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The Communist Manifesto Turns 160
This year marks the 160th anniversary of The Communist Manifesto and capitalism--a k a "free enterprise"--seems willing to observe the occasion by dropping dead. On Monday night, some pundits were warning that the ATMs might run dry and hinting that the only safe investment left is canned beans. Apocalypse or extortion? No one seems to know, though the populist part of the populace has been leaning toward the latter. An e-mail whipping around the web this morning has the subject line "Sign on Wall Street yesterday," and shows a hand-lettered cardboard sign saying, "JUMP! You Fuckers!"
The Manifesto makes for quaint reading today. All that talk about "production," for example: Did they actually make things in those days? Did the proletariat really slave away in factories instead of call centers? But on one point Marx and Engels proved right: within capitalist societies, or at least the kind of wildly unregulated capitalism America has had, the rich got richer, the workers got poorer, and the erstwhile middle class has been sliding toward ruin. The last two outcomes are what Marx called "immiseration," which, in translation, is the process you're undergoing when you have cancer and no health insurance or a mortgage payment due and no paycheck coming in.
Marx predicted that capitalism would fall in a spirited, proactive, fashion: the workers, fed up with immiseration, would revolt, seize the "means of production" and insist on running the show themselves, that being the original, pre-Soviet, notion of socialism. The revolution didn't happen, of course, at least not here. For the past several years, American workers have sweetly acquiesced to declining wages, rising prices, speed-ups at work, disappearing pensions and increasingly threadbare health insurance. While CEO pay escalated to the eight-figure range and above, so-called ordinary Americans took on second jobs and crowded into multi-generational households with uncomfortably long waits for the bathroom.
But all this immiseration--combined with fabulous enrichment at the top--did end up destabilizing the capitalist system, if only because , in the last few years, America's substitute for decent wages has been easy credit. Until about a year ago, we got almost daily messages, by telemarketer and by mail, urging us to consolidate our debts, refinance our homes, transfer our debts from credit card to another and try tasty new mortgages that didn't even require a down payment. All too often, we bit. It sounded so reasonable, for example, not to let our assets just "sit" in our houses but to start spending that money now.
At the other, Learjet, end of the economic spectrum, there was the problem of what to do with too much money. Yes, this can be a problem. Some of the super-rich have to hire consultants to help them spend their money: Where do you get a $20,000 bottle of wine or find a Picasso for the bathroom wall? More seriously, there was the problem of what to invest in. As Chuck Collins of the Working Group on Extreme Inequality has pointed out, huge concentrations of wealth can function like rogue waves, smashing around recklessly in their search for ever higher returns. A lot of these money waves flowed, directly or indirectly, into the dodgy credit schemes that were engulfing the un-rich majority, leaving even the fat cats imperiled by the toxic debts of the subprime class.
Marx's argument was that the coexistence of great wealth for the few and growing poverty for the many is not only morally objectionable, it's also inherently unstable. He may have been wrong about the reasons for the instability, but no one can any longer deny it's there. When the greed of the rich collided with the needs of the poor--for a home, for example--the result was a global credit meltdown.
Obviously, the way to address the crisis is to deal with the poverty and inequality that led to it: bail out people facing foreclosures, increase food stamp allotments, extend unemployment insurance and make a massive job-generating, public investment in infrastructure--and, since medical debts are the number-one cause of personal bankruptcy, enact universal health insurance immediately. But not even Obama, whose lawn sign I still proudly display, seems to have the stomach for such a "trickle upwards" approach. He has announced that he won't bother taking the bailout as an opportunity to change the bankruptcy law so that people facing foreclosure can renegotiate their mortgages.
So happy birthday, Communist Manifesto--although I'm hoping that capitalism survives this one, if only because there's no alternative ready at hand. At the very least, we should get some regulation and serious oversight out of any bailout deal, meaning that, yes, the economy will look a little less like "free enterprise." But one thing we should have learned in the last week, if not the last year, is that, when applied to enterprise, "freedom" can be just another word for someone else's pain.
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68 Comments so far
Show AllCapitalism and Communism share an odd similarity: they are theories that are done in by human frailties. That their respective partisans fail to account for this effectively will mean that neither will ever "win."
You are exactly right. It's us people who screw up any political structure we build. We need a system run by people with honesty and integrity not the ignorance and greed that run our current political system. Democracy is a great idea but in the wrong hands you get what we have today. Corporate whores and political whores ruining a society.
Hoa binh
since1492 [October 4th, 2008 1:19 pm] the problem is the same that was pointed out by Lord Acton -- "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
There was a chart I once saw of how long it took the average person, after acquiring wealth, to turn from a decent magnanimous sort to a greedy covetous pig, but completely blind to their avariciousness. I think it was about a year.
By the same token, I think it takes about a year in power for most honest people of high integrity to turn into corrupt elitists, interested only in preserving their own power.
It seems to be human nature for the moment, but the one constant is change, so there's always the possibility that we can create a brighter future where this isn't the case.
Though I am no fan of Communism or Marx, it was an important theory that needed to be tried. Even its predestined failure's have been helpful.
"I'm hoping that capitalism survives this one, if only because there's no alternative ready at hand. At the very least, we should get some regulation and serious oversight out of any bailout deal, meaning that, yes, the economy will look a little less like "free enterprise."
I am certainly no fan of Barbara Ehrenreich, but she got this exactly right.
TENS of millions of people DIED for this "important theory". (I supposed its predestined failures helped to keep the population down, if nothing else.) Do you also think Nazism was an "important theory"?
Do not confuse socialism with Stalinist communism. The former an economic model, the latter an ideology.
Even merely capitalizing "communism" when speaking of Marx is a confusion.
The Communist Party in Russia -but not all Communist Parties throughout history- is "communist" just like the Democratic Party of America is "democratic" or the Republican Party is "republican".
What I think is hilarious is that someone so ignorant would name themselves "TruthTeller".
Ha.
Brainwashing is so ubiquitous and so complete with regard to political philosophy in the US that few Americans can think logically about political topics and especially about socialism or communism.
Those who study systems in some theoretical field (often in Computer Science) generally recognize an unlimited number of systems may be implemented to perform a particular function, but most Americans cannot seem to apply this sort of analysis to the political arena.
Of course there are an infinite number of possible implementations of socialism, and of course the effectiveness and success depends on the particular implementation. History has demonstrated that the design of an effective socialist system is challenging, but it is preposterous to jump to the conclusion that it is impossible. The design of heavier-than-air aircraft was challenging, but when certain technical hurdles were overcome, it was done successfully. The main problem seems to be that completely socialist systems are only implemented in the chaos of the aftermath of violent revolution and nothing sophisticated or well-designed develops under those conditions. And whenever there are attempts to evolve a sophisticated form of socialism in a capitalist state, those attempts are undermined by the capitalists. The insurmountable problem is not designing a successful socialist state, but getting from here to there.
One of the most damaging weapons the capitalists use to fight the development of socialism is the concept of "freedom." But social freedom is always surrendered in a densely populated state with a highly interconnected economy (as opposed to in a pristine wilderness with a sparse population of pioneers, where the concept came to be associated with the US) so the social freedom for virtually all Americans today is nothing more than illusion (note that the Chinese for thousands of years have focused on the concept of "harmony" rather than "freedom" as a social ideal). However, the concept is effective in confusing the common little people and keeping them from joining together to gain the political power to control the government and to assert control over the business interests of the elites.
kivals [October 7th, 2008 12:01 pm], I agree with your analysis except for one point: "But social freedom is always surrendered in a densely populated state with a highly interconnected economy..."
A good friend lived for a time in the socialist democracy of Norway and told me that Norwegians had the same freedoms and legal protections that Americans have/had. Other people I've talked to who have been to Sweden and The Netherlands, also socialist democracies, have reported the same. Personal freedom and socialism can co-exist comfortably.
"So happy birthday, Communist Manifesto--although I'm hoping that capitalism survives this one, if only because there's no alternative ready at hand."
The alternatives are there Barbara. That's a surprising comment from her.
Communism has just been tried out in the congress. Barack Marx and John Engels have now embraced it. Just before the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union there was a large demonstration (one of very many) in which a participant carried a sign saying "75 Years On The Road To Nowhere". Scratch out 75 and write in 232 and you have the United States as it currently is. We lasted a little longer than the SU but the same brutal and thoroughly corrupt leadership coupled with a population that is about to understand the famous Soviet workers' maxim that "We pretend to work and you pretend to pay us" is already well along the Road to Nowhere.
Mordechai Shiblikov [October 4th, 2008 12:13 pm] the cosmic joke here is that the bailout of Wall Street will be mostly financed by borrowing from our former scary Cold War enemy Red China that is still, technically, a communist dictatorship, and our former WWII enemy Japan. It gets even more ironic; our old nemesis Vietnam now has a more stable economy than we do. How the mighty have fallen and how the gods laugh as they fall.
Cynical nonsense dude. For all of it's faults, the U.S. has ushered in the highest standards of living the world has ever seen. Granted other countries have taken the ball and run with it, mostly by mixing in a little more socialism.
The Middle Path is best.
Where do you get this idea?
Of course, it depends on your definitions. But, with the top 400 people holding the vast majority of wealth, sayin that we are "the wealthiest nation on earth" is a little ridiculous.
We are not. If you measure it by standared of living, length of life, hours worked, wages, general health, etc.
If you mean that they "ushered in the middle class in the 50s"--look what that mass consumerism has wrought? That is where pure capitalism always leads.
Yea, it is as if Democratic Athens or Monastic Ireland never existed.
Why can't people just accept the U.S. as "just another place"? Why must it always be the "greatest" or the "best" or the "most"?
WRONG.....Norway has a higher standard of living than the USA, just as one example.
The "communist revolution" DID happen, when our species evolved a consciousness to recognize the benefits of cooperation. It's just that the capitalists don't want us to know about it. This isn't to say we've had communist institutions in place all this time to keep capitalism down. An institution is not really the best idea anyway. We don't want the people to be subject to it. We don't want the people to feel like they are caged by a giant institution with a mind to dominate them.
In fact, our worldwide communist utopia flourishes BEST as it has all this time, as an underground phenomenon under an official capitalist institution because it reminds us that the true source of our well being comes from within, instead of without. The proof is in the social democracies that exist around the world today amid the USA's capitalist extremism.
In each and every one of these social democracies, teachers convincingly prove to their students the superiority of social democracy to capitalist extremism simply by comparing the well-being of their own societies with the USA. There are many societies around the world today that have this ability. These social democracies are not communist utopias a la Marx but that's ok. We don't want or need a "godfather" for our ideology. We want to keep our distance from him and all the theorists, communist, capitalist, theocratic, and all the rest.
Marx's work serves as a counter-balance to capitalist extremism and both together serve to define the boundaries of the space we work in. Any attempt to fix the problems created by one extreme by slamming the boundary of the other extreme is someone else's crazy idea, not ours. So we claim the term "communist utopia" to draw people in to consider our idea, that social democracy is best.
See the proof worldwide that THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE, Mrs. Thatcher, oops Ehrenreich, and maybe next article you write in The Nation can acknowledge this.
Shared is the still amazing fact that a "theory" is used to name a reality while never being the full reality of the purported theory. From Lao Tzu to Shakespeare
(if you can name its name, its not its name; What is in a name?) and Alan Ginsberg: America - I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel...
To live under the rubric of an ersatz theory is to agree that everything can be bought and sold - especially the theory and the origins and outcomes - everthing becomes resource and product - living things?
Note how vociferous are the namers of names in the system. So?
The caricatures of 'communism' will never die out in the US! As if all anti-capitalist activity in the world could somehow fit into the dictatorships of one party as exemplified by Stalin and Mao?
What is called 'communism' in the US is actually the revolution turned back, not the revolution in progress. Unfortunately there are two many paid for analyzers in the corporate media and corporate controlled universities to ever make that point clear to the American public. Anti-capitalism will continue to be the prominent counterpoint to reaction world wide, simply because there is no other way forward. Capitalism is destroying nature, Humankind's nature included.
Well Barbra, you threw your endorsement behind Obama, and he tripped over himself to sign on to the the fleecing of the sheeple in a huge money grab for the wealthy elite. It seems to me you are lacking any credibility whatsoever. But age does that to sixties radicals turned Democratic apologists.
Ms.Ehrenreich was, at one time, an advocate of democratic socialism. Her views from the inside at the back-biting and confusion of the left has polarized her thinking toward some neo-liberal semi-progressive utopia as opposed to a free market privatization scam. Both are not alternatives. The trend of the multitude against the empire is an activist critique in word and deed of the scam I mentioned. Marx's ideas are still relevant-if they are seen from the aspects of diagnosing the demonic effects of capital, creating a living labor of resistance, and acting upon our better intentions for a more humane world. This dialectic is viable and can be used to begin to get us out of this market and privatized crisis of disaster capitalism. Many of Ms. Ehrenriech's words indicate the existence of this path: but it seems she has barricaded herself in looking for solutions in the mainstream, instead of expanding her vision and means as a socialist.
Sioux Rose
RTDRURY: Excellent post. Nature takes from the largest pools of possibility to weave together combinations that work. Social democracy uitlizing some tools of "free enterprise" and other tools of "Shared societal obligation" is a hybrid as you mention, that tends to work best. Our society aligns with fear to spent far too much on militarism and using its bullying tactics to seek to get the world (and its resources) to do OUR bidding. Now that the nation is effectively bankrupt, very different forms of negotiation will have to ensue. The rapacious appetite of so many Americans seen in their ridiculously over-sized vehicles (at a time when climate change reflects Earth Mother's paroxysms of overkill), and equally large homes, and enormous bodies (signifying a lust for consuming what eventually undermines their well-being) has met the wall that wisdom, discipline and spiritual justice could not evoke.
For anyone that would like to better understand Marxist ideas, I'm going to go ahead and recommend www.marxist.com A lot of their analysis is worthwhile, thought I don't subscribe to their dialectical materialist method.
capitalism and communism, are the extremes. somewhere in the center, SOME things being socialized for the "good of all" as in health and education, work extremely well.
believe me there is a reason the money'd elite WANT us to hate france, cuba or anywhere where one gets "socialized education or healthcare".
in places where these 2 basic needs are provided universally,cradle to grave, the cost/benefit ratios of these systems out perform, on any level of mesurement you can apply, those of "for pay" systems, to the point of being a shameful disgrace to the perpetrators of the big myth that "private can do better that public" in health and education.
this is FACT. look it up, but don't just read american propaganda sources such as the AMA or Big Pharma.
the reason these other countries have these programs is because the governments fear the people, unlike the US where the people fear the government.
until the people in land of the brave and free, get a spine and stand up in the streets demanding change, you are doomed.
if people simply refused to go to work for a few days, closed all the businesses down, not buying anything for a few days , they, the power elite would get the message, but alas the supposedly rugged and brave individuals of the "greatest nation on earth",who fear being different more than death, piss there collective pants at the first sign of the riot squads pouring into the streets, batons flying, tasers zapping and teargas lobbed at any and all who DARE to defy the money'd elite.
no these same brave individualists will hunker down in their hovels, snack on the poisons called fast foods,getting fatter and sicker, as they fret and discuss who gets booted off the island or what hollywood idiot is in rehab today, or what the latest boogeyman is gonna get us "'cause they hate our freedom".. pathetic sad and totally unnecessary.
good luck to you, hope you can get by on empty promises and out right lies, cause that is all the elite will ever dole out to the masses, with a good measure of war , famine and disease, just to keep your numbers in check.
Some good comments, however I must expand on a few...
Herb writes...
"until the people in land of the brave and free, get a spine and stand up in the streets demanding change, you are doomed."
The people of the land of the brave and the free are not sure of what kind of change is necessary. All one has to do is to listen to people phone into Limbaugh or Hannity on their car radio to realize that the MSM has been very effective in deflecting any blame from corporate America (or neo-cons for that matter!) thereby redirecting the popular rage at the puppets of the regime.
The public could cause a considerable upheaval in Washington simply by voting for Nader or McKinney, but instead the populace has fallen victim to a warped campaign of misinformation designed by and delivered to us by the architects of this ideology, the corporations. Even intelligent and educated Americans are mesmerized by this "illusion of a contest" as both candidates where their corporate fealty on their sleeves. Neither party offers an alternative to private health insurance, reducing the size of the military, dismantling the prison industrial complex, swearing allegiance to the World Court or promoting a living wage for all Americans. Instead the "major issues" are the incessantly flogged debates about same-sex adoption, abortion and the threat of Al-Qaeda to World Peace. The bombardment has the effect that average Americans now believe that these manufactured issues are actually of great concern to their fellow Americans.
It is difficult if not impossible for a nation to rise up in arms against their oppressors if they're confused about whom their oppressors really are. Unfortunately that is the situation today in America.
rtdrury writes...
"In each and every one of these social democracies, teachers convincingly prove to their students the superiority of social democracy to capitalist extremism simply by comparing the well-being of their own societies with the USA."
This is very true even in America's northern neighbour of Canada. With a less biased media in any developed democracy other than the U.S., people get a glimpse of the failed state of the U.S. and are horrified by what they see. The highest murder rate, shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality rate, no universal healthcare, a trillion dollar a year defence budget, the world's highest incarceration rate, the highest illiteracy rate of any advanced country, hundreds of bases and warships worldwide and a corporate culture that has replaced Mom & Pop shops with Home Depots and KFC's.
Any American who had a chance to watch the Canadian leaders debate (same night as Plain/Biden) would have been shocked at the honesty and openness that the candidates displayed. Talk of tax increases to corporations, immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, carbon taxes and ending poverty were all hotly debated topics. All five candidates (that's right, Canada allows ALL candidates to participate in nationally televised debates) also won marks by promising that they would never follow in the footsteps of America.
Interestingly this is a world pattern. In any developed country in the world, any talk of dismantling their countries universal health plan is political suicide. Only in the US (the only country that doesn't have universal healthcare) is raising the topic of a government funded, universal healthcare plan political suicide. This reveals the extent that Americans are living in a cocoon that is reinforced everyday by the corporate media that feeds them.
Meanwhile America does serve its purpose abroad... by scaring the shit out of the rest of the world of how nasty things would be if they deregulated, severed social programs and embraced the wealthy elite.
Wherever it has been instituted or imposed, Communism has quickly developed a group of oligarchs who create a military dictatorship. And if one adds up the millions of deaths perpetrated by Communist governments upon their own citizens in the 20th century (by Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Il-Sung), no other governmental system in history can match that level of carnage.
Unfortunately, Americans are vigorously propagandized at an early age to confuse Communism with Democratic Socialism. This confusion is aided by the fact that the Russians decided to call their Communist police state the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics. (Perhaps they were leery of admitting it was Communism?) At any rate, that made it easy for believers in unfettered Capitalism to get the public to believe that Communism and Socialism are virtually the same. The consequences have been very unfortunate.
Looking at Western Europe, we see that in political democracies Socialism is a system which can be voted in -- and voted out again. Genuine and fair elections are held regularly. Any of the economic or social aspects can be altered through election and referendums. The system guarantees, by using funds from taxes collected, that NO citizen will starve, or be homeless (unless by choice, as are a few), or go without needed medical care, or have no money to buy the necessities if jobless. Notice that this doesn't guarantee a cushy existence, just a dignified one. But Democratic Socialism is flexible enough to accommodate very ambitious, hard-working people looking to lead an upper-middle-class life (even though they are taxed more highly than in the U.S.), while at the same time ensuring that NONE of their people live in third world conditions. And in most of these countries, the tax structure accommodates the acquisition of millions of dollars over time, but they don't lose sight of "the least of those" among their citizenry.
Watching what havoc our government wreaked upon us this past week, I wonder if our best hope may lie with some form of highly regulated Capitalism -- if not Democratic Socialism itself.
Are you, then, arguing that the Banlieus/Muslim Ghettos surrounding most French cities are NOT third world like?
You realize they didn't even mention France right? So how could they be "arguing" anything about it? They spoke of Western Europe in general.
Those suburbs DO resemble "third world" city organizations is some ways. The differnce is that the French "ghettos" have much to do with preventing these people from attaining citizenship.
This is certainly a mark against the Republic of France, but to extend this to all of Europe or to Democratic Socialist systems in general would be riduculous.
So I asssume this is not what you are attempting to do?
Keeping the ideas alive and updating them for our time, Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri came out with a book titled 'Empire' in 2000 and another called 'Multitude' a few years later. I would advise everyone to read these two books. Another 'manifesto' or alternative economic plan to read into would be Participatory Economics or Parecon (which came together between Michael Albert & Robin Hahnel).
Here are two really great lectures by Hardt.
Michael Hardt- @ European Social Forum 09/08
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+hardt+at+esf&search_type=&aq=f
Michael Hardt- About Love
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=michael+hardt+about+love&search_type=&aq=f
And here is a full text of 'Parecon: Life After Capitalism'
http://www.zcommunications.org/zparecon/pareconlac.htm
Nate said:
"Capitalism and Communism share an odd similarity: they are theories that are done in by human frailties. That their respective partisans fail to account for this effectively will mean that neither will ever "win.""
It's easy for the money-power to corrupt a handful of politicians that make decisions for us. They would find it very difficult to corrupt all 300 million of us in a direct democracy.
Want instant direct democracy? Incorporate We the People and issue equal, non-transferable shares of stock in our public treasure to every American citizen so that we can collect dividends from its sale or lease, so that We the People can decide whether to deal with dirty, thieving corporations or with clean, reputable ones and so that we can hire and fire our management at yearly stockholder's meetings, according to their performance.
Barb, you had me until you pulled a Margaret Thatcher: "There is no alternative". I'm hoping that capitalism fails this time.
Exactly. She blew it for me in the last paragraph.
She is obviously not a Marxist, nor capable of understanding the real message and significance of the Communist Manifesto - the most profound and important piece of literature ever written.
Cheers.
I agree with you guys.
There are obvious alternatives to both extremes.
Sweden's "bailout" is a prime example. Most of the EU is socialist democracy. And they have a much higher standare of living, in general, then we do.
I thought I knew, but I am beginning to wonder. Do US citizens just liek to bitch? Anyone advocating for change seem to terrify people. Even Ehrenrich, sadly.
It seems to me that we love to bitch, love to rally for change and write long articles (or even books) about that change, but in the last few paragraphs we have to add a disclaimer that we're really not for change at all, but just want to "raise awareness". Since people remember what they read last the best, they remember that and don't go out and do anything.
Let's give some cred to Das Kapital!
What annoys me about the article is that it makes no mention of this more indepth and empirical work.
marx like ehrenrich was a social/political critic of his times, unlike ehrenrich he created a new vision of interpreting what he was witnessing and he saw a solution.
how do we see our world ? as the manifestation of our collective labor or as a mosaic of archaic cultural modes from our past..."a war of all against all" (hobbes)
marx did not deny that industrial capitalism raised the standard of living for the common person, but at what cost? he saw the possibilities of the masses having a better standard of living, through their own efforts, having determination - being capable of governing their own economic interests. marx is an extension of the ideals of the french and american revolutions, his efforts were a response to the unbridled industrial capitalism he observed.
why do we need parochial overseers of our global economy? using greed as motivation to plan our economy (the day to day operations of our lives - the current economic fiasco on wall street, hedge fund managers - the sub prime market - the weakness of our dollar). look at the financial fiascos the world over and we can find greedy investers/financiers some where in the world rubbing their palms.
MSM and our educational system is incapable of framing events in marxist terms.
imagine if gwen ifill had asked joe biden the question about the bailout in a different way?
'hey joe, isn't the 700 billion dollar bailout just another form of economic exploitation, essentially stealing money from working class taxpayers who may not even own property or stocks in multinational institutions? isn't it time for the government to reign in the corporate robber barons instead of burdening the american taxpayers ?'
the economic elite will go to extreme measures to avoid questions from the mob,
remember micheal moore's film 'roger and me' (moore's relentless attempt to talk w/ the reticent ceo of gm, about the closing of an auto plant), or any encounter between a demonstrator and a political representative at a campaign rally - public event, where the comment or question is blurted out then the crowd, drowns the person out - as the politician , while comically mocking the person (hence the idea) rephrases the question in more moderate terms.
or in school, where marxism is defined rigidly as the basis for a failed state in eurasia and is perceived by americans as still controlling the minds of our enemies in china (orwellian - eurasia, eastasia, oceania - , but true). these pre-conceived attitudes stay w/ many americans throughout their lives (marx = ussr = evil or, marx = mao = evil), depriving them of understanding complex current events from an alternative perspective, or even acknowledging socialist ideas exist as policy in numerous countries across the globe (including the US - social security).
notice when you drive across america and stop in a motel, in the drawer under the lamp you often will find a bible, the operating manual for american culture. i've never found 'the US constitution' or 'the communist manifesto' or even 'the prince' in those drawers. the US has always been the land of jesus - plymouth (blind faith) and adam smith - jamestown (greed). the city on the hill, the american dream (you can work your way up from the bottom, using greed and brute force to exploit other people - the invisible hand will help you of little faith).
it's ironic may day is an international celebration, w/ US origins, essentially ignored in the US.
http://www.netglimse.com/holidays/may_day/global_celebration_of_may_day....
trans global capital has created a system that allows people the world over the ability to communicate (inet, cell phones), the global economic meltdown provides us with opportunities to use/share tactics that other oppressed people have used/are using, the people in russia and china also have little control over their government's policies; we need to stay connected with other activists around the globe
the crisis is global, and now - b/c of technological innovations, we can share our thoughts globally in ways marx could not envision.
look for a global currency in the near future. the next transformational event will be world government. a just world will embrace the ideals of marx, not the selfish natures of smith/machiavelli. it takes time...
“WORKERS OF ALL LANDS UNITE”
...peace...
Ten planks of the Mainifesto
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. (in progress, federal government owns 35% of all land and the foreclosures that are coming will wipe out private ownership)
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. (done, but can be more extreme)
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance. (inheritance tax)
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. (RICO-drugs, enemy combatants and those against Iraq war can lose their property)
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. (Fed)
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. (FCC, DOT)
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. (in progress, state is buying shares in corporations)
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. (Obamas plan for public service)
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country. (done)
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production (done)
So most of this is underway or already accomplished.
Also, state fascism is the stepping stone to global communism, to facilitae the smooth transition away from capitalism.
Communists have long recognized that capitalism/fascism was required to turn a country into an industrial power, and that state communism is not able to compete with state capitalism. Communism would only be workable when it is global and after the world has been industrialized (thats why we sent our manufacturing to China and Asia).
The distinction between government and corporation will not be made. We are essentially run by a single Global Corporation, and industries linked with interlocking directorships, the president the CEO, the treasury the CFO, commerce the COO, and Congress is the board of trustees.
The owners of this corporation are the elite, descendants of European loyalty.
The 700 billion bailout were dividends paid to the shareholders of this corporation. The fiscal year ended September 30.
Today we are defacto Global Communists.
The idea that Communism would allow citizens to share the wealth was a myth to gain support among the masses. You see, the only citizens are members of the Communist Party (CFR, TLC, Clube of Rome, Pilgrims, Bilderbergers, etc) and while they may share the wealth in some form, the rest of us are not citizens, just property whose labour will be exploited to serve the party.
Comrades, as Stalin said, if you don't work, you don't eat. Get back to work.
the question is not communism or socialism or capitalism or fill-in-the-blank. the question is whether society as a whole or the private individual is to own the means of production. if you want to call the former 'communism' or 'socialism' or whatever, go for it. but we must have it if the species is to survive. and, yes, we have made many mistakes in the work of realizing this goal, and no doubt we will make many others.
move now, americans, or move never.
One of the lights on the horizon is Earth Justice - that the well being of the earth tself needs to be the basis of the legal system.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Mikhail Gorbachev visited an Israeli Kibbutz in the 1980s and was seen to be quietly shedding a tear. He commented that what existed in the cooperative Kibbutz was true Communism and that, "We never attained this in the Soviet Union." Men like Gorbachev believed in trying to build a more economically fair and socially just society even though they accepted the failure of the Soviet model.
My own reflection on this is that Communism approaching the Marxist ideal only can work on small scales in communities isolated from the material temptations of nearby capitalist societies. That condition of isolation is almost impossible to achieve now and most of the original Kibbutzim are failing or mutating because of their proximity to capitalist temptations that ultimately deliver economic inequity and all the other legalistic and political problems of class differences.
Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union were always impossible to truly govern well because of three factors: (1) their vast sprawl of populations, religions, languages and cultures across six time zones, (2) the technological limitations up until the end of the Soviet Union that precluded any correct understanding of, let alone implementation of, the economic logistics and timely command and control necessary to govern such a vast nation (tempting Lenin and Stalin to take brutal "short-cuts" like racially motivated, forced relocations of huge populations and mass purges all tied to "agricultural reforms" that starved millions), and (3) so much of the economy, and such a large subset of the population of the Soviet Union was devoted to surveillance and Police State control of such a large and spread out overall population--representing an enormous mis-allocation of financial and labor resources that could have been used for productive positive change instead.
Despite all this, the brutality of Lenin and Stalin, and many other hurdles, the USSR still made great leaps in technology and economic inclusiveness compared to Tsarist Russia.
If less Machiavellian Communist leaders in the USSR had had access to today's super computers and logistical software; if they were not engaged in an often ego-driven, multi-decade, multi-$Trillion dollar arms race with the capitalist West (and all the fear and superfluous, progress-stopping indoctrination that the nuclear arms race brought to both the USSR and US), who knows what they (and we) might have achieved? Their central problem was that they could not make the transition from power centralized in the State to power spread more equitably through all local workers' committees. A process that properly trained factory managers from within the ranks of a given factory's workers and then rotated the managers back into the factory's rank & file after a temporary period as managers might have helped. When the USSR collapsed, many industrial spoils were handed over to entrenched members of the management class who were the only ones who knew how to make an entire large factory function. Many of these became Russia's contemporary Oligarchs.
Contemporary Amurka seems to have overwhelmingly lost any concept of a serious desire to make America more economically fair or socially just. Which situation is more lamentable?
Is Russia's economy stronger now or ours? They certainly sit on more oil, natural gas and strategic mineral wealth than we do, and have closer large scale military proximity to oil and natural gas pipelines running through their former satellite States than we do. That they are backsliding into authoritarianism is only simultaneous with our own similar backslide coupled to our pre-existing and well organized levels of institutional corruption. Our increasingly concentrated and ideologically uniform Big Broadcast Media behaves more and more like the USSR's State media concerns Pravda, Izvestia and Tass. Independent studies of our media's behavior in the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and regarding the topic of warrantless surveillance prove this conclusively.
ABC's senior investigative journalist Brian Ross had to run to independent media's Democracy Now to complain about Bush maladministration threats to charge journalists with treason for exposing things like the illegal warrantless surveillance program. His own "mainstream" network was too terrified to air his claims even though he still works for them to this day.
China, as a post-State communist, totalitarian neo-capitalist experiment, in my opinion, is combining the worst of both State communism and capitalism. Chinese government leaders have lost any and all communist ideals of economic fairness, let alone social justice. China now has rapidly worsening economic disparities on much larger and more unstable scales than in Bush's divided Amurka. They have an unemployed population--much of it continually wandering around the country looking for work--as large as the entire population of the U.S. It is destroying what is left of its natural environment and, by building 3 coal power plants a week, was recently said to have surpassed the U.S. as the world's biggest current contributor to CO2 emissions.
Amurka's corporate fascists are contributing surveillance technology to the Chinese hybrid authoritarians to help them more efficiently repress the Chinese people. So China and the U.S. are a more negative influence on each other than they ever have been and are together propelling a titanic economic experiment that undermines our middle-class (with U.S. industries off-shored to China) and further divides and pits China's various classes against each other in an economic globalist model that is economically and environmentally unsustainable.
One of my favorite quotes about socialism is, "We must always be suspicious of the socialist's answers, but we must always be asking the socialist's questions" because they are questions of economic fairness and social justice that traditional capitalists always eschewed except for a tiny religious minority among them. The programmatic difference between the two, and thus, the level to which they take such problems seriously, can best be seen by a comparison between the church dole in Britain in the 19th century (as brilliantly described by Charles Dickens), the New Deal and Great Society eras in America, and contemporary socialist democracies in Northern Europe. Prior to the 20th century so far as I've been able to discover, traditional capitalism could hardly be bothered with women's rights, racial equality or children's rights except for small numbers of incidental capitalists involved in the Abolition Movement and the early Sufferage Movement.
If any of you know of pre-20th century capitalists of any renown who publicly expressed concern about economic fairness across classes, women's rights, racial equality and children's rights please add your information to this string. Thanks.
USA no longer owns the means of production.
Barbara Ehrenreich doesn't say what it is she is "proud" of about her Obama yard sign. What is there to be proud of about supporting a crook who just led the way in supporting the bailout of Wall Street? Preferring that Obama get elected rather than McCain is understandable (although that doesn't mean it makes sense strategically for people on the left to vote and campaign for him). But for someone who claims to be progressive to be proud of supporting a Democrat who talks and votes "Republican Lite" is downright delusional. Obama may be a "lesser evil," but evil is evil. Decades of support by people like Ehrenreich for Democrats who don't serve ordinary people's interests is one of the things that has gotten us to these sad circumstances.
A link to the essay "Why Socialism" by Albert Einstein:
http://www.monthlyreview.org/598einst.htm
Miz. Babara Ehrenhreigh, whether she intends it or not, is actually using Marx, The Communist Manifesto and violent revolution to scare the voters.
We Americans can get rid of this mess and the crooks by voting outside this two party scam, bring in new legislation to seriously punish white collar crooks, politicians and their apologist-mass media.
The American people knows what is right and will choose a new path if only the better educated opinion leaders and leaders in the other fields choose to align themselvses with the majority common people and not to sit down at the table of the rich and powerful, as it has been their proclivity to do.
I cannot believe the comments here, this site has changed and the comments are stale propaganda. Too bad, RIP Common Dreams.
To "redgreen",
I agree with you 100%. Obama is no different than McCain, both of them are war-mongers and beholden to big business/Finance.
Ehrenreich and her ilk of "progressives" support for him is baffling and infuriating. The lesser of two evils nonsense did not work before and it will never work now or in the future.
From Dave Lindorff, up on Counterpunch http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff10032008.html
---------------------
"Everything Here Appears Distorted..."
Calling the Problem Early
By DAVE LINDORFF
Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin tried to claim Thursday evening that
their presidential-candidate running mates, Barack Obama and John
McCain had been prescient about spotting the looming financial disaster
facing the US--Biden saying Obama had warned Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke several years ago that subprime mortgages would become a serious problem, and Palin saying McCain had called for reform of mortgage backing firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (he actually simply co-sponsored reform legislation by Sen. Chuck Hagel).
But there is someone who called this crisis much earlier, explaining it in astonishing clarity. Here's what he wrote:
"In a system...where the entire continuity of the...process rests upon credit, a crisis must obviously occur -- a tremendous rush for means of payment -- when credit suddenly ceases and only cash payments have validity. At first glance, therefore, the whole crisis seems to be merely a credit and money crisis. And in fact it is only a question of the convertibility of bills of exchange into money. But the
majority of these bills represent actual sales and purchases, whose extension far beyond the needs of society is, after all, the basis of the whole crisis. At the same time, an enormous quantity of these bills of exchange represents plain swindle, which now reaches the light of day and collapses; furthermore, unsuccessful speculation with the capital of other people; finally, commodity-capital which has depreciated or is completely unsaleable, or returns that can never more be realized again. The entire artificial system of forced expansion of the [ecomony] cannot, of course, be remedied by having some bank, like the [Federal Reserve], give to all the swindlers the deficient capital by means of its paper and having it buy up all the depreciated commodities at their old nominal values. Incidentally, everything here appears distorted, since in this paper world, the real price and its real basis appear nowhere, but only bullion, metal coin, notes, bills
of exchange, securities. Particularly in centers where the entire money business of the country is concentrated, like London [or New York]...the entire process becomes incomprehensible."
Note: Except for my updated insertion of the term Federal Reserve
for the original reference to the Bank of England, this is a verbatim
quote.
(Thanks to writer, trade union activist and Marx scholar Bert Schultz of Philadelphia, who found this passage in Karl Marx's Capital, Volume 3, Chapter 30, "Money-Capital and Real Capital")
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
From Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's speech in protest against the Vietnam war on 04-04-67:
"It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit.
Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated.
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."
******************
Here we see that Marxism (despite its author's desire to the contrary) has a spiritual component totally ignored by the Barbara Ehrenreich's and James Carvilles ("It's the economy stupid!")of the world. The moral bankruptcy of the capitalist order more than any philosophical or economic theories explains its continuing relevance to us today.
Poet