argument. It is quite possibly my ignorance that is standing in the way of enlightenment.

My understanding is that classes are indeed large-scale structures. Class is an abstraction that encapsulates how people view the world in similar ways. The existence of a Capitalist class does not mean that every Capitalist is identical. There is sufficient similarity of world-views among Capitalists for such an abstraction to be useful.

This similarity of world-views forms the Capitalist class consciousness. That is, when Capitalists talk to each other, they can rely on shared assumptions about the world, and on shared interests in the world.

This does not mean that they are all united in action. There are serious differences about what actions to take in order to defend their shared class interests.

These differences arise out of the historical trajectory of a particular subgroup of Capitalists. Capitalists in Sweden are more open to higher taxation than those in the USA or UK. The primary reason is to do with historical experiences and the lessons learnt from those experiences.

I think Little misrepresents Marxism as being formulaic. It is not difficult to understand that there are many Socialist and Communist parties that think in that way.

Marxism is about placing the class struggle at the centre of history. In doing so, one must look for classes and understand why there is a struggle between them. This struggle is informed by history and creates history. And the struggle in centred around the mode of production and where the classes fit into the mode of production.

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Chris Dillow: Why not full employment?

Chris Dillow asks Why not full employment?.

And, they say — channeling Kalecki:

Guaranteed employment does not conform to the dominant ideology of capitalist societies which is generally internalized by practically everyone in the society, including workers.

This ideology, they say, manifests itself in several ways hostile to full employment policies. For example, the unemployed are blamed for their plight; governments are deemed to incompetent to implement proper macro policies or a jobs guarantee; and there’s a fear that union militancy will price workers out of jobs. In this sense, the lack of demand for full employment policies is another manifestation of the political dominance of the 1%. As Steven Lukes wrote:

Is it not the supreme and most insidious use of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable? (Power: a radical view)

All this raises a thought. Could it be that the main obstacle to full employment policies is not so much one of technical economics so much as ideology and politics?

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I agree that the consciousness of the working class is utterly dominated by the Capitalists. This has impeded the development of SYRIZA, the Occupy Movement, and unions as they try to reform the system. There comes a point when their demands threaten the system. At that point, most people want to preserve the system rather than overthrow because they reasonably see chaos in the collapse. They have no faith in any alternatives.

The examination and publicity of alternatives, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Rojava (Kurdistan), are important. When people see alternatives existing and surviving against enormous odds, they can see options for themselves.

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Ruken Isik: Women struggle for a new society in Rojava

Ruken Isik writes about Women struggle for a new society in Rojava.

The idea of democratic autonomy is directly opposed to the ideology of the nation-state, which in the Middle East is tightly bound to ideas of cultural and ethnic homogeneity. The new system in Rojava is more of a multicultural, multilingual, and multireligious system that is designed to “allow the legal participation of individuals who will be able to mobilise and organise along the lines of ethnicity, religion, gender, class.”

It is a system of self-governance that rejects the model of centralised administration. This is also the model of self-rule advocated by the Kurdish movement across the border in Turkey. Women in Rojava believe that this system can and does enable them to organise, and to participate in all decision-making processes.

…

The West always presents itself as deeply invested in bringing change and democracy to the Middle East. Yet the Kurds, together with the other ethnic groups now administering themselves for a better future, have been historically and continue to be ignored by the international community, which has turned a blind eye to the Kurds in general and to Kurdish women in particular.

As they work to build a society grounded in a systemic commitment to gender equity, the women in Rojava want to be in dialogue with international women's organisations and share their experiences.

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It is in the obscure parts of the world that the real social revolution is occurring.

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Opinion on Bernie Sanders after New York

After Bernie Sanders' defeat in the New York Democratic primary, I think it is necessary for the Sanders campaign to continue even though the pundits see it as a waste of time.

Peter Boyle interviews Australians supporting Bernie Sanders:

Dührsen was was a bit down about Clinton's unfair victory in the NY state primaries on the day we met up but he was determined to keep campaigning hard, especially to mobilise people who wouldn't otherwise even vote in the US presidential campaign.

If Sanders' campaign is defeated by the powerful establishment in the US, Dührsen is certain that this will not be the end of it: "Walls have been broken. Firstly, substantial numbers of Americans have voted for a man who is an open socialist. Second, the campaign has been able to self-fund through crowdfunding by ordinary people. At the very least he will be an inspiration to people all around the world because he has shown that this can be done."

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James Schneider describes How Bernie Sanders can harness the kind of momentum transforming British politics.

Whatever happens, build on the thing that reduces the structural power gap between you and the real enemy, which isn’t the Clintonite, plutocratic wing of the Democrats. For Sanders, that’s the ability to have half-a-million people who are doing some kind of activism weekly, a highly decentralized ability to raise money, etc. Whether he wins the nomination or not, the campaign needs to clearly articulate the political strategy of this movement. And then, of course, figure out how people in the movement can then engage with the strategy and try to change it.

Another thing is that you’ve got to decide what the relationship is to the Democratic Party, in a variety of ways. If you’ve got half a million people you are the biggest movement of people being active. But how do you engage with all the other movements that are transforming the country? How does the Sanders movement relate to Black Lives Matter? Who does it relate to in the Fight for $15?

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Juan Cole reposts Bernie Sanders’ Path Forward: The Disappointed Generation.

With all of these factors in mind, there is still a path for Bernie Sanders to win the nomination, but beyond that, the candidate is helping to shift the political spectrum in the United States. The Sanders campaign is still confident that moving forward they will be able to obtain the nomination. In a press release statement, Senator Sanders congratulated Hillary Clinton on her victories, but highlighted that he intends to continue all the way to the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. “With more than half the delegates yet to be chosen and a calendar that favors us in the weeks and months to come, we remain confident that our campaign is on a path to win the nomination,” Sanders said.

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Ali R. Abootalebi asks What is Political Revolution and Can Bernie Sanders Deliver?.

The structural changes needed in the American body politics demand reconnecting the governed and the governors after years of political underperformance. This task calls for the creation of an alternative SDP to address the needs of the American electorate on the political left–and possibly the creation of a conservative party on the political right as well. Bernie Sanders’ political revolution requires not only popular input in electing a progressive candidate like him, it demands continuous popular engagement in politics through disciplined and well-organized party politics participation. Progressive candidates in the Congress can help the cause of progressive politics in the executive office, further mobilizing popular opinion to demand structural changes in the body politics and the better distribution of national resources though more effective governance. In that case, the American courts also will be more responsive in considering the popular will in their overall balancing calculation of legal and political rights. The inaction alternative will only see the continuing political decay. Then, no amount of political rhetoric and false promises through short term economic ‘bandaging’ and irresponsible fiscal borrowing will resolve the country’s deep-rooted political problems, nor will it rescue it from its international decline.

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What is most likely to happen is that Clinton wins the Democratic nomination and loses the presidental election to Trump. This will cause a split in the left between the Democratic Party and the rest. In that case, the best way forward would be the creation of broad Socialist Party (something along the lines of the Socialist Alliance in Australia) and an United Front with the various other movements.

The party is needed for theoretical and practical education and maturation of cadre from the various movements. Enthusiasm without knowledge of how the system works quickly leads to depression and despair.

Unfortunately, a Trump presidency would be the best hope of continuing and growing the widening political activism of the past year or so. The election of Obama was a set-back for progressive politics as it lulled people into apathy, and Clinton promises more of the same.

Let us not forget that Sanders' campaign is just one of many other campaigns in other countries. As noted above, we have much to learn from each other's experiences.

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Dan Little: Origins of feudalism in the West

Dan Little examines the Origins of feudalism in the West.

These observations make clear the central thrust of the book: there was substantial continuity between the institutions and economy of the late Roman Empire in the West and the political and economic institutions of European feudalism which followed it for a thousand years. This continuity is unwelcome to the "modes of production" train of thought, which postulates a sharp break between classical and feudal systems.…

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I disagree that the presented evidence argues against the "modes of production" train of thought. For example, Capitalism did not start on 14 July 1789—it had been developing for the previous 400 years within the confines of Feudalism. That social revolution eventually gave political power to the Capitalists, and greatly diminished the political power of the landed aristocracy. Society was then aligned to the mode of production which was Capitalism.

This new interpretation of the origin of Feudalism within the confines of the classical Roman slave society does not detract from the idea of historical materialism based on the mode of production. It would just mean that Roman society collapsed faster than feudalism was able to take up the slack. Indeed, the final collapse of ancient Roman society in Constantinople overlapped the genesis of Capitalism in Northern Italy.

The French Revolution unleashed the power of Capitalism. Whereas the greatest feudal king of France, Louis XIV, was able to attain and preserve the current borders of France, Napoleon Bonaparte was able to smash French rivals such as Austria and Prussia, disband the Holy Roman Empire, invade Egypt, invade Russia, invade Spain. All of this within a century of each other.

The transition from Feudalism to Capitalism within France unleashed a storm across Europe. The only power able to withstand France was the older Capitalist country: Britain. Feudal powers melted in the face of Capitalist military power with the exception of Russia.

Based on this historical experience of social transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, I am leery of a smooth transition from Roman slave society to Feudalism. There was an economic, political, military, and social collapse in Western Europe in the fifth century CE. The main viable system was Barbarism from which Feudalism developed.

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Denis Godard: France: Reflections on 'Nuit Debout'

Denis Godard examines what is happeninig in France: Reflections on 'Nuit Debout'.

While the movement advances and raises these questions, the dominant trajectories of power continue to operate in the direction of reinforcing the police state, in the direction of racism and nationalism, in the direction of social attacks. The monsters are not figments of our imagination, they are really there. One of their forms is the far right. This is also why the trajectory of the movement places it necessarily in radical confrontation with the politics of the ruling class and with the State.

Once more, this confrontation will not progress in a linear manner. The movement will no doubt experience partial defeats and apparent setbacks. Without doubt it will change form more than once. It will sometimes be necessary to know how to change direction in massive and spontaneous flows, to cease beating its head against a wall so as to learn how to demolish or jump over the wall. Sometimes it will depend on initiatives taken by a minority, but which will give a lead to greater numbers.

What is certain is that after years of apparent apathy and advance of all the reactionary tendencies in French society, something has changed which renews hope. The precious stones buried under the hardened lava of previous movements have been brought to the surface by fresh-flowing lava, shining even more brightly.

The times which are coming will be no less hard. But now we are not condemned to take them lying down.

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I am living through a very radical period in history:

• Liberation of East Timor
• Campaign against mandatory sentencing
• Refugee rights
• Land rights
• Anti-One Nation protests
• Anti-globalisation protests
• May Day protests
• Anti-war demonstations
• Anti-GST protests
• Free Palestine Rallies
• Canadian student strikes
• The Occupy Movement
• SYRIZA
• Podemos
• Bernie Sanders
• Jeremy Corbyn
• Scottish Independence Movement
• Nuit Bebout
• T.J. Hickey memorial
• Free David Hicks
• Anti-HECS and University fees protests
• Gay Marriage movement

Just looking over this brief list, I have seen large and small movements come and go, expand and contract. I have seen movements tear themselves apart. I have seen victories and defeats. I expect to see more of the same.

This does not mean that I should give up. As the old boxing maxim goes, victory is about getting up more times than getting knocked down.

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Tom Anderson, Eliza Egret: Turkey wages war on its Kurdish population

Tom Anderson & Eliza Egret writes that Turkey wages war on its Kurdish population.

The state and the right-wing in Turkey are maintaining a deafening media silence about the police and military massacres in the south-east through intimidating anyone who dares report it.

Due to this intimidation, coupled with its own racism and bias, Turkey's mainstream media has distorted the killings in Kurdish cities, branding those killed as terrorists and blaming the violence on the PKK and not the state.

On February 7, Today's Zaman reported the impossible figure of 733 'PKK members' killed in Cizre and Sur, while not mentioning any killings of civilians. A columnist in Daily Sabah claimed that the PKK had opened fire on ambulances — in reality it is the police and army preventing medical care reaching wounded civilians.

Similarly, the international press has remained overwhelmingly silent over Turkey's massacres in Bakur. There are two main reasons for this.

First, the Turkish state has imprisoned and deported foreign correspondents reporting from Bakur over the past year, and the mainstream media is unwilling to trust Kurdish media sources, buying into the state's attempts to discredit them.

Second, Turkey is an important ally of NATO and the US, and it is not in the interest of US-aligned governments to criticise it. In London, there have been demonstrations at the BBC, with British-based Kurds and their allies protesting the corporation's silence on Turkey's massacre of its Kurdish population.

“There is a reality in Kurdistan that if you don't have a weapon or gun then you can't live, as you are surrounded by brutal forces who don't let you live in normal conditions,” Baran said. “So the Kurds think that armed struggle is very crucial for them. This armed struggle guarantees their lives. If these people didn't have any weapons then worse things could happen. Kurds know that the armed struggle is very important for their existence.”

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The Kurds have been screwed over by the British, French, Syrians, Turks, Iraqis, Syrians, Iranians, USA, etc.

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Lucinda Donovan: University of Queensland bake sale backlash

Lucinda Donovan writes about the University of Queensland bake sale backlash.

Shortly after the event was announced, its Facebook page was flooded with threats of death and rape, both at the event organisers specifically and at women in general. Comments such as “kill all women” were popular, as well as a meme that depicted a victim of domestic violence and her abuser with the words “women deserve equal rights, and lefts”. Other comments and threats received both on the page, and in the personal inboxes of the organisers, are too foul to reproduce here.

Once again the attempts by misogynists to devalue and disprove the relevance and use of feminism has proved exactly why it is so desperately needed. Lewis's Law — that the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism — seems to be right yet again. When something as inoffensive as a bake sale is enough to provoke such hatred, what does that say about how we view women?

The hatred received for this bake sale was not just limited to a few trolls, but many commenters, some still in high school. When such vile opinions are still so readily spewed by so many, and those so young, it becomes apparent that not only do we still desperately need a powerful feminist movement, but that we also have a massive way to go.

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Oppression is not just by the ruling class. A significant proportion of the general population must also be actively involved.

A pervasive oppression means that young people readily engage in it without critical thought. This oppression flows through the education system and mass media, and encourages teenage boys to act in horrific ways.

Heterosexuality is seen as only being expressed through violent oppression of women. Thus, rape and threats thereof are seen as normal.

This rape mentality then spreads out to all outsiders: homosexuals, prisoners, protesters. Rape signifies the power relationships within any oppressive system.

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Chris Dillow: Marxists & Libertarians

Chris Dillow writes that Marxists & Libertarians have much in common.

I don’t say this to embarrass him. Quite the opposite. I do so to point out that Marxists and libertarians have much in common. We both believe that freedom is a — the? — great good; Marxists, though, more than right-libertarians, are also troubled by non-state coercion. We are both sceptical about whether state power can be used benignly. And for both of us, the ideal is a withering away of the state. In these regards, Marxists probably have more in common with right-libertarians than with social democrats; Unlearning Economics has charged right libertarians with being “lazy Marxists.”

Of course, there are obvious differences between us — not least about the causes of poverty and historical nature (and definition!) of capitalism. My point is simply that we have some things in common. However, whereas Marxists have engaged intelligently with right-libertarianism, the opposite has, AFAIK, not been the case — as Robin and Bryan’s ignorance of the intellectual history of Robin’s theory of schooling demonstrates. This is perhaps regrettable.

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Another difference is that the Libertarians want to liberate Capitalism from State interference and control. Marxists want to replace Capitalism with Communism.

Although there is theoretical overlap, there is no point in political alliances because of this difference.

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Ted Rall: Inside the Media Bubble, No One Can Hear Us Scream

Tell Rall writes that Inside the Media Bubble, No One Can Hear Us Scream.

Talk about blaming the victim! Sure, Trump could have hired teams of professional politicos to navigate the peculiarities of each state’s primaries. As a billionaire, he certainly could have afforded them. Why didn’t he? I have no idea.

But why should he have to? Why should Trump, or any other candidate, be subject to such a strange system? Democracy should be simple and straightforward: one person, one vote. All these crazy rules — the signatures required for ballot access, the polls used to determine who gets to debate on television, winner-take-all primaries, superdelegates, delegates secretly pledged to candidates other those they’re sent to the convention to represent, the electoral college — exist for one reason. They exist in order to dilute the influence of we the people so that They — the ruling class — continues to get its way.

When They win, we lose. We lose our jobs. Our standard of living. Our rights.

If you’re like me — on the left and generally unsympathetic to billionaires — you may be tempted to join the media when they dismiss Trump as a whiner. But this is different. In business, Trump is the consummate insider. But he’s a political naïf. When someone as sleazy and unprincipled as Donald Trump is shocked by how dirty politics are, you have to take note.

And if they can steal elections from someone as rich as Donald Trump, there is nothing left of American democracy.

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Wow!

Bernie Sanders is getting the same treatment. The Democratic Party machine is pulling out all stops in order to ensure that Hilliary Clinton gets the nomination.

Sanders and Trump are exposing the corruption at the heart of the US political system.

People should not be surprised at this as the State exists to serve the interests of the ruling class.

Although Trump is a billionaire, he is a rogue capitalist. He is exiled from the ruling class. He is a beneficiary, not a participant.

Sanders has always been an outsider and proud of it.

Yet, the political revolution that Sanders proposes will fail unless the economic relationships that the political system protects is also overthrown.

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Liam Flenady: France: 'Nuit debout' movement shakes politics

Liam Flenady writes that, in France: 'Nuit debout' movement shakes politics.

Like Occupy Wall Street and Spain's indignados before them, the Nuit debout movement has been criticised for not having a clear set of demands.

This criticism is unfair on two fronts. Firstly, the demonstrators have by-and-large been very clear that they are against corruption, against extreme inequality and austerity, and specifically against the unjust new labour laws. For many, the goal of the Nuit debout movement is to “bring together the different struggles” in French society.

They are for a more responsive democracy, where representatives are less beholden to corporate interests, and where society is run in the interests of the people.

Secondly, it is understandable they do not feel a rush to issue concrete demands at this stage when they are only just emerging from political demobilisation, isolation and division — and feel so betrayed by the mainstream left and the political establishment.

As one participant pointed out: “Basically, it's all the people who have left-wing sympathies but who feel betrayed by left-wing mainstream political parties.”

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This is a very dangerous situation to be in. The revolutionary parties must be with the people, not aloof from them.

The revolutionary parties have a large credibility gap to overcome. And I expect that they would not be welcome in such a movement at this time.

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Sue Bull: Nationalise the steel industry

Sue Bull writes that Australia should Nationalise the steel industry.

Rather than repeat this mistake, any government that seriously wants to save jobs and the steel industry should nationalise the steel industry and run it as a publicly-owned service in the interests of the people and the environment.

Over the next few decades, our society is going to have to make a massive investment in the infrastructure needed to shift to a renewables-based economy. Hundreds of billions of dollars need to be spent on building rail, public transport vehicles and renewable energy systems that harness solar, wind and wave power instead of fossil fuels.

A steel industry will be needed to supply materials for this transition.

History has taught us that the profit-driven corporations are not going to make this switch and, blinkered by the short-term solution of importing cheaper steel from overseas, the market will destroy what steel-making capacity there is left in this country.

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Hey, big business! If you want government hand-outs, we own you.

Small businesses do not get this kind of help. They sink or swim on their own merits.

None of this Capitalism for the poor, and Socialism for the rich.

It has to be Socialism for All.

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IMEMC: Israeli forces have killed 2,000 Palestinian Children, wounded 13,000, jailed 12,000 since 2000

IMEMC writes that Israeli forces have killed 2,000 Palestinian Children, wounded 13,000, jailed 12,000 since 2000.

About 2,070 Palestinian children have been killed, and more 13,000 injured since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, until this past March, official sources have reported, according to Al Ray.

Israeli occupation forces detained more than 12,000 Palestinian children since 2000, while nearly 480 children are still languishing in Israeli prisons. Of them, almost 95% were severely tortured and beaten during the arrest campaign and interrogations intervals, a press statement issued by the Ministry of Information stated.

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What a truly racist society Israel has become when murder, torture and imprisonment of children is routine. Hatred for the Arab has removed all humanity from the Hebraic-speaking Israeli.

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