Barry Ritholtz: Hurting the Rich Won't Help the Poor

Barry Ritholz writes that Hurting the Rich Won't Help the Poor.

The bottom line is simply this: There are enormous problems facing the nation, and as long as we keep electing the same people, and allowing the same influencers to fund their campaigns, there is unlikely to be any significant change from the status quo anytime soon. This paralysis seems to have made some billionaires very nervous. But the last thing we should do is delude ourselves into thinking that making the rich less rich does a lot for the poor in the absence of better government. 

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Socialism is not about taking wealth from the rich—it is about taking control of the generation of wealth away from the Capitalists and giving it to the workers.

Let those who sweat earn the wealth!

Ritholtz is correct in that the transfer of wealth solves nothing. He is wrong in that changing the complexion of the political system can fix things.

The State exists to protect the ruling class and their interests. The structure of the economy determines who comprises the ruling class. In a Capitalist economy, it is the Capitalists. In a Socialist economy, it is the workers.

However, transferring control directly to the workers will result in failure because the workers have not developed themselves sufficiently politically and ideologically. Workers have to work through Marxism to understand how Capitalism works, and they have to work through Leninism to understand how political change comes about.

And they have to review history to understand the mistakes of the past.

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Mike Shedlock's Question to Millennials: Why Are You Not Mad as Hell Yet?

Mike Shedlock's Question to Millennials: Why Are You Not Mad as Hell Yet?.

Millennials, why are you not angry about …

1. Having to pay Social Security when it won't be there for you.
2. Paying exorbitant taxes for public pension handouts and boomer retirements at age 50 for which you receive negative benefits.
3. Obamacare for which you overpay to support the obese and the nicotine addicts.
4. Enormous student debt burdens for which you received little benefit.

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Shedlock is under the impression that economic hardship leads directly to political action. He forgets that the dominant ideology of Capitalism controls how people see the world.

Most people can express themselves in terms that are taught to them. In that lexicon, there is no alternative to Capitalism. Any failure is due to the individual, not to the system.

Shedlock also forgets the Occupy Movement, the Anti-Globalisation protests at the beginning of the century, the Anti-Racism marches of BlackLivesMatter, the Anti-War marches of 2003, and the Gay Marriage Movement. Young people are mobilising themselves, but in the ways expected by Libertarians like Shedlock.

Young people need to reflect upon their experiences in these historic movements both by themselves and with others. They need to understand how Capitalism works, and what alternatives there are.

A study of Marxism and allying with a Socialist Party can help with this reflection.

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GLW: Greece: SYRIZA's scores clear win amid high abstention, more austerity

Dick Nichols writes that Greece: SYRIZA's scores clear win amid high abstention, more austerity.

There are three basic reasons why. Firstly, the government's six-month-long struggle to win an acceptable deal was seen by many as the best that could have been achieved in the face of the blackmail of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund (the “Troika”).

The argument that an alternative course was possible without sooner or later ending in “Grexit” seems not to have convinced many, if the vote won by PU and the KKE is an accurate indicator.

Secondly, the SYRIZA-led government at least started to implement some aspects of the “Salonika Program” on which it was elected.

These measures included free electricity for more than 200,000, food vouchers for 350,000, an accommodation program with rent subsidy for 30,000 families and cuts to various health care and hospital payments.

The government also provided tax and social security contribution relief for 750,000 individuals and small businesses, reopened public radio and television, and started to go after the big tax evaders.

According to Leo Panitch, co-editor of the Socialist Register and a close observer of Greece: “The humanitarian stuff they introduced immediately in February, right after they were elected, has not been pulled back, and it's had an enormous impact on the people who are suffering the most.”

Thirdly, the SYRIZA government is still regarded as the first honest administration in contemporary Greek history. Despite its defeat in the battle with “Brussels”, SYRIZA is still viewed as a break with traditionally corrupt Greek politics as represented by ND and PASOK.

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The failure of the Capitalist elite to destroy SYRIZA is amazing. They had hoped that by forcing SYRIZA to accept the utterly humiliating third memorandum, SYRIZA would have been so thoroughly discredited that SYRIZA would have been annihlated in any subsequent election.

As Nichols writes, SYRIZA survived by being honest, open, and committed to its programme.

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Tomgram: Greg Grandin, Henry of Arabia

Tomgram: Greg Grandin, Henry of Arabia.

Few serious scholars now believe that the Soviet Union would have proved any more durable had it not invaded Afghanistan. Nor did the allegiance of Afghanistan — whether it tilted toward Washington, Moscow, or Tehran — make any difference to the outcome of the Cold War, any more than did, say, that of Cuba, Iraq, Angola, or Vietnam.

For all of the celebration of him as a “grand strategist,” as someone who constantly advises presidents to think of the future, to base their actions today on where they want the country to be in five or 10 years’ time, Kissinger was absolutely blind to the fundamental feebleness and inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union. None of it was necessary; none of the lives Kissinger sacrificed in Cambodia, Laos, Angola, Mozambique, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, East Timor, and Bangladesh made one bit of difference in the outcome of the Cold War.

Similarly, each of Kissinger’s Middle East initiatives has been disastrous in the long run. Just think about them from the vantage point of 2015: banking on despots, inflating the Shah, providing massive amounts of aid to security forces that tortured and terrorized democrats, pumping up the U.S. defense industry with recycled petrodollars and so spurring a Middle East arms race financed by high gas prices, emboldening Pakistan’s intelligence service, nurturing Islamic fundamentalism, playing Iran and the Kurds off against Iraq, and then Iraq and Iran off against the Kurds, and committing Washington to defending Israel’s occupation of Arab lands.

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Grandin thinks that Kissinger's policies have been disasterous, but for whom? Certainly, for the poor, the world is a much more brutal place. But, for the millionaires and billionaires, the world is a much more wonderful place. Their wealth is unseen in the history of the world.

The USA is still number one. The only thing that can stop the USA is collapse from within. The cancers of racism, millitarism, fascism, sexism, and homophobia are eroding the strengths that the USA may have had if it truly lived up to its ideals.

But those ideals are fantasies in a Capitalist world in which money is everything. There is no place for honour, duty, or love in such a world. Yet, Capitalism is supposed to the final phase of human development.

It is now your choice: what type of world do you want?

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James Kwak: The Only Two Things That Matter: Why I'm Supporting Larry Lessig

James Kwak writes that The Only Two Things That Matter: Why I’m Supporting Larry Lessig.

One of the most common objections to Larry Lessig’s candidacy is that even if he does become president, he won’t be able to pass his electoral reform bills. But why won’t he? Because Republicans have a solid lock on the House of Representatives — and they have it because of systematic gerrymandering on the state level. Again, the problem is with a political system that allows the majority in the state legislature to use redistricting to entrench itself in power.

If we don’t fix the system — then, well, nothing else really matters. Forget about doing anything about climate change.

At a minimum, Larry Lessig’s campaign will bring attention to the importance of electoral reform and political equality. And if he does win the Democratic nomination? Well, I’d like to see the election that will follow. We know that a large majority of Americans have lost faith in the political system. What will happen when one candidate campaigns solely on a platform of leveling the playing field?

(And, let’s face it, it’s not like we have such great candidates this time. Bernie Sanders is a self-professed socialist, Hillary Clinton is one of the most disliked people in American politics, and … Joe Biden?)

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Kwak is a Capitalist apologist who believes that the wrong people are running the system. I am a Communist apologist who believes we have the wrong system.

Both of us believe that the majority of people are alienated from the political system. Kwak does not understand that this is by design in a Capitalist system.

The politcal system must serve and protect the economic interests of the ruling class.

In a Capitalist system, the ruling class consists of the owners of capital. Their primary objective is to preserve and grow their capital. The political process must serve that objective.

Thus, any measures to dimmish their capital through redistribution of wealth, prohibition of profitable industries (such as coal mining, car production, etc.) is to be fiercely contested.

This fierce defence sometimes leads to Fascism wherein the petite bourgeiosie seizes power to defend their little capital against all-comers (banks, multi-nationals, unions, foreigners, etc.).

In a Communist or Socialist system. the ruling class consists of workers whose objective is protect their livelihood. Thus a Communist political system must protect a worker's right to sustenance and well-being.

Having the right people run a wrong system can only mollify the horrors of that system.

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Paradoxes of control

Chris Dillow discusses three (3) Paradoxes of control.

Which brings me to a second paradox. Although voters want the government to expand its sphere of control, they don't want to expand their own control. There is pitifully little demand at the political level for greater worker control of firms.

I say this is a paradox because of a simple principle: control should be exercised by those who know the most and who have the most skin in the game. Many workers — those with job-specific human capital — have a lot to lose if their firm is badly managed and have the dispersed fragmentary knowledge to improve management. But the same isn't true for politicians: for example, George Osborne doesn't know better than the market or Low Pay Commission what is the right level for the minimum wage, and it's no great loss to him if he gets it wrong. We'd therefore expect to see more political demand for worker control than state control. But we don't. Which brings me to…

Paradox three. Although there's no political demand for worker control, many people vote for it with their own feet. Since current records began in 1984 the numbers of self-employed have risen by 67.5% to over 4.5m — an increase from 11.1% to 14.5% of all those in work.

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Politically, worker control is seen as Communism. And Communism is seen as evil in a Capitalist society. Thus, there is no political impetus.

Economically, worker control is seen as petite bourgeoisie which is acceptable in a Capitalist society. It is something that workers aspire to — being their own boss.

Therefore, we have a conflict between political and economic aspects of worker control. Politically, movement towards worker control is progression towards the removal of the Capitalists. Economically, acceptance of worker control is acceptance of the Capitalist mode of production with the owners merging into the Capitalist class.

Workers need to have a political sense of what is happening in order to preserve their identity as workers, and work towards of society without Capitalists.

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Top Signs Pope Francis is an Honest Conservative

Juan Cole describes the Top Signs Pope Francis is an Honest Conservative.

Pope Francis has many virtues and strength of character, but he is not a progressive on most issues, and even where he leans progressive he is only willing to consider the individual as a charitable agent, eschewing most specific government-led reform.

Some American conservatives are angry at the Pope for not being far enough right on some issues, or for simply being humane, or for not joining in their delusions. Those aren’t conservative objections to the Pope, they are fascist ones. Italy’s Benito Mussolini, for instance, put in tax and other economic policy that gouged the poor above all. The rejection of science in favor of groupthink is also a far rightwing tradition. Mussolini denounced the barrenness of mere science and reason, and fascists rejected anthropological and biological findings about human universals. Being against the science of human-caused climate change (which is now indisputable) isn’t conservatism. It is something much darker.

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Conservatism, in Australia and the USA, is splitting into Fascist and non-Fascist camps. The election of Malcolm Turnbull as PM ruptured the fagile conservative alliance in Australian politics.

The strains of the failure of Capitalism to rebound after the GFC of 2008 are forcing conservatives to seek more radical anti-worker policies and measures. The current Royal Commission into Trade Unions is a manifestation of this. However, the failure of the last two (2) federal budgets shows the limits of this offensive. Even rabid billionaires, like Clive Palmer, are opposed to these measures.

When you have Capitalists publicly denouncing the policies of an extreme conservative government, you see the divisions within the ruling class. One faction is frightened of revolution overthrowing the system, while another wants to keep the system running at full-speed ahead.

The crisis in Capitalism is brought about by its very success, as Marx predicted.

Workers cannot stand idly by. We need to take control in order to protect our industrialised society. Otherwise, a world of hurt awaits as society collapses into primitive villages amid mass death all around.

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Show of Hands

Help fund Ted Rall's legal challenge to his firing from the LA Times through Ted Rall's Assistance Fund.

Rall asks for a Show of Hands:

Bottom line is, this will cost thousands of dollars. Which I don’t have, especially now that I’ve lost the income from the LA Times.

So here’s my request for a show of hands. If you would contribute toward this expense, please say so, along with how much, in the comments section to this post. This will help me determine whether I can continue my fight against the Times’ defamation and its collusion with the LAPD.

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What can leaders do?

Chris Dillow asks What can leaders do?.

Jeremy Corbyn's victory has prompted Corbynmania from his fans and talk of the collapse of the party from his critics. Both reactions beg an important question: how much difference do leaders make?

There's a famous quote from Warren Buffett:

When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.

What he's getting at is that companies have organizational capital — cultures and ways of doing things — which are very difficult to change. The same might be true of political parties. It is rare for big established ones to collapse, Pasok and the Canadian Liberal party being notable exceptions: the thing about the Strange Death of Liberal England is that it was strange. And it is rare for them to be utterly changed: as Archie Brown points out in The Myth of the Strong Leader, transformative leaders are rare, and require especial circumstances. Those who complain about Blair moving to the right understate his orthodox social democratic achievements in, for example, reducing pensioner poverty and NHS waiting times.

In fact, Buffett is echoing something Marxists have long pointed out, that Labour is fundamentally a social democratic party which has only limited ability to change capitalism: Mr McDonnell's aspiration to transform it might be over-optimistic. One thing Miliband and Poulantzas agreed upon in their famous debate was that there are big constraints upon what parliamentary parties can do. As Miliband wrote:

Social-democrats have tended to be blind to the severity of the struggle which major advances in the transformation of the social order in progressive directions must entail. (Socialism for a Sceptical Age, p163-4)

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This is why a political party outside of the mainstream is needed to wage revolutionary struggle. This party has to be grounded in the realities of workers' lives, but develop their revolutionary consciousness.

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Conspiracy Theories as Comfort Food

I think that conspiracy theories are a way for people to comfort themselves with the competence of our evil overlords.

As I read about conspiracy theories and listen to their believers, I notice that there is an unshakeable belief in the efficiency and competence of the conspirators. People ardently believe that the conspirators are capable of maintaining the conspiracy over decades and changes in personnel.

Any objection to the veracity of the conspiracy is immediately countered by a fantastical suggestion. The believers have no doubt that the conspiracy is real. No argument can dislodge that belief.

One thing that the believers cannot abide is incompetence. These conspiracies have been carried out and maintained flawlessly.

It is this fervent faith in competence that gives hope to the believers. Even though the overlords (The British Royal Family, the Bilderburgers, the Illuminati, the Masons, the Catholic Church, the International Communist Conspiracy, the Lizard People, etc) have evil intent, they are supremely competent in implementing their plans. There is a plan, no matter how evil.

This gives comfort to people in that we are being ruled by a competent, disciplined group of people who have a long term plan.

The reality of a mob of squabbling, rich brats who are fighting over short term gains, is too horrible to comtemplate.

It into this squabble among the ruling class that the workers must insert themselves in order to get rationality over the future of humanity. The Capitalists do not know what is best for us; only we do.

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The lies that keep the PKK on terror list

Dave Holmes debunks The lies that keep the PKK on terror list.

The Erdogan regime is waging a war on the Kurds. Cities, towns and villages in the Kurdish-majority southeast are under attack by the security forces. People have been killed in their homes and on the streets; thousands have been arrested. More than 100 areas have been declared “special security zones”. Recently, HDP offices across the country were attacked by rightist mobs.

Naturally the PKK is helping people resist these attacks. But despite everything, its response has been limited. PKK leaders have said its forces should attack only those police and army units that are involved in attacks on the people.

The war must be stopped and the settlement process restarted. This is what a big majority of the people of Turkey want. The war is the project of the Erdogan regime.

Australia should not be its accomplice. The government should pressure Turkey to stop the war and re­start genuine peace negotiations. Lifting the ban on the PKK would be an excellent start to such a campaign.

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Is the Pace at Which Labor-Saving Technology is Entering the Workforce Accelerating?

Mark Thoma asks Is the Pace at Which Labor-Saving Technology is Entering the Workforce Accelerating?

There are various pieces of evidence suggesting that the answer is “no.” Most importantly, if the rate at which machines are replacing workers is increasing, then productivity growth—output/hours worked—should also be increasing. But it has been slowing.

One reason for slower productivity growth is diminished investment in capital goods—like machines—a trend that also doesn’t square with the acceleration hypothesis. …

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In other words, there is no acceleration in automation, but a constant growth. The cap on real wages has kept the incentive for capital investment low.

Inefficient use of human labour is cheaper than efficient use of automation. This means that productivity growth is slowing.

With the slowing of productivity growth, the opportunities for profitable investments are decreasing. This leads to a decrease in capital investment, and so the cycle continues into a global recession.

Stronger unions means stronger wages growth. This means that human labour has to be used more efficiently, and this drives technical and managerial innovation as well as capital investment.

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Earthworker Cooperative buys first factory in Dandenong

Earthworker Cooperative buys first factory in Dandenong.

Earthworker Cooperative was formed to respond to the challenges of climate change and the need for local job creation, by establishing worker-owned cooperatives throughout Australia in sustainability-focused industries.

…

The first Eureka’s Future worker-owned factory has now been established through the mutualisation of the Everlast Hydro Systems factory in Dandenong in Melbourne’s south-east.B/p>

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China's slowdown foreshadows global slowdown

Martin Hart-Landsberg writes that China's slowdown foreshadows global slowdown.

China’s recent decision to allow its currency to devalue is one measure of government concern. The government no doubt hopes that the devaluation will jump-start exports and growth but this is unlikely given the general weakness in demand in most markets.

In fact, China’s economic slowdown will itself translate into a deepening global slowdown. As the country’s growth slows so does its demand for parts and components produced in other Asian countries and primary commodities purchased from Latin American and sub-Saharan countries. And as growth in all three regions declines this can be expected to put downward pressure on growth in core countries, especially Japan and Germany, both of whom also rely on an export-led growth strategy.

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China still has several ambitous infrastructure projects in the works: trans-continental railways, highways, and pipelines. It definitely has the capital to do these things. The Keynesian pump-priming is still going on.

However, the impending crises in the Chinese economy lie in the housing and stock market bubbles. These are all private investments. Instead of investing in socially sustainable assets, the Capitalists in China chased asset inflation instead.

So, we have a government investment boom in useful infrastructure, while the private boom was frittered away on dreams of wealth.

China is going to learn the hard way that Capitalism is a shriveled ideology bereft of innovation.

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Adam Goodes case reveals bad case of historical amnesia

Nisha Thapliyal writes that the Adam Goodes case reveals bad case of historical amnesia.

In short, booing Goodes becomes possible when we separate the football player from his family, community, culture and history. What this debate underlines is a form of historical amnesia that marks societies where nation-building has occurred on the foundations of colonisation, exploitation and outright destruction of indigenous peoples.

It strikes me that part of what is revealed by the Goodes saga is a fierce and enduring struggle over remembering and forgetting. In this debate about sportsmanship and invisible spears, whose histories are being remembered and whose are we distancing ourselves from? Whose histories are we avoiding taking responsibility for?

The subtext in the Goodes debate is about acknowledging or denying Aboriginal accounts of what it means to be Australian today — and what it has meant since 1770. If we recognise this, then, to paraphrase historian Chris Healey, Goodes’ actions are simply and steadfastly a refusal to allow himself and his people to be “erased” yet again from Australian history and contemporary culture.

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Remembering is resistance.

Remembering that we are humans first, Australians second, challenges the Capitalist dogma that we live under.

Remembering that we are workers united in toil is the basis of a new society.

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What It Means When You Kill People On the Other Side of the Planet and No One Notices

Tom Engelhardt asks What It Means When You Kill People On the Other Side of the Planet and No One Notices?

And this just scratches the surface of Washington's long “global war on terror.”  Yet without an antiwar movement, the spectacle of mayhem and slaughter that has been at the heart of that war has passed largely unnoticed here.  Unlike in the Vietnam years, it’s never really come home.  In an era in which successes have been in short supply for two administrations, consider this a major one.  War without an antiwar movement turns out to mean war without pause, war without end.

Admittedly, American children can no longer catch the twenty-first-century equivalents of the movies of my childhood.  Such films couldn’t be made.  After all, few are the movies that are likely to end with the Marines advancing amid a pile of nonwhite bodies, the wagon train heading for the horizon, or the cowboy galloping off on his horse with his girl.  Think of this as onscreen evidence of American imperial decline.

In the badlands and backlands of the planet, however, the spectacle of slaughter never ends, even if the only Americans watching are sometimes unnerved drone video analysts.  Could there be a sadder tale of a demobilized citizenry than that?

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The ghost of the Vietnam War haunts the anti-war movement as well. All we hear about are the sucesses. We have forgotten the long, dark years of obscurity and irrelevence.

The confidence of the working-class in a better world has also gone. We are weighed down by the unresolved GFC, the weakening of unions, the rapid advance of automation, the insecurity of life and work.

The great anti-war demonstrations of 2003 were deflated by the deafness of the governments around the world. They knew they were in no danger of being overthrown.

We have forgotten that the movements of the 1960s were about overthrowing the existing system. That was the real danger of those movements.

Today, what are people are going to do? Vote the bastards out. Our electoral system offers a choice between two groups of warmongers. This is no different in the UK or USA.

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Chavez gone, but Chavismo here to stay

Federico Fuentes writes that although Chavez gone, but Chavismo here to stay.

The explanation for this ongoing support is that Chavismo was never simply one man’s project based on one man — as important a figure as Chavez was. Rather, Chavez served as a catalyst for Venezuela’s excluded poor majority to directly intervene into politics.

Chavez’s election represented a spilling over of peoples’ social struggle into a political arena previously restricted to Venezuela’s elite.

The opposition has repeatedly tried to overthrow Chavez — via coups and economic sabotage as well as at the ballot box. But this political force, rooted in Venezuela’s poor majority, mobilised within the state and on the street to defend the Bolivarian revolution and advance its aims.

Chavez’s death in 2013 was a big blow to this project. It may very well suffer future setbacks as well, including the loss of governmental power.

However, there is little evidence to indicate that Venezuela’s poor majority is planning to retreat from the political arena or wind down their revolutionary struggle.

No matter what political force is in government, they will have to contend with a politicised and organised poor who do not want to go back to the Venezuela of yesteryear.

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The political consciousness of the Venezuelans is much higher than that of Australians. They have seen the benefits of Socialism and lived the horrors of Capitalism.

The Capitalists cannot conceive the people having a consciousness outside of following the leader.

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Drivers, Beware: The Costly, Deadly Dangers of Traffic Stops in the American Police State

Barry Ritholtz reposts Drivers, Beware: The Costly, Deadly Dangers of Traffic Stops in the American Police State from Washington's Blog.

In other words, in the American police state, “we the people” are at the mercy of law enforcement officers who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, this mindset that any challenge to police authority is a threat that needs to be “neutralized” is a dangerous one that is part of a greater nationwide trend that sets the police beyond the reach of the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, when police officers are allowed to operate under the assumption that their word is law and that there is no room for any form of disagreement or even question, that serves to chill the First Amendment’s assurances of free speech, free assembly and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a casual “show your ID” request on a boardwalk, a stop-and-frisk search on a city street, or a traffic stop for speeding or just to check your insurance. If you feel like you can’t walk away from a police encounter of your own volition—and more often than not you can’t, especially when you’re being confronted by someone armed to the hilt with all manner of militarized weaponry and gear—then for all intents and purposes, you’re under arrest from the moment a cop stops you.

Sad, isn’t it, how quickly we have gone from a nation of laws—where the least among us had just as much right to be treated with dignity and respect as the next person (in principle, at least)—to a nation of law enforcers (revenue collectors with weapons) who treat us all like suspects and criminals?

Clearly, the language of freedom is no longer the common tongue spoken by the citizenry and their government. With the government having shifted into a language of force, “we the people” have been reduced to suspects in a surveillance state, criminals in a police state, and enemy combatants in a military empire.

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This has always been the case for people of colour. Now that white people are getting the same treatment, they are complaining about it.

Whiteness is now being means-tested—if you cannot show the means of a rich bank account, you are no longer white.

The white privilege is being withdrawn from those at the bottom and middle of the socio-economic ladder.

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Is radical leftism a trap for minorities?

Noah Smith asks Is radical leftism a trap for minorities? .

But ultimately, hopping on the radical leftist boat will hurt minorities. And I suspect that leftists in the humanities are doing minorities no favors by trying to convince them that radical leftism is their only hope, when in fact it is a self-defeating strategy.

So what will work? If history is any guide, the only option is to increase tolerance. I don't pretend to know how to increase tolerance. For immigrant groups, it seems to naturally fade over time, especially if those groups 1) organize to fight discriminatory policy, and 2) make a bunch of money. For African-Americans, intolerance seems much more entrenched. I don't pretend to know how to get rid of it, but I am pretty sure that a militant overthrow of capitalism would make things much, much worse.

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Smith does not see Capitalism, in itself, as oppressive. It is merely intolerance that is the problem. He sees intolerance as something to be done away with while preserving Capitalism.

Indeed, he does not see class analysis as useful for analysing anything useful under Capitalism.

I think Smith understands Marx's critique of Capitalism, but does not see himself as involved in any form of class war. He is a disinterested observer of the political economy. For him, Socialism has proven to be a failure and is not an alternative to Capitalism.

He believes himself to be on the right side of history. Yet, history is being made daily in the streets of Athens, Caracas, Havana, Bogata, and Rojava. There the oppression of Capitalism is most keenly felt, and most vigorously resisted as alternatives are built.

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Michael Lebowitz on SYRIZA and us: Social democracy or revolutionary democracy

Michael Lebowitz on SYRIZA and us: Social democracy or revolutionary democracy.

Certainly, there is a lesson here for future governments (and perhaps even the current SYRIZA government) — the absolute necessity to learn to walk upon two legs. But there is also a lesson for us — those of us without the present luxury of government. A socialist party must also walk upon two legs. Of course, it must struggle to capture the existing state from capital so that state can serve the needs of the working class rather than capital. However, it also must “promote by all means possible new democratic institutions, new spaces in which people can develop their powers through their protagonism”. Through the development of communal councils and workers’ councils (essential cells of the new socialist state), the working class develops its capacities and the strength to challenge capital and the old state.

The lesson of SYRIZA should be to never forget the concept of revolutionary practice — the simultaneous changing of circumstances and human activity or self-change. It is never too late to remember and apply this… and never too soon.

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We must cease the reproduction of capitalist thinking and habits within ourselves, and struggle with the creation of socialist thinking and habits.

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Ten years of BDS in solidarity with Palestine

Lisa Gleeson reflects on Ten years of BDS in solidarity with Palestine.

The standard Israeli response — that even the mildest statement of support for the Palestinian people is by definition anti-Semitic — gets trotted out at every opportunity. However, accusations of extremism from Israel and its supporters begin to sound incredibly hollow when examined against what its own officials say about Palestinians.

Recently appointed Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked is on record as calling for a genocide against the Palestinian people. Like many Israeli politicians she argues that all land in the West Bank and Gaza as well as pre-1967 Israel belongs to Israel and should never be ceded.

To the Western “referees” of the Oslo peace process this does not disqualify her as a negotiating partner in the process that allegedly has a “two state solution” as its goal. Instead, the Western arbiters, comically portraying themselves as “honest brokers”, demand that the Palestinian side prove to the Israelis that they are worthy partners in the peace process.

In this atmosphere there are few strategies left for Palestinians and their supporters, which makes BDS all the more important. A vigorous and dynamic BDS movement is needed now more than ever. The development of a global mass movement that puts irresistible pressure on Israel and its allies is a vital bulwark against ongoing attempts at destroying the entire Palestinian people.

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Now wonder Israeli settlers feel justified in burning alive children with such political support from their leaders.

The importance of the BDS campaign is to see the humanity of the outcasts in society, such as the Palestinians. That is the subjective aim of the campaign. The objective aim is to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people.

When we see the humanity of the outcasts, we can empathise with them and see others, like Aborigines and refugees, as human beings. Then, we can see their suffering as unjustified.

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Britain: Jeremy Corbyn campaign gives voice to austerity anger

Britain: Jeremy Corbyn campaign gives voice to austerity anger.

A hollowed-out Labour Party may prove unwilling to tolerate a figure like Corbyn, who will attract full hostility from political, economic and media elites. But the movement to get him elected as leader is clearly giving voice to deep-seated anger at the pro-rich policies of both Britain's major parties — and a desire for Labour to provide an alternative from the ruling Conservative Party.

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Even if Corbyn wins and survives a coup, this will detract from building a mass movement because such a win reinforces the lie that the right leader can things back on track.

Workers need to really understand that the whole system is rigged against them—it is not that the wrong people are running the system.

However, this requires a huge leap in the development of the working class consciousness.

Even in Greece after all that has happened, the great majority of people want to stay in the Capitalist system. They just want the system to be less brutal towards them.

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Progression of the Police State Spanish Style: €300 Euro Fine for Calling Police Officer "Mate"; Law of Simmering Social Pots

Mike Shedlock writes that there is a Progression of the Police State Spanish Style: €300 Euro Fine for Calling Police Officer "Mate"; Law of Simmering Social Pots.

The gag law may limit minor protests for a while, but it will also simmer increasing resentment over time.

The law of simmering social pots: Putting a tight lid on a simmering social pot will eventually cause a huge boil-over, and perhaps an explosion, at some point in the future.

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An explosion of this sort releases pent-up frustrations but does not change the underlying causes without a political awareness among the oppressed. This awareness allows the oppressed to understand the situation, and seek appropriate remedies.

In gardening terms, there is a huge difference between trampling everything and weeding. The latter requires knowledge of what is desirable and the willingness to do the hard labour required to remove the weeds.

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United States: Should the left back Bernie Sanders' campaign? [Three] views

United States: Should the left back Bernie Sanders' campaign? [Three] views.

1. Dan La Botz: Sanders' campaign a political phenomenon that challenges preconceptions

Of all the far left groups, the International Socialist Organization had been the most critical of and hostile to the Sanders campaign—and for all the right reasons: his caucusing with Democrats, his foreign policy, and above all the belief that Sanders will be an obstacle to building an independent left movement and political alternative. The issue is whether these principled objections should keep us from working closely with Sanders’ supporters, while at the same time maintaining our own political independence.

…

What the Sanders campaign may accomplish is to popularize a program of social democratic reforms, to deepen the discussion about socialism, to bring together labor, black, female, and LGBTQ activists into a movement with enough cohesion, energy, dynamism, and excitement to continue to build something after the election. The Sanders campaign could contribute to the launching of a new period of social movements and upheavals with a higher level of political consciousness and if it does that, it will be a great contribution.

So, while remaining a registered Green and planning to work for Jill Stein in the election, I plan to work with the Sanders campaign in the primary period, hoping—like other Sanders supporters—that out of this experience we can build a new, stronger, left in America.

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2. ISO (USA): The problem with Bernie Sanders

At the same time, the left shouldn't abandon the electoral arena to the two capitalist parties. If we do, we create a vacuum that the Democrats will fill, co-opting movement activists, demobilizing unions and social movements, and redirecting their precious time, money and energy into electing candidates who then betray workers and the oppressed.

We need to win the new left born out of Occupy, public-sector union struggles and the Black Lives Matter movement to breaking with the Democratic Party and building an electoral alternative as a complement to struggle from below. Bernie Sanders' campaign inside the Democratic Party is an obstacle to that project.

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3. US Solidarity: Connecting Sanders' Audience’s Aspirations to Clear Working Class Political Alternatives

Jesse Jackson, despite winning 8 million votes in 1988, chose to demobilize the ostensibly independent Rainbow Coalition organization after losing the Democratic nomination so no ongoing coalition went on to continue working around issues of economic and racial justice after the campaign ended. This time, the left should urge Sanders supporters to keep the fight going through joining anti-austerity struggles, social movements or building local, multi-racial coalitions, including independent electoral infrastructures, that live on well after the presidential campaign.

We agree with Howie Hawkins when he says: “We should talk about why independent politics is the best way to build progressive power, about the Democratic Party as the historic graveyard of progressive movements, and about the need in 2016 for a progressive alternative when Sanders folds and endorses Clinton. I don’t expect many will be persuaded to quit the Sanders campaign before the primaries. But I do expect that many of them will want a Plan B, a progressive alternative to Clinton, after the primaries.”

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Sanders is getting people involved in politics. However, the problem is how to keep activism going after elections. Then, how to get people to raise their consciousness further into radical politics?

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Ted Rall: L.A. Confidential: How The LAPD Conspired To Get Me Fired From The Los Angeles Times — And How I Proved They Lied

Ted Rall writes L.A. Confidential: How The LAPD Conspired To Get Me Fired From The Los Angeles Times — And How I Proved They Lied.

Classic Streisand effect: In their attempt to discredit me and destroy my reputation as a journalist, the LAPD wound up discrediting themselves and further eroding its own reputation. And they’re taking the Times with them.

But the LAPD’s reputation has, of course, already been destroyed by decades of police brutality, systematic corruption and fatal police shootings of one unarmed black man after another.

Will the Times do the right thing: apologize, issue a retraction, and return my cartoons and blogs to the pages of the newspaper? I hope so.

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We need Rall's incisive journalism as well as his intregity.

The police and mass media are colluding to silence that voice as the support for Capitalism is rotting away under the daily exposure of corruption in the system.

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Israeli squatter-terrorists kill Palestinian toddler, injure 4 after setting their Home Ablaze

Juan Cole re-posts that Israeli squatter-terrorists kill Palestinian toddler, injure 4 after setting their Home Ablaze.

Israeli settlers killed a Palestinian toddler and injured four others early Friday morning after settling their home ablaze in the village of Doma near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, local sources said.

Ali Saad Dawabsha, one-and-a-half years old, died shortly after sustaining serious burns, said Ghassan Daghlas, an official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank.

His mother and father, Riham and Saad, and their son Ahmad, 4, also sustained injuries and were evacuated to a nearby hospital, Daghlas said, adding that their home was left completely burned.

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ISIS burn a Jordanian pilot alive and are justly condemned throughout the world.

Israelis burn a Palestinian child alive and there is silence.

As John Pilger says, Palestinians are unworthy victims. Indeed, they are even blamed for all the violence done to them.

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Did Turkish Pres. Erdogan Make a Historic mistake in dumping Peace Process with Kurds?

JULIE POUCHER HARBIN asks Did Turkish Pres. Erdogan Make a Historic mistake in dumping Peace Process with Kurds?.

Turkey has become increasingly concerned that gains made by Kurds in Iraq and in Syria could encourage its own Kurdish minority to seek independence. Kurdish rebels released a statement on July 25, 2015 following the airstrikes that the conditions for observing the truce had been “eliminated”. The PKK’s military wing, the HPG, denounced this “aggression of war” by Turkey and vowed “resistance”. It described the bombings in northern Iraq as the “most serious military and political error” by Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party.

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What is missed in this analysis is that the Kurds are exploring an alternative political and economic system to Capitalism. This makes them more dangerous than ISIS.

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SYRIZA's dilemma

Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch discuss SYRIZA's dilemma.

The central problem is that even the most detailed plans now being advanced are presented as a set of alternative policies, but in fact amount to demands for an immediate political revolution. They fail to confront whether this is possible given the balance of forces inside Greece, as reflected in mostly unreconstructed institutions of the state itself, as well as by the continuing public preference for staying with the euro. Concrete political analysis, rather than a technical response to a political problem, is what is needed in the present moment.

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A politcal revolution is extremely unlikely, at this time, in Greece, or, indeed, elsewhere in the West. The troika knew this when they punished the Greek government for having the utter gall to even think of opposing austerity.

Workers have to understand what is happening in Greece will soon be happening in Portugal, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere.

A true political revolution is our salvation, not a negotiating ploy.

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On centrist utopianism

Chris Dillow writes On centrist utopianism.

I say all this as a counterweight to a longstanding prejudice — that centrists and moderates are realistic and hard-headed whilst we leftists are utopian dreamers. Of course, this accusation applies to some on the left — anything is true of someone — but for me the opposite is the case. I'm a Marxist because I'm a pessimist. It is those who think that (actually-existing) capitalism is easily reformable so that inefficiencies and injustices can be eliminated who seem to me to be the dreamers.

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Capitalism is all about increasing inequality, speculative bubbles, and recurring crises of over-production. One cannot reform the essential nature of a thing—one can only mollify its effects.

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Socialism, American-Style

Mark Thoma comments on Socialism, American-Style, by Gar Alperovitz and Thomas M. Hanna, Commentary, NY Times.

Moreover, contrary to conventional opinion, studies of the comparative efficiency of modern public enterprise show rough equivalency to private firms in many cases. …

With skepticism about capitalism growing among minorities and young voters, will we see more such endeavors in the future? Pendulums have a way of swinging, sometimes very sharply, when big economic tsunamis hit. It is possible that in the next big crisis, both sides might see the wisdom and practical benefits of public ownership, and embrace Joseph Schumpeter’s point even more boldly than they do today.

I think this would benefit from separating natural monopolies — where it is not surprising in the least that costs/prices are lower with public ownership (or strict regulation of prices if privately owned) — from the other examples. When *significant* market failures justify it, I fully support public ownership. But in most cases I'd prefer private sector ownership with regulatory oversight.

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The propaganda machine of Capitalism would never publicly admit the inherent deficiencies of markets. However, failures are sometimes too great to cover over as in the case of the GFC.

Public ownership and regulatory oversight are tacit admissions that economic forces should be subject to the popular will not to private whims. Yet, these are still far from the actuality of worker-controlled and directed enterprises under Communism.

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How Wealthy Is Everyone Who Isn't Rich?

Barry Ritholtz ponders How Wealthy Is Everyone Who Isn't Rich?.

Consider the 71 percent of the world's population that falls into the poor and low-income categories. TThis group devotes a very large share of its income to food, medicine, clothing, housing, education and energy. It therefore represents a huge market for basic goods and consumer staples.

Think of it another way. More than fourth-fifths of world's population live on less than $20 a day. TIn other words, how well this vast swath of humanity is doing will have important implications for industry, from health care and finance to agriculture and energy.

Income growth in these groups in both the developing and developed world will alter the economic and political landscape. The U.S. National Intelligence Council has called it a global megatrend.

Not to be too optimistic, but the economic state of world is getting better. As more people move into the global middle class, they are able to buy more consumer goods, save and invest. That creates a long-term self-interest in political stability and, one can hope, democratic institutions.

How well we adapt to these changes will determine how successful we in the U.S. are as investors, and as a nation.

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Of course, the implied argument of this article is that Capitalism is making the world a better place.

The efforts of governments in China, Laos, Venezuela, Vietnam, Ecuador, Cuba, and elsewhere in devoting large resources to food security, housing, literacy, medical programs to the poor is undoubtably a major part in this trend towards a better world.

Yet, we have seen in recent years the callous disregard of Capitalism towards the poor through austerity programs in Europe (especially in Greece), the destruction of nations with successful social programs such as Iraq and Libya, and the brutal supression of refugees fleeing the terror of war and poverty.

Ritholtz is naieve to believe the rising middle class is blind to what Capitalism really means. The US's role in enforcing the brutality of Capitalism will not be easily forgotten.

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The Eurasian Big Bang

Tom Engelhardt posts Pepe Escobar's report on The Eurasian Big Bang in which China and Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington.

In the end, whatever Washington may do, it will certainly reflect a fear of the increasing strategic depth Russia and China are developing economically, a reality now becoming visible across Eurasia. At Ufa, Putin told Xi on the record: "Combining efforts, no doubt we [Russia and China] will overcome all the problems before us."

Read “efforts” as new Silk Roads, that Eurasian Economic Union, the growing BRICS block, the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization, those China-based banks, and all the rest of what adds up to the beginning of a new integration of significant parts of the Eurasian land mass. As for Washington, fly like an eagle? Try instead: scream like a banshee.

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Strangely enough, America's victory in the Cold War has allowed all of this to happen—the dismantling of Socialism in a Single State in the former USSR; and the rise of Deng in the PRC. Instead of mutual hostility through ideological conflict over Marxist-Leninism and Maosim, there is a mutual recognization of a common enemy in the USA and its naval hegemony.

It is this naval hegemony that forced Russia, China, India, and Iran to realize that it can be made irrelevant through development of land transportation routes through the Eurasian land-mass.

Since US-dominated institutions are reluctant to fund such infrastructure development, Russia and China have led the development of alternative financial institutions thereby lessening somewhat the political and financial leveraeg of the USA.

For Australia, this means we will probably keep putting the choice between following China or USA for as long as possible. For the USA, we remain a positive strategic asset in South-East Asia. For China, our value would only exist in the negative sense.

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What Is Wrong with the West’s Economies?

Mark Thoma is skeptical that … the answer to our inequality/job satisfaction problems lies in the prescription given in What Is Wrong with the West’s Economies?.

Of the concrete steps that would help to widen flourishing, a reform of education stands out. The problem here is not a perceived mismatch between skills taught and skills in demand. … The problem is that young people are not taught to see the economy as a place where participants may imagine new things, where entrepreneurs may want to build them and investors may venture to back some of them. It is essential to educate young people to this image of the economy.

It will also be essential that high schools and colleges expose students to the human values expressed in the masterpieces of Western literature, so that young people will want to seek economies offering imaginative and creative careers. Education systems must put students in touch with the humanities in order to fuel the human desire to conceive the new and perchance to achieve innovations. This reorientation of general education will have to be supported by a similar reorientation of economic education.

We will all have to turn from the classical fixation on wealth accumulation and efficiency to a modern economics that places imagination and creativity at the center of economic life.

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What heresy from a Capitalist economist! Wealth accumulation is not the point of Capitalism!

I suppose this is a tacit admission that Capitalism is not living up to its ideal as a panacea for all social ills. The system is not delivering benefits to the poor because people are using it the wrong way!

This is the major blind-spot of all Capitalist economists—this is how Capitalism works. It is all about wealth accumulation. Wealth accumulates to the most efficient, the most ruthless, the most politically connected.

Wealth means accumulation of even more wealth. The less efficient, the less ruthless, the less politically connected are impoverished in the process and eventually discarded from the system altogether.

Changing how people see the world means changing the social, economic, and political systems that form those views. You cannot change one without changing the others.

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Obama Administration Throws Workers an Overtime Crumb — We Want the Whole Cake

Stephanie McMillan writes that Obama Administration Throws Workers an Overtime Crumb — We Want the Whole Cake.

Why even settle for a crumb? What about all the wages they stole through unpaid overtime up to now? They should RETURN ALL OF IT. How much: a year’s worth? Five years? Fifty? The amount will be determined by our collective strength, because they’ll never voluntarily return even a penny.

We gain nothing unless we fight for it. If we’re going to be strong enough to win our rights, then we need to organize. If establishment unions hold us back or sell us out—which happens all too often—then we need to organize on our own, into a new labor movement that workers control. The capitalists returned a crumb of what they owe us. Let’s band together and prevent them from taking it away again. Then we can start thinking about the rest of the cake.

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Knife at its throat, Greece yields to Troika brutality

Dick Nichols writes that with Knife at its throat, Greece yields to Troika brutality.

In this situation it is important to keep present that the basic reason for the signing of the Eurosummit deal was the SYRIZA-led government’s isolation. The energies of the left outside Greece are therefore best devoted to doing everything we can to strengthen understanding of Greece’s predicament and solidarity with its struggles, and to exposing the complicity of conservative and social-democratic governments in the European establishment’s ongoing war on the Greek threat to “There Is No Alternative”.

Greece has lost a battle—most probably unavoidably—but its courageous struggle against capitalist austerity continues. It must not be left to fight alone.

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Without a revolutionary movement, the Greece people were destined to be crushed. There are very few options under Capitalism for survival. Greece was given none.

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Conservatism with a Heart? It’s Called Socialism

Ted Rall writes that Conservatism with a Heart? It’s Called Socialism.

Boiled down to its essentials, the argument of would-be conservative reformers like Brooks is that it sure would be swell if capitalism could be made fairer. But the thing about capitalism is that unfairness isn’t an unfortunate side effect of this particular economic system. It’s a core feature.

Capitalism without unfairness and built-in inequality isn’t capitalism; it’s socialism. You don’t have to be Karl Marx to have been able to personally observe the tendency of power and money to aggregate into fewer and fewer hands over time, what we call monopolization, and to leverage those advantages in order to gather an even greater share.

…

Redistribution of income. And wealth. That’s the ticket to solving income inequality. When the time comes, however, I’m going to trust my local Communists — who have been pushing for and thinking about it forever — a hell of a lot more than the reform conservatives who think Ronald Reagan, who trashed the social safety net, was some kind of hero.

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Not strictly true. The difference between Capitalism and Socialism is about who owns and controls the means of production: Capitalists or workers. In this advanced stage of Capitalism, the struggle is between the bankers and the workers.

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Greece Bailout: Selling Out to Scummy International Bankers

Ted Rall writes about Greece Bailout: Selling Out to Scummy International Bankers.

What is the point, from the standpoint of Greek voters, of electoral democracy, if elected “representatives” are elected with clear messages, reinforced by clear mandates delivered via referenda, who then ignore those popular directives when they feel squeezed by the so-called “great powers” in distant, fancy conference rooms?

If a national desire as clear-cut as that delivered by the Greek public — No. More. Austerity! — can be shrugged off just like that, it becomes clear that there is only one route left to effect real change: violence, revolution, violent revolution (which are one and the same).

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Revolution without a revolutionary party to guide it is likely to fail.

SYRIZA is not a revolutionary party. It wants to work within the system as do the majority of the Greeks.

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Former US Democrat Presidential Candidate Calls for Internment Camps for "Disloyal Americans" Americans

Mike Shedlock writes that Former US Democrat Presidential Candidate Calls for Internment Camps for "Disloyal Americans" Americans.

Idiotic "thought police" attacks on the constitution come from the right and the left.

Wesley Clark, like countless Republican constitutional hypocrites has just thrown his hat into the ring for perpetual war.

Don't like it? Then you belong in an internment camp until you do.

Is Clark's position any different from what happened in Nazi Germany or Iraq? What about China, or for that matter ISIS?

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Are the elites so wrapped up in themselves that they cannot see it is their actions and attitudes that are radicalising people?

All we need is someone to say Let them eat cake.

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Greece is not just a tragedy, but a lie

John Pilger writes that Greece is not just a tragedy, but a lie.

An historic betrayal has consumed Greece. Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week's landslide "No" vote and secretly agreed a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures in return for a "bailout" that means sinister foreign control and a warning to the world.

…

For a small country such as Greece, the euro is a colonial currency: a tether to a capitalist ideology so extreme that even the Pope pronounces it "intolerable" and "the dung of the devil". The euro is to Greece what the US dollar is to remote territories in the Pacific, whose poverty and servility is guaranteed by their dependency.

…

The leaders of Syriza are revolutionaries of a kind — but their revolution is the perverse, familiar appropriation of social democratic and parliamentary movements by liberals groomed to comply with neo-liberal drivel and a social engineering whose authentic face is that of Wolfgang Schauble, Germany's finance minister, an imperial thug. Like the Labour Party in Britain and its equivalents among former social democratic parties such as the Labor Party in Australia, still describing themselves as "liberal" or even "left", Syriza is the product of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, "schooled in postmodernism", as Alex Lantier wrote.

For them, class is the unmentionable, let alone an enduring struggle, regardless of the reality of the lives of most human beings. Syriza's luminaries are well-groomed; they lead not the resistance that ordinary people crave, as the Greek electorate has so bravely demonstrated, but "better terms" of a venal status quo that corrals and punishes the poor. When merged with "identity politics" and its insidious distractions, the consequence is not resistance, but subservience. "Mainstream" political life in Britain exemplifies this.

This is not inevitable, a done deal, if we wake up from the long, postmodern coma and reject the myths and deceptions of those who claim to represent us, and fight.

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Betrayal — that is a harsh word.

We must smash the lie of There Is No Alternative. We must do this daily through experience, reflection, and action. Then repeat.

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Britain's Left Unity on the struggle of the Greek people

Kate Hudson writes for Britain's Left Unity on the struggle of the Greek people.

Since its election in January, the SYRIZA-led government has been caught in a contradiction: it was elected by the people to oppose austerity but to keep Greece in the Eurozone. That has been a consistent theme throughout, even during and after the referendum which saw over 61% voting No to the terms of the bailout. The government has tried through negotiation to fulfil that mandate but that has clearly not been possible. The EU states and institutions will not allow a radical left government to succeed. A successful challenge to neoliberalism by Greece would have opened the door wide to further challenges across Europe, including Spain, which has seen recent electoral victories for left coalitions. TThe EU states and institutions have recognised the challenge and are waging class war, not only against Greece and its people but against all the peoples of Europe.

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Let no revolutionary misunderstand: there is no path to Socialism outside of revolution. The Capitalists have consistently demonstrated that they will ruthlessly and relentlessly defend Capitalism against all-comers.

Socialism is not won through the ballot-box. A socialist government, such as SYRIZA, can get into office, but the institutions of Capitalism will prevent it from implementing its election promises.

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Brutality towards Greece

Let no one misunderstand: the brutality shown to Greece is meant to be a lesson to everyone. There is no alternative to following the dictates of the bankers.

As Sinn Fein condemns treatment of Greece as 'alarming', says EU framework shattered, Gerry Adams says that:

“Today could well be the day when all pretence of a Europe of equal states and people was lost and replaced by a Europe of the powerful and the wealthy.”

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Kenneth Thomas, in Impending disaster in Greece, writes that:

The Germans, it would appear, have decided to push Greece from the eurozone. But demanding an end to Greek sovereignty and austerity as far as the eye can see is simply evil. Moreover, it negates the long-successful stand of European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi that the ECB would do “whatever it takes” to keep the eurozone intact. The ECB’s reputation would be damaged greatly should crisis recur in Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc., now that the world knows the ECB will not do “whatever it takes.” This is a recipe for a new recession in Europe spreading from the EU periphery.

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Kevin O'Rourke says that 'Negotiating with Germany is a Waste of Time':

…I don’t suppose that any other left wing party that may come to power in the future seeking to challenge the current European economic policy mix will be as feckless as Syriza. The lesson that they will draw from this debacle is: negotiating with Germany is a waste of time; be willing to act unilaterally, be willing to default unilaterally, have a plan for achieving primary surplus if you haven’t already achieved it, have a hard default and euro exit (now possible, thanks to the Germans) option in your back pocket, and be willing to use it at the first sign of hassle from the ECB. A deal could have been done today that would have strengthened the Eurozone, but instead it has just become a lot more fragile.

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Bill McBride comments on Greek Deal:

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

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Greece Over the Brink

Mark Thoma posts an excerpt from Greece Over the Brink, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times.

Don’t be taken in by claims that troika officials are just technocrats explaining to the ignorant Greeks what must be done. These supposed technocrats are in fact fantasists who have disregarded everything we know about macroeconomics, and have been wrong every step of the way. This isn’t about analysis, it’s about power — the power of the creditors to pull the plug on the Greek economy, which persists as long as euro exit is considered unthinkable.

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Greece is witnessing a power struggle between an elected government and the unelected bureaucrats of international financial institutions. This is a proxy struggle between workers and the financial capitalists.

The Capitalists know that defeat in Greece almost assuredly means defeat in Spain. They will pull out all stops to make the expected 'NO' vote on Sunday to be irrelevant. Democracy must not allowed to prevail over the Capitalists.

Workers will have to realise that victory in Athens, or even in Madrid is not the end of the story. It is not even the beginning of the end. Only by joining the struggle to raise ours and others political consciousness can we make this the end of the beginning.

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Rojava fights off new Islamic State attack

Tony Iltis writes that Rojava fights off new Islamic State attack.

The Kurdish town of Kobane in northern Syria was attacked on June 25 by forces from the self-styled Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, which crossed from Turkey. This was the first significant IS attack on the town since a five-month siege was repulsed in January.

The attack appears to be a Turkish-backed response to recent military gains made by the Kurdish-led forces of the Women's Defence Units (YPJ) and People's Defence Units (YPG).

…

The Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the Kurdish-led forces as “terrorists”. Pro-government Turkish media has spread false allegations accusing the YPG of ethnic cleansing, which have been repeated by pro-Turkish Syrian opposition groups and some Western media.

Erdogan opposes the Administration of Democratic Autonomy-aligned forces because of their ideological ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a liberation struggle in Turkish Kurdistan, and to the left-wing Peoples Democratic Party (HDP).

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Once again, the Capitalists want the world to know that “There is No Alternative”. They are prepared to use their enemy, IS, in attempt to destroy what they see as a far-greater threat: that of an alternative, functioning society based on grass-roots democracy and socialist ideals.

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Greece: It’s the Politics, Stupid!

Mark Thoma excerpts from Francesco Saraceno writing about Greece: It’s the Politics, Stupid!.

What the past week made clear is that this, and only this was the objective of the creditors. This has been since the beginning about politics. Creditors cannot afford that an alternative to policies followed since 2010 in Greece and in the rest of the Eurozone materializes.

Austerity and structural reforms need to be the only way to go. Otherwise people could start asking questions; a risk you don’t want to run a few months before Spanish elections. Syriza needed to be made an example. You cannot survive in Europe, if you don’t embrace the Brussels-Berlin Consensus. Tsipras, like Papandreou, was left with the only option too ask for the Greek people’s opinion, because there has been no negotiation, just a huge smoke screen. Those of us who were discussing pros and cons of the different options on the table, well, we were wasting our time.

And if Greece needs to go down to prove it, so be it. If we transform the euro in a club in which countries come and go, so be it.

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The Capitalist's mantra is “There is no alternative”. They set the rules and we have to play by them.

Control is now all that matters to the Capitalists as the system crumbles around them.

Innovation means loss of control. Unions mean loss of control. Democracy means loss of control. All of these must be suppressed for the “Greater Good of Capitalism”.

Capitalism is a wounded giant lashing out in pain and agony as it feels the life-force drain away from it.

Are we ready to form a new society from the ruins of Capitalism? Or are we just going to die as well?

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Managerialism vs innovation

Chris Dillow writes about Managerialism vs innovation.

If this is the case, then perhaps secular stagnation is not so much an aberrant feature of hierarchical capitalism as its logical consequence. I've said that stagnation might be the result of firms' wising up to the fact that a lot of innovation doesn't pay. But it might also be due to managerialism squeezing out the slack space in which innovation can occur.

Perhaps, then, Marx was right: whereas for a long time capitalism promoted growth, it no longer does so. As he put it:

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters.

I say all this to endorse a point made by Mariana Mazzucato - that the Labour party can no longer assume that the economy will grow nicely but must instead put in place the policies and institutions that generate such growth. How compatible such institutions are with managerialist capitalism is, however, an open question — and one which Labour isn't even asking.

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In other words, the current structure of Capitalism is strangling itself through choosing control over innovation. The Capitalists are afraid of losing control as they have run out of ideas. The historic mission of Capitalism has reached its conclusion.

Capitalism is a spent force. Control is the only thing left. To maintain control, Capitalism must give birth to Fascism so the Capitalist class rules through naked force rather than the prosmise of ever-growing prosperity. They are running out of carrots—only sticks remain.

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Dvide and Rule

Stephanie McMillan writes about how Capitalists Divide And Rule.

Many on the petit bourgeois left, with their simplistic and reformist approaches, are slowly becoming the back-up singers for a political orientation that may lead to the realization of a race war as an initial stage of fascism. Progressives may find themselves regretting an orientation that substitutes identity politics and social justice campaigns for class struggle at the center of their strategy for social change. Though the former may gain temporary reforms (which will be inevitably wiped out again by the deepening crisis of capital), only the latter can open a path to the possibility of uprooting all forms of oppression. To wipe out the conditions for oppression, including racism, the fight against it must be situated in the context of class struggle.

Given the lack of an autonomous working class movement in the US, this will be a difficult task. Due to this lack, and making it even more difficult, is the populist tendency among the working class of many social formations (including the US)—a self-defeating right populism that leads workers to blame each other for concessions and losses imposed by capital.

The capitalists are extremely practiced at “divide and rule,” and invent fictional social categories (races, nations) to divide us. When workers accept these capitalist inventions and even base our political line and practice on them, then we are tightening our own chains. Instead of competing with one another for crumbs in a foolish dance choreographed by our exploiters, we must eradicate racism, identity politics, and other bourgeois ideological traps from our ranks, and unite to target the actual source of our exploitation and oppression, our common enemy: the capitalist class.

The act of this killer in Charleston must be denounced for what it is. He is a racist, of course—but he is not simply a racist. On his T-shirt, he had a fascist logo. We must clearly understand that his racism is for fascism, corresponding to the political objectives of specific fractions of capital as they attempt to resolve the current economic crisis in their favor.

For us, there is only one way that the crisis of capitalism can be resolved favorably: by the social force of an organized and united international working class fighting for its interests, which are fundamentally antagonistic to capital, toward the total global annihilation of capitalism. Genuine proletarian revolutionary militants need to strengthen and grow our ranks, construct disciplined, autonomous organizations capable of understanding what is going on under the surface of events and what is driving them, and constantly develop a political orientation (and corresponding line) to shift the balance of power in our favor.

Emphasis Mine

McMillan is right to be worried about Fascism in the USA and elsewhere. The revolutionary left is very weak. Trade unions are under continual attack and are weakening. And the discontent among the petite bourgeois is growing daily. This is especially seen in the growth of the Tea Party in the USA.

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Letter from the US: The racist Charleston massacre has clear political roots

Barry Sheppard writes a Letter from the US: The racist Charleston massacre has clear political roots.

Racism, as an idea, is not the cause of the oppression and exploitation of Blacks, with the result that it is not possible to simply solve problem by changing people's minds. Rather than the cause, racists ideas are the result of Black oppression — and its ideological justification.

Racism is a useful tool for the capitalist ruling class to divide and weaken the working class.

The government maintains the system of national oppression evident in the police, courts and jails enforcement of it, but at the same time it pretends the US is no longer a racist society. The result is apparently contradictory government stances.

It is this system that spawns the racism that grips the minds of the Dylann Roofs of this world.

Emphasis Mine

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Since 2002, Right-wing White Terrorists have Killed More Americans Than Muslim Extremists

Cenk Uygur writes that Since 2002, Right-wing White Terrorists have Killed More Americans Than Muslim Extremists.

But headlines can mislead. The main terrorist threat in the United States is not from violent Muslim extremists, but from right-wing extremists. Just ask the police.

In a survey we conducted with the Police Executive Research Forum last year of 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction; 39 percent listed extremism connected with Al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist organizations. And only 3 percent identified the threat from Muslim extremists as severe, compared with 7 percent for anti-government and other forms of extremism

Emphasis Mine

Once again, a white gunman is a deranged individual while a non-white one is a terrorist. Thus, the media continues to construct racism.

And, yet, the threat is always from the non-white people. The objective reality of white terrorism stands in contrast to the subjective reality of non-white terrorism.

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The Education-Deficit Does Not Explain Rising Inequality

Mark Thoma posts an extract from Discussion of Matthew Rognlie: "Deciphering the Fall and Rise in the Net Capital Share": The Honest Broker for the Week of June 14, 2015, b J. Bradford DeLong.

So what, then, is going on and driving the sharp rise in inequality, if not some interaction between our education policy on the one hand and the continued progress of technology on the other? Thomas Piketty (2014) has a guess. Piketty guesses that the real explanation is that 1914-1980 is the anomaly. Without great political disturbances, wealth accumulates, concentrates, and dominates. The inequality trends we have seen over the past generation are simply a return to the normal pattern of income distribution in an industrialized market economy in which productivity growth is not unusually fast and political, depression, and military shocks not unusually large and prevalent. …

Emphasis Mine

So, economists are rediscovering the key insights of Karl Marx about Capital.

What is also missing from Piketty's insight is that the period of 1917-89 was when an alternative political and economic system severely challenged the legitimacy and hegemony of Capitalism. This system crushed Nazi Fascism by destroying its armies at Stalingrad, Kursk, Belorussia, and Berlin.

While this system of Russian Socialism was fatally flawed through the dominance of the bureaucracy of the central planning, it was viable for over seventy (70) years. A feudal country of peasants was rapidly modernised to a point that it could crush the second largest industrialised country in the world: Nazi Germany.

The USSR also challenged the USA in the realm of scientific advance and research. Remember the space race!

The October Revolution was indeed one of the great political disturbances.

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