Barry Sheppard: United States: High stakes in Trump's attacks on Black Lives Matter protests

Barry Sheppard writes that United States: High stakes in Trump’s attacks on Black Lives Matter protests.

Trump’s threat to use the military to smash the uprising, if carried out, would have been a major step towards a military-Bonapartist dictatorship. The power of the uprising led retired generals and admirals to publicly back away from such a step, causing Trump to retreat. Mark Milley, chair of the armed forces Joint Chiefs of Staff - and an active duty general - in effect joined them.

It’s unlikely that the ruling class, reeling from the protests and the huge support for their demands, would support such a move.

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The political problem for the US Capitalist class is that there is no clear alternative to Trump: Biden is a pitiful excuse for a leader. Bernie Sanders would now be an acceptable alternative if it were not for the fact that the establishment has stopped the process of Sanders getting the Democratic Party nomination.

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Jim McIlroy: Slavery endemic to Australia’s colonial history

Jim McIlroy writes that Slavery endemic to Australia’s colonial history.

Slavery, as a system of forced labour, dates back to antiquity. Slavery, Australia-style, includes the original convict system, First Nations people being forced to labour on pastoral stations, the Blackbirding of South Sea Islanders and the Stolen Wages program in Queensland and other states.

While wage theft is the capitalist system’s standard business model and the colonisers generally accepted slavery, it nevertheless sat uneasily on their conscience. This is why the ideology of “scientific” racism, the belief that one skin colour was superior to another, allowed First Nations people to be enslaved for so long. It also underpins the right’s culture wars, currently taking a hammering with the rise of the Black Lives Matter-Stop Deaths in Custody movements.

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Racism is the ideological justification for slavery. It is not the economic or political justification. The economic justification is the maximum possible extraction of labour value from workers. The political justification was to create a collaborator class of poor whites to uphold the system of slavery.

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Marguerite Ward: Only 25% of Americans think capitalism is good for society

Marguerite Ward writes that Only 25% of Americans think capitalism is good for society.

In May, the Harris Poll and Just Capital, an independent research firm founded by the billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, surveyed 1,000 people on their thoughts about capitalism amid the pandemic. Only 25% of respondents said they believed our current form of capitalism ensures the greater good of society.

For many this doesn’t come as a surprise. Prominent voices ranging from a top Harvard economist to the billionaire hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio have warned that capitalism would soon face a crisis because of the massive inequality exposed by the pandemic.

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The report on the survey concluded:

Americans overwhelmingly agree that we as a society need to use this crisis as an opportunity to fix what’s broken and find a better way of living. Americans are looking for companies to take the lead on key policy issues like paid sick leave, paid family leave, wage increases, healthcare, and increased flexibility to work from home. And the American public believes we need a more evolved form of capitalism to tackle the shift.

This more evolved capitalism must be based on our learnings from this time – that our economy has not been working for the majority of Americans, that business must play a key role in protecting the public, and that certain populations, including Black and Brown Americans, are tremendously vulnerable to both the health and economic impacts of crisis. When asked if they had been personally impacted by COVID-19, Black survey respondents identified as having been furloughed, laid off, or given a zero-hour schedule at double the rate of White respondents (Black respondents: 22%, 20%, and 21% vs. White respondents: 10%, 11%, and 5%, respectively).

We have faced unprecedented challenges over the last few months – and it’s not over yet – but we have the opportunity today to build better coming out of this pandemic, and deep social unrest. These views from the public provide a roadmap to how we can reset capitalism to truly serve all Americans, and build a more equitable society for tomorrow.

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This view is hampered by the blinkers that Capitalism is the only gmae in town. Socialism or Communism is not even considered. Fifty (50) years on neo-liberalism has led us here. What the magazine wants some form of Capitalism to survive this crisis. They are implicitly recognizing that the neo-liberal project has led to this series of crises: massive busfires; glaobal pandemic; economic depression; unrest in the streets.

People have to realize that asking Capitalists to be nice will not work. We have seen what utter bastards thry are throughout the 1980s and onwards. We need to take control of our own lives and our work. We need to work and struggle towards a more just and equitable society. Capitalism has shown that it cannot achieve that outcome.

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Sam Williams: The Crisis (Pt 9)

Sam Williams describes The Crisis (Pt 9).

But the dangers of what Roubini calls “populism,” by which he essentially means fascism, are very real. The danger of fascism will grow if the current demonstrations and rebellions don’t lead to a rapid revival of the workers’ movement, not only in the trade union sense but above all in the political sense. If the workers’ movement revives, it will open the door to the resolution of the current ecological-biological, economic, and political crises in the form of the U.S. and global socialist revolution. This is not, however, an outcome that Mr. Roubini particularly relishes. Instead, he hopes for a solution that will somehow revive capitalism without fascism and war.

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The danger in the USA is that Trump loses control of his base of lumpen-proletariat and petite-bourgeoisie classes. This would open the door to a more Fascist leader. Trump is an opportunist. Some say he is a Bonapartist except that he does not unify the nation.

Already, I am seeing videos on Youtube decrying the surrender of the state to the BLM protestors with the modest reforms being proposed. These reactionaries are most affronted by footage of police kneeling with protestors. The reactionaries call this act kow-towing. They are outraged. They do not see the inherent meaninglessness of the act.

And, most dangerously of all, there are fantasists putting out videos of them saying that they have turned back busloads of Antifia activists from pillaging and burning their communities. No actual footage of this is provided. These fantasists are fuelling the propaganda on the Right.

However, no-one is blaming Trump for the failure to reign in the current insurrection. Whereas in the UK, people are blaming the Conservatives for the failure to do so. This may account for the renewed urgency on Brexit negotiations.

Will opines further:

This is why the current rebellion sweeping the United States of America, still by far the most powerful imperialist country in the world, is so important. Will this rebellion be a herald of a movement towards the socialist transformation of the United States and the world, or will it end in a new, if brief, stabilization of American and world capitalism such as Roubini is hoping for in the 2030s? If something like this were to occur, it would very likely be but a prelude to the final collapse of our civilization. And this as far as capitalism is concerned is the very best case.

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Yes, there is economic and ecological instability within Capitalism, but there is no political instability as the overwhelming majority is still in favour of Capitalism. At this stage, some minor political realignment may occur.

My main fear is with the possible rise of right-wing paramilitaries who see themselves as replacing the police in quelling the insurrection as in the case of the Freikorps.

By unknown photograther - http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3160/3053216221_576264dcf2.jpg, Public Domain, Link

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Oli Mould: Seattle’s BLM Autonomous Protest Zone and the Paris Commune of 1871: Anti-Capitalist Spirit still Lives

Oli Mould worries about co-option of the Seattle’s BLM Autonomous Protest Zone and the Paris Commune of 1871: Anti-Capitalist Spirit still Lives.

With Chaz too, the lure of “protest chic” may be too much to resist – it is after all in Seattle, one of the US’s most heralded creative cities. For Chaz to resist this, it must resolutely be a space of the oppressed and the black voices of the movement. In essence, white people can help set it up and maintain it, but they must remain silent inside it and let the oppressed use the space to strategise and mobilise.

The Paris Commune didn’t end too well, and the murmurings from President Donald Trump are that the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone may not last too long either. But that the commune is still taught and talked about today is testament to its lasting positive effect within urban politics. It may have been brutally quashed, but its anti-capitalist spirit set an example for nearly 150 years of subsequent urban struggles all over the world.

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What a choice: co-option or destruction. There has to be other options such as expansion or evolution.

Fortunately, the reactionaries are ridiculing the CHAZ currently. This is good because it delays destruction. CHAZ should not be trying to win over the reactionaries, but to disarm them.

Ideally, CHAZ should last long enough to explore many models of self-governance, and to create a cadre of confident activists to go underground during the reactionary backlash.

Continuing the BLM protests reduces the pressure on CHAZ. The presence of many people on the streets makes the government wary of taking drastic action. Unfortunately, protest fatigue will doom the CHAZ.

Expansion of the autonomous zone model to other cities may quickly incur the wrath of the government in order to stop the spread of a good example. Such a spread will definitely spook the reactionaries and may invite action by right-wing paramilitaries to form and crush the BLM protests.

If the CHAZ survives long enough, it may evolve into something that can be tolerated by the state. This is entirely up to CHAZ itself.

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Peter Dorman: Why Trump Is in Trouble

Peter Dorman asks Why Trump Is in Trouble.

What has collapsed for Trump, finally in 2020, is not just the economy, the health of the population or the racial order, but his ability to determine what the issues are: he has lost control of the narrative. This is not because the Democrats have beat him at his own game. On the contrary, they are as clueless about these things as they’ve always been. His problem is that we are facing real crises that demand our attention whether we want them to or not. Trump has almost no influence over what politics are about in an election year; the pandemic, the economy and the revulsion against racism and police violence define the political moment on their own. This is why he seems to be flailing: his entire career has been based on his projection of his needs onto the world, and he has hardly any capacity to respond to the demands of others.

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Trump has aligned himeself with the lumpen-proletariat and petite-bourgeoisie classes. This alignment hinders any softening of attitudes to defuse the political crises going on. These classes only know that force solves all problems.

The liberals are trying to defuse the situation by:

• Having police kneel or march with protestors
• Having police chiefs resign
• Firing or suspending police officers
• Permitting the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone to exist
• Conducting a year-long review of police departments
• Not showing large peaceful on-going protests throughout the country
• Ban the use and display of the Confederate Flag at NASCAR events and on NASCAR property
• Removal of statues
• Having the brass of the US military say "Listen"
• Proposing to ban the use or display of the Confederate flag by members of the US military
• Renaming of US military bases

All of these measures by liberals are to buy time so that fatigue can set in while giving the impression that progress has been made. Liberals know how to make the minimal concessions necessary to defuse a situation while leaving the essential elements of Capitalism intact. Reactionaries do not—they want to fight and defend everywhere.

Liberals trade space for time. This is especially effective when the space conceded is not vital to the survival of Capitalism. Reactionaries are afraid of the fragility of Capitalism and so fight desperately for every centimeter of ground. They rival the fanaticism of the Japanese in the defense of Iwo Jima.

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Searching for examples of systemic racism

A prominent commentator has been asking for current examples of systemic racism.

That someone, who professes to possess the intellect and knowledge to propound on current events, should be asking for examples of systemic racism is a fine example of such. Implicit in the question is the assessment that the person is unable to discern any examples by themselves, and that any reports by others of such are discredited.

To posit such a question means that the questioner has neither first hand experience nor credible sources reporting such. This stance entails privilege. What is happening to others is not happening to them. Since the commentator is white, and those reporting systemic racism are non-white, this privilege entails racism.

This racism is also evident in the treatment of reports by non-whites about their experiences. Non-whites are disbelieved because they are non-white. That the question is posed means the questioner is either ignorant of the plethora of experiences, or classes all of these reports as lies because of the origin.

Ignorance is also a manisification of privilege. Such ignorance has no meaningful impact on the commentator's life. They are not more likely to die because of their ignorance. They are able to enjoy the fruits of their labour in wilful ignorance.

Maybe the commentator is relying on semantics to deflect from admitting systemic racism exists now. They could posit that there are examples of individuals being racists. But this ignores the evidence that non-whites fare poorly when they encounter the system—whether the system is the police, courts, prison, health care, employment, or the environment. That the commentator does not have to consider any of these means that the commentator benefits from systemic racism. By not crediting reports of systemic racism, the commentator has become part of the systemic racism.

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Chris Slee: Capitalism and workers struggle in China

Chris Slee writes about Capitalism and workers struggle in China.

China's economy is now essentially capitalist, as indicated by the privatisation of the bulk of the means of production, and the conversion of labor power into a commodity. Workers can only survive by selling their labor power to an employer.

But the most extreme ideologues of neoliberalism (both in China and elsewhere) are not satisfied with the degree of privatisation that has occurred so far. State-owned enterprises remain dominant in certain strategic industrial sectors such as iron and steel, electricity and telecommunications, and in the banking sector. The neoliberals want more complete privatisation, and unfettered access to all areas of the economy for local and foreign capital.

The Chinese Communist Party has up to now resisted these pressures. A strong state sector helps China maintain a degree of independence from the Western imperialist powers.

…

If this is the case, it is not unprecedented in the history of capitalism. State ownership of key industries can sometimes be beneficial for the functioning of the capitalist system as a whole. The British government nationalised the coal mines after the second world war. This did not mean that Britain had become socialist. Similarly, China's economy remains fundamentally capitalist, despite some cases of re-nationalisation in the wake of the global financial crisis.

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Slee concludes:

Despite the partial reversal of some neoliberal policies, China remains a highly unequal society, where workers are ruthlessly exploited and lack job security. The state remains capitalist. It represses the resistance of the workers to capitalist exploitation.

The air and water are extremely polluted. Despite significant investment in renewable energy, the use of fossil fuels continues to expand, and China is now the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases.

Minorities such as the Tibetans and Uighurs continue to be oppressed. Freedom of speech continues to be restricted.

A struggle for genuine socialism still remains necessary. This struggle will need to bring together workers, students and other oppressed groups. An example of such unity is the solidarity of university students with workers at Jasic Technologies. This kind of solidarity, if repeated on a much larger scale, can help take China on the road to socialism.

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Seth Godin: Without ambiguity: Black Lives Matter

Seth Godin writes that Without ambiguity: Black Lives Matter.

The systemic, cruel and depersonalizing history of Black subjugation in my county has and continues to be a crime against humanity. It’s based on a desire to maintain power and false assumptions about how the world works and how it can work. It’s been amplified by systems that were often put in place with mal-intent, or sometimes simply because they felt expedient. It’s painful to look at and far more painful to be part of or to admit that exists in the things that we build.

We can’t permit the murder of people because of the color of their skin. Institutional racism is real, it’s often invisible, and it’s pernicious.

And White Supremacy is a loaded term precisely because the systems and their terrible effects are very real, widespread and run deep.

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Godin is offering white people a way out by saying that people today did not create the institutional racism. And, as such, white people should have no guilt in tearing this system of instutional racism.

This reflects current Liberal thinking. In a similar vein, slavery could not be abolished until the founders of the slave trade were safely dead.

However, they forget that all systems have to be recreated on a daily basis. Systems are not autonomous from the people that maintain and benefit from them.

It is this continual maintainance and regeneration makes systems vulnerable to change and destruction. Once enough people refuse to maintain the system, the system begins to die.

When a system dies, it is dangerous as those who depend on the system for their identity and sustenance lash out in fury.

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Prospects of a Third American Revolution

Omar Ahmed asks if the current situation is Riots or Uprising? If this Turmoil were in Iran, Trump would be Cheering on Arsonists and Dreaming of Regime Change.

At the time of writing, it is unclear where the Black Lives matter protests are going in the US, but doubts are already being expressed about whether George Floyd’s family and friends can expect justice for him any time soon. Not only did it take days for the police officer involved to be arrested and charged, but his colleagues who stood by and did nothing to stop him are also still at liberty.

Floyd’s murder could be an era-defining moment, with the Trump administration’s disastrous response to Covid-19, mass unemployment and a devastated economy all thrown into the mix. Far from “making America great again”, Trump is presiding over a country whose standing in the world has never been lower. China’s GDP is on course to overtake that of the US by the end of the decade and the declining power of the petro-dollar means that Americans face tough times ahead. They need to get a grip on the racism that blights their society before it is too late; it could be the factor that tips the balance.

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This is definitely not the beginning of an American revolution. The protestors want to reform the system in order to get equal rights, not to overthrow the system.

The first American revolution was about independence from Great Britain. This was a political revolution in which the English ruling class was replaced by a local one, and by a change in political mechanisms (constitutional monarchy to a republic).

The second American revolution (1861-1865) was about the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War. This was a social revolution in which two (2) classes of people were abolished: slaves; and slave-owners.

Anthony DiMaggio argues for Revolution, Not Riots: Prospects for Radical Transformation in the Covid-19 Era.

…Within the context of these intensified protests, many self-identified radicals I have talked to believe we are witnessing the beginnings of a political and economic revolution, in light of the violent protests that have now taken over dozens of cities in the U.S. But we should be wary of romantic celebrations of revolution. Americans are nowhere near developing the radical working-class consciousness that’s needed for a socialist revolution. And efforts to frame riots as revolution are fraught with peril in a country where the large majority of Americans lack critical working-class consciousness, let alone revolutionary consciousness.

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Because of the emphasis on race in this time, it will be difficult to move the conversation to class even among Blacks.

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How to racist while supporting Black Lives Matter

It takes a white person to be racist while supporting Black Lives Matter.

Note: This post contains names of Indigenous people who have died.

Today, I saw a white person put up a poster proclaiming that "Black Lives Matter". However, all of the names were that of Americans. None of them were Australian.

This was racist because there are Australian victims of police violence against Aborigines. That person was concerned enough about what was happening in the USA, but was unaware of the same thing happening in Australia. You cannot say that Black lives matter if you cannot name at least one of the following:

• Joyce Clark
• David Dungay Jr
• Tanya Day
• Eric Whittaker
• TJ Hickey
• William Farmer
• Cameron Doomadgee
• Patrick Fisher

This is not an exhaustive list.

Even today, there was NSW Police investigate officer filmed kicking, pinning down Indigenous teen during arrest:

Nathan Moran from the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, based in Redfern, said the teenager's arrest was an example of over-policing and the excessive use of force.

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Chris Dillow: Financialization as symptom

Chris Dillow writes about Financialization as symptom rather than the cause of the GFC.

In this sense as well, financialization is the result of a crisis in the real capitalist economy; the lack of real investment opportunities meant that cheap money flowed into the financial sector instead. As Ravi Jagannathan has said (pdf), the crisis was a symptom.  

Financialization, then, is not a Bad Thing done by Bad People. It is instead an endogenous response to a longstanding crisis of real capitalism.

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In otherwords, the falling rate of profit means that the return on investment is insufficent to induce Capitalists to invest. Although there are major projects to be addressed (like responses to climate change, and improving living conditions), none of these are suffieciently profitable to generate investments.

As the income of workers is reduced to subsistence levels, the margin for profit also reduces. And with increasing automation, there is less living labour to extract profit from.

Capitalism is nearing the completion of its historic mission to develop the economy with the benefits of industrialisation, managerial organisation, financial engineering, and automation. It is now time for workers to seize the means of production to direct the ecomony to save human society and improve living conditions for everybody.

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Chris Dillow: The dubious logic of commodification

Chris Dillow writes about The dubious logic of commodification.

To understand what’s going on here, we need a Marxian notion — that of commodification. This is the process of turning objects and relationships which are outside the realm of market transactions into commodities which can be exchanged at a profit. It is is one of the major ways in which capitalism expands — by creating, in the words of the Communist Manifesto, “no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest”, than callous “cash payment”.

…

Much of this state-aided commodification is a response to capitalist stagnation. Much of capitalism is no longer innovative enough to create profitable opportunities endogenously: fund management, in particular, is such a rip-off that it cannot offer people value for money. Capitalism thus needs state help to expand the realm in which profitable activities can take place.

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This is why the liberal project of capturing the state through reform is doomed to failure. Any attempt by the state to divert funds to the workers will be met with an ideological offensive from the Capitalists. Profitability depends on government assistance. The declining rate of return for profit means that there is no leeway to placate the masses as was done in the immediate post-war period.

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Seth Godin: Leadership

Seth Godin writes about Leadership.

Leaders create the conditions where people choose new actions.

The choices are voluntary. They’re made by people who see a new landscape, new opportunities and new options.

You can’t make people change. But you can create an environment where they choose to.

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Godin is being naive if he thinks people can simply choose to change things if the options are available. He neglects to consider the violence inherent in the status quo. This is particularly naive given that the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre was just observed.

The extreme forms of violence that underpin Capitalism preclude any peaceful changes to the system:

• The Occupation of Palestine
• The blockade of Cuba and Venezuela
• The Syrian intervention
• The attacks on Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran
• The civil wars in Yemen, and Sudan
• The collapse of Libya

People who benefit from the existing system are unwilling or unable to see the violence that maintains that system. To acknowledge that violence would challenge their idea that they are good people.

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Chris Dillow: The Peterloo paradox

Chris Dillow writes about The Peterloo paradox.

There’s something else. Peterloo was an assertion of working class agency, a refusal of workers to accept their place. Conservatives, and the ruling class in all its forms, have always been uncomfortable with this. As Corey Robin has said, the main consistent principle of conservatism has been a defence of hierarchy:

When the conservative looks upon a democratic movement from below, this…is what he sees: a terrible disturbance in the private life of power. (The Reactionary Mind, p13)

In this sense, there is a direct line from the cavalry murdering the Peterloo protestors to Arron Banks wishing Greta Thunberg dead.  

Indeed, we can read Brexit as an example of the counter-revolution Corey discusses — a desire to reassert old hierarchies in which British rulers and bosses could exercise power unfettered by interference — real or imagined - from Brussels.

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We can either accept our place or face the charging horsemen. Violence from above is the cornerstone of an oppressive society.

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Renfrey Clarke: Should socialists support a Green New Deal?

Renfrey Clarke asks, “Should socialists support a Green New Deal?”.

Meanwhile, working people are well able to see that the demands the bosses denounce and ridicule are emphatically in the public interest and essential for human survival.

If capitalists refuse to enact measures needed for humanity to survive, what does this say about capitalism?

The effect of this situation is to redirect popular thinking in ways that abstract political lectures by the left could never do. Whether or not the people leading the Green New Deal campaign have illusions in capitalism is not the point: the demands themselves have a powerful radicalising dynamic, that leads far beyond capitalism’s bounds.

Campaigning around demands such as those of the Green New Deal, contributors to the Adelaide forum explained, can act as a vital bridge allowing workers and their allies to move beyond a general anger and disillusionment, to an understanding of the need to challenge class society itself.

Socialists therefore have to be right in the thick of Green New Deal-style campaigns. They have to push the demands of these campaigns, draw people into broad protest actions, and as the opportunity presents itself, explain their own anti-capitalist perspectives.

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As Rosa Luxemburg wrote in “The Junius Pamphlet”:

Friedrich Engels once said: “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.” What does “regression into barbarism” mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. At first, this happens sporadically for the duration of a modern war, but then when the period of unlimited wars begins it progresses toward its inevitable consequences. Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration – a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the international proletariat against imperialism and its method of war. This is a dilemma of world history, an either/or; the scales are wavering before the decision of the class-conscious proletariat. The future of civilization and humanity depends on whether or not the proletariat resolves manfully to throw its revolutionary broadsword into the scales. In this war imperialism has won. Its bloody sword of genocide has brutally tilted the scale toward the abyss of misery. The only compensation for all the misery and all the shame would be if we learn from the war how the proletariat can seize mastery of its own destiny and escape the role of the lackey to the ruling classes.

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Capitalists will mock us for predicting the collapse of Capitalism in the century since those words were written despite the Great Depression, another world war, several genocides, several famines, the Great Financial Crisis, and now Climate Change. There are Capitalists who say “Better dead than red!” Unfortunately, that is now a distinct possibility.

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Chris Dillow: The Technology Trap: a review

Chris Dillow writes about The Technology Trap: a review.

Instead, [Dillow] suspect[s] Diane Coyle is right to argue that Frey treats technical change as exogenous when in fact it isn’t. For example, the distinction between labour-replacing and labour-enabling technical change, whilst insightful, distracts us from another type – the sort that enables capitalist exploitation such as the power-biased technical change discussed by Skott and Guy. We should ask: if we have greater worker ownership, what sort of technical change would we see? Mightn’t it be more labour-enabling?

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Michael Lebowitz, in The Contradictions of "Real Socialism": The Conductor and the Conducted, writes

In 1975, David Granick argued that the right to a job in the Soviet Union involved far more than full employment at the macro level—it also functioned at the micro level. “It is considered impermissible, except in very rare circumstances,” he indicated, “to dismiss workers on any grounds other than those of gross incompetence or continued violation of factory discipline.” In short, “workers have had virtually complete job security. More than anything else, it is this feature which has given content in the mind of the ordinary worker to the slogan of a workers’ state.”

The “political unacceptability of dismissals” thus gave workers real security; they were “protected, not only against the reality of unemployment, but also against the need to change either occupation or place of work under the threat of unemployment.” This characteristic, which Granick called the “micro-economic full employment” constraint (but which he would later call “job rights”), meant that workers were “virtually immune from pressure to undergo job changes which they personally regard, for whatever reason, as reducing their individual welfare.”

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The Contradictions of "Real Socialism": The Conductor and the Conducted
Michael Lebowitz
Kindle Location: 929

To reconcile Dillow's and Lebowitz's points, I would see workers having advanced their conciousness from work as being a source of income to being contribution to society. Under Capitalism, an ordinary person needs to work in order to get money for sustenance. Under Communism, an ordinary person contributes to society through their work.

Would seeing work as contribution enable workers to embrace productivity improvements through technical change? I would hope so.

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Juan Cole: Israeli Snipers and other Forces have killed 16 Palestinian children since start of 2019

writes that Middle East Monitor says Israeli Snipers and other Forces have killed 16 Palestinian children since start of 2019.

Israeli occupation forces have killed 16 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip since the start of 2019, Defence for Children International-Palestine (DCIP) said yesterday.

In a report, the rights group said 12 children were killed in Gaza and four in the occupied West Bank.

It accused the Israeli occupation forces of “using excessive force and explosive live ammunition against children aiming to kill or permanently maim them.”

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Thus, the Middle East Monitor will be accused of being antisemitic for reporting this. The Israeli supporters will probably say that Israelis are defending themselves. Any nation that justifies killing children does not deserve to exist.

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Chris Dillow: Centrists' failure

Chris Dillow writes about Centrists' failure.

Corbyn is popular – insofar as he is – not because he is a political genius (he’s not) nor because many of us have become antisemites or have lost our minds. His popularity – especially with young graduates – rests upon material economic conditions. The degradation of professional occupations and huge gap between the top 1% and others have radicalized young people in erstwhile middle-class jobs; financialization has made housing unaffordable for youngsters; and a decade of stagnant real wages – the product of inequality and the financial crisis - has increased demands for change.

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Dillow recognises that the Marxist credo that politics follow material conditions. He also says that such material conditions do not always lead to a leftward shift in political thinking.

You might also object that politics is about more than economics, and that the battleground now is about culture and identity rather than a few quid here or there. This misses the point. The great virtue of economic growth, as Ben Friedman showed, is that it creates a climate in which toleration and openness can thrive. Stagnation, by contrast, gives us closed minds, intolerance and fanaticism. If centrists are sincere in wanting a more civilized and tolerant politics, they must create the material conditions for these. In fact, in office they did the opposite.

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Abundance gives us tolerance; scarcity gives us intolerance. The economic insecurity makes people fearful of the others taking money and benefits away, and this fear allows politicians to play the protector by keeping the others away.

The very people who created the harsh economic conditions that give rise to intolerance are the ones who use intolerance to keep power. These people have no incentive to change the system that keeps them in power.

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Stan Grant: Ken Wyatt, a man in the crosshairs of history

Stan Grant writes about Ken Wyatt, a man in the crosshairs of history.

Ken Wyatt is invoking the spirit of ’67, but he also knows its lesson: it was a victory of fairness over difference. Australians are wary of difference, suspicious of questions of rights. Australia has no bill of rights; our constitution is a rule book, not a rights manifesto. Australia is a triumph of liberalism where people are not defined by their race, religion, ethnicity or culture. Australia is a place where migrants are encouraged to leave their histories and old enmities behind. Nationally we are more comfortable mythologising our own history than probing its darkest corners.

Indigenous people live with their history; they carry its scars; it defines them. In a country founded on terra nullius — empty land — where the rights of the First Peoples were extinguished, where no treaties have been signed, this — as the Uluru Statement says — is the torment of their powerlessness.

When it comes to Indigenous recognition — symbolism or substance — black and white Australia speak with a very different voice.

Emphasis Mine

Grant is invoking a version of Australia that never was: it was born of racism. Australia existed to keep the Chinese and others out. For over 70 years, the White Australia Policy keep them out.

Grant has to hope that non-Aboriginal Australians will revive the spirit of 1967. I am doubtful as the NT Intervention continues, the off-shore detention of refugees continues, and the rates of Indigneous incaration remains high.

Australia is still a very racist country. And both major political parties have to be mindful of that to get political power. When racism keeps a political party in power, that party has no incentive to reduce racism.

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