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Analyzing Barack Obama

19 May

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Among the many accusations leveled against Barack Obama by the political right, few have become so commonly accepted as the claim that he is a socialist and even a Marxist. Even in what passes for mainstream political discourse one can accuse Obama of being a socialist without raising any eyebrows. For those old enough to remember the Clinton years, the idea that Democrats, or more accurately liberals, should be rightly associated with socialism is not exactly a novel concept. Yet these days it seems like every criticism of Democratic policies from the right must include the label of “socialism.” How did it come to this?

For starters, during the Clinton years, figures who accused Clinton of being a Marxist or Communist tended to be marginalized and isolated on the fringe of the political spectrum.  Mainstream conservative pundits implied that liberals were the fellow travelers of Communists, but “liberal” and “socialist” had not become interchangeable at that time. Clinton being a “liberal” was sufficient for his right-wing attackers. It also did not help those who would have accused him of being a potential Communist that his administration happened to roughly coincide with the collapse of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc, an event which ushered in a long period of capitalist triumphalism as the ruling class sought to cash in on the demoralization of the working class all over the world. The Cold War was over, Marx was said to have been totally discredited, and the “end of history” was declared.

Obama, in stark contrast, campaigned and later took the reins of power just at that crucial time when the capitalists’ castles in the sky began to crumble, posing a serious threat to the idea of the infallible free-market which would lead the world to general prosperity. The failure of neo-liberal economic theories, and the subsequent resurgence of discussions on alternatives to capitalism, necessitated an all-out offensive against the idea of socialism, and in particular Marxism, all over the world. When propaganda fails, force becomes a necessity. Hence, it is not possible for the right to acknowledge Obama for what he is, i.e. slightly right-of-center with some more progressive social views, but rather he must be made into a radical Communist and demonized as such.

The effect of this is twofold. First, if Obama is a radical leftist, then by default anyone who is actually to the left of Obama is automatically excluded from mainstream “respectable” politics. If Obama’s healthcare plan, written and edited by healthcare industry lobbyists, can be labeled as “socialist medicine” in the mainstream discourse, advocates of a single-payer system can be marginalized as fanatics. On the other side of the coin, the success of a “far-left,” “socialist” radical on the Democrat side can be used to justify a more radical far-right candidate for the Republican Party. Many leftists in America, at least those who acknowledge and are aware of Obama’s centrism, are often shocked at the fanaticism of figures such as Rick Santorum or Michelle Bachmann. This is only because they are comparing a very moderate liberal Democrat with raving right-wing fanatics. Unfortunately there are many people, who may not necessarily be hardcore conservatives, who accept that Obama is, to some extent, a “socialist.” As such, the idea that a left-wing socialist should be opposed by a passionate, more extreme conservative is only fair.

Let the reader consider what it would mean if the right-wing were to cease their accusations that Obama is a socialist, Marxist, and so on. Suppose they highlighted the many compromises he has made with their party, as well as his solid record of supporting corporate and capitalist interests via tax cuts, stimulus money, and so on.* Suppose they declared that while they still have some minor disagreements with the President, particularly on social matters, they find him on the whole to be satisfactory. It isn’t difficult to imagine that if the above were to happen, the whole game would be over. The American political system would have declared itself illegitimate, and only the willfully ignorant could deny that the two-party oligarchy exists to serve one class. Moreover, at a time when the system requires iron-fisted tactics, selective “austerity,” and most of all the reactionary leaders capable of bringing such things, it is essential to juxtapose increasingly radical reactionary candidates with far-left “socialists.” A figure like Bachmann can only be justified insofar as the opposition is presented as equally fanatical. If the socialists cannot be found, they must be invented. Ergo, we have Obama the Marxist Socialist.

Why then, does the claim that Obama is a socialist gain so much traction? After all, he has been accused of everything from being born in Kenya to being some kind of “Manchurian candidate” (of whom we’ll never know), charged with bringing down the American Republic. Not all of these views necessarily get aired regularly on cable news, and some that do often find derision even on networks such as Fox. There is one simple reason why the charge of socialism sticks, and that reason is that Americans simply know little about socialism. This includes not only the generations born during the Cold War who were inundated with anti-Communist propaganda, but even those coming of age in the last few years who are expressing curiosity toward alternatives to capitalism. Ask a conservative for his or her definition of socialism, and you will most likely hear that it is an “evil” system which rewards the lazy at the expense of the hard-working, it is enforced equality, it spreads nothing but human misery, and though it has been totally discredited and found to be responsible for the murder of one-hundred million people in the 20th century, we must remain ever-vigilant against those who would attempt to repeat socialist revolution and kill another hundred million people. Nothing surprising there.

Ask your average self-identified leftist what socialism is, and you may get equally if not more ignorant definitions for socialism. In general it is commonly mistaken for the welfare state, the creation of which did not necessarily require the presence of leftists, much less socialists, in the seat of power. In fact it is the reactionary Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck who is commonly credited with the construction of the first welfare state as we know it. Europe is full of right-wing figures that not only uphold their countries’ various welfare schemes, but even use the preservation of such programs as a prop to bash and blame immigrants. These days it has become common, if not somewhat fashionable, to flirt in public with the term socialism. While this causes no small amount of amusing rage from the right, it tends to muddle peoples’ understanding of what socialism is. Government-sponsored initiatives such as the New Deal or the Great Society are trumpeted as evidence of successful “socialism.” Europe, particularly France, is promoted as an example of functioning socialism. Occasionally one runs across a condescending liberal explanation which claims that Communism didn’t work, but socialism, a more moderated, mixed economic system, can work. This is wrong on so many levels that refuting it would require another article entirely.

In any case, not only does a large portion of the American left, through no fault of their own, not understand what socialism is, but those who advance the aforementioned arguments or variants thereof are actually playing directly into the hands of the right. Such people are not disputing the claim that government intervention in the “private sector” is in fact, socialism, but rather they are merely arguing that this “socialism” is positive and not negative.

What’s so “socialist” about Obama?

For all the ranting and raving about Obama being a socialist or Marxist, those who insist that he is have a hard time explaining why he deserves the label. There are no writings by Obama where he praises or even writes favorably about socialism or Marxism, nor are there any quotes. We can rest assured that if Obama ever uttered a good word about Marx or socialism in public, the conservatives in America would be repeating those words constantly; they’d probably even have bumper stickers with the quote printed on it. For conservatives it is not necessary to have any evidence that Obama is a socialist; he just is, because that’s what liberals are. It’s totally par for the course; these are people who knew that Obama was raising their taxes even when he lowered them.

Now if the reader were to point out the obvious lack of Marxist activity on the part of Obama to a conservative, the conversation most likely wouldn’t end there. Proof of Obama’s socialist politics is said to be his alleged desire to redistribute or “share” the wealth. Indeed, Obama did at least once, on the campaign trail, talk about spreading the wealth around. There are several problems with this claim though; the most important one being that socialism is not merely “redistribution of wealth.” This myth about socialism was dealt with in a previous Red Phoenix article. The second problem with this claim is that the social welfare programs that Obama voices support for don’t necessarily redistribute wealth. Lastly, in connection with the previous point, any time the government collects taxes for anything, wealth is being redistributed. The bailouts of America’s banks, which was supported both by both parties, was a massive redistribution of wealth. In fact when we get paid wages or buy products we are redistributing wealth, in a sense. Wealth can be redistributed in a myriad of ways but when we look at the inequality of wealth in America we can see that nearly four years of Obama has done little to redistribute it, at least among the working class. Strike one for our allegedly “socialist” president.

So what is strike two? This would be Obama’s donors, the individuals and corporations who helped him achieve the office of the president in 2008. When looking at a list of Obama’s top campaign contributors in 2008, we see that the second highest donation came from Goldman Sachs. Other major donations came from Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase & co., Morgan Stanley, and General Electric, to name a few. Now this poses no problem for the conspiratorial fantasy so prevalent in conservatives circles these days;  far from being a word with a concrete meaning, “socialism” to conservatives simply translates to “bad” or “evil,” a system by which “big government” takes from hard-working “middle class” Americans and hands it over to the undeserving, lazy poor.

Since it is typically in the interest of large corporations to avoid paying taxes and support deregulation, we can logically conclude that these donors expected something in return from Obama. Indeed, they have been rewarded for their generosity in a number of ways, from additional taxpayer funded bailouts to key appointments within Obama’s cabinet and as economic advisors. It is when we consider Obama’s donors that the absurdity of the claim that he is a socialist becomes clear. What interest do large corporations have in electing a socialist who would expropriate their property? Can we imagine a scenario where the board of directors at General Electric decides that they have too much money, and that they would rather have all their assets seized and put under the control of workers? That someone could label Obama a socialist in light of these indisputable facts betrays a level of political ignorance that would be hilarious if it weren’t such a tragic, biting reminder of historical and political illiteracy in our country.

Obama’s answer to the economic crisis which weighs heavily on the working class is in fact the same as that of the Republicans, specifically, give more tax cuts and credits to private businesses in hopes that they will feel confident enough to hire more people. This strategy of handing more taxpayer money over to private capital is the only solution allowed in our modern neo-liberal system and no matter how many times it fails to do what it promises, no alternatives may be considered.

Why Socialism?

16 Apr

by J. Bialek

The spectre which once haunted Europe long ago in 1848, materialized in corporeal form in 1917 and was seemingly exorcized in 1991 has returned in force. This time the “spectre of communism” is haunting the entire world. In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Manifesto of the Communist Party, also called The Communist Manifesto, in order to explain to the population at large the general beliefs of communists, and to differentiate communists from liberals and other social movements which existed during that revolutionary era.

Today it cannot be denied that we are once again living in a revolutionary era. As capitalism continues to degenerate, demonstrating with each passing day that it has outlived its usefulness to the vast majority of humankind, we see violent explosions of popular rage, ranging from peaceful demonstrations to chaotic riots. The ruling class and its “free” press would have us believe that even in these dark times progress is being made. We have the Arab Spring, a series of revolutions supposedly made possible thanks to the help of the Western-developed Twitter and Facebook. The Occupy protests, which complained of a media blackout during its infancy, soon managed to capture the attention of the world and to make its mark on the year 2011. As the media would have it, all that is necessary to solve the ills of the world are “democratic” revolutions in certain countries such as Egypt, but not in others such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or Yemen, and of course maybe a little more participation for “the little guy” in American politics. While the press has in recent years admitted that there are some flaws in the global economic system, those who have been paying attention since the start of this crisis might have noticed an explosion of increasingly shrill anti-communist propaganda.

The renewed interest in Marx and his theories, along with a rising tide of dissatisfaction and nostalgia for pre-1989 life within the former Eastern Bloc nations and the ex-U.S.S.R., has clearly sent chills down the spines of Europe’s elite. Their message could not be more clear. On one hand the media concedes that something is broken with the capitalist system, but on the other hand it warns the working class not to consider alternatives to capitalism. They are once again trying to exorcize this spectre that is haunting them, and indeed terrifying them; they insist that the working class limit their protests against the system so as to fit within the boundaries established by the ruling class. For them the greatest tragedy would be the rejection of the slogan that there is no alternative to capitalism and the assumption that mankind has reached its peak of societal evolution in the system of free markets and commodity trading. So here we are again, so far from 1848, and communists are again compelled to disclose their ideas and distinguish themselves from all other factions who claim to have a solution to our present crisis.

In these times of crisis it comes as no surprise that working people find themselves faced by a large number of proselytizers from a wide spectrum of ideological backgrounds preaching the superiority and explanatory power of their ideas. Each has an explanation as to why we are in this crisis today and a set of proposals which can supposedly solve the problem. In this marketplace of ideas, Marxists cannot pretend as though we sit above the fray, treating our theory as some kind of esoteric revealed knowledge in a manner similar to many of those aforementioned ideologues. We have an explanation, a theory, but what sets us apart is not simply our assertion that these are true, but rather that what we are truly offering is not so much a set of pre-packaged answers which constitute some kind of universal truth, but rather a methodology of analysis which allows people to find what can reasonably be judged as true.  This is not to state that we do not believe in the correctness of our theories, but that Marxism is a living theory to which we add our observations and experiences year after year, rejecting that which has been found to be no longer accurate and adopting that which is relevant and observable.

Other ideologies will claim that our problems stem from lack of regulation, too much regulation, the Federal Reserve, hierarchical authority, the Illuminati, the breakdown of the family, “multiculturalism” and a whole host of other scapegoats either real or imagined. By contrast, while Marxist analysis has identified certain laws or truth about the history of human society and the capitalist system, it is up to us in modern times to apply this analysis to our changing world, and to come up with answers based on our analysis rather than simply accepting some alleged axioms and then setting about to envision our ideal world. In this sense, Marxism does not reject all ideas outside of itself; in fact it does acknowledge the validity of many other ideas or concepts. However, Marxists see in many of these other ideological strains the neglect, either by accident or design, of certain factors which, without being accounted for, cause these other ideological analyses to be lacking and one-sided.

If we consider as an example neo-classical or “mainstream” economics, we cannot fault its proponents for ignoring class struggle, denying the existence of exploitation, and not dealing with the question of creating a more egalitarian, just society. Neo-classical economics was never intended to deal with these matters, and indeed, a common answer to questions about inequality and social injustice under capitalism is that these problems are outside the realm of economics, which of course means neo-classical economics, and that these are issues for sociologists to discuss. Marxism, on the other hand, sees all things in the world as being interrelated; any effect can have potentially infinite causes and any cause can have potentially infinite effects. This is important to keep in mind when one encounters a common straw man argument against Marxism, such as the claim that Marxism is “economic determinism,” or that Marxism sees class struggle as the main focal point of all human history. Marxism sees many factors influencing human society. On the other hand, class has been, via observation of history, a crucial factor in understanding inequality within society, and thus if one wants to change society in order to eliminate inequality and exploitation, Marxist theory says we must take this into account as a crucial factor. Of course, if one is not interested in changing society in such a way that deals with these problems, then class isn’t so important. Every individual who professes a political ideology insists that they want a more just society, but justice to the worker differs greatly from the justice of the owners of capital.

For the sake of argument, let us assume a position that declares the world as it is to be unjust, and in need of a significant change. From this starting point, let us now deal with the questions, “Why socialism? Why do we need revolution and why can’t we do something else?” For practical purposes this text will deal primarily with “left-wing” objections to socialism under the assumption that bearers of such arguments are at least sympathetic to ideals such as social justice and equality. However, while they really deserve to be dealt with in separate articles, we will have a look at some objections coming from the right and even the far-right. Right-wing reactionaries have a history of clothing their arguments in populist language so as to propagate their message among otherwise unsuspecting people who would never give them the time of day if they knew exactly who they were dealing with.

A word of caution – the reader should not assume that what follows is a false dichotomy insisting that Marxism is the only path out of the current crisis. Crisis is both inherent and cyclical in capitalism, and thus we can assume that the current crisis will eventually work itself out. This process may be violent, and in the end yesterday’s winners may be tomorrow’s losers, but the system will go on. It is important to understand that a system’s ability to perpetuate itself isn’t necessarily a merit; it only means that humans simply do not give up and resign control over their society. What this text argues is not simply “socialism or else,” but rather that while other solutions may have progressive and positive outcomes, so long as capitalism and its core contradictions are not dealt with these same painful effects will only return a few years down the road. Furthermore, these ad hoc solutions will not resolve some of capitalism’s cruelest effects such as starvation, war, imperialism, death due to preventable diseases, and the like. The second thing this text will not attempt to do is try to play a logical game so as to lead the reader to the idea that Marxism is “right” based on formal reason alone. If one does not see inequality or exploitation as morally wrong or at worst a necessary evil, no amount of logical arguments can convince them that socialist revolution is necessary. Logic dictates that those who stand to benefit from the system as it is are likely to defend it.

Why do we need revolution? Why can’t we fix the problem through the electoral system? You have to work within the system to make changes otherwise you’re just a dreamer who’s wasting everyone’s time.

Here we have typical arguments from lifelong supporters of the Democratic Party. They acknowledge that they too are disappointed in their hero Obama, but they warn us that things will be much worse under a Republican president. When we express our disapproval of Obama, they accuse us of being dreamers and spoiled children who are now throwing a fit because we didn’t get everything we wanted from the president. Communists find this argument somewhat amusing, seeing as how we never expected anything from Barack Obama. Communists do not see Obama in a vacuum, but rather as part of a clear and obvious rightward trend within the Democratic Party. The truth about “what Obama has done so far” is not a matter for this article. Media outlets such as the outstanding Black Agenda Report have easily cut through the excuses and lies of Obama and his party lackeys. For those pressed for time, sites like obamatheconservative.com catalogue nearly every hard right turn this supposedly “progressive” president has made, complete with sources for each item. Mainstream leftists often label Obama’s compromises with the radical right as “disappointments” at best and “betrayals” at worst. To communists on the other hand, everything is going as intended, not because these actions are part of some secret plan, but because the state is merely carrying out the very function it was designed to do. In other words, our opposition to supporting Obama has nothing to do with Obama himself; it is in fact opposition to voting for anybody. The state is designed to provide a foundation for a capitalist society, and however much “freedom” it may permit in its best moments, it will never permit the freedom to abolish capitalism and its relations of production. The system is meant to self-perpetuate, and the system inevitably favors the wealthy.

To some this might sound like political cynicism, but this is a readily observable fact throughout history. Let us first consider the remedies that liberals have offered us thus far in the endeavor to limit the influence of wealth in American society. Some demands will simply never be fulfilled. Congressmen are not going to consciously eliminate their own perks, including those which they gain from courting lobbyists both when they are in office and after they leave or retire from public service. The idea that politicians can be convinced to give up the vast privileges they gain from their relations with corporations and lobbyists simply based on an appeal to their conscience about “fairness” is simply laughable, and even more so when it comes from the mouth of an Obama supporter who chides leftists for not being realistic.

What of regulation, which will supposedly keep banks and corporations in line? Any attempt to pass such regulation through Congress will inevitably be met with a massive blitzkrieg by lobbyists, but for the sake of argument let’s say they somehow pass. What comes next? The advocates of regulation are fond of referring back to some earlier period in American history when various regulations of industry and banking still existed. The massive trend of deregulation since the 1980s is responsible for our problems, these people say. In this case we are forced to ask, if regulations can solve our economic problems, how did this deregulation take place to begin with? Perhaps more importantly, what will ensure that the new regulations won’t be overturned ten, twenty, or thirty years down the road? How can we be sure the exact same thing won’t happen again? As to why the regulations failed, we are again faced with the reality that the republican system we live under in the United States of America favors those with money, which inevitably means corporations and wealthy individuals. It cannot do otherwise. Some have suggested measures such as ending corporate personhood, but this is about as realistic as limiting or abolishing access for lobbyists. The politicians are not going to cut their own throats.

There are some on the so-called “left” who accuse us of being unrealistic, overly-cynical, and counter-productive by not working within the system. We are accused of wanting our way or no way, and that if we were really serious about change we would participate in the political process and then perhaps we would get the change we wanted, if only incrementally. First, the change we seek is radical; it is revolutionary and not a matter of reforms. Does this mean that we totally reject any participation in the political system as it is, or that we reject any reform in favor of total revolution? Absolutely not; every reform that the working class can squeeze out of the state for their benefit is a small victory. On the other hand, we will not cede massive ground to the right in exchange for a few crumbs from the table, nor will we line up to support candidates that do not represent our interests. To those who say we should stop complaining and vote “our people” into office, we may respond thusly: we would happily cast our vote for “our people,” that is candidates who represent our working class interests, but we will not vote your people into office. Moreover, if we somehow manage to find “our people” to vote for, we will reject all your attempts to blame us for the failure of your people if they should fail. You cannot accuse us of being unrealistic contrarians for not using the choices we supposedly have, and then condemn us when our choice differs from yours.

Getting to the bottom line, we must acknowledge that if we dare to say our problems stem from capitalism, as an increasingly larger segment of mainstream liberals and “leftists” are, we must set about finding a way to abolish capitalism, the root of the problem. By extension, we cannot expect to abolish capitalism via the very same state structure which serves as its foundation and defense. On this point we must agree with the anarchists who say “smash the state.” Politics can be likened to a sort of game, wherein players are permitted to make various decisions and perform actions so long as they do not violate the rules of the game. You can make many moves in chess but you cannot substitute its rules for those of another game, and you must make your moves on the chessboard. If for any reason we can achieve meaningful goals within the rules of the game, we will happily use these opportunities so long as they do not compromise our end goals. What we will not do, is accept the assumption that the game cannot be changed entirely and that we must forever struggle to achieve our gains within the confines of a system which is stacked against us.

Why can’t we fix capitalism? Can we not eliminate the negative effects of capitalism while keeping its benefits?

This is a relatively easy question, which has been somewhat answered in the previous section.  However, it is worth taking a closer look at this argument because one can propose a radical change in government without necessarily eliminating capitalism and its trappings, or as we call them, its relations of production. Here we won’t bother debunking the efficacy of reforms or regulations, but rather we will pose a question ourselves, along with a novel answer. People have been working against the ills of capitalism ever since its emergence in human society, yet to this day we still experience the same problems, oftentimes on a worse scale than before. Awareness of poverty, super-exploitation of workers in developing countries, and even modern-day slavery is higher today than it was in previous decades, but has any of this actually solved these problems? It is simply untrue that the resources necessary to solve these ills do not exist; rather it is one of capitalism’s hallmarks that resources necessary for life can be created in abundance, yet those who are in charge of their creation will not do so unless it proves profitable to them. In fact “relief” is often itself a very profitable industry, to the point that experienced relief workers often warn donors to carefully evaluate charity organizations before handing over their money. In any case, the solution to these problems lies not in increasing charity, but rather eliminating the conditions which make charity necessary.

Finally on this point, when we speak of eliminating the ills of capitalism while preserving its benefits, we would assert that this does describe socialism to an extent. We seek to create a society in which the great productive power brought into being by capitalism is put to use by the masses, for the benefit of the masses, as opposed to a minority of owners and investors. So long as these means of production are owned by a minority of individuals driven by the quest for profits, this cannot happen. Socialism is a synthesis which arises from the struggle to eliminate the contradictions inherent to capitalism, and when it triumphs, we will ultimately be left with capitalism’s benefits without its disadvantages. This may be a long, arduous process, but we have no reason to assume that it cannot be done. And if our struggle for a better, more just world never achieves our highest ideals, what does it matter so long as we strove to achieve all that we could?

The problem isn’t capitalism! We don’t live in a capitalist society! Our society is corporatist, or even socialist!

This kind of objection is as absurd as it is common in today’s discourse. It has often been propagated by Libertarians (typically followers of the Ron Paul cult), fellow admirers of the Austrian school of economics, and all manner of right-wing populists. We might ignore such absurd claims were they only espoused by such reactionaries, but because of their propensity for attempting to inject their ideas into left-wing movements, and the mainstream left’s susceptibility toward superficially radical attacks on everything “corporate,” we cannot avoid addressing such claims. Granted, this is a subject which demands its own article, and in fact many on this subject already exist. Here we will deal with it for the benefit of an audience which sees itself as left-wing or progressive, and we will do so in an abbreviated manner.

If capitalism is not the system under which we live now, then we must ask not only what capitalism is, but also when it has existed. If one asserts that it has never existed, as a few fanatical libertarians will occasionally admit under pressure, this is in itself an indictment of capitalism. Who can fault the U.S.S.R. for not achieving communism in seventy years if people have been championing the idea of capitalism for several centuries without ever having established it anywhere? But we need not concern ourselves with this rarer, ludicrous argument. Instead we will deal with the assertion that our modern system has transformed from some kind of “good” capitalism into something more grotesque. This assertion is especially troubling for those progressives and even more “radical” leftists who assert this argument, as it logically implies that there was some better time in the past, which is remarkably similar to the claims of right-wing ideologues.

The corporation, which earns so much hatred from the mainstream left, did not fall out of the sky one morning. It came into being through a natural process of capitalism’s evolution. The claim that our system is different than it was thirty, forty, or fifty years ago, regardless of who is making the argument, is based on a wholly metaphysical view of the world and in particular of capitalism. It presents capitalism as defined by a particular ideal, and then asserts that if reality should differ from this ideal, then reality must then be something other than capitalism. This way of thinking does not allow one to see capitalism as a system which went through changes from its inception to the present day. It is essential to deal with capitalism as it exists today, and as it has existed hitherto, as opposed to some abstract ideal.

In limiting our objections to this argument only as it is asserted by “leftists” as opposed to reactionary free market fanatics, then we find that we have come full circle back to the idea of “fixing capitalism.” To attack corporations and champion small and local business amounts to attacking the weeds without pulling up the roots. Again, these corporations did not fall from the sky one day, fully formed. To deny the connection between small businesses and multi-national corporations is akin to an economic Intelligent Design theory, as though the latter were once called into existence as they appear today. Even small local businesses will put their money into banks which will loan it out all over the country, if not the world. Communists seek not to cut the weeds of capitalism, but rather to uproot it entirely.

Can’t we subvert capitalism by changing our lifestyle and choices as consumers?

From the counter-cultural revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s emerged an idea which began as a bastardization of Marxist thought, one that has recently gained popularity again, stripped of any hint of Marxism whatsoever. The gist of this idea goes like this: capitalists and by extension the capitalist system itself are compelled to sell their products in the market, and thus must ensure that consumers will continue to spend money on an ever-increasing array of products. Many of these products are not necessary to human life, and some wholly unnecessary, making it essential to somehow convince people they need such products. The conclusion of these observations is that capitalism requires conformity in order to survive. Via aggressive and seemingly omnipresent advertising, people are encouraged to follow trends and buy what other people are buying. This leads to the rise of what is generally termed “consumerism,” a lust for ever more material goods that always seems to afflict other people, as opposed to the person decrying it.

From this argument it follows that this system can be subverted via a revolt against consumerism, and in particular, the “jamming” of cultural messages which promote this lifestyle, namely advertisements. We allege that these theories are nothing but idealistic nonsense, wholly divorced from even a superficial analysis of how capitalism works. Capitalism does not require that people act alike and have the same tastes; on the contrary, it thrives when people seek to express their individuality via their lifestyle and purchases. There will always be a capitalist willing to fulfill some desire so long as there is profit to be had. Decades of counter-cultural rebellion have failed to put a dent in the capitalist machine, and there is no reason to believe that “fair trade” products, defaced advertisements, and the occasional street rave will succeed at overthrowing capitalism in the future. Moreover, making the struggle against capitalism a matter of purchases is little more than funneling money from big capitalists to small or medium-sized capitalists.

Aren’t you reducing everything down to economics? What about feminism, the struggle for people of color, and so on?

Marxists fight for an egalitarian society which means we fight against racism, xenophobia, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and all other social ills which create division and conflict within the working class. Despite this, we are still continually accused of reducing all matters to economics or class struggle, which is a woefully bad interpretation of Marxist theory. This accusation comes from a variety of directions but occasionally it is voiced by some die-hard followers of certain identity politics movements. Some, but by no means all or even a majority, put the struggle of their particular group above all others. History has shown identity politics to be largely a failure when it comes to achieving equality, much less overthrowing capitalism and its systematic division and oppression of people based on ethnicity, gender, sex, and so on. While many recognize the role of class in the oppression of their particular group, there are those who prefer to spend their time bickering over redefinitions of what it means to be a part of this or that group, who is more oppressed and how, and tit-for-tat arguments about who is “co-opting” their movement.

Marxists on the other hand recognize a historically observable fact that oppression of women, ideas of race, caste systems, and other forms of systematic oppression are very much rooted in class society. They all serve the purpose of maintaining, in one form or another, a system whereby one class exploits another. We may liken class society to a disease, and things like sexism, racism, and so on represent symptoms of that disease. History has shown that struggles for civil rights and the liberation of women have often failed because they focused on symptoms without having any kind of historical material analysis of that which they were struggling against. In many cases, this often led dedicated fighters into alliances with their class enemies, all in the name of liberation for a particular repressed group. The promised liberation has yet to come. Marxists do not reduce every issue down to class struggle, but if we are analyzing two particular subjects, specifically the history of human society and formulating a way to build a better one, we see that class plays a major role in relation to both.

Of course this should not be taken to mean that problems like racism or patriarchy will simply disappear once the capitalist class is overthrown. Some forms of oppression are quite old; patriarchy, in particular, dates back to the dawn of class-based society.  And while a struggle must be waged during and after the revolution to right these wrongs, one thing is clear- we simply cannot ultimately triumph over these social ills until we overthrow that system and its ruling class which has a vested interest in maintaining a complex society of privileges designed to divide the exploited class and incite them against one another.  This having been said, Marxists have an obligation to set the standard for the kind of society they wish to live in by waging the day-to-day struggle against forms of oppression such as racism and patriarchy both inside and outside of their organizations and parties.  Those who feel that this question can be put off till  “after the revolution” are shirking their responsibility and not setting a good example of what could be possible once the system of class-based organization is overthrown.

The Rise and Fall of Third Worldism – Part 1

1 Jan

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PART ONE: “Two, Three, many Vietnams”: National Liberation and the Rise of the Third World (1945 – 1991)

Asia, Africa and Latin America in the Early Years of the Century

With the exception of Latin America, and several noteworthy cases in Africa and Asia, the pre-1945 history of what came to be known as the “Third World” is overwhelmed by the fact of imperialism. Native voices were silenced and native cultures nearly eradicated.

In Asia, Japan was the only country to industrialize, and thus the only country to emerge as a major player in world affairs. Although at first resistant to Western influences; by the middle of the 19th century Japan had embarked on a major modernization program. Building upon traditional values, Japan built an army and navy powerful enough to challenge Russia over Korea at the turn of the last century; and strong enough to join the British, French, Germans, and Americans in carving out a sphere of influence in China. A hybrid of feudal/warrior institutions and modern technology would characterize Japan throughout most of the 20th century. Some argue that this mixture would enable Japanese economic success.

China, the most populous nation on earth, with a culture going back some 5,000 years, was weak and felt herself victimized by the Great Powers. Unlike Japan, China had not modernized. Chinese institutions had frozen. The Manchu dynasty which had ruled China for some 300 years seemed more interested in maintaining itself in power than in bettering the lot of its people; the majority of whom lived in conditions of appalling poverty. Although there was a strong feeling against foreign domination, which periodically erupted into mass uprisings such as the Boxer Rebellion; China had been effectively divided up amongst the Great Powers, who controlled large areas known as ‘concessions’ where they enjoyed trade monopolies. The corrupt and infirm Manchu dynasty fell underneath its own weight in 1911. The collapse of Manchu rule created a power vacuum which was filled by ambitions local strongmen, the ‘warlords,’ who became a law unto themselves in China’s vast outlying regions and frustrated any attempt at national unification.

Only two nations in Africa escaped colonial rule: Liberia and Ethiopia. Liberia, created by American abolitionists in 1825 as place to which future freed slaves could be “repatriated,” existed as a small anomaly to the general imperialist trend. Ethiopia, the ancient kingdom of Abyssinia, continued as a feudal monarchy surrounded by European protectorates and outright colonies.

Latin America was the great exception. By 1821, most of the old Spanish and Portuguese colonies had become independent states. Most of the 19th Century, in Latin America was consumed by a fierce struggle between traditional elites who favored a continuation of the old colonial plantation system and modernizers who wished to institute capitalist economics and bring in contemporary technologies and ideas. This conflict was further complicated by the beginning of the 20th Century by the active involvement of the United States in the region. Going back to the Monroe Doctrine of 1825, the United States had seen Latin America as its “back yard”; and American investments and interests in Latin America grew exponentially.

In Central America and the Caribbean, the battle between Conservatives (traditionalists) and Liberals (modernizers) lasted, in some case up to the 1930s. The ever increasing US presence stunted indigenous development and encouraged the rise of military dictatorships which maintained a precarious balance between repressing domestic dissent and ensuring continued US support. In Cuba and Puerto Rico, Spanish colonial rule was replaced, in the first instance by an apparent independence masking the reality of outside control, and in the second case, by direct US annexation.

Different scenarios were played out north and south of Central America. To the north, Mexico, which had, shortly after independence, lost much of its territory to the United States in the Mexican-American War of 1842, developed a strong, albeit contradictory state. In 1911, the Mexican Revolution overthrew the 40-year military dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz and inaugurated a period of titanic political/economic/social struggle. Populist radical leaders such as Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata vied with conservatives such as Venustiano Carranza and Alvaro Obregon as ad hoc revolutionary armies fought against whom ever happened to constitute the government at the time and each other. Eventually, the radicals were either marginalized or destroyed, and power settled into the hands of a conservative, modernizing elite composed of political strongmen and their followers. This elite held power through the mechanism of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PRI oversaw the secularization and modernization of Mexican society. By 1945, Mexico was a contradictory mixture of large cities with modern industries, and a poor, backward countryside; a strong national sense of self, and control by a coterie of politicians and businessmen; an independent foreign policy, and a sharp awareness of the presence of the United States. In one way or another, this pattern would come to characterize not only Mexico, but much of Latin America.

In the south, Brazil and Argentina were becoming industrial power houses – albeit conflicted ones. Brazil seemed to follow the pre-established Mexican pattern: large, sprawling urban areas surrounded by impoverished rural zones. Brazil’s industries were concentrated in the north and along the coast; the wealth of the interior was only sporadically exploited. Argentina, with its large immigrant population (mainly Italian and Eastern European) provided something of a contrast. Heavy industry had appeared at the dawn of the century; the immense volume of European immigrant coming to work in those industries. The immigrants brought with them European ideas and social relations; both of which conflicted with traditional values. By 1945 the dictatorship of Juan Peron which combined a fascist core with modernizing elements initiated a period of military rule which would, by and large, characterize Argentina until the 1980s.

Imperialism and Colonialism Revisited

The decisions of the Versailles Conference of 1919 dismantled the Turkish, German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, but kept the British and French Empires intact. Not only that, but the Portuguese continued to rule Angola and Mozambique in Africa; the Belgians continued to rule the Congo; and the Dutch continued to govern Indonesia. The Middle East was divided between British French spheres of influence and protectorates. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand did become independent commonwealths – and Ireland did fight her way to a disunited independence – but, by and large, imperialism remained intact after World War I.

It wouldn’t be until after World War II that powerful drives towards independence and de-colonization would shatter the old European empires and create the modern states of Asia and Africa. The Second World War, with its anti-fascist and democratic aspirations, would impel the peoples of the colonial world to demand the same.

National Independence Struggles

In some cases, indigenous forces had played a major role in the defeat of the Axis powers. In Vietnam and Indonesia, Ho Chi Minh and Sukarno (respectively) emerged from the war as venerated national leaders. After the war, the French attempted to restore their rule in South East Asia. This misguided attempt came to an end in 1954 when, at the battle of Dien Bien Phu, Vietnamese forces under the Communist leader Ho Chi Minh which had previously defeated the Japanese; now prevented the French from returning. When the Americans tried to supplant the French, they too came to grief. A similar situation unfolded in Indonesia when the Dutch tried to restore the pre-war order. A similar outcome resulted: Sukarno, who had led resistance to the Japanese, now oversaw the independence of Indonesia.

The British came out of World War II in no condition to hold their empire together. In India, the Congress Party, under the leadership of Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Mohammed Ali Jinnah had been the focus of the independence movement there for decades. Their moment arrived in 1948 when the British pulled out and Indian independence was declared. But independence brought crisis. Perhaps with British encouragement, Jinnah led a faction which demanded that a separate Muslim state be created. In multi-religious, polyglot India, this demand led to massive disruption, forced resettlement of huge amounts of people, and a great amount of ethnic and sectarian bloodshed. In the end, India (Hindu) and Pakistan (Muslim) were created as two separate – and mutually hostile – states.

In Africa, decolonization quite often led to extended periods of instability. Independence leaders such as Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya), Julius Nyere (Tanzania), and Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana) strove to modernize their countries by following a socialist model of development. In the Congo, Patrice Lumumba failed to establish a fully independent state, at the cost of his life. In many parts of Africa, the pull out of the colonial powers created confusion, chaos, and ethnic strife. Often this was caused by old imperial states themselves, as they continued to try to exert influence in their former possessions by sponsoring ethnic and political rivalries. Portugal refused to divest itself of its colonies, with the result that it took nationalist guerrilla movements until the 1970s to establish the independent nations of Mozambique and Angola. In the former British colonies of Rhodesia and South Africa, the white settler population refused to yield to demands for civil equality for the native Africans. Fighting lasted until 1975 when Rhodesia became the majority-African governed Zimbabwe (under Robert Mugabe); and until 1989 when the racist apartheid system was destroyed in South Africa (under Nelson Mandela).

In the Middle East, the Algerian Revolution of 1956 forced the French out of that country. In Egypt, Gamel Abdel Nasser came to power with a promise to encourage “Arab unity” and “Arab Socialism.” Nasser’s ideas spread to Syria and Iraq, where a movement claiming to champion Arab Socialism, but in fact more reminiscent of Italian Fascism took hold, Baathism. In many cases, interference by Western powers led to the displacement of radical, modernizing regimes with repressive conservative governments. The neutralization of the Left and the bankruptcy of the Right led many to see radical Islam as a viable political alternative.

The creation, by UN mandate, of the state of Israel in 1948 exacerbated the crises endemic to the area. The flow of immigrants to the new Jewish state led to the displacement of much of the native Palestinian population. The new Israel developed into a thoroughly militarized state, eventually going to war with the surrounding Arab states in 1967 and 1973.

The movement for de-colonization was strongly affected by the Cold War. Many independence movements had adopted one or another variety of socialism as its ideology, and many post-independence regimes sought Soviet aid. Other, more conservative post-independence governments became allies of the United States. Some changed sides. Thus, movements such as the National Liberation Front of Vietnam, Frelimo in Mozambique, and the MPLA in Angola saw themselves as Marxist; Israel, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia were in the US camp; while governments in Algeria, Egypt, and the Congo (Zaire) switched from Soviet to American sponsorship. The proxy conflict between the US and USSR was played out in the post-colonial world. Soon, two other forces, China and Cuba, would enter the fray.

The Chinese Revolution

China has seen a century of revolution – and some would say that it’s far from over. Revolution overthrew the decrepit Manchu dynasty in 1911. The newly created Chinese Republic, under the leadership of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and his Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), wanted to create a united, modern, and democratic China. The first step in achieving this would be the cancellation of foreign concessions and the bringing to heel of the regional warlords. It was ‘simple’ enough to ask the British, French, etc. to leave; the second part of that equation was more difficult to achieve. The warlords were ensconced in remote areas, unseating them would require a trained, professional army. In order to raise an officer class capable of leading such an army, the Whampoa military academy was established in 1920. The Whampoa academy attracted many young, patriotic Chinese of all political persuasions. Many of China’s future leaders would come out of the Whampoa Academy. At the head of the academy, as director, was Sun yat-Sen’s protégé, Chiang Kai-Shek. By the end of the 1920s, the “Northern Expedition,” as the anti-warlord campaign was termed, was largely successful. By that time, however, a new conflict had developed.

The new China was alone in the world. The former imperial powers, who had just been asked to leave, weren’t about to render any aid. Desperate for support, China turned to another nation just then going through a revolution of their own, the Soviet Union. The Soviets agreed to provide political and military aid to China, but at a price: that the Kuomintang bring into the government, as partners, the newly-created Communist Party of China. Sun Yat-Sen agreed, and the Communists were essential to victory in the Northern Expedition. However, Sun Yat-Sen’s lieutenant Chiang Kai-shek vehemently disagreed with any cooperation with the Communists. After Sun’s death in 1925, he was succeeded by Chiang who jettisoned any pretense of democracy, making himself military dictator. Chiang also wanted to get rid of the Communists at the first available opportunity.

In November of 1927, Chiang struck. Nationalist troops unexpectedly turned on their Communist fellows. In all of China’s major cities, Communists and their sympathizers were massacred in the streets. Overnight, the Chinese Communist Party was almost exterminated. In a state of confusion and disarray, the surviving Communists, made their way to the southern province of Jianxi where, a local Communist leader, an ex-librarian named Mao Tse-tung, had managed to hold the party together.

Organizing Communist guerrilla forces into a Red Army, Mao managed to hold off the Nationalists long enough to force an escape out of Jianxi. Known as the “Long March,” the Communists embarked on a 6,000 mile trek over rivers, mountains, and deserts, fighting Nationalists troops all the way. Finally, the Communists found sanctuary in the area of Yenan in China’s northern mountains. This, then, became their base. The Long March solidified Mao as the unquestioned leader of the Communist Party. From Yenan, Mao’s Communists engaged Chiang’s Nationalists in guerrilla warfare, and extended the Communist-controlled zone.

The full-scale Japanese invasion of China brought a temporary truce between the Communists and Nationalists, as they agreed to join forces against the foreign occupiers. Overall, as American advisers during World War II pointed out, the Communists were the more effective fighters against the Japanese. Chiang seemed to be more afraid of the Chinese Communists than he was of the invading Japanese; and American aid sent to Chiang often ended up in the pockets of Nationalist politicians. The end of the war and the defeat of Japan signaled a resumption of hostilities between the Nationalists and Communists. After an intense four-year civil war, Communist forces gained the upper hand. Chiang’s Nationalists were forced to flee the mainland; establishing themselves, as the republic of China, on the island of Taiwan – where they have remained to this very day. On October 10, 1949, from Beijing, Mao proclaimed the creation of the new, communist, Peoples Republic of China.

Communist China became a new and powerful ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In fact, Chinese troops entered the Korean War against the United States. Domestically, the Communists embarked on numerous developmental and modernization campaigns. Campaigns to eliminate infectious disease and illiteracy, as well as campaigns to ensure the equality of women were, in great part, successful. Attempts to industrialize China’s economy were less so. The best known of these, the “Great Leap Forward” (1959), which tried to jump start China’s development through mass participation in the form of things such as encouraging the building of backyard blast furnaces to produce steel, was a failure.

Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union and his policy of Peaceful Coexistence with the West met with disapproval in Beijing. Mao felt that the new Soviet leaders were abandoning revolutionary principles and bowing to the US. Tensions within the Communist camp came to the breaking point in 1961 when, at a meeting of Communist parties in Moscow, the Chinese and Albanian delegations denounced the Soviets and their supporters and walked out. The Sino-Soviet split divided the world Communist movement and led to the creation of new, more militant Communist groups dedicated to the Chinese position. China felt itself to be the new center of the world revolutionary movement and, as such, supported and encouraged revolutionary parties and guerrilla groups in the Third World. The Cold War was developing into a three-cornered fight.

Within the Communist Party of China itself, Mao feared that elements similar to those represented by Khrushchev in the USSR would derail his revolutionary vision. Starting in 1964, Mao moved to isolate “conservative” and “pragmatic” elements in the Party. His attempt at a mass mobilization to reinvigorate revolutionary enthusiasm resulted in the upheaval known as the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.” The Cultural Revolution consumed China in chaos as radical and moderate forces, through the medium of youth organizations known as “Red Guards,” jostled each other for power and influence. Reaching a crescendo in 1966 – 1967, the Cultural Revolution involved pitched armed battles between rival Red Guard units. Mao called a halt to the anarchy in 1969, castigating some of the excesses of the more extreme radicals. However, tension and conflict between the more radical and the more pragmatic members of Mao’s inner circle remained.

The same year, 1969, that Mao rolled back the Cultural Revolution saw an intensification of the Sino-Soviet crisis as the Chinese and Soviets came to blows over a border dispute. This event seems to have convinced Mao that the Soviet Union was a greater threat to China than the United States. China offered the United States an opportunity to begin a normalization of relations; an opportunity the American President Richard Nixon took advantage of. In 1972, Nixon traveled to China, met with Mao and Chinese Premier Chou En-lai, and the thaw in the Chinese- American Cold War began.

Chou En-lai’s, a protector of the moderates in Mao’s circle, death in 1976, followed by Mao’s own passing later that year renewed the conflict between radicals and moderates within ruling Party circles. After a brief and intense power struggle, the radicals were defeated. Deng Xiaoping, who had been exiled as a “capitalist roader” during the Cultural Revolution emerged as China’s new leader. Deng’s policies not only reversed the Cultural Revolution, but effectively dismantle communism itself. Throughout the 1980s, China more and more embraced a pro-market orientation, encouraging foreign investment and development of key industries. By the 1990s, China had emerged as a major economic force, exporting goods across the globe. Although the People’s Republic of China is still ruled by the Communist Party, it has, in fact, become a modern capitalist power.

The Cuban Revolution

Although conducted on a much smaller scale than the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution of 1959 would send even stronger shock waves throughout the Third World. On New Year’s Eve of 1959, guerrilla forces led by Fidel Castro overthrew the long-standing government of dictator Fulgencio Batista. Batista had been supported by the United States since 1933; and, under his leadership, the island had become a haven for US interests which virtually managed the Cuban economy.

Castro’s victory signaled major reform, including land redistribution, literacy and public health campaigns, and the nationalization of major utilities and industries. These latter reforms incurred the ire of American corporations which lost their investments in Cuba. The United States’ severing of diplomatic relations followed by the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and an economic embargo against Cuba caused the Castro government to fully enter the Soviet orbit. However, the relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union was far from smooth. Having come to power in through a guerrilla movement in a peasant society, Cuba had much in common with China. Both China and the USSR courted Cuba to support them in their struggle with each other. Cuba was, for a time, caught between the feuding Communist powers. Instead, Cuba developed a unique image and presented itself as a model for Third World nations to follow. This pleased neither China nor the Soviet Union. Adding to the conflict with the Soviets was Cuba’s support for armed guerrilla movements, especially in Latin America, which threatened Soviet attempts at a rapprochement with the US.

In the wake of the Cuban Revolution guerrilla and national liberation movements emerged, aiming at spreading the Cuban example in Latin America. Castro’s right-hand-man, the Argentine born Ernesto “Che” Guevara, was central to this endeavor. Guevara personally led Cuban-trained guerrillas in Africa; and, in an attempt to foment revolution in South America, died while organizing a guerrilla force in Bolivia, becoming a revolutionary icon in the process. Although most of the guerrilla organizations spawned in the 1960s failed, they had the unexpected consequence of producing a severe reaction in the form of repressive military regimes devoted to their destruction. Thus, in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Argentina, extremely violent military dictatorships characterized those nations in the 1970s. In Chile, the election and subsequent overthrow of a Socialist president, Salvador Allende, produced a similar phenomenon. Cuban advisers trained guerrillas in other parts of the world, as well, namely Angola and South Africa.

Cuban attempts at developing an independent, diversified, modern economy met with failure. By the 1970s, Cuba had abandoned overtly encouraging armed struggle and integrated itself into the Soviet system. This would continue until the collapse of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.

In the 1950s, Indian Prime Minister Nehru stated that the modern world was divided into “Three Worlds.” The “First World” consisted of the United States and the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe; the “Second World” was the Soviet Union and its Communist Bloc allies; the “Third World” was the poor, underdeveloped nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Fought over by both the First and Second Worlds, Nehru urged the Third World to develop an independent stance, find its own voice, and put forward its own demands and aspirations. Thus, the “Non-Aligned Movement” came into being.

Led by India’s Nehru, Yugoslavia’s Tito, and Egypt’s Nasser, Non-Alignment did not mean neutrality. India leaned to the West, Cuba (who later joined the Non-Aligned Movement), leaned towards the Soviets; instead, Non-Alignment meant that the Third World countries recognized that they shared a commonality of interests. Indeed, many of the Non-Aligned nations were bitter rivals; India and Pakistan readily come to mind. However, despite sometimes serious differences, the Non-Aligned nations managed to bring questions of development and industrialization, debt and poverty, national independence and self-determination to the world’s attention.

Although the Non-Aligned movement seems to have greatly dissipated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the appearance of a unipolar world dominated by the United States, non-alignment did shift world politics from the East vs. West emphasis of the Cold War to the North vs. South conflict that persists to this very day.

FORTHCOMING:

PART TWO: “The coming of the new international:” Third Worldist Theory in the 1950s – 1970s.

Privatization in Ex-Communist Countries Killed Over One Million People

30 Dec

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As many as one million working-age men died due to the economic shock of mass privatisation policies followed by post-communist countries in the 1990s, according to a new study published in The Lancet.

The Oxford-led study measured the relationship between death rates and the pace and scale of privatisation in 25 countries in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, dating back to the early 1990s. They found that mass privatisation came at a human cost: with an average surge in the number of deaths of 13 per cent or the equivalent of about one million lives.

The rapid privatisation programme, part of a plan known by economists as ‘shock therapy’, led to a 56 per cent increase in unemployment, which the study says played an important role in explaining why privatisation claimed so many lives. Many employers provided extensive health and social care for their employees, so through privatisation workers experienced the ‘double whammy’ of losing not only their livelihood but also their means of surviving the crisis.

David Stuckler from Oxford, and colleagues Dr Lawrence King from Cambridge University and Professor Martin McKee, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, took death rates reported by the World Heath Organisation for men of working age (15-59 years) in 25 post-communist countries and compared them to the timing and extent of participation in mass privatisation and other transition policies.

The team took into account other factors that might affect rising death rates (such as economic depression, initial conditions and health infrastructure). They also examined other measures of privatisation from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a bank which gave loans in support of radical mass privatisation.

During the 1990s, former communist countries underwent the world’s worst peacetime mortality crisis in the past 50 years – with over three million avoidable deaths and 10 million ‘missing’ men, according to the United Nations.

However, while life expectancy plummeted in some countries, like Russia and Kazakhstan; the populations’ health steadily improved in other countries, such as Slovenia. Previous research shows that unemployment and levels of alcohol consumption are major factors behind these differences, but this study is thought to be the first to isolate aspects of the reforms process that might cause these variations. It finds that death rates are linked to the speed and type of privatisation and resulting unemployment – and also to the level of social support available. If at least 45 per cent of the country’s population were members of at least one social organisation, such as a church or trade union, they were better protected from the economic shocks, the authors found.

David Stuckler, from Oxford’s Department of Sociology, said: ‘Our study helps explain the striking differences in mortality in the post-communist world.  Countries which pursued rapid privatisation, or ‘shock therapy’, had much greater rises in deaths than countries which followed a more gradual path. Not only did rapid privatisation lead to mass unemployment but also wiped out the social safety nets, which were critical for helping people survive during this turbulent period.’

Professor Martin McKee said: ‘As variants of rapid reform policies are being debated in China, India, Egypt and other developing and middle-income countries, including Iraq, our study reminds us that radical economic reforms affect ordinary people and, in some cases, cost them their lives.’

Source

How US Ambassador Chris Stevens May Have Been Linked To Jihadist Rebels In Syria

9 Nov

by Michael Kelley

The official position is that the US has refused to allow heavy weapons into Syria.

But there’s growing evidence that U.S. agents—particularly murdered ambassador Chris Stevens—were at least aware of heavy weapons moving from Libya to jihadist Syrian rebels.

In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group—a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens’ life.

In November 2011 The Telegraph reported that Belhadj, acting as head of the Tripoli Military Council, “met with Free Syrian Army [FSA] leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey” in an effort by the new Libyan government to provide money and weapons to the growing insurgency in Syria.

Last month The Times of London reported that a Libyan ship “carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria … has docked in Turkey.” The shipment reportedly weighed 400 tons and included SA-7 surface-to-air anti-craft missiles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Those heavy weapons are most likely from Muammar Gaddafi’s stock of about 20,000 portable heat-seeking missiles—the bulk of them SA-7s—that the Libyan leader obtained from the former Eastern bloc. Reuters reports that Syrian rebels have been using those heavy weapons to shoot down Syrian helicopters and fighter jets.

The ship’s captain was ”a Libyan from Benghazi and the head of an organization called the Libyan National Council for Relief and Support,” which was presumably established by the new government.

That means that Ambassador Stevens had only one person—Belhadj—between himself and the Benghazi man who brought heavy weapons to Syria.

Furthermore, we know that jihadists are the best fighters in the Syrian opposition, but where did they come from?

Last week The Telegraph reported that a FSA commander called them “Libyans” when he explained that the FSA doesn’t “want these extremist people here.”

And if the new Libyan government was sending seasoned Islamic fighters and 400 tons of heavy weapons to Syria through a port in southern Turkey—a deal brokered by Stevens’ primary Libyan contact during the Libyan revolution—then the governments of Turkey and the U.S. surely knew about it.

Furthermore there was a CIA post in Benghazi, located 1.2 miles from the U.S. consulate, used as “a base for, among other things, collecting information on the proliferation of weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, including surface-to-air missiles” … and that its security features “were more advanced than those at rented villa where Stevens died.”

And we know that the CIA has been funneling weapons to the rebels in southern Turkey. The question is whether the CIA has been involved in handing out the heavy weapons from Libya.

In any case, the connection between Benghazi and the rise of jihadists in Syria is stronger than has been officially acknowledged.

Source

Anti-ACTA protests erupt across Europe

12 Feb

By Erik Kirschbaum and Irina Ivanova

(Reuters) – Tens of thousands of protesters took part in rallies across Europe on Saturday against an international anti-piracy agreement they fear will curb their freedom to download movies and music for free and encourage Internet surveillance.

More than 25,000 demonstrators braved freezing temperatures in German cities to march against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) while 4,000 Bulgarians in Sofia rallied against the agreement designed to strengthen the legal framework for intellectual property rights.

There were thousands more – mostly young – demonstrators at other high-spirited rallies despite snow and freezing temperatures in cities including Warsaw, Prague, Slovakia, Bucharest, Vilnius, Paris, Brussels and Dublin.

“We don’t feel safe anymore. The Internet was one of the few places where we could act freely,” said Monica Tepelus, a 26-year-old programmer protesting with about 300 people in Bucharest.

Opposition to ACTA in Eastern Europe is especially strong and spreading rapidly. Protesters have compared it to the Big Brother-style surveillance used by former Communist regimes. Downloading films and music is also a popular way for many young Eastern Europeans to obtain free entertainment.

“Stop ACTA!” read a banner carried by one of the 2,000 marchers in central Berlin, where temperatures were -10 Celsius.

“It’s not acceptable to sacrifice the rights of freedom for copyrights,” Thomas Pfeiffer, a leader of the Greens party in Munich where 16,000 people protested against ACTA, was quoted telling Focus magazine’s online edition on Saturday.

Governments of eight nations including Japan and the United Stated signed an agreement in October aiming to cut copyright and trademark theft. The signing was hailed as a step toward bringing ACTA into effect.

Negotiations over ACTA have been taking place for several years. Some European countries have signed ACTA but it has not yet been signed or ratified in many countries. Germany’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday it would hold off on signing.

In Sofia, most of 4,000 demonstrators on Saturday were youths. Some wore the grinning, moustachioed Guy Fawkes masks that have become a symbol of the hacker group Anonymous and other global protest movements.

ACTA aims to cut trademark theft and tackle other online piracy. But the accord has sparked concerns, especially in Eastern European countries as well as in Germany which is sensitive about its history with the Gestapo and Stasi secret police, over online censorship and increased surveillance.

“We want ACTA stopped,” Yanko Petrov, who attended the rally in Sofia, told state broadcaster BNT. “We have our own laws, we don’t need international acts.”

SURVEILLANCE

The protesters are concerned that free downloading of movies and music might lead to prison sentences if the ACTA was ratified by parliaments. They also fear that exchanging material on the Internet may become a crime and say the accord will allow for massive online surveillance.

In Warsaw, some 500 protesters demonstrated, brandishing placards saying “No to ACTA”, “Down with censorship” and “Free Internet”. Several hundred turned out in the southwestern city of Wroclaw, the Baltic port of Szczecin and Poznan.

In Paris, about 1,000 people marched ACTA. “It’s a demonstration without precedent because it’s taking place in all of Europe at the same time,” said Jeremie Zimmermann, spokesman for Internet freedom group Quadrature du Net.

In Prague, about 1,500 people marched against ACTA. Some waved black pirate flags with white skull and crossed bones, and others wore white masks of the Guy Fawkes character.

Some carried banners against the ACTA treaty such as “Freedom to the Internet” and “ACTA attacks Freedom”, and chanted “Freedom, Freedom”. Smaller gatherings took place in other Czech cities.

The Czech government has held off on ratification of the ACTA treaty, saying it needs to be analysed.

Romanian state-news agency Agerpres said 2,000 people protested in the Transylvanian city of Cluj against ACTA, carrying banners that said: “Paws off the Internet.”

In Croatia, protests were held in Zagreb, Split and Rijeka, with demonstrators, some masked, carrying banners reading “Stop internet censorship”.

A group identifying itself as Anonymous hacked into the webpage of Croatian president Ivo Josipovic, who has defended copyright measures. It remained unavailable for several hours.

It also crashed the pages of ZAMP, a Croatian professional service that looks after the protection of composers’ rights and copyright, and the Institute of Croatian Music.

In Bratislava, hundreds of young Slovaks rallied, many also wearing Guy Fawkes masks. About 1,000 people demonstrated in Budapest.

Local media reported about 600 people protested at the government building in Vilnius. Lithuania Justice Minister Remigijus Simasius said in his blog some of ACTA’s provisions could pose a threat to Internet freedom.

“I don’t know where it (ACTA) comes from and how it originated, but I don’t like that this treaty was signed skillfully avoiding discussions in the European Union and Lithuania,” Simasius wrote.

(Additional reporting by Gerard Bon in Paris, Jan Lopatka in Prague, Rob Strybel in Warsaw, Padraic Halpin in Dublin, Martin Santa in Bratislava and Ioana Patran in Bucharest, Nerijus Adomaitis in Vilnius, Zoran Radosavljevic in Zagreb, Krisztina Than in Budapest; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source

Cold terror for Europe: 550 dead, tens of thousands snowed in

11 Feb

A man walks near a car covered by snow in the city of Nevesinje, which has gone without water and electricity for the past five days after power lines and infrastructure were damaged by heavy snowfall in eastern Bosnia.(REUTERS)

Snow drifts reaching up to rooftops kept tens of thousands of villagers prisoners in their own homes Saturday as the death toll from Europe’s big freeze rose past 550.

More heavy snow fell on the Balkans and in Italy, while the Danube river, already closed to shipping for hundreds of kilometres (miles) because of thick ice, froze over in Bulgaria for the first time in 27 years.

Montenegro’s capital of Podgorica was brought to a standstill by snow 50 centimetres (20 inches) deep, a 50-year record, closing the city’s airport and halting rail services to Serbia because of an avalanche.

Eight more people were reported to have died in Romania, taking the toll for the country to 65, three in Serbia, one in the Czech Republic and one in Austria.

Polish fire brigade spokesman Pawel Fratcak said Saturday that defective heating had triggered a spate of deadly blazes in houses and apartments, with eight people killed on Friday night and three the night before.

New Romanian Prime Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu and his defence and interior ministers, who were sworn in only on Thursday, flew by helicopter to the eastern Buzau region, one of the worst hit, on Saturday.

He called on the authorities to work hard to beat the challenges facing them, as food threatened to run out in some villages in spite of air drops.

At Carligul Mic firemen and volunteers helped people dig tunnels and trenches in the snow reaching to the house roofs in some places.

“I’ve never seen as much snow in my whole life,” resident Aneta Dumitrache, 78, told an AFP photographer.

Authorities said an estimated 30,000 people were still cut off in Romania, and more than 110,000 in the Balkan countries, including 60,000 in Montenegro, nearly 10 percent of the population.

Belgrade has taken steps to limit electricity consumption in the face of threatened shortages, calling on companies to reduce their activities to a minimum.

With Wednesday and Thursday already public holidays for Serbia’s national day, the government has also declared Friday a non-working day to extend into next weekend.

Forecasters expect the cold snap, which started two weeks ago, to continue until mid-February.

In Italy Rome was again blanketed by snow for the second time in a week, but authorities seemed to have learned from their previous experience, when the capital was brought to a halt.

Public transport functioned almost normally, thanks to 700 snowploughs and gritters mobilised, but other parts of the country, especially the south where snow is extremely rare, were having difficulties.

In the Calabria region, Campana’s mayor Pasquale Manfredi, where many villages were cut off, likened the weather to “an earthquake without the shaking.”

On the French Mediterranean island of Corsica snow was up to one metre thick in the higher villages and all flights were cancelled from Bastia airport.

Many people are determined to enjoy the icy conditions to their utmost, however.

Thousands have taken to frozen lakes and rivers, including the Aussenalster lake at Hamburg in northern Germany, iced over for the first time in 15 years, which is mounting a huge festival expected to attact one million people over the weekend.

In Poland ice yachting or ice-surfing, on a surfboard equipped with skates, are the rage, while in the Czech Republic tourists have flocked to the village of Kvilda, reckoned to be one of the coldest in the country, for the experience of camping out in temperatures of up to minus 39 Celsius (minus 38 Fahrenheit).

Source

Homeless hard hit as death toll from severe cold spell in eastern Europe hits 58

31 Jan

By Associated Press

KIEV, Ukraine — Dozens of homeless people have died in an Eastern Europe cold snap, and some analysts blame a Soviet-era legacy of viewing the homeless as those who need to be punished instead of helped.

Temperatures have plunged to minus 27 C (minus 17 F) in some areas. At least 58 people have died overall in the past week, while hundreds have sought medical help for hypothermia and frostbite. Snow and ice have disrupted traffic and power in some parts.

Ukraine has been among the hardest hit countries. As many as 30 people have died on its snow-covered streets, in hospitals and in their own homes in the past four days. Authorities said most of the victims were homeless, and that some victims had been drinking and unaware of the danger.

In one village in the Cherkasy region in central Ukraine, a 44-year-old alcoholic fell asleep on the porch of her house and froze to death, said Olena Didyuk, spokeswoman for the Emergency Situations Ministry.

Ukrainian authorities have set up hundreds of ‘heating centers’ across the country — large green or beige tents — in which the homeless can get warm and are offered sandwiches, boiled potatoes, pork fat (a traditional Ukrainian dish), hot tea and coffee.

Still, more than 540 people have been hospitalized with hypothermia and frostbite, Ukrainian health officials said. Ukraine’s 1+1 channel broadcast footage of a man being treated for frostbite in his toes, which had turned completely black.

“I drank and fell asleep on the bench. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t feel my feet,” the unidentified man said from a hospital bed.

Hospitals were instructed to refrain from discharging homeless patients even if treatment was finished to save them from the cold, said Svitlana Tikhonenko, spokeswoman for the Health Ministry.

Those measures helped save some lives, she said. Two years ago, 47 people perished over a similar time period during a cold wave.

“Unfortunately, people continue to die, but we are taking all the measures to prevent them,” Tikhonenko said.

Some experts suggested that the high death toll from the cold is linked to authorities’ unwillingness and incompetence in dealing with the homeless.

Pavlo Rozenko, an expert on social policy with the Kiev-based Razumkov Center, said that Ukrainian authorities suffer from the Soviet legacy of viewing the homeless as alcoholics, drug addicts and do-nothings who need to be punished and locked away from society instead of helped.

“The country doesn’t know yet how to take care of its homeless,” Rozenko said.

Kiev municipal head Oleksandr Popov ordered city schools and colleges closed starting Wednesday as temperatures are expected to drop to minus 28 C (minus 18 F). “They will be on a break at least until Monday,” Popov said on his website.

In Poland, five people died of hypothermia in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll from the cold to 15 in the last four days, the national police said.

Temperatures sank Tuesday to minus 27 C (minus 17 F) in the southeastern Polish city of Ustrzyki Gorne — and forecasts predicted minus 29 C (minus 20 F) in the region overnight.

In Romania, two people died in the past 24 hours due to the frigid weather, the health ministry said Tuesday, bringing the total to eight since the cold spell began last week. Temperatures plunged to minus 20 C (minus 4 F) overnight in Bucharest.

In Russia, one person died of the cold in Moscow, where temperatures fell to minus 21 C (minus 6 F), the city’s health department said. The Russian Emergencies Ministry is not reporting deaths across the country yet.

__

Monika Scislowska from Warsaw, Poland, Alison Mutler in Bucharest, Romania, and Nataliya Vasilyeva from Moscow contributed to this report.

Source

Michael Parenti: Must We Adore Vaclav Havel?

27 Dec

No figure among the capitalist restorationists in the East has won more adulation from U.S. officials, media pundits, and academics than Vaclav Havel, a playwright who became the first president of post-Communist Czechoslovakia and later president of the Czech Republic. The many left-leaning people who also admire Havel seem to have overlooked some things about him: his reactionary religious obscurantism, his undemocratic suppression of leftist opponents, and his profound dedication to economic inequality and unrestrained free-market capitalism.

Raised by governesses and chauffeurs in a wealthy and fervently anticommunist family, Havel denounced democracy’s “cult of objectivity and statistical average” and the idea that rational, collective social efforts should be applied to solving the environmental crisis. He called for a new breed of political leader who would rely less on “rational, cognitive thinking,” show “humility in the face of the mysterious order of the Being,” and “trust in his own subjectivity as his principal link with the subjectivity of the world.” Apparently, this new breed of leader would be a superior elitist cogitator, not unlike Plato’s philosopher, endowed with a “sense of transcendental responsibility” and “archetypal wisdom.” Havel never explained how this transcendent archetypal wisdom would translate into actual policy decisions, and for whose benefit at whose expense.

Havel called for efforts to preserve the Christian family in the Christian nation. Presenting himself as a man of peace and stating that he would never sell arms to oppressive regimes, he sold weapons to the Philippines and the fascist regime in Thailand. In June 1994, General Pinochet, the man who butchered Chilean democracy, was reported to be arms shopping in Czechoslovakia – with no audible objections from Havel.

Havel joined wholeheartedly in George Bush’s Gulf War, an enterprise that killed over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. In 1991, along with other [e]astern European pro-capitalist leaders, Havel voted with the United States to condemn human rights violations in Cuba. But he has never uttered a word of condemnation of rights violations in El Salvador, Columbia, Indonesia, or any other U.S. client state.

In 1992, while president of Czechoslovakia, Havel, the great democrat, demanded that parliament be suspended and he be allowed to rule by edict, the better to ram through free-market “reforms.” That same year, he signed a law that made the advocacy of communism a felony with a penalty of up to eight years imprisonment. He claimed the Czech constitution required him to sign it. In fact, as he knew, the law violated the Charter of Human Rights which is incorporated into the Czech constitution. In any case, it did not require his signature to become law. In 1995, he supported and signed another undemocratic law barring communists and former communists from employment in public agencies.

The propagation of anticommunism has remained a top priority for Havel. He led “a frantic international campaign” to keep in operation two U.S.-financed, cold war radio stations, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, so they could continue saturating Eastern Europe with their anticommunist propaganda.

Under Havel’s government, a law was passed making it a crime to propagate national, religious, and CLASS hatred. In effect, criticisms of big moneyed interests were now illegal, being unjustifiably lumped with ethnic and religious bigotry. Havel’s government warned labor unions not to involve themselves in politics. Some militant unions had their property taken from them and handed over to compliant company unions.

In 1995, Havel announced that the ‘revolution’ against communism would not be complete until everything was privatized. Havel’s government liquidated the properties of the Socialist Union of Youth – which included camp sites, recreation halls, and cultural and scientific facilities for children – putting the properties under the management of five joint stock companies, at the expense of the youth who were left to roam the streets.

Under Czech privatization and “restitution” programs, factories, shops, estates, homes, and much of the public land was sold at bargain prices to foreign and domestic capitalists. In the Czech and Slovak republics, former aristocrats or their heirs were being given back all lands their families had held before 1918 under the Austro-Hungarian empire, dispossessing the previous occupants and sending many of them into destitution. Havel himself took personal ownership of public properties that had belonged to his family forty years before. While presenting himself as a man dedicated to doing good for others, he did well for himself. For these reasons some of us do not have warm fuzzy feelings toward Vaclav Havel.

From Michael Parenti’s Blackshirts and Reds (1997) pp. 97-99.

Review of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”

1 Nov

The Theory of “Shock Therapy”

Every once in a while, a book comes along that sets the liberals on fire. The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein is one such book. This volume has been hawked by such national liberal pundits as Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. There has been such a buzz over this book in the past two years that it behooves us to write a review of it. Overall, the writing style is quite friendly to those of us who are not political scientists. It is, so to speak, an easy read. The historical research that went into the book is respectable (for the most part). Naomi Klein’s title refers to the “shocking” ways in which unregulated free markets have been applied to many countries throughout the world, and how “disaster capitalism,” or capitalism that is a disaster for working people, has been put in power.

From the coup in Chile to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the “shock therapies” used in Poland, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and even the US and UK, this book lays out quite completely the pattern used by the Friedmanite capitalists of the Chicago School from their rise in the 1970s to their mastery over the IMF and World Bank in the 1990s and their control of WTO and GATT today. Overall, the pattern is the same between these different occurences in different countries at different times. It is a form of imperialism, which as we know is the necessary expansion of capitalism to capture more resources and more markets. Unless capitalism constantly expands it is subject to collapse. Klein is correct about this. That said, there are severe flaws with the ideology expressed in the book.

The “Shock Doctrine” of “Disaster Capitalism” Applied

The Friedmanite model of capitalism requires three things: social spending cuts (or even better the absence of a social support system), deregulation and extensive tax cuts for business ventures and the wealthy. In the instance of Chile and the Latin American countries (Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia) the start was a coup of the more independent-minded capitalist governments that pursued the European social-democratic style. The first to be subjected was Chile, which had elected Allende, and it was deemed prudent by the Nixon Administration to support a coup by Pinochet and to radically alter the Chilean state. According to Klein, the only way to successfully pull this off was through extreme psychological and cultural shocks to knock down the resistance of the Chilean people to these so-called reforms.

Klein mentions many of the “shocks” of the Chilean coup, such as tanks seizing government buildings, military police arrests, disappearances, murders and torture—all of which was developed by the CIA under the MKULTRA program and resulted in the creation of the “KUBARK” manual.* Pinochet, being a general who had no schooling in economics, needed economic experts. These were provided by Chicago School of Economics graduates, both Americans and Chileans. Even before the coup, they devised an economic plan called “the Brick” which called for the destruction of the Chilean social programs, massive tax cuts, deregulation and the removal of protective tariffs. The results of these political shocks, economic shocks and later shocks to individuals through torture as Klein’s “shock” metaphor goes, were economic disasters for the Chilean workers and massive profits for the capitalists in America and the Chilean bourgeoisie.

The “Shock Doctrine” at Home

Next in line were Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. Over the course of time, these methods were refined and redefined for use in so-called democratic countries like the US and UK. According to Klein, “Thatcher-ism,” as it was called in the UK, was pulled off by starting a war with Argentina over an archipelago in the South Atlantic called the Falkland Islands. Thatcher was able to use the war to whip up patriotic sentiment to enable her to bust unions and radically revise the social structure of the UK in the name of an “Ownership Society.” People thought that was a phrase coined by George W. Bush—the former President isn’t that smart, quite frankly.

In the United States, high rates of interest imposed by the Federal Reserve (also known as the Fed) were putting economic pressure on America. It was during this time that Ronald Reagan began his campaign of union-busting, starting with the air traffic controllers.

International Implications

During the 1980s expansion of the Freidmanite “shock treatments” in the developing world were imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. They demanded privatization, social austerity and deregulation as conditions to give loans, which were usually take out to pay debt incurred from previous loans for economic development. The end result of course, was a disaster for the working people of Africa and Asia.

In the 1990s, the “shock doctrine” was expanded to Eastern Europe in the wake of the collapse of the Warsaw Pact states. The prime examples—Poland and Russia—were exposed to so-called shock therapy almost immediately. In 1990, the Solidarity group were used by the West to call for privatization, deregulation and asset sales from the Polish state-operated infrastructure. Naomi Klein does her best to whitewash Solidarity, using frivolously high numbers for their membership and neglecting to mention their ties to the West, instead portraying them as victims. Russia followed much the same pattern as Poland, although at an accelerated rate. This netted huge profits for Western capitalists and worsening conditions for the Russian and Polish workers.

Friedman-ism also worked its way into the People’s Republic of China, which was already undergoing the construction of a capitalist society under Deng Xiaoping. Deng’s policies of course had the result of growing inequity in China, and also an increase in unemployment, as capitalism, in order to maximize profit, requires the presence of surplus labor to drive down wages. There were also severe cuts to the social programs in the PRC at the time.

This leads us to Klein’s next subject – the use of pressures for deregulation by the West to cause capital flight in the so-called “Asian Tigers,” namely South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia. These societies had extremely high tariffs, huge public infrastructure in state-capitalist companies as well as in social goods like education. By pushing for the deregulation of their capital controls, the Asia Crises was engineered by the WTO and the IMF.

Modern-Day “Shock Doctrine”

All of this leads to the final frontier for capitalist penetration, namely, the economies of the Middle East and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. In the Middle East these states, usually with large oil reserves, did not have loans to pay off and were mistrustful of foreign influence. To the superpowers, the only solution was invasion and occupation by an outside force. What better outside force than America, which spends more on its military than anyone else? There was only one problem—the American people did not want to start a war. In short, a “shock” to the system in the United States was necessary and the bourgeoisie was more than willing to allow the plans of Osama Bin Laden to go through, since it would open up opportunities for the military-industrial complex and the creation of a new market – “Homeland Security Solutions.” Needless to say, Bin Laden was more than willing to oblige, and the outsourcing of everything from cooking and military construction to companies like Halliburton went through unabated.

As we mentioned, there are deep flaws to this book. Naomi Klein seems to believe that a form of capitalism can be devised which is not a “disaster” for working people when capitalism by its very nature is contradictory to the interests of all those who lack capital. Throughout the book, the author repeatedly hammers home her view that Keynesian capitalist economics is some how better for working people. Such a view is patently untrue. Regulated capitalism, which is the basis of Keynesian economics, as we know, only places rules and regulations on a system imposed by and supported by the very people who have the means to destroy, subvert and work against those very regulations. Keynesian economics is at best a temporary solution to a crisis in capitalism which will be replaced eventually by the most abusive forms of capitalism precisely when the capitalists think they can get away with it.

Indeed, despite the bourgeois liberal-leaning of Naomi Klein, and despite her whitewashing of social democracy and Keynesian economics, she has managed to show that that the current War on Terror is nothing more than the latest manifestation of imperialism, which must ultimately culminate in one of two outcomes: capitalist dictatorship or socialism.

*Remember this folks, because it will become apparent by the time of War on Terror that the torture methods and rendition methods used in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were not just some soldiers making errors but rather methods developed at the highest levels of the intelligence services of the United States.

Letters to the American Party of Labor: If Socialism is So Great, Why Did it Collapse?

18 Jul

The following is a letter sent to redphoenixsite@gmail.com from alias NewDealNow.

Dear APL,

I’ve been reading your articles in The Red Phoenix for a while, and I like some of the things you have to say about Glenn Beck and attacking conservatives…but I must confess that I haven’t the faintest idea of why anyone in this day and age would champion an ideology that clearly did not work. Socialism has collapsed everywhere it has been tried, and where it hasn’t, it’s turned into a mess of totalitarian despots and broken economies. It’s obvious that some kind of market needs to take place. The country you guys like the most, Albania, is a NATO member now. Let’s face it: it didn’t work, isn’t going to work, and we need new ideas that start fresh and combine the best of both worlds. We need something to bring workers and innovators together, not tear them apart. I look forward to reading your response, and hope that some of these concerns have sunk in.

We thank you for your letter.

The APL should clarify that while we do appreciate our reader’s attention to our projects in attacking and refuting American reaction, we do not view it in terms of “liberal” or “conservative”—we are attacking capitalism-imperialism and its manifestations. Unlike others, we do not play “lesser evil” games between liberals and conservatives in the USA.

Socialism vs. Revisionism

The most significant claim made by the author is the notion that socialism collapsed before and therefore should be evaluated as a failure. This argument is the premier bourgeois weapon against socialism. In order to understand why the socialist countries collapsed, it is necessary to understand that by the time they collapsed they could no longer be called socialist. In a word, revisionism triumphed. This is the tragedy of the history of Marxism. The term “revisionism,” when applied to a country, organization or political line of thought, means revising the fundamentals of Marxism to the point where it is no longer revolutionary. Marxism has changed and corrected since the time of Marx in order to adapt to new conditions, but the foundations have remained the same. Revisionism, however, means to degenerate Marxism into bourgeois metaphysics and ultimately capitalism. Most of the problems the bourgeoisie attest to 20th century socialism (stagnating economies, collapses) were actually the fault of 20th century revisionism. Ceauşescu’s Romania had many shortages, while those that stuck to the ideology of Marxism had few to none. These problems emerged when the countries in question stepped off the socialist path, not on it. Revisionism fails, but Leninism works.

The capitalist scholars claimed that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc proved the failure of socialism. For this to be true, the class nature of the state and system of ownership in these countries would have had to be socialist at the time of collapse. The assumption here is that those countries remained the same from their establishment all the way until the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, the socialist construction experienced in the Soviet Union as the country of the first successful proletarian revolution and in Eastern European countries where, after World War II, regimes of people’s democracy were established, was derailed by revisionism. Countries such as China, Cuba, South Yemen and Angola claimed they were socialist, but the proletariat in those countries had never become organized as the hegemonic class in power, nor had the production relations reached a path of socialist development.

Many say capitalism was restored in the Gorbachev Era, but it was much earlier.

The Soviet Union and Albania were the models of socialist nations, in that Marxism-Leninism was consistently applied for most of their existence and they maintained the class struggle against their bourgeoisie instead of entering into alliance with them. However, the central planning and state ownership in the USSR did not remain unchanged from the 1950s, nor did the capitalist restoration and transition to a market economy only take place during the reign of Gorbachev. The rise of the Khrushchevites to power in the USSR marked the beginning of the degeneration of Soviet socialism. Central planning and state ownership were undermined, and would later be abolished completely after the Liberman and Kosygin reforms in 1965, which marked the final nail in the coffin for the dictatorship of the proletariat in the USSR. Socialism Did Work

The socialist camp did collapse, but it endured for a very long period of time. Bourgeois economists predicted that the collapse of socialism would happen immediately after its foundations and outset—this did not happen. The socialist system was able to build a world superpower and endure for decades, defeat a military juggernaut that was able to walk right through Europe and produce a planned economy with working industry, collectivized agriculture and a livable life for the entire population.

Albania was the only country where the process of socialism was uninterrupted until the 1980s, despite unimaginable difficulties. Albania kicked out the fascist troops of both Hitler and Mussolini without foreign assistance, doubled life expectancy, electrified the entire country, established socialist relations of production, abolished taxes, provided free health care and education up to the highest level, industrialized despite the fact that it was a tribal society until 1950s, abolished honor killings (which now account for over 25% of all Albanian deaths), abolished sex slavery of women, stood up to both American imperialism and Soviet revisionism equally, lead the longest-lasting socialist state in human history, established working class control and elections over production centers, brought illiteracy down from 90-95% to on the level of the United States, and so on and so forth forever. Many of the same gains were also achieved in the socialist period of the USSR. “Totalitarianism”

The American Party of Labor does not recognize any such political or economic system as “totalitarianism.” For more on this, read this article: The Myth of “Totalitarianism.”

Ironically, the liberal criticism of Marxism as dogma based on faith and not logic, or of Marxism as “totalitarian,” is essentially saying that other ideologies, conveniently including liberalism and capitalism, are not so-called “totalitarian,” but grounded in material reality and completely uninfluenced by preconceived theorization. In other words, this theory is similar to the religious notion of all other religions being lies.

Economic Stagnation?

Is this accusation accurate? In reality, the Soviet economy was not stagnating when it out-produced every country in WWII with the production of tanks, firearms and light infantry, nor was the Albanian economy ever stagnating during the Marxist-Leninist period. The stagnation only came with the advent of capitalism. Official statistics verified by British economists show that between 1951 and 1985 in Albania:

Agricultural production increased by 4.5 times;

Retail sales per head of population: 5.5 times;

Industrial production increased by 16.2 times;

Chrome production increased by 30.9 times;

Electric power production increased by 217.1 times;

Chemical production increased by 585.8 times;

(‘Statistical Yearbook of the PSR of Albania 1988′; Tirana; 1988; p.: 81, 87, 122).

In addition, from the book Stalinist Economic Strategy in Practice: the Case of Albania by Adi Schnytzer:

Growth indices for the Albanian economy (1938=1)

Gross domestic material product

1950 – 1.7

1960 – 4.0

1970 – 8.3

1973 – 10.7

Global agricultural production

1950 – 1.2

1960 – 1.7

1970 – 3.1

1973 – 3.5

Global industrial production

1950 – 4

1960 – 25

1970 – 64

1973 – 86

Retail trade turnover

1950 – 1.4

1960 – 6

1970 – 10

1973 – 13

Population (millions)

1950 – 1.20

1960 – 1.60

1970 – 2.14

1973 – 2.30

“From the table [presented above] it is clear that the Albanian economy has sustained rapid economic growth since 1950.” The author adds it is surprising that the successes of the Albanian economy have not been more thoroughly catalogued by Western scholars. On page 64 of that same book:

Output and Productivity in Industry

Global industrial production (million leks [Albanian currency] in 1971 prices)

1950 – 461

1955 – 1,275

1960 – 2,781

1963 – 3,385

1970 – 7,104

1973 – 9,608

1975 – 10,798

Industrial labour [sic] force

1950 – 16,337

1955 – 28,964

1960 – 48,074

1963 – 66,941

1970 – 106,223

1973 – 121,602

1975 – 133,437

Labour [sic] productivity (leks/man)

1950 – 28,219

1955 – 44,020

1960 – 57,848

1963 – 50,567

1970 – 66,878

1973 – 79,012

1975 – 80,992The Ebbs and Flows of Revolution

There are those who say that because there are no socialist countries in the world today, then our ideas have “lost,” which is the position taken by the author of the above letter.

Marxism-Leninism is based upon dialectical materialism, the science of human development. It is a scientific outlook that analyzes the development of civilization and the structure of matter. It sees the unity and the struggle between opposites and opposing forces and the struggle between classes and modes of production (feudalism, capitalism, etc). This eternal struggle, which is the cause of what we call change, does not move in a straight line. The period of the transition from capitalism to socialism and then socialism to communism is not a period of smooth, perfect, linear transition. It is a period rife with contradiction, conflict, uncertainty, chaos and struggle. History moves in ebbs and flows, in zigs and zags.

As Enver Hoxha said, “The struggle of the proletariat against the. bourgeoisie is a stem, merciless struggle which goes on continuously. Confronting each other stand two great social forces. On the one side stands the capitalist-imperialist bourgeoisie, which is the most ferocious, deceitful and blood-thirsty class known to history. On the other side stands the proletariat, the class totally dispossessed of means of production, ruthlessly oppressed and exploited by the bourgeoisie, which is at the same time the most advanced class of society which thinks, creates, works and produces, but does not enjoy the fruits of its toil.” In this grand battle of classes, there can be no assurance that the proletariat will win everywhere and always. To say otherwise is pure Utopia.

It took hundreds of years for capitalism to finally conquer feudalism in order to secure itself as an international, global system of production. In addition, the correct scientific line does not guarantee that a group, party, class or country wins every fight and struggle 100% of the time no matter the circumstances. Regardless, it is the APL’s position that the accomplishments of Albania under constant pressure from the British, the Americans, the Greeks, the Yugoslavs and the Italian and German fascists, and later even the Soviets and the Chinese, were truly remarkable and a model for all. The Loss of Albania

As for the loss in Albania, it has come under attack from capitalists and revisionists everywhere. This line of attack, which can be roughly summed up as, “If Albania was so amazing, then why did it collapse?” is of course repeated by anti-Marxists and revisionists ad nauseum. They lost, therefore they must be wrong. This is the “thought” of these people.

This argument reveals much more about our opponents than it reveals about us, since it shows that opponents of the American Party of Labor have no arguments other than what the bourgeoisie says—that socialism is not superior because it collapsed. It also reveals they have no arguments other than the one that negates all of Marxism, since all socialist countries that have existed have collapsed.

The causes of the collapse were not simple. Albania was the last socialist nation in the world. It was alone, and in addition to sabotage and foreign pressure which helped to the revisionists to rise and destroy socialism, there was a coup against Ramiz Alia and Hoxha’s wife that had them arrested and exiled. In 1997 the Albanians tried to overthrow the capitalist Democratic Party under the reactionary Sali Berisha. Conditions have worsened considerably under capitalist rule in Albania, so much so that the Communist Party managed to occupy the entire southern half before NATO troops were called in to crush the rebellion.

Does Liberalism “Work?”

Let us apply this method to this author’s own ideology. What this person would seem to suggest he advocates with his alias “NewDealNow,” is in fact something that has itself been shown to be a complete failure. Right now there is widespread poverty, massive warfare and starvation in the world. So clearly, liberalism is not able to provide even the most basic needs for survival for the vast majority of the human race. When one works within a system, one subjects oneself to that system’s rules. The rule of liberalism is that those with capital hold the power. Even when some redistributive economic policies are allowed by the owners of society, such reforms are easily and frequently undone. Liberal governments themselves are also quite capable of collapsing.

Finally, the APL would say that Marxism-Leninism does not “tear classes apart” as the author suggests. The people are divided into antagonistic classes already. Our goal is to create a society that will eliminate classes.

Stay Tuned for More Reader Responses

We of the American Party of Labor would like to remind our readers that we are open to any questions. We will answer your questions to the fullest extent possible.

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On the Day of American Independence

4 Jul

Today is the 4th of July, a holiday celebrated all over the nation as the date of American Independence from the British crown. I was considering burning an American flag to protest US foreign policy, imperial aggression, indigenous holocaust, sponsorship of terrorism, slavery and discrimination of minorities, etc., and promptly began wondering if flag-burning on public property is considered to be a fire hazard. Today is a holiday that is spent trying to spread patriotic feelings among our people, and thus in effect to try and goad them into flag-waving, chauvinism, jingoism and xenophobia. Patriotism, the way the imperialists see it, means love for their government and love for their class of oppressors. It means love for the police, the prison complex, the courts, the army and the ruling class dictatorship. It means love for the exploitive system of capitalism and the settler-fascists that have run it from the start.

On this celebrated day of the creation of the American state, it is time to take a look back at our long, star-crossed history, and it is time to present a challenge to ourselves—what has American really been about all this time? As Frederick Douglass famously said about this particular holiday in 1852:


 “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

He continues,
“Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”
There are those who might say that Douglass’s words no longer ring true because of the Obama presidency, and then there are those who know that a change in the ruler’s skin color does not abolish racism and oppression overnight. In addition, Major General Smedley Butler from the US Marines speaks about what real role the US military has been playing over the years:
“I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country’s most agile military force – the Marine Corps… And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect money in. I helped in the raping of a half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street… I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped get Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents.”
These revelations are by no means new, since they have been given by many anti-imperialist and anti-colonialists since the beginning of the domination of American imperialism, which started after World War II and strengthened itself through the selling-out of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the collapse of socialist Albania.

To give a more detailed or complete account of American foreign policy, which has always been driven by nothing more and nothing less than the capitalist system’s desire for global hegemony under American leadership, would take many pages and several lifetimes of research into the history of the modern-day Roman Empire. But this 4th of July, and keeping with our challenge to ourselves, a few examples taken from the recent history of the United States alone should serve to give an idea of what this class dictatorship has really been about since the beginnings of its foundation.


A History Lesson
 In 1945, the US invades the Korean peninsula and declares a “temporary” partition of Korea. America installs an illegitimate American-friendly regime in the South, backed by a force of 50,000 troops. After 2,617 troop incursions in the Northern Pro-Soviet half, sometimes with as many as a few thousand troops, a war ensues when North Korea finally invades South Korea in response. A three-year war takes place and millions are killed. Thousands of American troops remain in South Korea to this day.


 In 1966, a US-backed coup ousted President Sukarno of Indonesia and replaced him with the fascist butcher Suharto. Over a million people were hunted down and killed, including thousands of popular leftist leaders, whose names were given to the military by the American Embassy. Suharto would go on to rule Indonesia with an iron fist for two decades. Newly-liberated East Timor was then invaded by Suharto’s Indonesia the day after President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (both butchers of the Vietnam War) gave them permission. By 1989, over one-third of East Timor’s 700,000 people had been killed. Indonesia had US backing, including armaments, throughout its 24-year occupation.


 In 1967, a US-backed military coup took place to prevent Greek politician George Papandreou being elected Prime Minister. The colonels declared martial law, implemented torture, beatings, arrests, leaving 8,000 dead in the first month. The coup leaders were fiercely anti-communist and pro-American, working closely with the CIA. The colonels held power until 1974.


 In 1970, Marxist reformist Salvador Allende was elected as President of Chile. He nationalized the giant US companies. Soon, the right-wing, backed by the CIA and US foreign policy, engineered a 1973 coup lead by the infamous General Augusto Pinochet. Allende was overthrown and replaced by a fascist military dictatorship that used mass executions and torture. Thousands were murdered and disappeared. Chile became an economic experiment that led to economic growth for the richest while leaving many homeless and greatly decreasing economic equality.


 In 1978 in Nicaragua, the popular and progressive Sandinista movement overthrows the US-backed dictator Anastasio Samoza. The US then launches a military occupation in order to prevent “another Cuba.” A program of terrorism and economic sabotage is begun, which leads to the US support of the infamous Contra death squads. The Contras prove to be one of the most brutal fighting forces Latin America has ever seen, infamous for burning down schools, churches and hospitals as well as using mass murder, rape and torture. The Contras massacre whole villages though to be sympathetic to the Sandinistas. Over 60,000 die. President Reagan labels them as “freedom fighters.”

Summation
 From these examples alone—Korea, Indonesia, East Timor, Greece, Chile and Nicaragua, which are merely the most prominent of many dozens more ready-made examples including the Vietnam War—we can see that United States foreign policy has never been driven by a devotion to any kind of morality, nor by any kind of longing for freedom or democracy. From the start, the United States has been driven by the necessity to make the world safe for investment by capitalism, to enrich US armaments who contribute generously to Congress members, to prevent the development of any society which becomes an example of an independent alternative to the capitalist model and to extend its political and economic control over as much of the globe as possible.
 Everyone alive today remembers the media immediately after the events of 9/11. “Why Do They Hate Us So Much?” the newspapers asked. Gee, I don’t know. Perhaps dropping bombs really pisses some “less civilized” people off. This is a simple list of the nations bombed since World War II:

China 1945-46, Korea 1950-53, China 1950-53, Guatemala 1954, Indonesia 1958, Cuba 1959-60, Guatemala 1960, Congo 1964, Peru 1965, Laos 1965-73, Vietnam 1961-73. Cambodia 1969-70, Guatemala 1967-69, Grenada 1983, Libya 1986, El Salvador 1980s, Nicaragua 1980s, Panama 1989, Iraq 1991-2002, Sudan 1998, Afghanistan 1998, Yugoslavia 1999, Afghanistan 2001 and Iraq 2003 (1).

It is worth noting that violence and exploitation are also not limited to outside the US borders, either. Of all western nations, the US has the greatest income inequality. 40% of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the population. The US has the greatest discrepancy in the world between the wealthy and the poor when it comes to health care, and also when it comes to life expectancy.

Finally, the Land of the Free has the highest number of its population in prison than any other state in the world (2). And all this is without mentioning the minute details of the oppressive structure of the class society as it exists for us every day. These sorts of atrocities will continue until this capitalist system is done away with through struggle and revolution in the US.

On the day of American Independence, among all other days, this is a fact for all of us to remember.
(1) Taken from Australian Options Quarterly No. 31, Summer 2002.
 (2) From Scientific American, Dec. 2005

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Guide For Moral Perspective in a Capitalist Society

2 Jun

The New Red Scare

Lately, one cannot help but notice that despite the “end of history” and the total discrediting, debunking, destruction, looting, pillaging and castration of Marxism, anti-communist propaganda is actually on the rise both in the United States and especially Europe, to a level rivaling the era of McCarthyism. The European establishment, through the passage of bans on certain symbols and public declarations, seems resolute in their endeavor to equate communism with Nazism to a point where Nazism, or at least Nazi Germany, seems to enjoy slightly better treatment than the ultimate evil that is Marxism. A specter is haunting Europe indeed.

If Marxism is so truly discredited, one wonders why increase the propaganda flow now, twenty years after the great “victory” of capitalism? If we look at the results of various polls reported by Reuters, AFP and the Pew Centre, the answer isn’t hard to imagine. What these polls show is that an increasing, and in some countries rapidly increasing, portion of residents in the former Eastern Bloc are beginning to say that they had a better life under communism. There is also a sizable portion which, while not necessarily holding favorable views toward socialism, is skeptical about capitalism’s viability and benefits. This is not only happening in countries like Russia or Belarus but also in Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and other centers of nationalistic anti-communism. Add to this a major world crisis and a series of recent imperialistic wars on the part of the US, NATO and Russia, and it isn’t difficult at all to imagine why the European establishment, embodied by the organs of the EU and the OSCE, wish, in fact must, attempt to terrify the workers with a distorted view of non-existent states.


The Irony of Capitalists Chastising Socialism

What does this technique boil down to exactly? Why, as our capitalist masters proclaim, should workers reject communism and suffer every humiliation, every false promise and every bloody war, all in hopes that one day the men in suits will suddenly find their fortunes on the rise again, and if we are lucky we might be able to catch a few crumbs from their table? Why should Marxism, communism and socialism be totally off the table, unacceptable, unthinkable and locked away in the dustbin alongside an ideology that proclaimed the virtue of one race of people exterminating others without mercy?

If we are to take the propaganda at face value, their reasoning for this, the reason why we cannot even consider communism as a legitimate ideology, is because the handful of socialist states since 1917, most of which no longer exist today, jailed and executed people. In other words, Marxism and communism are totally off limits because those states inspired by the theory engaged in more or less the same activities that capitalist states have engaged in on a much greater scale for centuries and in fact are still engaging in today.

Yes, it is a double standard, but apparently we workers are supposed to accept it. If you can’t understand this concept, here is a helpful guide, constructed from useful tidbits of information gathered over the years from numerous anti-communist sources. This will certainly help you eke out an existence as you search for jobs and wait for our “natural betters” to sort out this crisis so we can all go back to buying shit we can’t afford.


Moral Guide for Capitalists
Capitalism: capitalism and capitalist countries cannot really be blamed for any atrocities they commit, because unlike socialist countries they did not use the term “capitalist” in their official political titles. They also did not, to the best of my knowledge, acknowledge “capitalism” as a system in their constitutions and/or relevant legal documents. It’s no use pointing out all the atrocities committed in the name of anti-communism. Things like the Vietnam War, coups throughout Latin America, Europe and Asia and imperialist invasions and military campaigns cannot be used to indict capitalism because there were people in those countries who disagreed with such policies, and many people feel bad about them today.

Trust our ruling class, they have evolved past the old tactics of assassinations and foreign interventions, and in the future they will do better. They just need to wrap up things in Afghanistan and Iraq first…and prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons…and oversee Cuba’s transition to liberal democracy…and secure Colombia…and…uh…er…Change! Hope!

Communism: communists are directly responsible for all early deaths which occurred in the countries they controlled. Any attempt at communist revolution will inevitably lead to more excesses, et cetera. Communists do not seek to improve anyone’s lives—all they are concerned with is power.

Capitalism: if someone points out how communists and suspected communists as well as leftists were persecuted, arrested, jailed, shot and lynched in the United States, always be sure to point out that this was far less than the number of people sent to the Gulag system in the USSR, ignoring for example, that the percentage of the adult population behind bars in America today is much actually higher than that of the USSR under Stalin. Numbers only make a difference if a specific death toll in a non-communist nation was less than that of a socialist one. If the opposite is true, then numbers don’t matter; it’s democide either way.

Communism: if someone tries to point out that “Stalinist” Albania had far lower amount of deaths attributed to the regime even by its enemies, this is unacceptable. Numbers don’t matter – 20 million, 10 million, 5 million, 1 million, a few thousand…it makes no difference and the liberal democratic establishment is terribly outraged by the idea that anyone would try to make comparisons. One death is too many. Unless, if you are a conservative, that individual is an anti-American Muslim, a communist, or just some jackass who isn’t thrilled about the United States or European Union running his or her nation. If you are a liberal democrat, the aforementioned state-sponsored killing is just as acceptable so long as it is not done unilaterally, but rather with the help of powerful European allies and sanctioned by the United Nations.

Capitalism: yes, Munich was a major mistake, and since you had to go and bring it up, so was the non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War but…oh right, yes, the active support for the fascist nationalists from US corporations and the tacit approval of the Royal Navy who watched German ships shell Spanish cities…yes that was a mistake too but…oh okay yes, there was that naval treaty England signed with Nazi Germany to allow it to re-arm…however you must consider…okay yes, there was all the stonewalling against the USSR to prevent any sort of collective security agreement…but if you would kindly stop bringing up those damned historical facts for a second, you would understand that the European countries were just tired! They were tired of war, and because they didn’t want war they decided it would be much better to let a previously weak and poorly armed country transform itself into a heavily armed nation under the aegis of a party whose leaders glorified war with every breath. Everyone knows this is the best way to prevent a war!


Communism: Stalin started WWII! Remember the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact! Remember it and nothing else, particularly anything that occurred before 1939! The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact started WWII, because it was the last major diplomatic action that occurred prior to the war’s beginning. As we all know, the last thing to happen in a sequence of events is automatically the cause of the event which happens after it.

Capitalism: people need to learn to get over things like slavery, imperialism, colonialism, racism, media consolidation, two-party oligarchies, bailouts, aggressive wars, corporate welfare and so on. Why dwell on the past? The Democratic Party is working on a solution; the only thing holding them back is that damned Lieberman! He’s like a one-man army. Just get over with it, and start buying stuff on credit again real soon. Get a mortgage too.

Communism: Katyn!

Communism: A one-party state! Oh, the horror!

Capitalism: behold, a two-party state! That is so much better than a one-party state! Why it’s twice as good as a one-party state! Two parties is democracy!

So as you can see my fellow workers, adjusting and accepting the capitalist narrative isn’t really that hard. You just need to toss out something called logic, and then be willing to accept the moral pronouncements of liberal and conservative commentators and intellectuals at face value, whatever they may be. I can’t wait till they fix this crisis and I can get a mortgage!

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Response To A Reader

30 Dec

Theories of Restored Capitalism
 Since what is often termed the “collapse of the socialist camp,” there has been an explosion of theories as to why socialism as the capitalists saw it, embodied by the USSR and its allied nations, failed to achieve communism or even survive to the end of the century. From a superficial viewpoint, not only did the bulk of the world’s self-proclaimed socialist governments collapse, but those countries still calling themselves socialist have, for the most part, made huge concessions to the market if they have not embraced open capitalism in all but name. This leads to the popular myth of socialism “not working.”

In contrast, on the anti-capitalist left-wing, theoretical stances can be roughly divided into two groups. One group, encompassing Marxist-Leninists, attempts to make a materialist analysis of real-world socialism’s history. People subscribing to these theories acknowledge that the USSR was at some point socialist, based off analysis of its relations of production, its class character and so on. They also say that socialism was betrayed or corrupted by revisionists (those who distort or water-down Marxism), and that both the USSR and its client states in Eastern Europe degenerated into state-capitalist and imperialist regimes.

The debates among this group hinge on which nations achieved true socialism, when and for how long the USSR was socialist, whether China was ever socialist and most importantly, what sort of mistakes were made in socialist societies that permitted the growth of revisionism?

People who espouse such views, though their analysis may be flawed from time to time, are usually taking a materialist, realistic viewpoint. These views acknowledge that class struggle is not something that happens perfectly. When such people are at their best, they often qualify their criticisms of past regimes with reference to the benefits of hindsight, and they are honest to say that the nature of that future class struggle following a socialist revolution will be determined largely by the reactionary ruling class, not the best-laid plans of Marxist-Leninists. There is no one-shot, one-way path to socialism and communism. That is a realistic view of life.

Then there is another school of thought, a far more idealistic viewpoint held by anarchists, Trotskyists, “Left-Communists,” and some of their fellow travelers. They seem to think they have found a perfect way to run around the question of “why did socialism collapse?” Their specific explanations will differ on a number of points and in terminology, but the answer is generally to claim that all the socialist governments of the 20th century were not only not socialist, but in fact had nothing to do with socialism.
 This is usually followed up by their personal definition of socialism, or the definition accepted by their particular sect of leftist ideology. Naturally because none of these states in question fit that definition, they cannot possibly be socialist. In the mind of such people, it is perfectly acceptable to encourage workers to rise up against capitalism, to struggle for its replacement by socialism, all the while reminding them that well over a dozen nations in the last century had “socialist” revolutions while somehow not even approaching their idealistic standard of “real socialism.”

Apparently real socialism, as it is exists in the minds of such people (and nowhere else) is something more delicate than a butterfly, for if ever the best-laid plans of socialists should not bear fruit, and especially if they should adapt their tactics or system in an attempt to deal with adverse conditions, they run the risk of crushing socialism. In simpler words, it’s all or nothing.

Reality Check

Societies and modes of production are complex things. Anyone who has had the misfortune of debating the ills of capitalism with a libertarian can probably attest to the rather dishonest tactic of disavowing every existing capitalist regime in history as not being “true capitalism”, so as to absolve capitalism as a whole from any crime committed in the name of profit.  Any state intervention in the private sector will be labeled “socialist” in a bizarre worldview where the state and private sector are wholly separate entities, the former being responsible for all evil and the latter the epitome of all that is good and just.  When idealists attempt to defend socialism by disavowing existing attempts at socialism entirely, they are basically guilty of the same faulty logic. Socialism, according to ones ideal, is put forth in a hitherto non-existent, ideal form, real socialism did not live up to that ideal, ergo it cannot be socialism.

In the more privileged countries of the west, particularly those with a history of liberal democracy, this mode of argument seems to be most popular. Americans for example, even leftists, have trouble getting their head around the socialist USSR under Lenin and Stalin, largely because they fail to understand the historical conditions of the Soviet Union. It is illogical to look at Soviet society in a vacuum, as though the Bolsheviks and their allies in the post-war Peoples’ Democracies implemented policies solely on their personal whims for “power mad” reasons.

The Truth About Socialism
 The anarchists, Trotskyites, Left-Communists and their ilk would have us believe that the answers are so simple. They should have put the workers in charge, they shouldn’t have tried to build socialism in one country, and they should have relied on the working class’ self-liberation rather than a vanguard party, and so on forever.
 In reality, we have no examples of a stable, functioning anarchist society beyond the level of a commune or small village. We also have no Left-Communist country or society, nor a socialist state built upon the ideas of Trotsky. We thus have absolutely no reason to believe that these ideas are any better than Marxism-Leninism, or for that matter any superior to the “Stalinist” policies they were opposed to. It is wholly illogical to attribute the downfall of the USSR to “socialism in one country,” and even more illogical to use that downfall as proof of the merits of the euro-centric and imperialist idea of “permanent revolution.”

It may be better than the socialism in the USSR and Albania on paper, but if it can’t leap off the pages into reality, it’s absolutely worthless. The right to pass judgment “from the left” on the highly successful policies of Marxism-Leninism shall go to those who manage to build a socialist society which surpasses those pioneered and built by Lenin, Stalin, Hoxha, and their thousands of comrades and the working masses.

Our Position
 The American Party of Labor inevitably faces an uphill battle against those on the left who have been permitted to skirt the question of socialist revolution by disavowing every historical socialist revolution, preferring instead to try and sell the workers snake oil in the form of utopian socialist ideas with no working model, no coherent solution, and no contingency plan to deal with unforeseen consequences.

The American Party of Labor sees socialism as having existed in the USSR and Albania. We see it in the context of history and we do not attempt to sell our working comrades a rose-garden view of socialism, where from the first days after the overthrow of the ruling class all workers begin to live in harmony and run their society and economy in perfect alignment with the proletariat’s objective long-term interests.

We are born into a capitalist world drenched in blood and have set ourselves to fight against the fearsome war machine of global imperialism. We have very little evidence to tell us what measures will be necessary to counter the threat of capitalist restoration; we can only promise to ourselves and our comrades that we will learn from past mistakes and past collapses. Even then, the process by which socialism comes to dominate and overthrow capitalism on a worldwide scale will still be far from the ideal of those who prefer to imagine life under communism without considering the conditions of the road leading there.

Virtually all members of the American Party of Labor are veterans of debates as to the definition of socialism. Our Marxist-Leninist, anti-revisionist party maintains that the Soviet Union, from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to the beginning of Khruschevite reforms starting after 1956, was indeed socialist. We also maintain that the Peoples’ Socialist Republic of Albania, through nearly all of its existence, was socialist, and in many ways more progressive in this respect than the USSR. Whether it fits our ideal or our goals for a socialist society in the United States does not matter in the least.

Letter from a Reader
 With the above positions in mind, the Party has recently received a letter from a self-identified socialist, giving us an excellent opportunity to respond to this kind of idealistic thinking. The author, who will remain anonymous, seems to have an ambiguous purpose in writing his letter. It seems critical of the Party’s view of socialism, yet does not bear much in the way of hostility. They have clearly taken a lot of time to write it, and this justifies a reply.

Below the author’s letter shall be reproduced. We shall address the author’s letter point-by-point.

What makes a socialist party truly socialist? First of all, they must not support any capitalist or imperialist country and war. They can not pursue “peaceful existence” with capitalist country’s.

Generally the American Party of Labor (henceforth referred to by our acronym  “APL”)  would agree, but this is a bit vague. What constitutes “support?” If a socialist country is weak, does it give up its right to the title of “socialist” simply because it pursues some kind of peaceful agreement with its neighbors so as to consolidate the victory of the revolution? True, this is walking a fine line, but diplomacy is a field too complex to take such a black-and-white position.

While they were having fun implementing their social experiment in Catalonia, The anarchists in Spain forgot that any success they might achieve would be worthless if they couldn’t win the war against the fascist Franco that was going on at the time. A future socialist nation may find it necessary to make some concession to tame an imperialist power temporarily, but if in the end the tables turn and socialism is victorious, that embarrassing compromise will become a footnote of history. Lastly on this point, the APL does not support any imperialist country, nor any wars of the ruling class; ergo this can’t be seen as an attack on the socialist nature of the APL.

Unlike the communist China and North Korea of the past and present there should be no “one” leader, the masses must be in complete control or there can be no socialism.

While our party will say that neither China nor North Korea are Marxist-Leninist, and we certainly don’t support a “one leader” system, the idea of “the masses must be in complete control or socialism does not exist” is simply idealistic and utopian.
 Even under communism it is unlikely that “the masses” could possibly be in complete, total control. Even with the withering away of the state, there will always be the necessity to delegate responsibility to various groups of people, preferably democratically, either by vote, by lot, or both. Direct democracy is preferable, insofar as the conditions allow it, but if the burden of making all society’s decisions is equally placed on the shoulders of each individual, things might not turn out as well as planned.

Every individual would need to familiarize himself or herself with every aspect of politics, economics, society, and so on, aided by an unfailingly diligent press and information service, so as to make competent, informed decisions on every issue, thus extending the “work” day perhaps far beyond twenty-four hours. Alternatively, people may, for whatever reason, shirk their responsibilities, and make self-serving, shortsighted, emotionally-based, or simply foolish decisions. Socialist democracy should permit all citizens the opportunity to participate in the running of society in various forms, preferably in those areas for which they show an interest and personal aptitude. We set this as a goal, and we will aim for it, and that is as much as anyone can realistically hope for in this world.

Socialism in America is different than that of any other socialism in the world. More specifically, socialism in the USA sounds difficult to achieve. It is not possible for it to be like any other example of socialism in history.

Though this smacks of American exceptionalism, the last sentence is somewhat true. Socialism in any country will be different from other examples, even if they occur in countries where socialism existed before. Even if the place is the same, the time is still different.

Therefore, it doesn’t matter what your socialist ideology is, but what is important is that we are all, in fact, socialist. Trust me, I know how “important” everyone’s specific ideology is to them. Leninist, Marxist, Trotskyism, Maoism, Stalinist, and Guevarist, there are so many ways for us to split and divide among ourselves. Yet all of the socialist people in the United States can not just get over this, not even to realize our common dream: socialism.

Without criticizing the author’s cheap use of “isms,” some of which do not even exist, this is simply not true. There are very pronounced theoretical lines between Marxist-Leninists and Trotskyites, for example. This is why the APL will be publishing a theoretical journal very soon, so that it can explain these divides and the differences between us and our opponents. Many on the left do want socialism and what it entails, that is, a society heading towards a classless communist society. However, some have ideas that are not revolutionary or are based on unrealistic expectations, such as anarchists.

I believe our dream of socialism can be achieved by finding ways to bridge our divides. When I think of the biggest divides between socialist parties besides Maoism vs Leninism etc., I think of reformist against revolution. It is true that everyone wishes that socialism could be constructed peacefully through democracy and the capitalist class would just bend to the will of the masses. This is the main ideology that reformists take. That is to say, reformist think they can reform capitalism democratically. Revolutionaries however, do not dare toy with the idea that a capitalist class would ever hand over the power to the people. Revolutionaries believe that there must be armed revolution to overthrow the power of the ruling capitalist class. In most cases revolutionary socialists believe in something called constant revolution, which means that after a socialist party or movement is in control, there needs to be steps taken to insure that the movement doesn’t turn into state capitalism.

Our party does not believe in reformism or peaceful revolution, so this is not an issue for us. As for the necessity of preventing the rise of state capitalism, this is what we call anti-revisionism, and class struggle after the revolution. It is an ongoing process that will inevitably take a long time.

I would like to take a second to give the reader an example of what I mean by a socialist movement turning into state capitalism. I would like to start off with China because I think it is the easiest way to explain “peaceful existence with capitalist states” and state capitalism. First, let’s talk about “peaceful existence”. This is where said country (China) will work with a capitalist state to generate profits. China sells a lot of merchandise to the United States, but that is not the problem. The problem is that the Chinese state exploits its workers to achieve greater profits for a small amount of the capitalist class and the political elite. The actual workers in china get paid around 5 cents a day (not in US money, in Chinese), while the plant and warehouse owners make millions annualy. This is clearly not an example of worker’s socialism or state socialism, but both market and state capitalism and also worker exploitation is taking place. This is what usually happens when a socialist movement stops being revolutionary, it takes a turn to the right and eventually becomes a capitalist state. Accepting “peaceful existence” with capitalist states is in my eyes is the first step to capitalism for non-revolutionary socialist states.

Our Party, following the analysis made by Enver Hoxha of Albania, does not see China as ever being socialist, or at best a weak socialist society which quickly degenerated due to the Maoists’ misguided policy of allowing local bourgeoisie elements into their party. However, this whole argument against China has little to do with peaceful coexistence. China once criticized the Soviet Union’s “peaceful coexistence” under Khrushchev. They then went to the opposite extreme; teaming up with the United States under the utterly false idea that Soviet social-imperialism was far worse than American imperialism, which was said to be the weaker of the two. In fact the truth was just the opposite.

Constant revolutionary socialist states like Cuba avoid slowly turning capitalist because the majority of the population is made up of revolutionary socialist people.

This is where we slam on the brakes. Cuba and the DPRK are probably the best examples of surviving revisionist states today, but one needs to remember that they do have a private sector, and everything that is necessary to restore full capitalism in the country already exists. In fact, the blockade and America’s ongoing anti-Cuban stance coupled with Cuban national pride may be the only thing preventing American capitalists from rushing in, buying up the infrastructure, and plundering the island nation even more than Cuba’s own bourgeoisie already does. Oh, and incidentally, the masses in Cuba are not in complete control and never have been—in fact to a far less extent than the USSR or Albania.

Which kind of means that they do not want to work with imperialist and capitalist country’s and would rather work with other socialist or progressive movements and states than to bend to the will of a capitalist nation.

Firstly, Cuba itself is a state-capitalist country. Cuba not only has worked and still works with imperialist nations, such as the post-Stalin USSR, but it has also been trying to lift the American embargo so as to trade with all nations around it, perhaps even the US itself. Of course, trade does not inherently equal revisionism, but in Cuba’s situation where it is run on a colonial “cash-crop” economy and the relations of production are for profit, and not for the needs of society, this opening up is merely another sign of integrating itself into the global imperialist market and becoming another US puppet.

Cuba has even gone as far as helping progressive and socialist minority groups in capitalist countries, as opposed to just cooperating with the capitalist ruling class in that nation. I hope everyone reading this now understands a little more about the difference and different ending results that reformist and revolutionary ideals can bring about (I apologize if the example is open and vague, I didn’t want to bore anyone).

Again, this is strange because at the beginning, the author stated that socialism must mean that there is no one leader, and that the masses must be in complete control. Cuba does not fulfill those requirements, which belong to the author of this letter and not I, nor the APL. Now suddenly Cuba, which by those idealistic standards would be state-capitalist and reformist, is being held up as an example of real revolutionary socialism?

we (socialists) who live here in the United States have a very large, uphill battle in-front of us. We are at war with the conservatives, the media and ignorance. It is time that we go on the offensive on all fronts of the battle. First of all, the socialists in America must all learn to work together and discredit any socialist party not willing to cooperate and work with other socialist and liberal movements. Another thing real liberals in America need to move away from is the democratic party.

This is populism, not socialism. There are enough irreconcilable contradictions just between those who call themselves Marxists and anarchists, much less liberals, many of whom do not have any kind of class-based outlook regardless of what they may claim. Embracing liberals also means embracing a great number of petty-bourgeois types who are notoriously fickle and squeamish at any thought of revolution.

The overwhelming majority of liberals, or “progressives” as they identify themselves these days, have no interest in eliminating capitalism. On the contrary, many of them believe it can be tamed. As for “socialists working together,” it is not simply a matter of calling yourself socialist—you have to have a correct political line, one that will actually lead to socialism.

They are kind of enemy number one. The democratic party uses our ideals to get votes while discrediting socialism as “evil” as Obama once so lovingly put it. If we tore down the democratic party today, the socialist parties would get a million new members tomorrow.

The Democratic Party of the United States does not share our ideals in the least. They are, like the Republicans, an imperialist party made up of the bourgeoisie that serves the interests of capitalism. They have been responsible for just as many atrocities and militarism as the Republicans. Their class interests are not our interests in any way, shape or form.
 These days they barely even pretend to care about workers. Their basic appeal to the workers is to point out the alternative to the Republicans. This is the base of the two-party system: it’s nothing but a political good-cop, bad-cop routine. Furthermore, the socialist parties would NOT get a million new members tomorrow if the Democrats were dissolved. If anything, the Green Party would benefit, or perhaps another section of the bourgeoisie.

Unfortunately one thing I think most people have a problem with is understanding that when the socialist revolution happens here in the USA the hero’s of that revolution will not be Lenin or Mao or any of the past revolutionaries, It will be Americans like you and me and our comrades across the country. We must find our way to the revolution by ourselves as oppose to looking to past revolutionaries and trying to duplicate their revolutions path. We are not Russia or Cuba or Vietnam, we have to be the United States of America’s socialist revolution.

Again, this is technically true, but at the same time people need to realize that the experience and theory of revolutionary figures are important. It would do Americans good to learn that there are extremely important figures in history who weren’t American, and in some cases came from very small and poor countries. That being said, our party does its best to promote the best of the theory of Lenin, and the line of Joseph Stalin and Enver Hoxha without constantly flogging these figures as though they were prophets or infallible. At the end of the day they were men of their time, facing overwhelming difficulties, trying to navigate amongst the jagged rocks of history to build socialist societies.

I have had a lot of people ask me which party I think could best lead a socialist revolution or which party I think is most likely to have electoral success. I always give them the same answer, there is no one party that is capable of either and the only way we will bring about true revolution in the states is through unity.

Again, this is populism, not revolutionary thinking. Calls for “unity” are common in many idealistic movements and they are most often misinformed. “Unity” in this case means unity with enemy forces, including racists, sexists, national-chauvinists, etc. If we are revolutionaries, we want a revolution and must work for it.

Victory is something that can be achieved with the correct strategy, not a hodge-podge of relatively like-minded people who temporarily put their glaring contradictions on hold. History often shows that such broad coalitions often fail despite their numbers. However, history has shown repeatedly that dedicated parties based on not only a sound ideology and strategy but also composed of members who agree on a general program and direction are successful.

Solidarity is a nice jester(sic) but only unity will bring us closer to reaching our goals. These divisions among our groups have been our down fall since the 1800′s. Why is it that the USA has never had a serious uprising?

Assuming we don’t count the Civil War or the La Rebellion as “serious uprisings,” the reason why there was no serious uprising in the decades of radicalism during the 60s and 70s is that there was a hodge-podge movement of various groups, virtually none possessing a coherent, realistic analysis of American capitalism, nor a revolutionary ideology. The New Left of that era was largely influenced by identity politics and the pseudo-Marxist ideas made popular by the so-called “Frankfurt School.” As such, many of these movements were suspicious of Marxism and socialism in general. Many of the youth behind these movements were idealistic and romantic, often from privileged backgrounds. Like the Hippies or the members of the SLA, they imagined that their activities were every bit as revolutionary as the Tupamaros or the 26 July Movement. Is it any wonder that such delusional people failed to spark a real revolution?

Because everyone is so worried about their public image that some groups are afraid to actually fight for the liberation of this country. It is important that we discredit these groups, they are counter-revolutionary and a back slide to our goals for freedom. The revolution has no time to worry about groups who will not fight but will ask for power once the revolution is won.

Who the author is referring to precisely we cannot say.

‘CHE’ Guevara once said: “I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all – you live in the heart of the beast.” This statement still rings true today. You see we are lucky as North Americans because we will have to fight the hardiest fought victory in the history of socialist struggle.

Why would the American struggle for socialism be the hardest fought? In the foreseeable future it would be difficult if only because America is the leading imperialist country in the world and has had a very weak Marxist/socialist tradition.

On the other hand, one reason it has not developed a strong socialist foundation is largely because of populist appeals like those the author is suggesting. Still, it would be wrong to claim that the struggle for socialism would be hardest in the US simply because socialism as an idea is unpopular. For one thing, the US would most likely not have to face a massive invasion. Civil war yes, but by the time the US is vulnerable to socialist revolution, there will most likely be no power in the world willing or able to invade.

It will take countless man hours of research, fighting and maneuvering to win our uphill struggle against the bourgeoisie politicians and their armed cronies. People will lose their friends they will suffer losses but their sacrifice will bring about the greatest change ever seen by the world.

This could be said of many countries.

A United Socialist States of America would bring about a end to world hunger because the government could no longer pay farmers to not plant crops to keep food prices up.

This is not the sole reason for world hunger—the author completely liquidates imperialism and exploitation in continents like Africa as a source of hunger. Furthermore, a collapse of the US government would also make the reserve currency of many countries worthless, expose secret agreements, and release billions of dollars worth of high-tech military weapons around the world, while destabilizing regimes which can no longer rely on US military support. In other words, it’s not going to be a bowl of cherries. It is necessary, and the end results will be worth it, but don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

Instead the new government would grow as much food as possible and trade our surplus food for the materials we need to poorer countries or country’s in the middle of drought. This country with our help could become the greatest country in the world.

The rest of the world is still on a market economy, which means that flooding the market with excess food would drive down prices for peasants in many countries. Again, don’t jump the gun and make assumptions.

Divided we are useless, but unified we are strong we are a force to be messed with, we are socialist and it’s time we start acting like it and quit all this in-fighting and useless complaining.

This is oversimplification. For one thing, in-fighting amongst left-wing groups is far more civil than amongst our enemies on the right, so you can take solace in that fact. As Marxist-Leninists however, we strive to build our theories and strategies based on a dialectical, materialist analysis of the past and present, rather than proclaiming some ideal and then demanding that any revolution live up to that ideal without exception. Sadly, not all leftists agree with that method. There are “divides” in the left, and for very good reasons.

If all a party does is cry about what is going on in the world and does nothing about it then are they really a socialist party? No. Because a socialist party is a revolutionary party by nature and will never stand by and watch oppression and exploitation take place without raising a finger.

The problem is that when revolutionary parties of the past raised more than a finger, in fact raised their fist, people such as the author have attacked them, sometimes with even more tenacity than the anti-communists themselves. They acted, but they did not act according to the theories of this or that philosopher or theorist, ergo they were condemned as equal to if not worse than the capitalists. Who is to blame for this kind of counter-productive infighting?

It is time comrades, brothers and sisters of freedom that we rise. We rise and make our voice heard and put our plans into motion. It is time for revolution in the USA, it is time to break OUR chains of oppression. No longer should we sit on the sidelines and wait for something to happen to kick start a revolutionary movement, from now on it’s our responsibility to make that something happen.

Revolution does not occur simply because people will it to. It is partially conscious action on the part of revolutionaries, and partially due to conditions outside of their personal control. Revolutionaries continually act so as to be ready to take advantage of a revolutionary scenario and try to hasten it as much as possible. However, populist appeals with the aim of building some kind of loud mass, even when punctuated with such radical, romantic slogans, will not lead to change of any sort.

It is time for a socialist America, time is up for the billionaires and major land lords. It is the people’s time! It is the worker’s time! Let us take what is ours comrades, let us take our freedom and let’s make this a equal world for ALL who live in it.

Stirring words indeed, but it will take more than this romantic, youthful zeal to pull off a successful revolution. The American Party of Labor makes honest attempts to work with other progressive groups for common goals, and also attempts to engage in constructive criticism with Marxist organizations and parties which it considers revisionist. We do this not because we are trying to build some kind of broad coalition, but because debate and criticism are the only way to refine theory and practice.
 We engage in these discussions and polemics because we are convinced as to the general correctness of our methodology, and hope that others will agree to the extent that they will join us in our struggle. Our Party is young, but it is filled with dedicated revolutionaries who are passionate about revolution. There are no dreamers among us. You will not see us use our Party’s line as an excuse not to take action toward our goals. Rest assured of that.

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Killing Two Capitalist Myths

8 Dec

F.A. Hayek, a Libertarian Scholar and Stooge For Capitalism; Argued that Ruthless Capitalism was the Best Course For Humanity.

There is a widespread popular myth that the capitalists are entitled to their compensation, as well as the value of other peoples’ labor, simply because they take “risks” or because they come up with original ideas for production of goods. A second popular myth is that we cannot criticize capitalism as a system, because capitalism has made our modern lifestyle possible. In other words, capitalism has provided us with consumer goods,  should all just shut up and stop complaining. These are not ideas exclusive only to radical libertarians or Austrian School advocates; they are far more commonly accepted even by people who admit that there are many problems with the capitalist system.

The Theory of “Original Risk”
 First, let’s look at this matter of “risk.” Who takes more risks—the worker or the capitalist? The capitalist is someone who has capital, at least enough to invest in some industry or business. After all, this is what we are speaking of when we speak about capitalists taking risks—they invest in some business or industry with the hopes of getting a high return on their investment. Recent events have shown us how wonderfully this system works, but let’s ignore that for a moment. What happens when the capitalist takes a risk and loses? Most likely, he/she will not lose everything unless they have been very foolish with their money and careless with their investments. Even if that should happen, what is the absolute worst that could occur? They will have to work for a living, like everyone else. How dreadful!

Now what about the worker’s risk? The worker is already forced into a life-or-death situation, as working people have no means of subsistence other than their ability to work. They are forced by necessity to work for the capitalist by his or her conditions in order to be paid money to live. Thus for many men, women and even underage children, the worker may often be risking physical injury, disease or death. Millions of workers worldwide are forced to risk their health and life by working long hours under extremely dangerous conditions such as exposure to toxic fumes, heavy machinery, unsafe structures and so on.

As if that wasn’t enough, the worker is also taking a risk when they trust that the company they work for isn’t going to go belly-up within a short time, putting them back out on the street. This is especially devastating in these days when unemployment is very high. Workers may have to relocate and disrupt their lives just to find a decent job. When they are laid off soon after relocating, all their plans are shattered. The capitalist by stark contrast, risks at most being reduced to the state of the worker. Clearly, the worker risks far more, and yet their compensation is far less than that of the capitalist, thus dispelling the idea that risk entitles one to wealth.

Capital, in a capitalist system, is generally accumulated via surplus value; that is the exploitation of workers’ labor. Moreover, what about those capitalists who make wise investments, searching for investments which will guarantee profitable returns? Should they be penalized or taxed in some way for not making risky investments? But how are investments risky when the richest capitalists can trust the governments they control to bail them out if they should fail? Those banks and companies which invested their money weren’t risking anything at all, since the government promptly compensated them for their failure at the expense of the public.

“Capitalism Has Given You All This!”

Now for the next item on the chopping block. In discussions about capitalism, we have heard many times the argument that reduces anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism to complaining: “You complain so much about capitalism, but capitalism is why you have a computer, phones, toasters, clothes…” and so on and so forth.

This argument essentially says that we have no right to be anti-capitalist because, presumably, capitalism is providing a better standard of living. There are many flaws with this argument. Foremost is the fact that capitalism is not providing such a wonderful lifestyle for the majority of the world’s population. More than half the world’s population—about 3 billion people—currently lives on less than a few dollars a day. Imagine if we were to suggest that African-Americans had no right to complain about the system of segregation and Jim Crow laws in the South simply because they had it worse under slavery. Slavery was objectively worse, as feudalism is objectively worse than capitalism, but that does not mean that the post-slavery society of the South should be beyond reproach. As well, this logic must also mean that because of the inventions that feudalism gave us, which we still use to this day, we must not criticize the feudal system of serfs, kings and lords.

We must also consider that in many countries which formerly had socialist systems, including revisionist market-socialist systems, the standard of living has dropped, often quite dramatically, with frightening consequences for many populations. It’s easy to look at modern-day Eastern European cities, note the people carrying expensive cell phones, the internet cafes, and the modern clubs and restaurants and conclude that this is an improvement over the late “socialist” societies which previously existed here. However, let us be honest—many of the innovations that make these societies bearable today did not exist even in capitalist societies in the last days of the USSR and Eastern Bloc, such as our wonderful modern cell phones.

These countries now import many luxuries and consumer goods that are out of reach for most of the world population. Not to mention that many people in the West acquired their homes, cars, and other luxury consumer goods through credit, and now we can all see the results of that scheme.

In Moscow, people work ridiculously long hours just to get a piece of that capitalist pie, to the point where many people will tell you that they have virtually no time for recreation. By contrast, the socialist government, even in the corrupt, revisionist post-Khrushchev era made it a point to ensure that workers had access to recreation and cultural facilities, and provided workers with the means to develop their various talents. When we look at the negative aspects of full capitalist restoration, such as plunging birthrates, migration, corruption, drug addiction, shortened life-spans, ethnic violence, sex slavery, and a failing social welfare system, it is clear that while it can be said that Western capitalist countries had a higher-standard of living compared to the socialist bloc countries, the standard of living in these countries today is in many ways worse.

So much worse in fact, that a number of articles from sources including The Wall Street Journal and the AFP report that recent polls show a growing discontent with capitalism and a rising opinion that life under “communism” was in many ways better. So to say that capitalism has provided us a much better world today is clearly dishonest as it has also provided a much worse standard of living for many people.

Now if we consider the argument that we should be grateful that capitalism has produced everything we use today, we see that it is also illogical on the grounds that capitalism has been the dominant system for several hundred years, and it has had time to develop unlike the first attempts at building socialism. To say that we can’t criticize capitalism because we depend on it today would be like attacking capitalism from a feudal perspective, pointing out that capitalism could not have accomplished anything without feudalism. How can the pro-capitalist sing the praises of capitalist innovation when so much of that innovation is based on previous technology, in turn based on previous scientific knowledge and methodology, all dating back centuries, even thousands of years in some cases, developed by societies which existed long before the development of capitalism and the money-based economy. Does capitalism owe a debt to the theocratic Islamic Caliphate, under which a great deal of crucial inventions and scientific advances were made? Try that argument next time a capitalist apologist tells you to thank capitalism.

Class Nature & Origin of these Arguments
 These myths persist like urban legends. They are often the products of various think tanks and right-wing organizations who bankroll the books, television, and radio programs of pundits whose job is to convince working class people to align with the businessmen at the top, rather than consider their own interests.

Propoganda has Always Played a Large Role in the Ruling Class' Fear Campaigns

Because there is an inherent contradiction between these two classes, in that what benefits one class necessarily comes at the expense of the other, the apologists for capitalism have little choice but to resort to illogical arguments in favor of capitalism. No wonder that right-wing punditry seems to prefer focusing on social issues, creating false outrages every week, and generally relying mainly on emotional appeals, especially fear.

Conclusion

Explaining that a capitalist deserves to profit off of others’ labor because he allegedly takes a risk simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Thus, the right today seems far more interested in convincing our fellow workers that they are in danger of a Marxist dictatorship, being taken over by “illegal aliens,” that their religion is under attack, and so forth. We must obviously engage and expose these lies, since if we attack the foundations of those myths which are used to justify capitalism in the eyes of the worker, it can only help towards building class consciousness. When class consciousness becomes strong enough, and the working class is fully aware of their class interests, all the whining, fear-mongering, and conspiracies of a thousand Glenn Becks will be able to throw the working class off their course toward revolution.

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