For worker control

Chris Dillow argues For worker control.

Neal Lawson is absolutely right. Social democracy is "hopelessly prepared for the 21st century."

This is because it is yet another example of an idea that has outlived its usefulness. Social democrats used to think that they did not need to challenge the fundamental power structures of capitalism because, with a few good top-down economic and social policies, capitalism could be made to deliver increased benefits for workers and the poor in terms both of rising real wages and better public services.

Emphasis Mine

Dillow goes on to argue that the harsher economic climate means that reformism can no longer deliver for the workers. Working within the system will not garner benefits for workers. He goes onto to say:

Times have changed. So the left must change. Neal says:

Instead of pulling policy levers, the job is to create the platforms so that people can collectively change things for themselves.

There's one context in which this is especially necessary — the workplace.

Both Dillow and Lawson think that the Left only consists of Reformists. Revolutionaries have been removed from the political discourse.

Dillow lists three (3) reasons why worker control of the workplace directly benefits workers:

1. Increased power for workers directly raises their well-being.…This points to a case for workers choosing their bosses, to increase the chances of them getting good ones.
2. There's a good body of evidence to show that worker ownership and control can raise productivity.
3. A feeling of control at work might have favourable cultural effects.…This could eventually improve the quality of our democracy generally.

But Dillow ignores the greatest obstacle to worker control—private ownership of the means of production. Until a substantial proportion of the economy is under the control of workers, it can be said that we have worker control. In other words, worker control can only start to exist under Socialism, and reach it mature form under Communism.

And Dillow ignores the political implications of worker control—the loss of power by the Capitalists. No ruling class has ever voluntarially relinquished power. Such contests are always violent.

Dillow concludes that:

My point here is a simple one. The days when the leftist politics could ignore the "hidden abode of production" because lightly modified capitalism would deliver the goods have gone. Our new times require new politics. The fact that the Labour party is ignoring the question (pdf) of how to empower workers is lousy politics as well as lousy economics

Emphasis Mine

Being left-wing used to mean that there was agreement about the economy benefiting people in general. Now, left-wing, in the authorised discourse, means making neoliberalism socially acceptable.

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Inequality & productivity

Chris Dillow looks at the interaction between Inequality & productivity.

6. Inequality can prevent a shift to more productive organizational forms. There's reasonable evidence to suggest that worker coops can be at least as productive as their hierarchical counterparts. Which poses the question: why aren't there more of them? One reason lies in inequality. Poor workers lack the access to credit that would allow them to buy their firms. And even if they had such credit, they might not want to own the firm simply because doing so is risky; it entails putting all one's eggs into one basket. In a more egalitarian economy, these problems could be smaller.

Emphasis Mine

In a Communist/Socialist society, the state would acquire the firms on behalf of the workers. And the productivity of such co-ops is measured by how well they satisfy human needs of the community, not by the profit generated per worker.

Dillow list several reasons why inequality reduces productivity:

1. Inequality might demotivate poorer-paid employees because they look to star employees and bosses to help the firm rather than take the initiative themselves
2. Wage inequality reduces job satisfaction
3. Inequality reduces trust
4. Where inequality is high, the rich will invest a lot in simply protecting their privilege
5. At high levels of inequality, the rich might fear that property rights are insecure
6. Inequality can prevent a shift to more productive organizational forms.

Dillow's conclusion is:

But there's one big fact which hints that they might be significant. Productivity growth has been much lower recently than it was in the 80s. This should be puzzling to people like Ryan, because for years they've told us that Thatcherite reforms in the 80s should have boosted productivity growth. So why has it fallen? Might it be that the benefits of those reforms have been offset by the fact that the increased proportion of income going to the 1% depressed productivity through the above mechanisms?

Emphasis Mine

Dillow thinks Capitalists are interested in a productive economy. Instead Capitalists are always concerned about the accumulation of Capital by whatever means.

Workers need to take control of the economy away from the Capitalists so that the ecomony can benefit everyone, not just the rich.

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Real Independence: In 2014, Scotland used more Renewable Energy than Nuclear, Coal or Gas

Juan Cole writes Real Independence: In 2014, Scotland used more Renewable Energy than Nuclear, Coal or Gas.

Edie.net reports that in November, wind energy alone produced more than enough electricity for every home in Scotland. Over all in 2013, Scotland produced 46.6% equivalent of its gross electricity from renewables. Scotland, with a population of 4 million, is well on its way to getting 100% of its electricity from renewables by 2020, among the more ambitious goals set by anyone in the world.

Emphasis Mine

This is certainly putting Australia to shame, especially as Abbott seeks to dump the Renewable Engery Target.

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Economists just don't look very ideological

Noah Smith asserts that Economists just don't look very ideological.

So political ideology, as far as we can tell, just doesn't explain much of the variance in academic economists' policy recommendations. Keep in mind that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - the authors simply might not have measured ideology accurately.

But given the fact that economists deal every day with topics that are inherently political, I'm surprised we don't find more bias in paper-writing.

And there's also the possibility that the sample is heavily influenced by a few outliers. There are a couple of departments out there that may be influenced by big donations from political activists. That might inject a few politicized folks into the academic mix,

So overall, I think my thesis that most of econ doesn't line up along left-right political lines seems like it's borne out by the data. Still, that leaves the possibility that a few policy issues, or a few top economists, might be strongly motivated by political ideology. I'm sure we can all think of one or two anecdotes.

Emphasis Mine

Or, the ideological differences allowed Capitalism are really not measurable.

For instance, the idea of Capitalism cannot be challenged. An analysis of alternative economic systems cannot be treated sympathetically.

There is an academic bias that is due to the nature of the Capitalist society. Academia is part of the ideological superstructure that exists to mould the minds of workers into supporting the system that exploits and crushes them.

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Against competition

Chris Dillow examines the case Against competition.

The point of all this is not necessarily to argue for state direction of the economy. If bosses can't know much, nor perhaps can governments: Orgel's second rule says that "Evolution is cleverer than you are."

Instead, it is perhaps to defend the real world in which market forces don't select very strongly. As Nick Bloom and colleagues have shown, there is a large variation in corporate efficiency around the world. From a conventional point of view, this is sub-optimal. But from a Darwinian point of view, it might not be. As Andrew Lo says, what look like suboptimal strategies might in fact be second-best adaptations which permit survival in a changing environment. And the same lack of selection that allows inefficient firms to survive also supports a diversity of firms which stabilizes the economy in the face of shocks.

We know that cognitive and cultural diversity are good things. So too is ecological diversity.

Emphasis Mine

Dillow implicitly assumes that firms within a future Communist society will not be open to change.

In a historical sense, we have only seen Communist societies built upon economically and politically backward ones. These societies were playing catch-up to the rest of the industrialised work. They had a clear goal of what they wanted to achieve, and how to achieve it. In these cases, state direction was essential and successful.

In a Communist society built upon an advanced ecomonic and political base will be completely different in character. This society will have different goals to a Capitalist one, but will not know the correct path to take. In this case, the workers will have to have the confidence to make mistakes and to correct them as needed.

The setting of direction will have to be done through intense democratic discussion at all levels of society. So the society is then built with the consent of all, instead of haphazard ideas that flourish and die with great rapidity.

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Goals, strategy and tactics for change

Seth Godin outlines Goals, strategy and tactics for change.

The Goal: Who are you trying to change? What observable actions will let you know you've succeeded?

The Strategy: What are the emotions you can amplify, the connections you can make that will cause someone to do something they've hesitated to do in the past (change)? The strategy isn't the point, it's the lever that helps you cause the change you seek.

The Tactics: What are the actions you take that cause the strategy to work? What are the events and interactions that, when taken together, comprise your strategy?

Emphasis in Original

Our goal is to create a Communist society. We are trying to change workers of all nations. Workers will achieve this when they are self-confidently managing their places of work and building a society that satisfies human need.

Our strategy is to build a mass movement of workers. The emotions we want to amplify are that of solidarity, compassion, duty, self-sacrifice. We want to show that we are all human and that we can work together to build a better world. The connection is to realise the humanity of other people despite what I am told about the colour of their skin, their gender, their sexuality, their culture, or their intellect.

Our tactics is a mixture of agitation and propaganda in and around mass actions. This includes self-study, interactions with other, publishing, meetings, being out on the streets. The two main events are mass actions (marches, rallies, speeches, film showings, forums, conferences, etc) and party meeting to evaluate and plan mass actions.

Above all, there must be a deep theoretical understanding of how Capitalism. This means a study of Marx and Engels and their commentators.

And there is the study of revolution for which we turn to Lenin and Trotsky along with their commentators.

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Social democracy and neoliberalism: victim or vanguard?

Damien Cahill muses on Social democracy and neoliberalism: victim or vanguard?.

First, neoliberalism wasn’t simply the product of conservative governments imposing an ideological agenda on labour. While neoliberalism has been an attack upon working class living standards and working-class forms of political and industrial organisation, and while some of the most radical forms of these attacks have come from conservative governments, Labour governments and sections of the labour movement were also active agents of neoliberalism either before, or contemporaneously with, the better-known neoliberal governments led by Thatcher and Reagan.

Second, this suggests that the neoliberal transformation of states and economies should not be seen primarily as an ideological phenomenon. Most accounts of neoliberalism view it as a result of politicians coming under the influence of fundamentalist neoliberal intellectuals like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. Yet, if Labour parties and labour movements that had little if any contact or sympathy with such intellectuals were actually in the vanguard the neoliberal revolution, this suggests that such ideational explanations have little to recommend them. Rather, we are better advised to look to the prevailing political-economic conditions of the 1970s, and the ways that these emerged out of the dynamics of the capitalist mode of production and its historical evolution as providing the particular problems to which capitalist states viewed neoliberalism as the preferred solution.

Finally, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the making of neoliberalism was also an active confrontation with and against socialism. Just as Thatcher sought, quite strategically, not only to use socialism as a spectre against which to discursively frame her own policies, but also to attack the social and institutional support bases of socialism in Britain and elsewhere, so was the embrace of neoliberalism by sections of the labour movement part of a reaction against socialism from within the working class and its representative organisations.

Labour’s embrace of neoliberalism was thus a reaction against socialism, against working-class democracy and against economic and political democratisation more generally, none of which have yet recovered from the devastation wrought by four decades of neoliberalisation.

Emphasis Mine

As Humphrey McQueen writes in A New Britannica, this has always been the case with the ALP. Its members preferring parlimentarism over mass action. The ALP believed that there was no class distinction in Australia.

The concept of a workers' struggle is an alien concept. The ALP was always loyal to the nation however the Capitalists defined it.

In a way, aspirationalism has always been the collar around our necks. This very idea that we could become part of respectible society only if we behaved ourselves. This carrot dangling in our faces as we hauled the cart along.

So when Capitalism was threatened by its own contradictions, the workers' organisation decided to make noble sacrifices in order to save the system. Of course, there has never been a reciporal response from our masters. Over the past 150 years, the workers have bourne the burden in order to save the system in order that we might enter into its upper ranks.

All of this talk of exploitation of the workers is drowned out by the distant soft clinking of gold coins. No one wants to question where the wealth comes form if one hopes to acquire some of that wealth some day.

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Why Victoria dumped the Coalition

Nick Fredman explains Why Victoria dumped the Coalition.

The Napthine government had lost support due to brutal public sector cuts, vindictive attacks on nurses, paramedics and teachers, the unpopular East West Link project, and corruption scandals that led to the removal of Ted Baillieu as premier last year and the sacking of several Liberal candidates before the poll.

Meanwhile in NSW, the Liberals are so scared that today, (a Saturday), there are Liberal canvassners infesting the neighbourhood. And the same things that the Liberals did in Victoria, they have done in NSW.

Labor had made a tack to the left, with slogans of “with the Liberals, you’re on your own”, and “Labor: Putting people first”, presenting at least a rhetorical alternative to the rampant neoliberalism of the Coalition. Labor also promised to increase spending on health, education and public transport although the amounts pledged do not replace the recent cuts. In the case of TAFE, the ALP promised to replace only $320 million out of $1.2 billion taken from the gutted public vocational education system.

Emphasis Mine

However the political vacuity of the Labour Party can be seen with its preference deals with the right-wing parties.

This is a minor setback to the neo-liberal agenda in general. Let's not forget that it was a Labour government back in the 1980's that started deregulation that led to the excesses of Alan Bond, Christopher Skase, etc.

The workers should never forget that Capitalism is all about the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor. This is a very hard thing for workers to understand when they are continually told that they are just one magic break away from being rich by winning Lotto, getting a brilliant idea, getting chosen by nice rich person to advance up the corporate ladder.

This is a sensible thing to do. Why risk this one chance by promoting Communism? Especially when one is unlikely to see it in one's lifetime.

My answer is that a just and equitable society is more than worth the risk.

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White Progress

Cathy O'Neill explores White Progress.

In my Occupy group, which meets weekly on Sunday afternoons, we’ve been talking a lot about white privilege, and whether that phrase is appropriate, and whether we can come up with a better one. Because for the most part, “white privilege” really refers to the rights white people have, which everyone should have, but which not everyone has.

For example, it is my white privilege not to worry about my three sons getting shot by the police. But that’s not a privilege, it’s a right. I’m entitled to that security. Everyone is, but not everyone gets to have it. Maybe we should call it “white entitlement.”

Emphasis Mine

The oppression of Capitalism relies on having racial tension. As Malcolm X said, “You cannot have Capitalism without Racism.” The only way to completely racism is to remove Capitalism.

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Top 5 ways US treatment of African-Americans resembles Apartheid South Africa

Juan Cole describes the Top 5 ways US treatment of African-Americans resembles Apartheid South Africa.

From 1949 though the early 1990s, South Africa was ruled by an Afrikaner Apartheid regime that made race the basis for law and politics, and which systematically excluded black Africans from their civil and national rights, empowering white Afrikaners alone. The social statistics produced by that regime, however, are not so different from those produced by ordinary every day legal and social practices in today’s United States. Impunity for white policemen who kill Blacks is one commonality between the two societies. …

Emphasis Mine

The primary difference between South Africa and the US (and Australia) is that the blacks were the majority in South Africa. In the USA, whites will soon become a minority among others: Chinese; Indian; Hispanic; African; Native. Whites in Australia are safe for a while longer.

Such racism can only exist when the whites succumb to the relentless racist propaganda everyday in the hope of some small material benefit. It is up to us white people to educate ourselves about what is really happening to non-whites all over the world. We cannot continue to blind ourselves with racist propaganda.

The only way to restore our own humanity is to see and realise the humanity in everyone else. There is no white, black, Asian: there are only human beings.

Again, this overcoming of racism is one of the biggest hurdles to the realisation of a Communist society. We cannot have people excluded from such a society unless they exclude themselves.

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The World's Dumbest Idea

Barry Ritholtz has John Maudlin's comments on The World's Dumbest Idea by James Montier.

SVM is Shareholder Value Maximisation.

Our intrepid author then explains how in the 1970s the Gospel According to Milton translated into the challenge of how to get corporate executives to focus on maximizing the wealth of shareholders. The solution: pay them a s***load of money (but not just cash — stock and options now constitute about two-thirds of total CEO compensation).

But, alas, there is pretty good research to suggest that larger incentives actually translate to lower performance, for reasons that James runs down for us. To make matters worse, both the average tenure of a corporate CEO and the average lifetime of an S&P 500 company have plummeted since the 1970s.

Bottom line: SVM has pretty well laid the kingdom to waste. James focuses on three areas of damage: (1) declining and low rates of business investment, (2) rising inequality, and (3) a low labor share of GDP. James takes these outcomes on one at a time, in his usual convincing manner. …

Emphasis Mine

But the question Maudlin and Montier do not ask: whom does the kingdom benefit? If they were to ask the question, I suggest their answer would be, based on their criticism, everyone.

One example Montier gives of the alleged distortion of Capitalism by this SVM paradigm is that of business investment. Here, funds that should have been used for investment are given to the shareholders instead:

This diversion of cash flows to shareholders has played a role in reducing investment. A little known fact is that almost all investment carried out by firms is financed by internal sources (i.e., retained earnings).

Emphasis Mine

Isn't the right of the owners to determine how their capital is used? If it is the short-term interest of the Capitalists to have their capital in money rather than machinery or such like, then why shouldn't it be so?

As Karl Marx wrote, one of the laws of motion in Capitalism is the reproduction of Capital. Capital is reproduced through investment. However, if the rate of return on investment is too low (subjective view of the individual Capitalist), then Capital is manifested as money.

This is what is happening here. The rate of return on investment has dropped below a certain threshold, and individual Capitalists are realising their Capital as money through the running-down of the firm's retained earnings (aka past profits).

Montier's conclusions are:

Shareholder’s Lesson

Firstly, SVM has failed its namesakes: it has not delivered increased returns to shareholders in any meaningful way, and may actually have led to poorer corporate performance!

Corporate’s Lesson

Secondly, it suggests that management guru Peter Drucker was right back in 1973 when he suggested “The only valid purpose of a firm is to create a customer.” Only by focusing on being a good business are you likely to end up delivering decent returns to shareholders. Focusing on the latter as an objective can easily undermine the former. Concentrate on the former, and the latter will take care of itself. As Keynes once put it, “Achieve immortality by accident, if at all.”

Everyone’s Lesson

Thirdly, we need to think about the broader impact of policies like SVM on the economy overall. Shareholders are but one very narrow group of our broader economic landscape. Yet by allowing companies to focus on them alone, we have potentially unleashed a number of ills upon ourselves. A broader perspective is called for. Customers, employees, and taxpayers should all be considered. Raising any one group to the exclusion of others is likely a path to disaster. Anyone for stakeholder capitalism?

Emphasis Mine

Is stakeholder capitalism really another way of saying that the means of production should be in the hands of the public? In other words, is Montier calling for Socialism? I do not think Montier and Maudlin have really thought this through.

Anyway, in any class society, the rulers are one very narrow group of our broader economic landscape. That is the nature of class society. And the rulers rule in their own interests.

Only if their survival is threatened and blatant oppression is not an option, then do they consider the minimum possible to quieten down the masses. Reform is is inly the placebo of oppression.

The workers must realise that only when the means of production are in their own hands, then they can start building a most just and humane society.

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War to the Horizon

Tom Engelhardt writes about how there is War to the Horizon.

To summarize: 13 years later, the War Party is ascendant. It controls Congress. The president is visibly, if with his usual reluctance, placing his bets on war. The military is riding high. The end of all calls for serious Pentagon budget cuts is clearly in sight. And more of the same is undoubtedly in the works, no matter who wins the 2016 election.

That’s the “new” Washington. Peacetime? A fantasy creation of lefties, libertarians, and noodle heads. Peace? A dirty word that no self-respecting politician would be caught using.

Meanwhile, the war hawks are crying out for more. At the moment, all the pressure in Washington is focused on the ramping up of its various wars and crises. Iraq War 3.0 and Syria War 1.0 are to expand. Afghanistan seems again to be a war on the rise. The pressure is increasing to make Cold War 2.0 ever hotter and to ensure that negotiations with Iran over a nuclear deal will prove less than fruitful. Drone wars are ongoing. Special forces ops are raiding away. Thirteen years later, we are yet again floating on what seems to be a rising, not ebbing, tide of war and the one qualification for a new secretary of defense is that he or she be a hot, not a cold, warrior.

Emphasis Mine

Engelhardt considers war to be an option under Capitalism. Instead, it is a neccessity to protect and take-over markets. The invisible hand is really that of the drone pilot or the bommer pilot.

However, the intensity of war is an indication of the troubles Capitalism is currently going through. But it is troubled enough to risk open war with either Russia or China yet.

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Incredible Populist Positions in Podemos' "Economic Manifesto"; Populism Explained

Mike Shedlock is aghast at the Incredible Populist Positions in Podemos' "Economic Manifesto"; Populism Explained.

If Spain abandons the euro and adopts anything close to this platform, expect a complete collapse in the Spanish economy.

These populist ideas are taking hold for the simple reason the burden of the euro crisis is falling on the average worker, while the banks, the bankers, and the political classes were bailed out.

It should be no wonder that with each passing day, radical left and radical right parties attract voters.

Eventually, there is going to be a revolt in Spain, Greece, or Italy. Podemos is a strong candidate to lead the opening salvo.

Emphasis Mine

That radicalisation is occurring is undisputed. Even Shedlock argues for the burden to fall upon the well-to-do.

But this will not happen without a strong movement based in the working class. A right-wing radicalisation would only serve to secure the status quo.

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The re-emergence of debtors' prison

Cathy O'Neill comments on The re-emergence of debtors' prisons.

This sense that "everyone is screwed" creates solidarity among poor whites and poor blacks, and especially young people. The Ferguson protests have been multi-racial, for example. And if you’ve read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, you'll recognize a historical pattern whereby political change happens when poor whites and poor blacks start working together.

Emphasis Mine

This is why racism is so vitally important to the Capitalists: it keeps the oppressed fighting among themselves. You have to remember who the real enemy is.

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In Hebron, Palestinian women face down daily settler home invasions

Juan Cole writes that In Hebron, Palestinian women face down daily settler home invasions.

While a Ma'an reporter was sitting in her home, two Jewish settlers with New York accents carrying automatic assault rifles accompanied by armed Israeli soldiers walked across the roof and climbed into the family courtyard. They entered the room where the interview was taking place and gesticulated at different parts of the home, discussing how to re-arrange the dwelling after they forced the al-Atrash family out.

None of the four intruders seemed at all perturbed by the presence of the family matriarch, her three children, or even the Ma'an journalists on the scene.

Emphasis Mine

This is racism at its most causal. The sensitivities, propriety, and privacy of the oppressed are no concern to the oppressors. They can just walk into any home without invitation and hesitation to invade the privacy and propriety of the women's and children's quarters.

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United States: Feeding the homeless banned in 'war on giving'

Jessica Hansen-Weaver writes United States: Feeding the homeless banned in 'war on giving'.

An October report from the National Coalition for the Homeless, Share No More: The Criminalization of Efforts to Feed People in Need, has documented a dramatic rise in city ordinances aimed at restricting individuals and groups from feeding people who are experiencing homelessness.

Capitalism cannot solve the problem of homelessness. It can only try to suppress it.

And in suppressing homelessness, Capitalism wants turn everyone into self-centred individuals for Capitalism despises solidarity among the lower classes. Solidarity is the beginning of resistance.

Back in 2009, I commented on Food Not Bombs Battles City Government - and Wins. This has been an ongoing war.

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Geddes on methods

Dan Little reviews Geddes on methods.

It emerges that what Geddes has in mind for testing mid-level causal hypotheses is largely quantitative: isolate a set of cases in which the outcome is present and examine whether the hypothesized causal factor varies appropriately across the cases.…

Emphasis Mine

One hypothesis that could be tested is whether a Bolshevik Party is necessary for a successful Communist Revolution:

Country	Year	Party?	Success?
Russia	1905	No	No
Russia	Feb 1917	Yes	No
Russia	Nov 1917	Yes	Yes
Germany	1919	No	No
Hungary	1919	No	No
Italy	1920	No	No
China	1949	No	Yes
Vietnam	1954	No	Yes
Cuba	1959	No	Yes

As Little noted, the problem with a quantitative approach to comparative politics is the small number of cases that one has access to. In this case, I came up with nine (9) cases. Even these are dubious because I have not rigourously defined what a Bolshevik Party is, and how one can classify a revolutionary leadership as such.

Even the success factor is somewhat vague as a revolution goes through several phases:

1. Dual power (as is the case in Venezuela)
2. Insurrection
3. Civil War
4. Intervention
5. Reconstruction

At what point is a revolution successful? And not all revolutions go through these stages.

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A glut of oil?

A glut of oil?.

So here’s the basic picture. The current surplus of oil was brought about primarily by the success of unconventional oil production in North America, most new investments in which are not sustainable at current prices. Without that production, the price of oil could not remain at current levels. It’s just a matter of how long it takes for the high-cost North American producers to cut back in response to current incentives. And when they do, the price has to go back up.

Emphasis Mine

So much for the invisible hand of the market. The economic incentives for new oil production from more ecological environments (oil sand; oil shale; tight oil; deep water oil) are not currently there at the present moment. And this production cost does not include the environmental costs.

Most of the recent glut appears to be due to some geo-political stability. However, the excess production can be gone once instability returns in such places as Libya, Nigeria, and Iraq. And, of course, the elephant in the room is Saudi Arabia where an oppressive government is sitting on a very big time bomb.

The the predictions of peak oil back in 2004/2005 were pre-mature. As the price of oil goes up, the more difficult oil can be extracted economically (if one ignores environmental costs).

In our industrial civilization that heavily relies on motor vehicles, such a rise in costs affects economic growth which is the golden calf of the Abbott Government.

On the negative side, the lower prices are affecting the Bolivaran Revolution in Venezuela. Lower national income is beginning to affect the social programs of the government. So, it is not all bad from the Capitalist's point of view. Temporary economic pain in order to destroy an alternative to Capitalism.

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American Drones KIll 28 Innocent People for Every "Bad Guy"

Ted Rall writes that American Drones KIll 28 Innocent People for Every “Bad Guy”.

As a frequent critic of U.S. government policies, I’ve sometimes worried that Obama might sic one of his killer air robots on me. Thanks to Reprieve, I feel relieved. Even if Obama targets me, after all, it’s likely I’ll be reported killed multiple times while remaining alive and well…while hundreds of random people walking the streets get blown up willy-nilly.

Obama’s remote-control drone murderers are the embodiment of evil in the 21st century: careless, alienated, remote, bloodless. They also symbolize contemporary political culture: arrogant, corrupt and stupid.

Emphasis Mine

The US military kills 28 innocent people for every terrorism suspect! If that is not a war-crime, I do not what is.

No wonder the US government does not want to subscribe to the International Criminal Court: most of the high officials in the US government and military would awaiting trial.

Yet as Malcolm X said, the media has made us hate the oppressed and love the oppressor. Most of the reporting is about how these drone strikes are keeping us safe. Legality is reserved for those in control. Indeed, there is a means and residency test on legality: you have to have sufficient income and reside in the right place to be able afford the nicety of legality.

So much for the Capitalist promise of equality before the law.

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100K Homeless in Gaza face severe Flooding, Cold as UN Declares State of Emergency

Juan Cole reports on 100K Homeless in Gaza face severe Flooding, Cold as UN Declares State of Emergency.

“The flooding is exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza caused by blockade and the unprecedented destruction from the latest Israeli offensive,” the UN agency said in a post on its Facebook.

The agency, which is already massively stretched due to the summer’s conflict, said that it was “providing emergency fuel to supply back-up generators for pumping stations, portable pumps, municipalities, water, sanitation and health facilities.”

The brutality of the illegal Israeli blockade is adding to the misery of the Palestinians as it is meant to. The whole Israeli policy is make Palestinian so miserable so that they flee Greater Israel forever and never come back, thereby making Greater Israel ‘Arab-Frei’.

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Economists vs Politicians

Mark Thoma posts excerpts from Chris Dillow's post on Economists vs Politicians.

Dillow posits three (3) reasons for the growing distance between economists and politicians:

1. Academic idealism and isolation
2. Public self-absorption
3. Media complicity

4. …Political journalists have been complicit in creating a hyperreal bubble of mediamacro which perpetuates witless ideas (such as conflating the economy with the deficit) to the exclusion of such good ones as might exist.

Or, the fourth reason could be that economics is currently not useful in maintaining the status quo. The economists are failing in their ideological duty in creating plausible reasons for the current economic and political regime.

Instead, they are looking at the facts and finding reasons to criticise neo-liberalism. How dare they? Next thing, you know, they will be quoting Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

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The fear of freedom

Seth Godin highlights The fear of freedom.

We live in an extraordinary moment, with countless degrees of freedom. The instant and effortless connection to a billion people changes everything, but instead, we're paralyzed with fear, a fear so widespread that you might not even notice it.

We have more choices, more options and more resources than any generation, ever.

At present, this subjective freedom is only available for those with the objective reality of sufficient cash.

But it does highlight the mental contraints that workers operate under. We have our freedom of action severely circumscribed at work through regulations, policies, fiats, decrees, etc. We cannot make a move without consulting our managers and they, in turn, consulting their managers, ad finitum.

As we enter a Communist society, we are going to face this fear of freedom. It was the same fear that slaves faced after emancipation. “How do we fend for ourselves?” Our minds have been crippled by this dependency on the bosses for making decisions that rightfully should have been ours.

It is the private ownership of the means of production that gives the bosses the legal and moral to make these decisions. Take these means of production into our own hands, and we take responsibility for our lives through making decisions and living with our mistakes.

It is only then that we can grow as human beings with full adult responsibility in our lives, instead of being cowering children asking for some more.

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Ferguson erupts -- anti-racist protesters demand justice

Barry Sheppard reports that Ferguson erupts -- anti-racist protesters demand justice.

Even the staid corporate New York Times editorialised: “Mr. McCulloch’s announcement sounded more like a defense of Officer Wilson than a neutral summary of the facts …

“For the Black community of Ferguson, the killing of Michael Brown was the last straw in a long train of abuses they have suffered daily at the hands of the local police …

“The police are justifiably seen as an alien, occupying force that is synonymous with state-sponsored abuse.

The case resonates across the country in New York City, Chicago and Oakland because the killing of young Black men by police is a common feature of African American life and a source of dread for Black parents from coast to coast.

Emphasis Mine

As usual, the mass media is distorting the truth and turning the rest of us into racists:

It defies common sense to believe that unarmed Brown, who was some distance away from Wilson, turned to run at a cop firing a hail of bullets at him. The fact that much of the media has given Wilson national TV time to spout this nonsense is nauseating.

It was an illustration of African American revolutionary Malcolm X's warning about the media in the most violent of all the “advanced” capitalist countries: “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Emphasis Mine

Sheppard concludes that:

It is clear the protests are unlikely to quickly die down and the anger has the potential to spark a mass struggle against the racist violence that marks capitalist America.

Until the white people see themselves as human beings in common with black people, this struggle will eventually be extinguished by white fear of loss of entitlements under a racist society. Then another atrocity occurs, and the same cycle of violence and hand-wringing comes into play again and again.

Black people can present all of the arguments and facts they like, but racism is not to going to be seriously challenged until white workers seek a common cause with all workers against the Capitalists. And you can be bloody sure that the Capitalists are going to pull out all stops to make sure that never happens.

Remember we are neither black nor white, we are all human beings!

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Challenging the globalisation of indifference: Pope Francis meets with popular movements

Judith Marshall, from Steelworkers Humanity Fund reflects on Challenging the globalisation of indifference: Pope Francis meets with popular movements

After the three days in Rome with the popular movements, the Pope, then has continued to take the church into the centre of the ideological battle grounds of neoliberalism, firm in his determination to make the contemporary church walk with the poor and excluded and discarded. The popular movement participants have returned to their organisations and the day to day struggles for land, housing and work. The moments of dialogue in Rome have served to strengthen the convictions of both the church and the popular movements that these are the right battles to be fighting.

The problem with the Catholic Church's stance is that Communism and Socialism are still anathema. Membership of a Communist party is grounds for excommunication.

So the Church wants the luxury of criticising Capitalism without proposing an economic and political alternative.

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Ted Rall: They Shoot White People Too, Don't They?

Ted Rall reminds people that They Shoot White People Too, Don’'t They?

There is considerable evidence that white privilege won’t protect you from being beaten or otherwise abused when you fall into the clutches of white (or black) cops. In 2000 I was roughed up by an LAPD motorcycle cop for no apparent reason, other than the fact that he didn’t like the cut of my jib. (He charged me with jaywalking, which as a New Yorker I do often, but wasn’t doing then.)

In the United States, local law enforcement has a license to kill — and if they use it, the odds are, nothing will happen to them. Black or white, the smartest course of action when you fall into their clutches is with deference and courtesy, including when declining to answer questions, which is your right.

Although white people are less likely to be killed by the police without good reason, we are not immune. We should shed this stupid idea that we are safe because we are white.

The pain and suffering of non-whites is our pain and suffering because we are all human beings.

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Who Will Wind Up Holding the Bag in the Shale Gas Bubble?

Yves Smith asks Who Will Wind Up Holding the Bag in the Shale Gas Bubble?

Even though OilPrice reported that US rig count had indeed fallen as oil prices plunged, John Dizard at the Financial Times (hat tip Scott) gives a more intriguing piece of the puzzle: the degree to which production is still chugging along despite it being uneconomical. The oil majors have been criticized for levering up to continue developing when it is cash-flow negative; they are presumably betting that prices will be much higher in short order.

Emphasis Mine

Anyone who thinks that Capitalism is inherently rational should ponder the fact that the investors are pouring money into businesses that are losing money and will lose money for the foreseeable future.
Yet the laws of motion for Capitalism compels them to behave in this manner. Capital must be invested in order to be reproduced. Since Capitalists compete against each other, they must join in the frenzy lest someone succeeds more than they do. Thus, bubbles are born.
The individual Capitalist is no longer a maven of industry or an originator but rather a financial investor. The era when the former was king has long past as noted by Lenin back in 1917.
The extremely low interest rates encourage very large leverage on investments. That is, an investment has very small percentage that is actually the investor's own money while the rest is borrowed. So the investor stands to lose a small amount of money with the possibility of very large returns because of the low interest rates.
It is 2007/08 all over again.

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Reynolds punctures the 'great Australian silence'

John Rainford argues that Reynolds punctures the 'great Australian silence'.

Reynolds is one of a pioneering group of historians, anthropologists and others who have transformed our understandings of traditional Aboriginal society and the relationship between Indigenous and settler Australians.

In his latest book, he provides evidence that supports his contention that it was the war of conquest fought against Aboriginal people that made the nation, not the 1915 ill-fated invasion of Turkey.

Conflict came within weeks of the foundation of Sydney and was apparent on every frontier for the next 140 years.

Yet while the large-scale killing of Warlpiri people by police at Coniston in Central Australia in 1928 can be used as a convenient date to mark the end of officially endorsed killing, the brutality has never ended.

This is the brutal reality of a settler society such as Australia, USA, or Israel. The indigenous population is subjected through genocide and their land is expropriated by the settler elite. Yet all settlers bears the guilt of this atrocity because we have benefited from the crime.

It is at an unconscious level that most white Australians condone this ongoing violence against Aborigines. They do not have to do themselves, just merely accept the system that does it for their benefit.

We cannot be truly free of the guilt of the past until we overthrow this racist system and reform ourselves so that we become human beings rather than black-fellow and white-fellow.

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Mark Latham's fantasies of a middle-class 'utopia'

Phil Shannon reviews Mark Latham's fantasies of a middle-class 'utopia'.

The centrepiece of Latham’s alternative, “minimalist” politics is government by experts. Expert bodies would take charge of fiscal policy, climate change policy and other areas of government dereliction.

Such old-hat technocratic solutions, however, would only further blow out what Latham justly deplores as Australia’s “democratic deficit”. Experts are not ideology-free and would themselves be elite members of the Bubble — only minus any democratic accountability.

Latham is right to say the current system is broken but it is the capitalist form of democracy — economic rule by the rich, political rule by their class buddies — that is the problem.

The ideologues of Capitalism are facing a crisis of legitimacy. They are smart enough to realise that people seeing that Capitalism is not working for them. The ideologues want us to believe that this is not real Capitalism, the political system is corrupted by money, etc.

But no Capitalist will go as far to admit that Capitalism has run its historic course and must be replaced by something better.

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Filmmaker: Israel's ethnic cleansing must stop

Filmmaker: Israel's ethnic cleansing must stop.

In a move that surprised many — and symbolises Israel's growing isolation and global opposition to its crimes — former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr has publicly declared his opposition to Israeli policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

…

And is not just high-profile former politicans like Carr who are discovering the truth about Israeli apartheid and history of ethnic cleansing. Many Israelis are not taught the history of genocide and dispossession through which the Israeli state was created.

Like many people who grow up in colonial-settler societies — such as Australia — learning the truth can be a shock.

Similar to the Israeli film-maker, Lia Tarachansky, I have been on a long journey from being a pro-Zionist, racist, white Australian. It has involved study, meeting Palestinians and Aborigines, learning about the hidden history, and a lot of self-reflection.

I used to write letters of support to the Israeli embassy, hand out pro-Israeli flyers at University, speak in support of Israel when I could.

But then there was the case of the cold-blooded murder of a twelve year-old boy in the arms of his father. I could not understand how the Israelis could so blatantly lie about what happened: how it was the father's fault. Probably, I would have believed that it was a mistake, and the IDF would be profoundly sorry that it had happened.

The arrogance of the IDF spokes-people was such that they could sell any lie to the people.

I wrote a letter to the Israeli embassy expressing my disgust at what had happened, and to say that I could no support Israel. Their reply repeated the same lies and they said that they were sorry to lose my support.

This is a journey that all workers have to make. It is not easy. It is hard on one's ego to find out that one has been lied to so blatantly over a long time. And all of those authority figures that one trusted are all part of this sordid economy of lies and omission.

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How professionals think

Dan Little looks at How professionals think.

Little posits three (3) models about how actors arrive at their choices and behavior:

1. Rational Choice
2. Pragmatist Action
3. Character

Little examines a paper

…that appears to show that a certain segment of white-collar professionals (bankers) make very different decisions about their actions depending on the “frame” within which they deliberate (link). If they are thinking within the everyday frame of personal life and leisure, their actions are as honest as anyone else’s. But if they are prompted to think within the frame of their professional environment, their actions become substantially less honest. That professional environment is the large international bank.

Emphasis Mine

Littke concludes that:

These findings suggest that we should explore further the notion that actors possess distinct mental frames that they can take up or put aside readily, and that lead to very different kinds of behavior when confronting the same kinds of problems. Further, we should consider the possibility that these frames are highly portable and contingent: the actor can be led to choose one frame or the other, with important behavioral consequences. This finding seems to point in the same direction as ideas advanced by Kahneman and Tversky in much of their work together, including Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.

Emphasis Mine

My own take on Little's reading this paper is that it is a refutation of the Capitalist lie that all people are naturally greedy and that Capitalism is the best system that harnesses this so-called 'innate greed'.

This paper gives me hope that we can truly build a Communist society because people will tend to adapt their behaviour and expectations of norms to fit that society. This also means that a Communist society has to be built through continual agitation and propaganda until the people accept that acting in these new ways a better society can be built.

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Protests against closure of 150 Aboriginal communities

Alex Salmon reports on Protests against closure of 150 Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.

Amnesty International released a statement urging the Western Australian government not to forcibly evict Aboriginal people from the communities, as demolishing houses and denying indigenous people the right to practice their culture is a breach of human rights and international law.

Tammy Solonec, a human rights lawyer working with Amnesty International, slammed the hypocrisy of Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett for admitting that closing the communities will be traumatic for the people involved, while continuing a policy that will force indigenous people to break their connections to land and culture and force them to move to larger towns where they will have greater exposure to drugs, alcohol, violence and crime.

Destruction of a people's culture is considered to be genocide under international law.

But, if Australian Governments followed international law, they would admit refugees, restore Aboriginal land rights, not go to war in Iraq or Afghanistan, recognise the rights of the Palestinians to their own state. Such laws only applies to the official enemies of the US, not to its client states.

So why should workers fight for the right of Aboriginal communities to stay together on their ancestral land? It is about the rights of communities to determine their own future. It is about respecting the culture of others.

It is these things that will make a Communistic society viable.

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Scott Morrison narrows the meaning of 'refugee'

Jay Fletcher writes that Scott Morrison narrows the meaning of ‘refugee’.

It is these millions of people who suffer while Australia enforces a racist closed-borders policy. “Draining the pool” in Indonesia may force this suffering further from Australia’s shores, but it still exists and it is growing exponentially worse.

However, the fight at home is still urgent. A bill drafted by Morrison would make changes to the Migration Act and the Maritime Powers Act that, former PM Malcolm Fraser said, would “enshrine in law the mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees who flee to our country to escape persecution, torture and death”.

The ASRC [(Asylum Seeker Resource Centre)] has made one of more than 5000 submissions to the Senate inquiry being held on the bill. The advocacy and support centre said the bill will, “see the Minister give himself an unprecedented level of power to make life or death decisions about individual asylum seeker cases, without court oversight”.

In a briefing explaining the big changes proposed in the bill, the ASRC said: “The Bill narrows the meaning of refugee, ignoring previous court decisions and stacking the odds against refugees.

This xenophobia of the Australian working class against refugees prevents them from developing their political consciousness on internationalism. Unfortunately, this is very entrenched in the psyche.

But this does not mean that the party should give up or minimise its stance on racism and acceptance of refugees. It is vital for a Communist society to be anti-racist and accepting of all who seek help and refuge. A Communist cannot operate otherwise.

What this does mean that each party member has to wage their own internal war against racism and xenophobia. By recognising such a struggle, we can help others on their journey to being ant-racist and anti-xenophobic.

It will be this journey that transforms us into workers ready for a Communist society because we will regain our humanity and practice seeing the long-term. This is in contradistinction to the rabid racism and alienation we are forced to consume to under Capitalism.

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Masaccio: Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay

Yves Smith comments on Masaccio: Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay.

One of the main agendas of neoclassical economics is to give Panglossian defenses of the current order a veneer of intellectual legitimacy. If our system is the result of individuals and businesses behaving in logical ways, at least in the minds of economists, surely the outcome is inevitable, and therefore virtuous, or else those operators would do things differently. The Big Lie in all of this is that neoclassical economics takes power completely out of the equation. While it does assume selfishness, in that everyone is out or himself to maximize his utility, it also assumes atomized actors who lack the power to influence markets. …

…

One widely repeated bit of propaganda in the US is that how much people earn reflects their worth in an economic sense. Given how important business is in American society, maintaining this belief is critical to maintaining legitimacy; otherwise, more and more people would see corporate executives not as captain of enterprise but individuals by luck or connivance, got in a position where they could exploit a system that gives them control over assets and cash flows with perilous little in the way of controls over them (there is a vast literature on principal/agent issues in large corporations).

Emphasis Mine

Masaccio concludes:

Neoliberals have convinced the vast majority of our fellow citizens that they and they alone are responsible for their fates. They took risks and they lost, but it was their choice. I can hear Rick Santelli ranting in the background. At the same time, neoliberals insisted that governments everywhere bail out the filthy rich and their corporations, especially their financial corporations, and governments obliged. So, we screw the productive members of society and reward the slugs, all in line with neoliberal theory.

Neoclassical economics undergirds the neoliberal project. Piketty slashes at a piece of that foundation with his attack on marginal productivity. What now is the justification for the absurd compensation of the filthy rich? Tort law failed to deal with the sins of the bankers. Why aren’t they in jail? One more block pulled from the Jenga pile of vicious ideas so beloved of the rich and their government agents.

Emphasis Mine

This was all explained by Marx over 160 years ago. The ruling class creates a superstructure to maintain control. And part of that superstructure lies in the sphere of ideas.

One of those ideas is neo-liberalism. It is not the only one maintaining control. There are also ideas about religion, gender, sexuality, the need for a hierarchical society, etc.

And let's not forget that naked force is also part of the superstructure. When ideas fail, the guns come out. Arguments are then won with bullets, not words.

We must tread carefully when confronting the Capitalists. They got where they are by being utterly ruthless. Each bomb dropped in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Somalis, Iran, Afghanistan is a warning to all the subject peoples of the world that they mean to stay in business for as long as possible.

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Aboriginal disadvantage worsens

Peter Boyle writes that Aboriginal disadvantage worsens.

The PM insulted the indigenous people by repeating the lie that Australia was just bush before invasion:

Abbott's insults can be understood as part of a disgusting attempt to justify this deepening racial oppression. It perpetuates the racist idea that Aboriginal people are inconsequential, sub-human and their conditions a result of their supposed inferiority.

Green Left Weekly has explained in some detail how the worsening conditions in Aboriginal communities can be traced back to racist cuts to essential services and the funding of Aboriginal-run community organisations by the Coalition government and its ALP predecessors.

That and the fact that Australian governments have refused to deliver real land rights and impose a strong regime of job quotas on private and public employers to address more than two centuries of racial oppression. That's the truth about the shamefully growing gap.

Emphasis Mine

Ordinary workers most likely work and travel with indigenous people everyday. Yet the white-fellows still subscribe to the subjective lies about black-fellow inferiority despite on the objective reality they see daily.

It is very hard to break this stranglehold of Capitalist subjectivity. It is being reinforced daily through our culture: portrayals in the media, opinions of the bosses and overseers.

Standing up to this endemic racism can be economically devastating through loss of job and home. It can also be fatal if one confronts a violent racist.

Maybe the solution for the time-being is to be a guerilla anti-racist.

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An Israeli-Arab Spring? 1.6 mn Palestinian-Israelis are Marginalized, Angry and Defiant

Emile Nakhleh ponders An Israeli-Arab Spring? 1.6 mn Palestinian-Israelis are Marginalized, Angry and Defiant.

As Israel moves to exclude Palestinian parties from parliament,

As Israeli politics moves to the right and the state becomes more Jewish and less pluralistic and inclusive, the Palestinian community, which constitutes over one-fifth of the population, feels more marginalised and alienated.

In response to endemic budgetary, economic, political, and social discrimination, the Arab community is becoming assertive, more Palestinian, and more confrontational. Calls for equality, justice, and an end to systemic discrimination by “Israeli Arab” civil society activists are now more vocal and confrontational.

Emphasis Mine

The Arabs within Israel are now increasingly viewing themselves as an indigenous population rather “Israeli Arab”:

Recent events clearly demonstrate that the Arabs in Israel are no longer a quiescent, cultural minority but an “indigenous national” minority deserving full citizenship rights regarding resources, collective rights, and representation on formal state bodies.

Nakhleh is pessimistic about a peaceful solution:

If violence and continued discrimination are part of Israel’s long-term strategy against its Arab minority to force Arab emigration, it is unlikely that the government would implement tangible initiatives to improve the condition of the Arab minority.

Accordingly, communal violence in Israel would increase, creating negative ramifications for regional peace and stability and for U.S. interests in the eastern Mediterranean.

Emphasis Mine

Let's call Israel's policies for what they are: genocide. The State of Israel aims for the removal of all indigenous populations from its illegally acquired territories.

That people could think that either Israel or the US would be embarrassed by such a description are sorely mistaken. The US was built through genocide as was any settler society (including Australia). One does not reject the foundations without severely affecting the stability of the whole structure.

It is up to workers to educate themselves on these matters and confront the horrific origins of the current Capitalist society and their place in it. It also means that workers will have to confront their own compliance with and benefiting from this state of affairs.

Guilt and shame can be major road-blocks to reconciliation and redemption.

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Why the big four banks should be nationalised

John Rainford argues Why the big four banks should be nationalised.

Australia managed its way through the GFC in better shape than most countries thanks to the Keynesian counter-cyclical economic policies that were implemented here and in China.

In Australia these included unlimited guarantees of bank deposits and wholesale funding. This led to the big four banks that were too big to fail getting bigger.

One result of the GFC has been that banks around the world have been required to lift their capital adequacy requirements so as to ameliorate the effects of any future economic downturn.

The big four in Australia have resisted this because it takes capital away from their dodgy investments and reserves it as part-insurance against future losses. They have threatened to claw back any increase in money reserves they will be required to hold by raising interest rates.

Several countries are debating the issue of breaking up large banks. A better idea would be to nationalise them.

I am rather embarassed to say that, despite Rainbird's article, the party's policies on Nationalisation are completely lacking. This is worrying because the Socialist Alliance are campaigning, in part. in the Victorian State Elections on Why the car industry should be nationalised.

The tenor of Rainford's article seems to be that the banks are treating the regulators with contempt. Although this is true, I do not see how we can appeal to workers by taking this approach.

Regulation, to most workers (especially in the non-privileged strata), are continually oppressed by regulation. They are hassled by ticket inspectors, parking inspectors, police, HR people, Real Estate agents, local councils, etc. They spend the whole day avoiding breaking some regulation or impost.

Treating regulators with contempt is not a crime with most workers. It is an attitude born of long and frustrating experience.

That people are actively trying to avoid regulations and paying fines is also not seen as a crime. It may unjust that the bigger fish can do this more easily, but the principle is not in question.

I think the question of nationalisation should be approached in a similar way to that made in Why the car industry should be nationalised by emphasising the benefits to workers.

I do not mean just economic benefits but the political and societal benefits of workers controlling their own lives rather than living at the whim of others.

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What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change

What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change.

Two (2) of the engineers who worked on Google's RE<C project write that:

As we reflected on the project, we came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach. So we’re issuing a call to action. There’s hope to avert disaster if our society takes a hard look at the true scale of the problem and uses that reckoning to shape its priorities.

Emphasis Mine

They had realised that even if the project had succeeded, it would not be enough to stop global warming as we have already passed the safety limit of 350ppm of CO₂. The amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere means that the Earth will keep warming for the next 100 years.

That realization prompted us to reconsider the economics of energy. What’s needed, we concluded, are reliable zero-carbon energy sources so cheap that the operators of power plants and industrial facilities alike have an economic rationale for switching over soon—say, within the next 40 years. Let’s face it, businesses won’t make sacrifices and pay more for clean energy based on altruism alone. Instead, we need solutions that appeal to their profit motives. RE<C’s stated goal was to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, but clearly that wouldn’t have been sufficient to spur a complete infrastructure changeover. So what price should we be aiming for?

Emphasis Mine

What a damming indictment of Capitalism? The survival of the human race is not profitable!

The real problem is how to convince workers that Capitalism needs to be overthrown. Even if workers could understand all of the scientific and engineering papers, they would still be reluctant to take action because they feel safer in what they know than with what might be. This is only natural.

It does not help that these pleas for action are coming from the privileged stratum of society. The workers are right to mistrust these collaborators. Past experience in various struggles has shown where the interests of these collaborators lie.

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Mike Treen: A critique of crisis theory

Mike Treen has A critique of crisis theory.

There is no natural end to Capitalism:

But there is no final crisis in this system — other than a descent into nuclear war, or barbarism arising from the sort of ecological winter or runaway ecological collapse that capitalism appears to be preparing for us. Short of such a disastrous outcome, the system will continue to carry on with its booms and busts until it is overthrown and replaced.

That can only be carried out by a conscious social and political force, by a class that is not bound to the system by material interest. That is why the working class is the only class that can overthrow this system. It is the only class not bound by property and profit to its perpetuation. It is the only class with the numbers and social power, if organised, if conscious enough, to effect this outcome and bring about real majority rule.

Feudalism had to end because the Capitalists needed the Serfs to become Workers. Otherwise Capitalist expansion could not take place.

The ruling class of a Socialist society already exists: the Proletariat. There is no need to transform the workers into something else. They only need to seize power.

As for crises, Treen remarks that:

Marx had identified the essence of the periodic crises of capitalism as crises of overproduction very early on, even in the Communist Manifesto in 1848.

Treen contrasts this idea of Marx with two (2) competing theories of Capitalist crises: tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TROPF); and the Keynesian idea of under-consumption.

I have fallen into the trap of treating over-production and under-consumption as being synonomous.

Treen rejects the idea of a fiat currency:

I think that is a big mistake. Ultimately, all non-commodity money — that is, token money and credit money — must have a relationship to a real money commodity like gold. This is true whether a formal gold standard exists or not. This lawful economic relationship still exists and therefore continues to be the underlying cause of crises of overproduction.

This is because the exchange of commodities is the basis of all Capitalist economic activity. When the exchange happens, the commodities have equal value. Because real money commodity can be exchanged for all other commodities, it because the basis of universal valuation.

Treen encourages all of us to study Marxist Crisis Theory:

I think we all should pay respect to the founders of scientific socialism and give this issue of crisis theory the attention and importance it deserves. We cannot leave it to others, to so-called experts.

I am not an “expert” on this stuff. It has been a continuing interest of mine, because it is important that we understand it and because it is important we understand who we are, what our role is, what we expect will happen to this system, who the agent of social change is going to be, and what the prospects are for making that happen in the world today. Those are all issues we can begin to address.

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Longest Continuous Period of War In American History

Barry Ritholtz writes about the Longest Continuous Period of War In American History.

Ritholtz writes that this endless war and unceasing alarms is weakening the US Republic through the corrosion of the legal and political system. He writes that it is a cynical attempt to garner power and to distract the populace from the real problems:

But — underneath the ever-changing marketing and branding campaign — it’s really just the good ‘ole military-industrial-and-banking complex consolidating their power and making money hand over fist.

It is in the interests of the Capitalists to preserve their power: both in the objective realm of physical force, and in the subjective realm of ideas. Since they are a minority, they must delude or subject the majority to their whims. They do not rule by consent—but by force and delusion.

The inherent danger of continuous wars, as the Spartans found out, is that your enemies learn how to fight you. Sparta was able to dominate their part of Greece for hundreds of years due to their reputation and mystique—they actually did very little fighting.

It was only with the conquest of Athens that the Spartans entered upon a period of continuous warfare. After a period of time, Sparta's enemies began to lose their fear of her and began to work out how to defeat her.

With defeat came the revolt of the subject peoples and slaves. This further undermined the Spartan war economy. Then Macedonia swept in to conquer all of Greece. Despite attempts to free herself, Sparta became a subject state of Macedonia, then Rome, then Byzantium, then Istanbul.

The three (3) Russian revolutions (1905, February 1917, and November 1917) came on the back of great military defeats. The German revolution of 1919 came with defeat in WWI. Military defeat is sometimes a catalyst for social revolution as the ruling class has lost its mystique of superiority and invincibility.

With this latest Capitalist crisis, war is probably seen as the only way to maintain power. But it is a dangerous one as it can hasten the demise of the ruling class.

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Israel moves to exclude Palestinian parties from parliament

Jonathan Cook reports that Israel moves to exclude Palestinian parties from parliament.

The Israeli parliament has voted overwhelmingly to suspend Haneen Zoabi, a legislator representing the state’s large Palestinian minority, for six months as a campaign to silence political dissent intensified.

Zoabi has not endeared herself to the Hebraic-speaking Israelis. She has criticised the latest assault on Gaza, has called the Israeli Air Force pilots terrorists, and the Israeli Army the equivalent of the violent Islamic State group.

There are other measures being considered to expel Zoabi from parliament and from Israel, as well as excluding Palestinians altogether from parliament. The rabid racism of the Israeli state cannot contemplate the existence and therefore the opinions and feelings of the oppressed Palestinians.

This is all part of the genocidal mind-set that the Zionists now operate under. Since their recent defeats in Gaza and Lebanon, the Zionists must plunge ahead into this madness. There is no way they can admit that they are wrong.

Aeyal Gross, a constitutional law professor at Tel Aviv University, warned that the Knesset’s treatment of Zoabi was “paving the way towards fascism and tyranny”.

The Hebraic-speaking Israelis should remember the Nuremburg Laws that gradually stripped the German Jews of their rights, livelihoods, political representation, among other things. Gross is right to be terrified of what is happening.

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Mumia: Real threat not Ebola, but capitalist health care

Mumia Abu-Jamal argues that the Real threat not Ebola, but capitalist health care.

This is not about the Ebola crisis, it is about the US health care crisis, made possible by a flawed business model that prioritises profit above all other things: even life itself.

Consider this: when [Thomas Eric] Duncan first entered Texas Presbyterian Hospital, he was interviewed by a screener, prescribed antibiotics, and sent home.

The screener was, more likely than not, not a medically-trained health care professional but a receptionist, perhaps armed with a checklist to cover. Chances are, she was perhaps the lowest-paid staff, until one considers the janitorial workers.

This business model, one followed by most institutions in the US, is now exposed as ineffective, dangerous and the least health-conscious.

That was a business decision, driven by the bottom line, of money — not life.

Emphasis Mine

The US has been lucky so far in that Ebola does not seem to have entered the population at large. As Mumia points out, this luck will not last given that the US health system is driven by profit alone.

Even this scare will not change the stance of the US health providers. Nor can the government force them to change. The bitter resistance to Obamacare is testament to the political power of the US health system.

But an Ebola outbreak is a disaster waiting to happen in the US. The lack of free, universal health-care means that the poor and undocumented will become the most affected because they are effectively denied access to health-care. Thus, Ebola will probably become established in the under-class.

This will lead to more discrimination and harassment of the poor and undocumented as Xenophobia runs amok in the ensuring panic. There will be little challenge to the US health care system despite its obvious failings.

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Opening the way to modernization

Cuba plans to focus on renewable energy sources (RES) as Opening the way to modernization.

Cuba currently produces 96% of its electricity through the use of fossil fuels. This statistic reveals that this is an economy highly dependent on imports with expensive production costs. For this reason, the Council of Ministers approved the Future Development of Renewable Energy Sources and the Efficient Use of Energy Policy on June 21, drawn up by the Governmental Commission charged with this task and responsible for exploiting the full potential of the country’s renewable energy sources.

The gist of the policy is to use alternative sources, such as:

• Sugar Cane biomass
• Wind
• Solar
• Hydropower

Coupled with the development of these alternative sources, there is also a drive to energy efficiency:

The increased use of the RES and the efficient use of energy are as comprehensive and transversal as the main aims of the country’s long term development plans, which are all directly linked.

The aim of this policy is:

The magnitude of this policy can be appreciated in the table of information below, but this is only one element in understanding the scope of the policy. Cuba is planning to generate 24% of its electrical energy, through RES, by 2030, which will result in a saving of more than 1.3 million tones of fossil fuel or approximately 780 million dollars per year.

This also shows the under-development of the Cuban in comparison with an advanced economy such as Germany. The figures quoted in If Germany Drops Coal, can the Industry Survive? are that …about 45% of Germany’s electricity comes from burning coal and for RES to account for around two thirds of supply within two decades.

This disparity will probably mean that Cuban industrial development will be impeded by having a greater reliance on fossil fuels when more advanced economies have substantially lessen theirs. And this will make it more difficult to catch up.

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Why the car industry should be nationalised

The Socialist Alliance gives its reasons on Why the car industry should be nationalised.

The Socialist Alliance calls for the nationalisation of the vehicle industry under worker and community control, to save jobs and to begin the process of converting the industry to make public transport vehicles or other products.

Nationalisations are not likely to happen without significant industrial action and other forms of action from workers and their organisations.

Unions in the manufacturing sector and the union movement generally should take up the nationalisation demand — as a response to economic crises and a step towards a different form of economy — as some unions did in the past.

Here, the Party is using the economic crisis to advance the political consciousness of the workers. The workers need to understand that they can control their own destiny. And, they have the power to do so.

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Michael Hoexter: Naomi Klein's "Hard-Money" Ideas Undermine Her Laudable Climate Action Goals

From Yves Smith, there is a repost of Michael Hoexter: Naomi Klein’s “Hard-Money” Ideas Undermine Her Laudable Climate Action Goals which is a review of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (TCE).

Hoexter derides Klein's attempt to use the profits from the Carbon-extraction industries (Coal, Oil, Gas, etc):

Of course, this is well-meaning economic freestyling on a number of different levels made to serve Klein’s, all-too-typical Left and liberal, preference to reduce economics to a simple morality play of victimizers and victims. For one, even within the terms of Klein’s stated policy preferences, Klein skims over that what she is proposing is akin to a complicated carbon tax, though Klein seems to think that this will be simply a matter of “taking” the fossil fuel industries’ ill-gotten gains as punishment. Klein seems to believe that fossil fuel companies will still continue to exist and function to a degree, generating profit and revenues, to in turn supply the money for climate action. In reality, not only would there be legal complexities in terms of corporate accounting and governance associated with such government actions but also the economic behavior of these companies and the fossil fuel sector overall after such fining or taxing is not explained in TCE.

Hoexter is correct in saying that a correct understanding of the role of money in the social-political system is essential for effective political action. This is why Marxist theory (which he also derides) is essential for the growing of the political consciousness of the working class.

This is not an issue to be left to our “betters”. We have to spend the time and effort really understand what Marx was writing about when he described the laws of motion for Capitalism.

My understanding of money is that it is a commodity just like any other. Its value derives from what be exchanged for it. This seems to be in contrast to the fiat currency view expressed by Hoexter.

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The Rojava revolution's radical democracy

A brief interview with Saleh Muslim Mohamed about The Rojava revolution's radical democracy is posted in Links magazine.

We have, in essence, developed a democracy without the state. That is a unique alternative in a region plagued by the internally conflicted Free Syrian Army, the Assad regime and the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

Another way of referring to this concept of democratic confederalism or democratic autonomy is radical democracy: to mobilise people to organise themselves and to defend themselves by means of peoples armies like the Peoples Defence Units (YPG) and Women's Defence Units (YPJ). We are practicing this model of self-rule and self-organisation without the state as we speak. Other people will speak of self-rule in theory, but for us, this search for self-rule is our daily revolution. Women, men, all strands of our society are now organised. The reason why Kobane still stands is because we have built these structures.

This is a different kind of Democracy:

Democratic autonomy is about the long term. It is about people understanding and exercising their rights. To get society to become politicised: that is the core of building democratic autonomy. In Europe you will find a society that is not politicised. Political parties are only about persuasion and individual benefits, not about actual emancipation and politicisation. Real democracy is based on a politicised society.

Emphasis Mine

For a Socialist Revolution to occur, the workers must be sufficiently polticised. They must that what happens in their daily lives in a political context.

This is very difficult to do in a society where politics is disparaged and derided. Political consciousness is vital to a healthy society. One can not delegate decisions about one's life to others.

And people should realise that all of our social interactions are mediated by politics. How we see and feel about the world influences what we do in the world.

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Michael Hudson: Putin's Pivot to Asia

Yves Smith comments on Michael Hudson: Putin’s Pivot to Asia.

Michael Hudson says that:

The most important way in which they’re coming together is reflected in Mr. Putin’s announcement that Russia is setting up its own bank clearing house system independent of the so-called SWIFT system. When you transfer funds from one bank to another, or when any bank uses U.S. dollars, it has to go through the SWIFT clearing house system in the United States.

Right now the only country that’s not part of this is Iran. To Russia, this has tipped America’s hand. It showed that what U.S. Cold Warriors really want is to break up Russia and China, and to interrupt their financial and banking services to disorient their economies. So Russia, China and Iran — and presumably other Asian countries — are now moving to establish their own currency clearing systems. To be independent of the SWIFT system and the U.S. dollar, Russia and China are denominating their trade and investments in rubles and yuan instead of the dollar. So what you’ve seen in the last few days in Beijing is a rejection of the dollar standard, and a rejection of American foreign policy behind it.

Emphasis Mine

The actions of the Capitalist State are designed to protect their own Capitalists. In the fierce competition between Capitalists, the politcal reality shapes the economic sphere.

The SWIFT system was originally conceived as a neutral entity. However, the interests of US Capitalists have undermined this neutrality by turning it into a political weapon against the official enemies.

It is this politicisation of the SWIFT system that has prompted the emergence of an economic competitor, not purely economic considerations. Here we the example of how politics and economic decisions are intertwined.

This will not change under a Socialist or Communist system. Then, the political decisions will, openly, drive the economic decisions.

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