Author Archive for keza

Let’s not forget Engels!

engels

I’ve just read a review of a book about Engels entitled The Frock Coated Communist (due to be released on May Day).

Having not read the book itself,  I can’t really comment on it.   But the review prompted me to want to write something about Engels because he is so often overlooked.

marx-and-engels

The review opens  by saying  “It is a truth now universally acknowledged that capitalism’s most insightful philosopher is Karl Marx.” and the first paragraph ends with “Today, in the midst of a once-a-century crisis of capitalism, Das Kapital has raced to the top of the German bestseller lists and even President Sarkozy has been caught leafing through its pages.”   The rest of the article is an account of the importance of Engels in the development of Marx’s economic views.

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Edison Hour : switch on everything @ 8:30pm on March 28

Light up to celebrate human progress!

earth_lights

What bothers me when I look at this beautiful photo is the dark bits!

Price Systems

How would prices be established in the absence of a capitalist market?  This question has come up in the Who Needs the Owners? But What’s the Alternaitive?” thread.  Arthur pointed out proper discussion of this issue could get quite technical and therefore  deserves a thread of its own.

The question of pricing arose via comments from Jad, who has been arguing in favor of “technocracy” as an alternative to capitalism.

(It’s worth perusing that other thread in order to see how that discussion evolved, before jumping in here.)

I’ll republish the comment from Jad which prompted Arhur’s call for a new thread, followed by Arthur’s reply, and we can take it from there.

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Jad:

Hi Again, A bit more on technocracy, after having looked at “Bright Future”.

I agree that the technocrats are hopelessly Utopian in that they offer almost no practical steps regarding how their proposed system can be arrived at, but I think a similar criticism could be made of Bright Future. In any case, I don’t think small doses of crackpot, utopianist speculation now and then do any permanent damage, so I thought I would offer some comparisons between the resource allocation model in Bright Future (BFM) and the Energy Accounting Model (EAM) model of the technocrats. ( By the way, although I’ve only been seriously investigating Marx for a couple of years and was in nappies in ‘68 when some of you folks were stomping the streets, unfortunately I no longer consider myself very young!).

In relation to the determination of what is produced, for both BFM and EAM, this is dependent on consumer demand. To measure demand, BFM would rely on things such as past consumer behaviour, consumer surveys and demographic predictions, whilst EAM emphasizes the electronic recording of all purchases made. There is no difference of any substance here. Of course, both EAM and BFM recognise that supply will never be perfectly matched to demand, due to changes in consumer preferences.

In relation to individual’s consumption rights, under EAM all individuals would have the same consumption entitlement (which is based on the premise that without the waste of private ownership aggregate supply capacity would exceed aggregate demand), whereas under BFM, initially at least, consumption entitlements would depend on the amount and quality of work performed.

I agree that EAM, whilst more communistic, is unrealistically utopian here in not recognising that it would take time for people’s consciousness to change and that it is not just the technical aspects of the production system that are relevant.

Both EAM and BFM see factors such as prestige, enjoyment and intrinsic reward as becoming more important than material reward as a motivating factor for work. The major difference between EAM and BFM is in relation to the pricing of goods and services. Under EAM the cost and price of goods and services is determined by the energy required for their production. Under BFM allocation of resources to production units is dependent on demand for consumer goods, and consumer goods are exchanged for work. I presume that the price of consumer goods would therefore be dependent on the socially necessary labor time necessary for their production, in an application of the labour theory of value.

I think the EAM method and theory of pricing is superior to BFM for two interrelated reasons.

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Unemployment and Revolution

We haven’t said much on Strange Times about what is now looking to be the most serious capitalist economic crisis since the Great Depression (and quite possibly far worse than that one).   That’s because we’re floundering. Well I am anyway, and I have no desire to hide that by just coming out with “Marxist” platitudes about the inevitability of it, “we told you so”, “look what capitalist greed leads to” etc.  And I also don’t have enough of a grip on it to write anything which goes beyond superficial handwaving  about the falling rate of profit, over-production, debt, and all the rest of it.

When I see our leaders pontificating about the crisis and proposing various ‘stimulus packages’ it appears queasily Monty Pythonesque.  I don’t think they really know what they’re doing. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.  Nevertheless I just don’t know enough about Marxist or capitalist  economics to produce any sort of informed critique.

So that’s my excuse for staying quiet.

Nevertheless, it’s clearly of the utmost importance for us to get our heads around it rather than to just sit on the sidelines and watch things fall apart.   So to make a start on this I’d like to launch a discussion of an old (1981) paper entitled  Unemployment and Revolution.   It’s an analysis of why unemployment occurs under capitalism and why moving to social ownership makes far more sense than waiting for capitalism to rise phoenix-like from the ashes, yet again.

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Iraqis embrace democracy

The Iraqi Provincial Election is now in progress. News reports so far, indicate a huge turn out from the 14 million registered voters, following a very active campaign process.   This time around, the Sunni population is participating, which is a huge breakthrough.

As mandated by the Iraqi constitution 25% of the candidates are women.

The significance of this for the entire region, just can’t be underestimated. The entire Arab world is looking on, as well as the people of Iran.  Indeed it is of enormous significance for the entire Muslim world.

Obama (who voted against the surge) will now be able to preside over a gradual US troop withdrawal. I guess he can just ignore his previous statements about the situation in Iraq being hopeless, along wth  his proud record of having voted against the war.

End-game in the war for Greater Israel

The current attack on Palestinians in Gaza is a display of brutal military might, but ought not to be construed as evidence of Israeli strength because the War for Greater Israel really has been lost.  Despite the delays, the outcome must be a viable Palestinian State in the short term future. The killing continues, not because Israeli leaders believe that they have any chance of preventing that short term outcome, but because the racism inherent in Zionism  means that the lives of Palestinians are still expendable in the lead-up to the Israeli elections.

Since 2002, we at Strange Times/LastSuperpower have argued that supporting the Zionist war for greater Israel has become untenable for the USA and that we should therefore expect to see a Palestinian State within the next few years. Five years have passed since we first made that prediction and yet the Palestinians remain not only stateless and  now split between HAMAS controlled Gaza and a Fatah ‘controlled’,  but still occupied West Bank. Nevertheless, I think we are right to  remain confident and that our detractors will scoff less as events unfold in 2009. It is very clear that neither  Livni or Netanyahu have any realistic alternatives to acccepting that 40 years on, they have lost the war for greater Israel.  The attack on Gaza is designed to show just that. When it  is over and the elections have been contested and won,  the next step will have to be a comprehensive settlement.

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No censorship – leave our kids alone!

Collage of pics from the Adelaide Against Internet Censorship rally:

Who’s really molesting and “sexualising” our children????  Arthur’s comment in the Spiked special on Oz internet censorship thread resonated with me.  For some years, I’ve been repelled by the increasing spread of the idea that we should keep our children covered up.  I’m  almost beginning to wonder how long it will be before someone introduces the idea of a children’s burka!  When my kids were young, they could run naked on the beach.  Nowadays, that’s supposedly dangerous.

Six months ago, police raided Bill Henson’s photography exhibition and took it down because it displayed photos of naked kids.  Rudd was in full support , maintaining that the photos were “revolting” and took away children’s “innocence”.

Excuse me!!  Who’s sexualising children here?  Who’s spreading the idea that naked children are sexually titillating?  Are people like Rudd and Hamilton (who agreed that the exhibition shoud be taken down) titillated by naked children??? What’s going on?

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Spiked special on Oz internet censorship

keza and Danu Poyner just got published on Spiked

Spiked: “Humanity is Underated”

spiked is an independent online phenomenon dedicated to raising the horizons of humanity by waging a culture war of words against misanthropy, priggishness, prejudice, luddism, illiberalism and irrationalism in all their ancient and modern forms.

keza: Liberal Tyranny on the World Wide Web ( revised version of my article about Clive Hamilton)

Danu: ‘Digital Natives’ take on censorious Kevin

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Winning the war against Internet censorship

Below is an article by David Jackmanson (youngmarxist) which was published at OnLine Opinion last week.  If you go to the original article you can read the discussion which followed.

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It was Clive Hamilton who launched the current attempt to censor the internet

Guess who really kick started the current push for mandatory ISP level filtering?  No, it wasn’t those wretched Christian fundamentalists, it was Clive Hamilton and the Australia Institute (of which Hamilton was executive director, until recently).

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Since when has it been left wing to be green?

Here’s an article  by Barry and published at On Line Opinion .  The comments thread at On Line Opinion is worth reading too.
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In the political discourse around green issues, the world outlook associated with various green groups is portrayed as left wing. This is largely because the green world outlook generally opposes capitalism, its leaders frequently use the rhetoric of the Left, are promoted as being left wing by the mainstream media, and usually identify themselves as being of the Left.

Moreover, many green leaders and activists were radicalised in the 1960s and 1970s and have genuinely left wing backgrounds. They see the green movement as a continuation of their previous left wing radicalism.

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Change I can believe in?

Yes and no.  The election of the first black American president is certainly an historic moment.  It reflects a change that I already believed in however. The battle against racism in the USA had already been largely victorious. Nevertheless a black president will consolidate that victory, and go a long way toward breaking the cycle of negativity, bitterness and lack of confidence which contributes to keeping a large section of the black population marginalised and self-destructive.   Dare I say that it will undermine resistance to “acting white“??

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Barry socking it to the greens

Here is nine minutes of Barry’s comedy gig at the  2008 Australian Environment Foundation Conference dinner.

Our report of the conference itself can be read here.

Getting out and about: The Australian Environment Foundation Conference

Last weekend, a few of us drove up to Canberra to attend the Australian Environment Foundation conference.

You need to get out more

“You need to get out  more!” my kids always say . Anyway, we went and it was fun.  Immediately below is my report, followed by a separate report from David McMullen.

AEF conference slide

It was an interesting and refreshing experience to meet with people outside my normal circles.

I enjoyed being among   people engaged in real-world politics which could make a positive difference in the here and now (see DavidMc’s report below for more details).  For decades  now “leftwing politics” has been the politics of protest and abstract demand that those in charge to make things all better.

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Palin socks it to the prigs

Real or not, it\'s a good image!

Real or not – this is the sort of image projected by Palin. I’m glad it appeals.

Sarah Palin produced a stunning performance when she spoke at the Republican Convention yesterday.  She scared the pants off the pseudo-lefty blogospehere.  When put to the test, McCain’s “idiotic” and “uniformed” choice of running mate revealed herself to be more than a “confused fundie airhead”. Turns out he knew what he was doing. It’s panic all around. Maybe the End really is nigh!  Could The Messiah be running out of luck?

Writes one depressed punter at Lovartus Prodeo

Check the sustained cheering and mayhem when she goes “the media”. It’s decent small town repubs agin dirty left liberal media blogging fops. I never seen such a big snook cocked.

I am seriously depressed. And as Nabs says – this is better than any WW writers wld ever dare serve up. (But then I’m not Nabs – so remain depressed.)

If she manages to transcends the base – and allows the mainstream white voter to find reason to honour their instincts – then the Dems are done again.

If Obama needed a challenge – he’s got it now. I’d love to think that coming back to the issues is the answer but I reckon this is gonna be all about rhetoric. Voters are uncomplicated folk by and large and economics may as well be string theory.

Oh dear!! What a pity those “uncomplicated folk” have the vote!

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