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Why Socialism?

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.

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Categories Bahrain, Economic Exploitation, Economics, Egypt, Former Eastern Bloc, History, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Internet, Labor, Media & Culture, Myths About Socialism, Reactionary Watch, Revolutionary History, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Science, Soviet Union (USSR), Theory, Women's Rights, Workers Struggle, World History, Yemen
Author The Red Phoenix

Leave it to the Market?

13 Feb

For more than twenty years now, the “free market” has been the rallying cry of American politics. Conservatives sing its praises while occasionally betraying it when it suits their constituency, liberals won’t criticize it but claim that it needs to be fixed, and then you have the libertarians, for which the market is, for all intents and purposes, a stand-in for God. Like many other words often heard in politics such as “liberty” or “democracy,” the “free market” has been used so frequently that it is rarely ever questioned. This concept of a “free market” is accepted as something real; the only disagreements arise when people discuss what constitutes a violation of free market principles, or in other words, what actions fetter the market to the point where it can no longer be called “free?” All the loudest voices in American politics tell us that one way or another the market will solve our problems, either with prudent regulation by the state or by leaving it completely unfettered by government interference. What you will not hear, at least in the mainstream discourse, is that the market itself, or more correctly its dominance of our society and our entire way of life, is the real root of the problem facing human society.

Before tackling the market and its influence over human society, one point should be clarified. This article will deal primarily with the arguments of neo-liberals and libertarians as opposed to modern liberals. Since liberals do not openly preach the virtues and supremacy of the free market, choosing instead to insist that market excesses can be limited, fixed, or altogether prevented by wise government regulation, their arguments fall outside the scope of this article. There are plenty of arguments to explain why the regulation proposed by liberals will either not succeed or will not have a lasting, much less permanent impact, the strongest being the fact that liberals themselves often point to the regulation and government intervention of past decades to support their own arguments. It stands to reason that if past regulations could be repealed over time thanks to successful lobbying on the part of wealthy corporations and businesses, the same thing could happen again five, ten, or maybe twenty years after the passing of new regulatory laws in some hypothetical future. And of course, this also assumes that these regulations would even pass through the political system at all. In any case, the liberal solution of correcting the market via limited government intervention is a topic for another article. This article shall deal specifically with the arguments of those who exalt the market the most, namely, the libertarians.

Libertarianism has a long history in the United States and a few other privileged countries, all of which, incidentally, achieved their economic greatness by doing more or less the exact opposite of what libertarians believe in. While the Libertarian Party has existed since 1971, the ideology seems to have gained widespread mainstream attention with the presidential campaigns of Representative Ron Paul and his “Ron Paul Revolution,” which has effectively utilized the internet to bring his message to a wider audience. It is amusing to note that the internet, which has its roots in government-sponsored research, serves as the basis for the success of Ron Paul’s movement. Ironic though that may be, no objective observer can deny that Paul’s populist message has gained considerable success among many segments of the population who should otherwise be politically opposed to one another. This fact speaks to two fundamental truths about American politics. The first is that populist messages, which are specifically designed to appeal to a broad spectrum of political belief systems, are highly potent. The second is that widespread dissatisfaction with the mainstream political system and the usual politics of our two-party system has left many people wide open to such populist messages, and it would do well for many of them to dig a little deeper into the ideology espoused by Ron Paul and his ilk. While Paul sets himself up as a hero of the so-called “middle class” against the powerful elite represented by the mainstream candidates of both parties, he is in fact nothing more than an agent of the wealthiest segment of the American ruling class. While Ron Paul and his supporters claim that they oppose corporate power over the United States, the ultimate result of his libertarian rhetoric is the preservation of that very same power.

Of course stating this inevitably causes outrage among Paul’s cultist-like supporters. Many Ron Paul supporters, and in particular the disturbingly large amount of confused “leftists,” insist that they oppose large corporations. In fact they insist that our system is not “real capitalism” and hasn’t been for some time; they say it is “crony capitalism” or “corporatism.” In the past the Red Phoenix has dealt with this question of “real capitalism” vs. “crony capitalism,” and suffice to say that asking people who make this claim to clarify just when the American system was “real capitalism” can provoke some really ridiculous answers, if any answer at all. Here, however, we shall look at one aspect of libertarian ideology, namely the claim that libertarianism opposes corporate power. We shall see that the solution to this problem, like the libertarian solution to every problem, is to leave everything to the market to decide. Lastly, we will see why this non-solution, assuming it actually could be implemented, would only lead to literal corporate tyranny with no democratic accountability.

Many of Ron Paul’s supporters, particularly those lured from the left, are unaware of his ideological background. As it turns out, in the political realm what you don’t know can in fact hurt you. Paul’s economic and social theories are inspired primarily by the so-called Austrian School of economics, so named for the nationality of its original founders and adherents such as Karl Menger, Eugene Bohm-Bauwerk, Ludwig von Mises, and Friedrich Hayek. This article is no place to delve into the myriad of problems with Austrian economic theory, so we shall focus rather on the modern arguments advanced by populists such as Ron Paul when it comes to the market and our current system.

The Austrians were not the first to propose that the market reconciles the self-interest of individuals for the better of society; this idea can be traced to Adam Smith’s idea of the “invisible hand” which would promote the general welfare even though individuals in the market would be acting out of self-interest. There are a few key differences between this classical view and that of Austrian Schoolers, however. The first is that adherents to Austrian School economics, and indeed virtually all libertarians in general, express no concern over whether market activity promotes a better society; society does not matter, only individuals. Secondly, Austrian school supporters see the market as the only reliable source of information which can be used by individuals to allocate scarce resources in the most efficient way. In other words, without the market, which labels commodities with prices, it would be impossible for investors to know the best avenues for investing their capital. Hence it is necessary to leave the market alone so as not to cause any distortions which might lead bad investments. It is obvious that this theory contradicts those in favor of a planned economy, and indeed Austrian School theorists such as Bohm-Bauwerk, Hayek, and von Mises all received great praise for their attempts to “refute” Marxist theory. In fact, while the Austrian School is generally rejected even by mainstream neo-liberal economists, they just happen to more or less agree on the idea that socialist planning will always be inherently flawed. Even the most ridiculous ideas will find their proponents if they serve the status quo, and that is the main reason why people like Ron Paul still have a job.

According to libertarians like Ron Paul and his supporters, government regulation and intervention are to blame for “too-big-to-fail” banks and the consolidation of power into the hands of a small group of multi-national companies. The market, left to its own devices, would supposedly prevent the rise of such mega-corporations, which we are told received their power via government aid on their behalf, including stifling regulations which supposedly bar potential competitors from entering the market. In fact, whatever the issue, you can rest assured that to the libertarian, the culprit is always “government,” and the answer is always the free market. If one wants to try to get a handle on what libertarian society would actually look like, it is necessary to dig into these concepts a little deeper.

First, there is no disputing the claim corporations and private companies have benefitted from government largesse, and this certainly does benefit the largest multinational corporations. Businesses lobby the government, back electoral campaigns, and in return they receive deregulation legislation, subsidies, favorable trade deals and other perks. Libertarians tell us they are against this unholy marriage of the private and state sector, but there are a number of flaws with their understanding of this relationship.

According to libertarians, large corporations use their lobbying power to support stifling regulations which will bar potential competitors from entering the market. In other words, if it weren’t for mean old Monsanto and their lobbying efforts, you’d have all kinds of mom and pop chemical producers popping up all over the country to engage in healthy capitalist competition and prevent the rise of monopolies. Now some people might suggest, for example, that one reason it’s difficult to start your own airline is because airplanes are expensive to buy and operate. This would be wrong however; the market decides the price of airplanes, spare parts, and so on, ergo it is fair and just. Government regulation is the problem!

The problems with this claim are so manifold it’s difficult to decide where to begin. Perhaps the most glaring flaw is the idea that corporate lobbyists support regulatory legislation. In almost all cases the opposite is true; corporations lobby to eliminate, not implement, government regulation in their various spheres. The second most obvious error is the implication that if we could somehow roll back our current system to that non-existent form which libertarians insist is “true capitalism,” successful capitalists wouldn’t use their wealth to influence the remnants of the state to their favor. We’re supposed to believe that the new generation of capitalists, without any restriction whatsoever, will all play fair and not try to gain any unfair advantage by lobbying the government for benefits such as tax breaks or subsidies. The very idea is laughable, but it is by no means the most serious logical flaw this ideology has to offer.

We must at some point in the debate ask, “What is the market?” The market, in abstract, is an institution where exchange and distribution take place. In concrete terms, however, the market consists of people, that is to say individual buyers and sellers. This condition, where individuals confront each other in the market for the purpose of exchange, and more importantly the dominance of this institution in the case of capitalist society, forms the basis for the liberal cult of the “individual,” but this is a matter for another article. Here it is enough to say that in theory, buyers and sellers enjoy formal equality. This is where the problem lies, for while buyers and sellers are formally equal, they are unequal according to their possessions, that is to say they differ according to how much and what kind of property they own, what they have to sell, and how much money they have. Since distribution is determined by market transactions, agents must enter and participate in market exchange to get their necessities of life. To engage in exchange, agents need money, and in order to get money they must have a commodity they can sell. The worker’s commodity is labor power, the capacity to perform productive labor. Again, in theory, the worker and capitalist are allegedly on an equal footing when they confront each other in the market. Outside of the realm of economic theory, we can easily see this isn’t the case. Capitalists own capital, that is both money capital and means of production, hence in the market they hold all the cards. Since workers don’t possess necessary property, that is means of production, to produce everything they need to survive, they do not have the choice of withholding their labor power from the capitalists; starvation would be the result.

Once we step out of the realm of ruling-class economic theory and into the real world, we understand that “leaving it to the market” doesn’t mean leaving our fate to some abstract institution but rather putting it in the hands of a few real, live people, and hoping they will somehow arrive at the best, most beneficial results for all of society out of their own self-interest. In other words, it’s not that far removed from the libertarians’ inaccurate description of socialism, only replace government with private capitalists.

Worse still, libertarians exalt the individual and openly declare that they do not care about society, nor the “greater good,” indeed some have routinely and openly insisted that society doesn’t exist. That should give one pause any time a libertarian evangelist insists that their way of thinking would be best for “our nation.” Try as they might, however, libertarians cannot bend material reality. While their worldview divides human civilization into the “state” and “private sector” and holds as sacred the concept of “private property,” in the real world there can be no private property without the state and its organs of violence with which it enforces the existing property relations. If we look back into history we see that the rise of the very first state coincides with the emerging necessity to establish and enforce property rights, and as these rights and relations changed over time, so too has the state.

Ron Paul and his populist goons are selling a chimerical Utopian vision which runs contrary to the historical record. While his supporters will claim that our contemporary system isn’t “real capitalism,” they aren’t so forthcoming when asked to say when this “real capitalism” allegedly existed. When they attempt to do so, it is only a matter of pointing out the atrocious living conditions of the majority of people, crushing restrictions on civil rights, poor quality products, and of course the ever-present government intervention in the economy, if not in the form of regulation but rather protectionism, subsidies, and other handouts. Whenever they insist that we had a truly “free market” at some time in the past, ask for specifics, do a little research, and you’ll find that the market had restrictions on it then. In fact as Ha Joon Chang so eloquently pointed out in his book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism, there is no such thing as a free market, and never has been. More importantly, there has never been a single country in world history which has followed Austrian School economic theories to economic prosperity, if at all; anyone who tells you otherwise is either blatantly lying or simply ignorant. Support for Ron Paul is ultimately support for the ruling class, only by another route. Do not be fooled by populist hucksters who promise to explain the world in bite-sized nuggets of bumper-sticker “common sense.” If Ron Paul truly believed in his principles he wouldn’t work for the federal government, and that goes doubly if he were truly a threat to the working class. Paul may seem a world apart from Obama or Romney, but he exists to lead us to the very same destination.

The Austrian School of economics is a complicated subject. Though it is generally rejected by all mainstream schools of economic thought, the latter more or less agree with the former on some key concepts, such as the concept of marginal utility. With this in mind, the reader is invited to look into the matter further with a number of critiques of Austrian theory from several different perspectives, including Marxist and mainstream.

Further Reading

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Austrian_School

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/austrian.html

https://critiqueofcrisistheory.wordpress.com/responses-to-readers-austrian-economics-versus-marxism/

http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/law-of-value-8-subjectobject/

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1927/leisure-economics/index.htm

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Categories Economic Exploitation, Economics, Economy, Government, History, Imperialism, Labor, Media & Culture, Myths About Socialism, Science, Theory, U.S. News, Workers Struggle, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

The Rise and Fall of Third Worldism – Part 1

1 Jan

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.

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Categories Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colonialism, Congo, Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Economic Exploitation, Economics, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Former Eastern Bloc, France, Ghana, Guatemala, History, Imperialism, Imperialist War, India, Indonesia, International, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, Mozambique, Netherlands, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Republic of Korea, Revolutionary History, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Science, Second World War, South Africa, Soviet Union (USSR), Syria, Taiwan, Tanzania, Theory, U.S. Military, United Kingdom, United States History, Vietnam, Workers Struggle, World History, Yugoslavia, Zaire, Zimbabwe, Zionism
Author The Red Phoenix

Marxism and Cults of Personality

5 Nov

In the age of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, their ideas are made the ruling ones by the use of power. From historical analysis to modern political practices, their hegemony can be seen in action. Hyper-individualism, substituting metaphysics and mysticism in place of sober and scientific analysis — these delusions are preached in nearly every classroom, from the mouth of nearly every parent to their children. Bourgeois analysis is infectious. It’s legacy advances a purposeful misunderstanding of history, of political life today and of ourselves as social actors. Even within the movement of those who would resist capitalism, imperialism and bourgeois hegemony, the ideology of the bourgeoisie has persisted. It has corrupted and destroyed movements, and among some ostensibly “revolutionary” organizations, it continues to lead to their ideological and practical degeneration.

One of the gravest instances of revolutionary movements becoming corrupted by bourgeois ideology is in the creation of personality cults around leaders within these movements. From Kim Il-Sung to Abimael Guzmán (known as Chairmen Gonzalo of the Communist Party of Peru, referred to in the media as the “Shining Path”), Mao Tse-Tung to Nicolae Ceaușescu, even in the case of dedicated Marxist-Leninists like Joseph Stalin and Enver Hoxha, personality cults have been propped up in revolutionary movements for counterrevolutionary purposes. While in some cases the personality cults met resistance from those subjected to it, with the main manipulators of them doing so to work against such leaders, many movements and political leaders have cultivated the anti-Marxist cults around them to achieve their political aspirations. These opportunists inevitably helped in the restoration of capitalism, of bourgeois ideology and counterrevolution, despite the assurances of their cults to their revolutionary nature. Personality cults never serve revolution, and must be exposed for their bourgeois nature and counterrevolutionary purpose.

The Metaphysics of the Magic Man

To expose the reactionary nature of personality cults, one must understand that the theoretical basis for a cult of personality is entirely metaphysical. Rather than accurately view individuals in their role in history, which requires that one examine the material conditions which existed outside of the volition of individuals, what we see employed in cults of personality is a metaphysics — an analysis which attributes events in the material realm as being influenced by forces outside or above the material — that serves to fetishize the central character within the personality cult as having insight, abilities and inherent worth greater than any other human being. When it becomes the policy of a group, a movement or a society to refer to any particular leader or leaders using messianic terms, treating a person or persons as being “more” than human, a cult and the metaphysics which guide it are formed.

In a personality cult, the cult leader’s word is final — it is the pinnacle of their analysis, the chief lens of their historical analysis and the origin of activity. The consistency of the analysis that a movement begins to fade as the cult rises. It is because the standard of the “magic man,” the metaphysical notion that the leader is always right and no other analysis is necessary, takes precedence over whatever ideology or systems they had put forward before. When confronted with a contradiction between past and present actions and statements of their cult, the good cultist will reach for an excuse, often a sound-bite generated by the cult leader themselves. These attempts at artful dodges reveal the priorities of the cult, which are the cult itself and not a movement, and reveal norms which are at play. Whereas Marxist-Leninist discourse and norms of democratic-centralism promote criticism and self-criticism among all members of an organization, for a cult, there must always be one exception. How an organization treats democratic-centralism in relation to the figure acknowledged to be their leader represents the dividing line between cult and party — any organization who would put any person above democratic centralism has engaged in cultism and taken up metaphysics as their ideological base, ultimately leading to the promotion of bourgeois theory.

Bourgeois Theory, Bourgeois Practice

In the view of a personality cult, the wisdom and guidance of the leader is the best means, and often the only means, of achieving revolution and remaking society. The analysis of a cult leader being the sole means of attaining social change might sound at first like something that would not have a place outside of small religious and political cults like those of Heaven’s Gate and Lyndon LaRouche’s “movement,” yet we can find a similar analysis in the writings of Max Weber, a bourgeois sociologist who played a significant role in developing bourgeois sociology and the American conception of class.

Weber argued that in our society there exists three kinds of authority: legal-rational authority, traditional authority and charismatic authority. While downplaying (if not eliminating altogether) the role of class, he generalized that the emergence of capitalism signified a shift from traditionalism, basing one’s norms and rules on what had been done since the very beginning, to rationalism, engendering the creation of vast bureaucracies to manage human activity. He referred to the latter as the “iron cage” of legal rational authority, which was ultimately inescapable, save for a few brief moments of rebellion against bureaucratism.

These few moments of resistance, in Weber’s view, originated in the third kind of authority being implemented by charismatic actors. The charismatic actor is perceived as being the only means of achieving motion against the juggernaut of bureaucracy and legal-rational authority. This analysis falls in line with the “great man theory of history,” which has it that historical events are brought about through the volition and movement of individuals of spectacular qualities. What Weber does with this analysis is attempt to apply it as the rule and central motivating factor behind social movements against existing institutions of power. While it is inevitable that we will be gobbled up by the encroachment of bureaucracy into our daily lives and habits, Weber argues, we find temporary relief in charismatic figures who lead resistance efforts against the inevitable and promise an alternative to the iron cage.

Weber’s Delusion and Bourgeois Political Practice

Max Weber’s notions of charismatic authority should sound familiar to anyone who has for any length monitored media coverage of U.S. Presidential elections, or has sat in a classroom learning U.S. history from the prevailing perspective. Personality politics and bourgeois historical analysis attribute societal change, both positive and negative, as being generated by individuals themselves rather than as a result of the motion of larger forces. As such, every election in our country becomes a pageant with the leading politicians and their campaigns geared around inflating the personality and achievements of one political actor while targeting the personality flaws and personal histories of his opponents.

American politics throughout history has been characterized by a number of personality cults, with great monuments, fictitious legends and spectacular feats laid at the feet of these figures. In South Dakota, a massive monument to “founding fathers” George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, “the great emancipator” Abraham “Honest Abe” Lincoln and Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, is carved into the side of a mountain on lands stolen from the Lakota. We are taught in schools that a small group of brilliant and freedom-loving men one day decided to throw off the bonds of European colonialism, who built a “democracy,” despite the inability for women, the poor and those not deemed “white” inherent in this “democracy,” despite owning slaves and vast tracts of land as the basis for their economic and political power. We are taught that the documents they authored are “living documents,” that the constitution of this country is “sacred” and the basis of our legal system uses constitutionality (from a constitution which originally allowed slavery) as being the final standard for legal action.

The ghosts of these men are seen as the final authority on correct action even today. The Republican Party, for instance, beats the corpse of Ronald Reagan on a daily basis, while the Democrats try to resurrect Franklin Delano Roosevelt, despite the fact that both figures would be politically unacceptable among the contemporary Republican and Democratic Parties. The old cults, and new personality cults, are shoved down our throats every election year. The cult of Ron Paul has been trying to impose itself on the electoral cycle as an “alternative” to the leading parties, for instance. Outside of electoral politics we are subjected to a myriad of cults –cults of wealth, cults of celebrity and cults of athletic achievement — giving us examples of “magic” men and women who are fetishized for having money, being famous, being attractive, being good at a sport, etc. Oprah Winfrey has her own network, the “Oprah Winfrey Network,” (OWN) her own magazine with her image on every cover and a television show entitled “Oprah Presents: Master Class” where Oprah interviews other highly fetishized people. Personality cults, some more extreme than others, are something we’re raised with and exposed to every day of our lives. It’s what we’re taught to expect when the topic of politics is raised.

The Difference Between Theoretical Allegiance and Cultism, Science and Fetish

In order to avoid the pitfalls of metaphysical thinking, of personality politics and cultism, the revolutionary-minded person must be careful as to how individuals are treated in the context of the larger movement. This is not to say that we must not, or cannot, acknowledge the achievements and struggles of individuals in the context of history and in contemporary political practice. To do this is to not only deny the role that individuals have played in shaping history, to nullify these achievements and to downplay the struggle as it was felt on an individual level, but it also alienates us from our own role in the broader context of society. Our contributions matter, just as the contributions the revolutionaries and activists of the past mattered.

The central difference between acknowledging the contributions of individuals and fetishizing those individuals is in the method employed in analysis. The Marxist-Leninist utilizes a sober, scientific frame of analysis when regarding any historical figure, whether they are a revolutionary or a reactionary and basing their analysis on what can be demonstrated in material reality. The cultist, on the other hand, bases their analysis on what is ultimately an emotionalist plea. They have been taught to like the person they fetishize, and see them as being “in the right” because they are who they are, not so much what they did and how they did it. The Marxist-Leninist upholds Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin not out of some emotional affection, some love or worship of them as personalities. Rather, the Marxist-Leninist upholds them because their analysis is vindicated by history, and their efforts based within that theoretical analysis served the cause of revolution.

Stalin in particular has been viewed as being host to a cult of personality, and the presence of this cult has been utilized as a means of smearing Stalin as being megalomaniacal. Those who champion this line do not bother to consider that he rejected and spoke out against those who would try to form a cult around him, that one of the biggest proponents of the cult used it to speak out against him politically after his death and advance counterrevolution in the Soviet Union. Yet, at the same time, we must acknowledge that the presence of a cult meant that there was a weakness within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the years following the Second World War. Cults of personality are anti-Marxist no matter who is at the center of them, and it was the responsibility of those within the CPSU who were aware of the formation of this cult to work against it. While it is difficult to prescribe what must have been done in that situation, and while we must take into consideration that the Soviet Union was in the position of rebuilding after a World War, it is clear that the Marxist-Leninists must remain vigilant when it comes to cults of personality.

Conclusion: Cults Don’t Win Revolutions, Workers Do

While we cannot ignore the role of individuals in the development of history, in leading revolutions and in waging revolutionary struggles, at the same time we must maintain a materialist outlook and temper appreciation with sobriety. To do otherwise is to open the door for disaster, to create a situation wherein the revolutionary ideology of Marxism-Leninism can be abandoned for metaphysical worship. Cult’s don’t win revolutions — they sabotage them. Those who promote cultism within the revolutionary worker’s movement are either misguided or opportunist. Any “revolutionary” who promotes a cult of personality around themselves is a traitor, who has placed class struggle second to their own whims. Those who struggle for revolution must be made aware of the danger that cultism poses, because the struggle for revolution is bigger than any one person.

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Categories History, Imperialism, Media & Culture, Revolutionary History, Science, Theory, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Against the illusions of “movement building” for the party of insurrection

16 Oct

More realistic than any attempt to push Obama to the left.

We are all familiar with the organizer who organizer who organizes for the sake of organizing, with the politics which prioritizes tactical success in immediate daily work, while paying sterile lip service to an ultimate goal which is hardly taken seriously.

Indeed this type of activism is the norm at least in North America:

Take the case of Wisconsin where a puerile excitement over the manipulative games of Democratic Party state legislators (or worse the police “joining the people”), was far more common then a sober class perspective. Or the incoherent enthusiasm over the Arab uprisings which culminated in the idiotic comparison of the Libyan rebels to the social revolutionary factions in the Spanish Civil War.

Reactions such as these are symptomatic of a tendency which reduces political militancy to glorified social work and drowns any long term revolutionary perspective in the “urgent need” to achieve “practical” goals. .

Thus one is reduced to a disjointed struggle for reform, cheering all the representatives of populist nationalism and social democracy from Micheal Moore to Evo Morales with equal enthusiasm.

Any specific and analytical understanding of social reality which seeks to transcend the structural contradictions of the capitalist mode of production through the abolition of wage labor and the dichotomies it perpetuates is passed over in favor of an insubstantial lowest common denominator demand for “social justice”.

Obtaining the broadest base of “support” through the whole jettisoning of meaningful political content is prioritized over the hard work of contributing to the political construction of the class by the uncompromising assertion of the communist program.

There is nothing “realistic” about accepting the social democratic conception of what is possible, and reducing ones own political commitment to a paid position applying bandages to the gaping wounds of a slowly collapsing system.

France, Greece, the Arab insurrections, the European uprisings against austerity from Iceland to the Baltic, the flaming factories of Dhaka, the street fighting in Bishkek and the strike wave in China.

The spontaneous and incoherent response of the working class to the escalating capitalist offensive is already a global material reality. And the occasional explosions of mass violence occur against the backdrop of the universal experience of disaffection with the wage, the “pre-political” expression of nascent proletarian antagonism in mental illness, social dysfunction and apathy.

What do the populist politics of reform, disconnected single issue campaigns and “coalition building” have to say to this mute experience which struggles to find a voice?

Nothing:

They smother it and do their part in reproducing the ideological hegemony of the bourgeois with appeals to democracy, worker’s rights and the whole rhetorical paraphernalia of the commodity producing subject.

Because open articulation of the need to impose the communist program through insurrection would (we are told) “alienate” the mass of people. As if the mass of people were not already “alienated” from themselves in a quite literal sense of the word.

Constructed as functional subjects in the course of a violent dissociation from our own experience generated by waged and unwaged labor, sexual abuse, prisons, mass media and education, and medical and psychiatric “care”, the best the reformist left can offer us is complacent assistance in the perpetuation of the state of constant disassociation which is the substance of our daily misery.

And when the ever present contradiction between the forces and the relations of production erupts into the open we are enjoined to watch enthusiastically or offer our uncritical support when such explosions are inevitably recuperated into struggles for democratic social and political reform.

The task at hand is not the “struggle for social justice” but the organization of the party to coordinate and diffuse proletarian violence and affinity within the context of the protracted class war for the imposition of the communist program.

A program which can be summed up with elegant simplicity:

Freedom from wage dependency and freedom from sexual violence, the decisive end of the expropriation and mutilation of the creative energy of the body.

The death blow to the process which begins historically with the commodification of women and climaxes in the commodification of everything.

Any other program has nothing to say to the speechless forcibly silenced suffering which defines our lives.

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Categories Economics, Editorials, History, Imperialism, Labor, Media & Culture, Revolutionary History, Science, Theory, U.S. News, Uncategorized, United States History, Workers Struggle, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

EU sides with Monsanto in ‘GMO Cancer Corn’ word war

9 Oct

Anti-GMO activists rip open bags containing “MON 810″, a variety of genetically modified maize (corn) developed by Monsanto Company after entering a Monsanto storehouse (AFP Photo/Eric Cabanis)

The European Food Safety Authority has rejected a controversial study by French scientists linking GM corn to cancer. Many in Europe are already calling for stricter controls on GMOs, as farmers weigh the lucrative crops against health concerns.

In September, French scientists from the University of Caen released a study claiming that rats fed on a diet containing NK603 – a corn seed variety made tolerant to amounts of Monsanto’s Roundup weed-killer – or given water mixed with the product at levels permitted in the United States died earlier than those on a standard diet.

The study elicited calls for stricter controls on already unpopular genetically modified (GM) crops in Europe. France had already issued a temporary ban on another Monsanto corn seed (MON810) in May due to a similar study.

However, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) claimed the study lacked enough specific information on Friday, and asked the scientists who conducted it to provide more details on their testing methods. The move adds to the constant back and forth in the debate over genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The “design, reporting and analysis of the study … are inadequate,” the EFSA said in its review, concluding that it could not “regard the authors’ conclusions as scientifically sound.”

The EFSA took issue with the type of rat used in the study, specifically the albino Sprague-Dawley strain of rat. Sprague-Dawley rats have a tendency to develop cancers naturally over the course of their two-year life span, which was also the duration of the study.

“This means the observed frequency of tumors is influenced by the natural incidence of tumors typical of this strain, regardless of any treatment. This is neither taken into account nor discussed by the authors,” the EFSA said.

Gilles-Eric Seralini, the French researcher who conducted the study with his colleagues and published the results in the journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology in London was incredulous at the EFSA’s decision, and stated that he would not release any more information to the EFSA unless it provided justification for its conclusion.

“It is absolutely scandalous that [the EFSA] keeps secret the information on which they based their evaluation [of NK603],” he said.

“In any event, we will not give them anything. We will put the information in the public domain when they do,” Seralini said in an AFP report.

Please pass the GMO?

The French study caused waves of alarm across Europe, and even prompted a ban on the NK603 corn in Russia. A group of Russian scientists who oppose GMOs are hoping to conduct their own rat experiment, set to begin in March of 2013. They expect that their year-long experiment will show whether the controversial cultivation process has effects as dangerous as the French study claims.

In an effort to conduct their study as publicly as possible, Russian researchers from the National Association for Genetic Safety (NAGS) came up with the idea of web cameras installed in cages with the test rats, which will broadcast all stages of the experiment online. The unique reality show will be available on the internet 24/7 worldwide.

“This is a unique experiment,” project author Elena Sharoykina told RT. “There hasn’t been anything like it before – open, public research by opponents and supporters of GMO.”

Many GM crops are banned or controversial throughout Europe. France has strict regulations of GM crops, while GMOs are completely banned in Germany, Greece, Austria, Luxembourg, Hungary, and the UK over health concerns. GM crops are altered to be resistant to pesticides, a development which has caused an increase in the use of chemicals that have been linked to cancer and birth defects.

Still, the crops are attractive to farmers, Arkady Zlochevsky, president of the Russian Grain Union, told RT. For example, the Monsanto GMO NK603 corn in question has been modified to be resistant to Monsanto’s “Roundup” weed-killer, making the product easier and cheaper to grow with delivering better yields.

“The seed may be more expensive, but the development is significantly cheaper,” he said, stating that European GMO farmers find a 20 per cent increase in profit combined with a highly-marketable, top-quality product.

Study versus study

The EFSA’s criticism of the French study echoed that of numerous other experts across Europe that refuted the results. But as more and more studies emerge on both sides of the issue, the harder it becomes to identity where fact meets fiction.

Zlochevsky told RT that “There is no reliable proof of the ills of GMO; so far there have only been attempts to prove it.”

Monsanto’s study published in 2002 on corn strain NK603 concluded that “NK603 is as safe and nutritious as conventional corn currently being marketed,” and the specific proteins in the corn genetically altered to make the corn pesticide resistant “are not toxic to non-target organisms, including humans, animals and beneficial insects.”

But a study published recently in the UK by a genetic engineer from London’s King’s College of Medicine signaled that GM foods pose a more serious threat than advocates of research would have the public believe.

“GM crops are promoted on the basis of ambitious claims – that they are safe to eat, environmentally beneficial, increase yields, reduce reliance on pesticides and can help solve world hunger,” said Dr. Michael Antoniou, author of the report, which claims that research into GM crops is incomplete and tests on the effect of their consumption are not comprehensive enough.

Regulatory industries worldwide rely on companies selling GM products rather than independent testing, stipulates the paper.

Director of corporate communications for Monsanto, Phil Angell, summed up his company’s take on the issue in a report by food author Michael Pollan for New York Times Magazine in 1998: “Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”

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Categories Economic Exploitation, Environment, France, Government, Health Care, International, Russia, Science, Statements, U.S. News, Uncategorized
Author The Red Phoenix

Congressman calls evolution lie from ‘pit of hell’

6 Oct

Associated Press/Gregory Smith – FILE – In this Wednesday, July 2, 2008 file photo, 10th Congressional District Republican candidate Rep. Paul Broun speaks on the set of Georgia Public television in Atlanta. The Georgia representative said in videotaped remarks on Sept. 27, 2012 that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell” meant to convince people that they do not need a savior. The Republican lawmaker made those comments during a speech at a sportsman’s banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell. Broun, a medical doctor, is running for re-election in November unopposed by Democrats. (AP Photo/Gregory Smith)

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — Georgia Rep. Paul Broun said in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are “lies straight from the pit of hell” meant to convince people that they do not need a savior.

The Republican lawmaker made those comments during a speech Sept. 27 at a sportsman’s banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell. Broun, a medical doctor, is running for re-election in November unopposed by Democrats.

“God’s word is true,” Broun said, according to a video posted on the church’s website. “I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”

Broun also said that he believes the Earth is about 9,000 years old and that it was made in six days. Those beliefs are held by fundamentalist Christians who believe the creation accounts in the Bible to be literally true.

Broun spokeswoman Meredith Griffanti told the Athens Banner-Herald (http://bit.ly/Us4O0Z ) that Broun was recorded speaking off-the-record to a church group about his religious beliefs. He sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

It seems unlikely that Broun’s remarks were supposed to be kept private. The banquet was advertised, Broun spoke before an audience and the video of his remarks was posted on the church’s website.

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Categories Government, Reactionary Watch, Science, Statements, U.S. News
Author The Red Phoenix

Land sold off and used for biofuels could have fed 1 billion people – report

5 Oct

Indian labourers work in a field of Jatropha in the village of Hassan, some 250 kms from Bangalore. Jatropha, a wild shrub that grows abundantly across India, has been hailed as an eco-friendly solution to the energy needs. (AFP Photo / Mission Biofuels India)

2 million kilometers of foreign purchased land in developing countries is either idle or used for Western biofuel production, according to a British charity. Oxfam’s report estimates an area the size of London is sold every six days.

The report states that between 2000 and 2010, 60% of investment in agricultural land by foreign traders occurred in developing countries with hunger problems.

Yet two thirds of those investors plan to export everything they produce. While 60% of deals are to produce crops that can be used for biofuels. Land can also be left idle, as speculators wait for its value to increase.

Oxfam estimates that this land could have fed 1 billion people.

According to the International Land Coalition, an NGO based in Italy, 106 million hectares of land in developing countries has been acquired by foreign investors in a period between 2000-2010, with some disastrous results.

30% of all land in Liberia has been handed out in large scale concessions in the last 5 years, while up to 63% of all available land in Cambodia has been passed on to private companies.

Farmers forced out

Oxfam emphasizes that much of the land sold off was already being used for small scale and subsistence farming or other types of natural resource use.

The report dismissed claims by the World Bank that most of the sold land remains idle, waiting to be developed. In fact most agricultural land deals target quality farm land, particularly land that is irrigated and offers good access to markets.

A 2010 study by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) – the official monitoring and evaluation body of the World Bank – supported Oxfam’s findings.

It found that 30% of World Bank projects involved involuntary resettlement. The study estimated that 1 million people are involuntarily resettled in projects financed by the World Bank.

In some cases people were violently evicted from their land without consultation or compensation.

Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s chief executive, told British newspaper the Guardian that, “The rush for land is out of control and some of the world’s poorest people are suffering hunger, violence and greater poverty as a result. The World Bank is in a unique position to help stop land grabs becoming one of the biggest scandals of the century.”

Internally displaced children line up to receive a food ration at a food distribution point at a voluntary centre in Mogadishu, Somalia. (AFP Photo / Mohamed Dahir)

Freeze investments

Oxfam has urged the World Bank to freeze its investments in large scale land acquisitions in poor nations.

In the last decade the World Bank has tripled its support for land projects to $6-$8 billion a year, but it does not provide data on how much of this goes to land acquisition or any connection between lending and conflict in a country.

Oxfam wants the World Bank to make sure that information about land deals is publicly accessible, that communities are informed in advance and have the right to agree to or refuse to participate in projects.

Stocking said that the UK, as one of the banks largest shareholders and next year’s president of the G8, should try and get these land deals frozen.

“The UK should also show leadership in reversing flawed biofuels targets, which are a main driver for land and are diverting food into fuel. It can also play a crucial role as president of the G8 next year by putting food and hunger at the heart of the agenda,” Stocking said.

But in a statement released to the Guardian, the international Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private lending arm, defended its past transactions.

“IFC does not finance land acquisitions for speculative purposes. We invest in productive agricultural and forestry enterprises that can be land intensive to help provide the food and fiber the world needs.”

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Categories Economic Exploitation, Economy, Environment, International, Italy, Science, U.S. News, Workers Struggle
Author The Red Phoenix

Revealed: Monsanto GM corn caused tumors in rats

20 Sep

French scientists have revealed that rats fed on GMO corn sold by American firm Monsanto, suffered tumors and other complications including kidney and liver damage. When testing the firm’s top brand weed killer the rats showed similar symptoms.

The French government has asked its health and safety agency to assess the study and had also sent it to the European Union’s food safety agency, Reuters reports.

“Based on the conclusion…, the government will ask the European authorities to take all necessary measures to protect human and animal health, measures that could go as far as an emergency suspension of imports of NK603 maize in the European Union,” the French health, environment and farm ministries said in a joint statement.

Researchers from the University of Caen found that rats fed on a diet containing NK603 – a seed variety made tolerant to amounts of Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller – or given water mixed with the product, at levels permitted in the United States – died earlier than those on a standard diet.

The research conducted by Gilles-Eric Seralini and his colleagues, said the rats suffered mammary tumors, as well as severe liver and kidney damage. The study was published in the journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology and presented at a news conference in London.

Fifty percent of male and 70 percent of female rats died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group, said the researchers.

Monsanto spokesman, Thomas Helscher, said the company would review the study thoroughly but stated that other scientific studies had proved the biotech crops’ safety.

Some scientists however criticized the French researchers’ statistical methods and the use of a particular type of rat, saying the albino Sprague-Dawley strain of animal had a tendency to develop cancers.

But despite skepticism, the study draws attention to controversy surrounding genetically modified crops and the US biotech giant Monsanto.

Michael Antoniou, a molecular biologist at King’s College London – who acted as an adviser to Seralini’s team – told reporters that the study stresses the “need to test all GMO crops in two-year lifelong studies”.

“I feel this data is strong enough to withdraw the marketing approval for this variety of GMO maize temporarily, until this study is followed up and repeated with larger number of animals to get the full statistical power that we want,” he said as quoted by Reuters.

Last Friday France said it will uphold a ban on genetically modified crops produced by the Monsanto. The move came as President Francois Hollande pushed his plan to put the environment back at the top of the international agenda.

In the wake of the publication, Jose Bove, vice-chairman of the European Parliament’s commission for agriculture, called for an immediate suspension of all EU cultivation and import authorizations of genetically modified crops.

“This study finally shows we are right and that it is urgent to quickly review all GMO evaluation processes,” he said following the announcement of the research.

While being widely used in the United States, GMO crops have been less popular among European consumers, due to concerns about its impact on people’s health and the environment.

In California, opponents of genetically engineered food are fighting to have it removed from the food supply. They are also pushing to pass Proposition 37, a law that would legally require genetically modified foods to be labeled as such. Monsanto stands opposed to such a proposal and has donated over $4.2 million to lobby against it.

Agriculturalists across America have previously tried to take the biotech giant to court over charges stemming from their lab-made corn GMOs. Over 2,000 farmers have petitioned the US government to more thoroughly investigate the impact that genetically modified corn crop from Monsanto will have on the country.

As RT reported before, Monsanto wants to plant a corn variant across America’s Midwest that will be resistant to a powerful pesticide produced with 2,4-D, the same compound crucial to the make-up of the notorious Vietnam War-era killer Agent Orange. If approved, the new corn will be able to thrive as farmers douse their fields in the chemical, killing off unwanted weeds in the process, while at the same time subjecting Americans to a pesticide linked to cancer risks.

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Categories Economic Exploitation, Environment, France, Health Care, International, Reactionary Watch, Science, Statements, U.S. News, Uncategorized
Author The Red Phoenix

New study says the Cheonan was sunk by mine, not North Korean torpedo

1 Sep

The wreckage of the Cheonan warship now sits in Pyongtaek Second Naval Command Base. A new academic study says the ship may have been sunk by a mine instead of a North Korean torpedo. In this photo, Hankyoreh reporters speak with the base’s PR staff on August 16. (by Lee Jeong-ah, staff reporter)

Scientific analysis shows signs of a powerful underwater explosion

By Oh Cheol-woo, science correspondent

An article has been published in an international academic journal arguing that the explosion that sank the South Korean Cheonan warship in March 2010 may not have been from a North Korean torpedo, but from a mine discarded by the South Korean navy.

This is the second scientific study on the Cheonan sinking published in an academic journal, the first being a seismic analysis published last year by Yonsei University Department of Earth System Sciences professor Hong Tae-kyung. That study supported the findings of the government’s joint investigation team.

In the study published in the international academic journal “Pure and Applied Geophysics,” Korea Seismological Institute director Kim So-gu and the Geophysical Institute of Israel’s Yefim Gitterman wrote that analysis of the seismic waves, acoustic waves and bubble frequency made it clear an underwater explosion took place.

They said the seismic magnitude of the explosion was 2.04, that of 136kg of TNT and equivalent to the individual yield of the large number of land control mines abandoned by the Korean navy after they were first installed in the 1970s.

The findings are noteworthy in that they differ greatly from those of the Civilian-Military Joint Investigation Group (MCNJIG), which found the cause of the sinking to be a North Korean CHT-02D torpedo with a yield of 250kg of TNT exploding at a depth of six to nine meters, producing a seismic yield of 1.5.

In the thesis, the research team analyzed the cause of the underwater explosion through equations, models and simulations examining the frequency of gas bubbles that expand rapidly after an explosion and the amount of explosive yield needed to produce them.

The repeated expansion and contraction of bubbles, which expand quickly with an explosion but then contract due to water pressure, causes damage to a ship.

The time it takes for one expansion and contraction is called the bubble pulse period. In their observed data, Kim and Gitterman calculated the bubble pulse period – a value needed to determine explosive yield and explosion depth – to be 0.990 seconds.

Kim and Gitterman then made calculations based on various explosive yields and depths and found that an explosion of 136km of TNT at 8m in depth would produce the bubble pulse period in the observed data.

Kim and Gitterman said confirmation attempts using several methods showed that an explosion of 250kg of TNT produced results too discordant with the observed bubble pulse period.

MCMJIG also considered the possibility that the explosion was caused by a land control mine.

According to the MCMJIG findings report published in 2010, the Korean navy – following a 1985 decision that they were no longer necessary – abandoned its land control mines on the ocean floor after a process of deactivation that involved the cutting of their long fuse lines. The mines were placed around Korea’s West Sea islands along the Northern Limit Line in 1977.

MCMJIG excluded the mines as a possible cause of the explosion, saying that a land control mine with a yield of 136kg of TNT would have been unable to cut a ship’s hull in two at 47m, the water depth at which the incident took place.

Kim said, “The results of the MCMJIG study did not sufficiently reflect the basics of underwater explosions and bubble dynamics. As other possibilities are being raised, there should be a reinvestigation to scientifically study the cause of the explosion.”

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Categories Anti-War, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Imperialism, Imperialist War, International, Media & Culture, Science, Statements, U.S. News
Author The Red Phoenix

Akin rape theory rooted in Nazi death camp experiments

23 Aug

By David Edwards

The theory behind Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) assertion earlier this week that women who are victims of “legitimate” rape would not get pregnant appears to be based on 1972 research that cites experiments done in Nazi concentration camps, a Missouri newspaper reported on Monday.

During an interview with KTVI over the weekend, Akin had claimed that women were not likely to get pregnant because “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

This reasoning, based on 1972 article by a University of Minnesota Medical School assistant professor, has been used for decades by anti-abortion activists to argue that no exceptions to abortion bans are necessary, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

In the article titled “The Indications for Induced Abortion: A Physician’s Perspective,” Dr. Fred Mecklenburg concluded that it “is extremely rare” for a rape to result in pregnancy.

Mecklenburg cited a number of factors for his theory, including that not all rapes resulted in “completed act of intercourse” and that it was “improbable” that a rape would occur within “the 1-2 days of the month in which the woman would be fertile.”

But it was Mecklenburg’s presumption that a traumatized rape victim “will not ovulate even if she is ‘scheduled’ to” that appeared to be the basis of Akin’s recent remarks.

To support his conclusion, Mecklenburg cited studies that were allegedly done at extermination camps in Nazi Germany.

Nazis reportedly tested the theory “by selecting women who were about to ovulate and sending them to the gas chambers, only to bring them back after their realistic mock-killing, to see what the effect this had on their ovulatory patterns. An extremely high percentage of these women did not ovulate,” the article said.

Mecklenburg also speculated that “frequent masturbation” was likely to make rapists infertile.

More recent research, however, has debunked the ideas Mecklenburg’s article.

“From a scientific standpoint, what’s legitimate and fair to say is that a woman who is raped has the same chances of getting pregnant as a woman who engaged in consensual intercourse during the same time in her menstrual cycle,” American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Dr. Barbara Levy told the Post-Dispatch.

A 1992 study by the Medical University of South Carolina determined that the “national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.” Many experts believe that number could be significantly higher because an estimated 54 percent of rapes are not reported.

[Photo: Shutterstock.com]

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Categories Discrimination, Germany, Government, Health Care, History, International, Racism, Reactionary Watch, Science, Statements, U.S. News, Women's Rights, Workers Struggle, World History
Author The Red Phoenix

Greenhouse in Greenland: 97% of ice surface shows melting

2 Aug

Satellites see unprecedented Greenland ice sheet surface melt (Image: NASA)

Almost all of Greenland’s ice shield melted at the surface this month, says NASA. The event, unseen at such a scale in more than 30 years of satellite observations, has puzzled scientists.

Naturally, some of the island’s ice is expected to melt during the summer, but this year’s observations from three NASA satellites have shown something unusual – the melting occurred in a flash and over a widespread area. Even Greenland’s coldest and highest place, Summit Station, showed signs of melting.

Son Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California was analyzing radar data from a satellite when he noticed that most of Greenland appeared to have undergone surface melting on July 12.
“This was so extraordinary that at first I questioned the result: was this real or was it due to a data error?” NASA cited his words on its website.

In a matter of only four days, starting on July 8, the affected area had spread from 40 per cent of the ice shield to a staggering 97 per cent. This by far exceeds the maximum registered level of 55 per cent.
“When we see melt in places that we haven’t seen before, at least in a long period of time, it makes you sit up and ask what’s happening?” AP quoted the agency’s chief scientist Waleed Abdalati as saying. “It’s a big signal, the meaning of which we’re going to sort out for years to come.”

Other experts, including NASA ice scientist Tom Wagner, say they are not able to determine at this point whether a rare natural phenomenon is being observed or one triggered by man-made global warming – large-scale melting has happened in Greenland before. Still, they note that the edges of the island’s ice sheets have already been thinning due to climate change.

Ice core records from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years.

“With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. “But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome.”

Summer in Greenland has been unusually hot this year. That is due to high pressure air that has been accumulating recently over the island, bringing clear weather and prompting ice and snow to melt. Thomas Mote, a climatologist at the University of Georgia, says these events are similar to those affecting the United States, where record-breaking temperatures have caused severe drought.

Source

U.S. Army Funding Development of “Robot Soldier”

29 Mar

Petman bears an uncanny resemblance to the Terminator and is also into fitness.
(Credit: Video screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)

Boston Dynamics’ Petman humanoid soldier looks pretty confident strutting its stuff on the treadmill.

by Tim Hornyak

Science fact often follows science fiction. Hence, the U.S. Army is funding development of a Terminator-style robot soldier.

Boston Dynamics has released new video of its Petman robot and its resemblance to the T-800 is uncanny.

The vid below shows the anthropomorphic bot (aka the Protection Ensemble Test Mannequin) walking on a treadmill, doing squats, and pumping out push-ups without breaking a sweat. All it needs is a metal skull head and a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range.

The maker of the notorious BigDog and AlphaDog quadruped bots says Petman is just “an anthropomorphic robot for testing chemical protection clothing used by the U.S. Army.”

The droid, scheduled for delivery next year, is supposed to go through various maneuvers wearing a suit and taking heavy doses of chemical warfare agents. Roughly 6 feet tall, it will also mimic human physiology, generating heat and sweating for added realism.

Petman is designed to improve on previous machines that tested chemical weapons suits and is billed as “the first anthropomorphic robot that moves dynamically like a real person.”

It’s not the first machine with that advertising. Petman seems like Honda’s P series prototypes of the 1990s that preceded the development of Asimo. Honda’s mechatronic mascot, however, was designed to help out in a human environment, not a military lab, and thus has hands and AI capabilities.

Petman may be used in applications other than suit-testing, according to Boston Dynamics President Marc Raibert.

“There are all sorts of things robots like Petman could be used for,” Raibert was quoted as saying by IEEE Spectrum. “Any place that has been designed for human access, mobility, or manipulation skills.

“Places like the Fukushima reactors could be accessed by Petman-like robots (or AlphaDogs), without requiring any human exposure to hazardous materials. Perhaps firefighting inside of buildings or facilities designed for human access, like on board ships designed for human crews.”

Or it could always wear a muscle suit and become a movie star.

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Categories Government, Imperialism, Imperialist War, Media & Culture, Science, U.S. News, Videos
Author The Red Phoenix

Cuba’s Lung Cancer Vaccine Could Save Your Life

28 Mar

Cuba, famed maker of delicious (and cancery) cigars, may just have an anti-lung cancer vaccine that’s worth getting excited about. CimaVax-EGF isn’t preventative, but it may make this horrible deadly disease just a plain old horrible disease.

The newly available CimaVax-EGF is the product of 25 years of cancer research by Cuban medical authorities. While it cannot prevent cancer or remove cancer, it can do much to limit its effects on your body. In short, it should make cancer a manageable chronic disease. You probably won’t feel great, but it may keep cancer from killing you. It can be used on stage 3 and 4 cancer patients whom have not been responding to other types of treatment.

Specific proteins are generated by the body when lung cancer is present that allow cells to proliferate uncontrollably. The vaccine generates anti-bodies which combat those specific proteins, thus limiting the damage that cancer can do. It has been used in over 1,000 clinical trials in Cuba and is currently available, for free, to all hospitals on the island.

While this is extremely significant, especially in the scope of lung cancer, therapeutic cancer vaccines (as opposed to preventative vaccines) are not particularly new. In the U.S., the National Cancer Institute is conducting clinical trials of vaccines for more than a dozen types of cancer, including breast, prostate, and lung cancers. In April, 2010 Provenge, a treatement for prostate cancer, became the first cancer vaccine to be approved by the FDA. Generally, these vaccines have fewer side-effects than more traditional methods of cancer treatment such as radiation and chemotherapy, and they can (and are, in the case of CimaVax-EGF) be used in tandem with those.

Research is still being done, but if this ends up being as successful as the researchers think it will be, it could dramatically redefine the implications of having this awful disease. The NCI estimates that 220,000 new cases of lung cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2011, and more than 156,000 will die from it. It’s unlikely that this treatment will be available in the U.S. anytime soon, so don’t have a celebratory cigarette just yet. Or ever, really. Even if it doesn’t kill you, a “manageable, chronic disease” sounds like no fun at all. [Xinhuanet via PopSci]

Side note: While this looks extremely encouraging, it should be mentioned that this research hasn’t yet been evaluated by the NCI, which only looks at peer reviewed studies. These are new reports, though, so the lack of an NCI endorsement doesn’t really mean anything.

Image credit: Shutterstock/Sebastian Kaulitzki

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Categories Cuba, Economics, Health Care, International, Revolutionary History, Science, U.S. News, Workers Struggle
Author The Red Phoenix

On Emotionalism

15 Mar

When we come together to discuss the problems of our world, their solutions and the means by which we can achieve these ends, it is often that emotions come to the forefront. This is understandable, since it is impossible to demand that someone engage in discussion of world-defining subjects without having strong feelings about the subject matter. When we bother to express an opinion or articulate a perspective, it is inevitable that we must care at some level, whether it is at the level of the issue discussed or the way in which it is being discussed.

We are motivated to action for reasons that are both rational and scientific, or emotionally, and when we combine our passions with reason and method, we place ourselves in the best position to understand our world and change it.

However, anyone who follows political or philosophical discourse knows that emotion and reason are not always in synthesis. In political and philosophical debates, it is not hard to find people who make arguments based purely in emotion, and as a result, go to extreme lengths and to the polar opposite of reason to defend their emotional convictions. There is no reasoning with such people in this position, and to become one of these people has the potential to both discredit yourself and the things which you uphold.

The reason for this is that those who argue purely through emotion only have emotion to back up their positions. Their analysis, the method they utilize to understand the world is as fueled by emotion as their rhetoric, and as a result, both their analysis and their arguments fall flat, since the virtues of neither of these things can be vindicated in the material sense. Analysis that is tainted by emotionalism is wrong, because it ignores material reality in favor of a “reality” more suited to the emotions of the analyst.

A Christmas Metaphor

In order to illustrate the problems with emotional analysis, let’s examine a cultural custom involving magic and mysticism that children, even in the modern era, are taught to believe in while their parents know better: Santa Claus.

Santa Claus, a portly old philanthropist who uses magic and flying reindeer to deliver gifts to the world’s children by breaking into homes all over Earth in one evening, is not real. Nevertheless, young children are bombarded with his image and are told fables about his exploits — even being told that “if you believe he is real, then he is real!” — with what seems to be the whole of society in on the joke. Even NORAD is in on it, putting on an entertainment program wherein they pretend to monitor Santa’s magical flying sleigh.

Yet despite the lengths at which our society goes to advance this lie, children eventually have to learn that there is no Santa Clause. For some, this is a traumatic experience, and for others, the subterfuge surrounding the Santa mythos leads the child to question Santa’s existence in the first place.

For our example, however, let’s put forward the hypothetical child who, through emotional attachment to the Santa Claus mythos, refuses to surrender the idea that Santa is real. Imagine such a person who dedicates many hours of their life arguing for Santa’s existence, and probably cites some kind of vast “conspiracy against Christmas” that has caused Santa to have to retreat to where he can neither be seen nor contacted. This person might picket mall Santas with signs saying “IMPOSTER!,” end up on surveillance lists for repeated threatening letters to NORAD for their cover-up (or even imprisonment of the true Santa) and through it all is known to bellow “I believe in Santa! My belief makes him real!”

For this hypothetical person, reason is gone, and material reality is merely a window dressing for the world he has invented for himself. Rather than basing his world-view on what is, and adapting his emotional desires for a kinder, friendlier, more charitable world to the one that exists around him, as a reasonable person might, their emotional metaphysics renders them impossible to move in the direction of what they desire. Their ranting and raving will not make Santa exist, will not make the world any better for their effort and will alienate everyone around them from what the person is saying.

Emotional Delusion’s Today: Modern “Socialist” China and other Illusions

Similar delusions to this one are commonplace in politics and philosophy, though in order to better illustrate this problem as it pertains to the contemporary left, more egregious examples of religious fundamentalism, reactionary nationalism and chauvinism will not be the main focus of our work. Rather, within the left, there are political trends which found themselves on an emotionally informed perception of the world while neglecting theory, rationality and objective, material reality. One example of this that is particularly prevalent within certain left-wing circles is the notion that contemporary China is a socialist society.

Yes, these people exist, and they aren’t the same people who believe Obama and Western Europe are “socialist.” Certain individuals and organizations argue that China is functioning under “market socialism” as a means of building themselves up economically to perfect socialism in their society. These people, while they advance this position, revise Marxist-Leninist theory in order to define a capitalist society — where the means of production are privately owned, where the Chinese “Communist” Party is composed of billionaires and corporate titans, where labor is socialized but workers are exploited and left in poverty — as “socialist,” therefore deliberately redefining both terms and divorcing them from the material realities they seek to define.

Even the bourgeoisie, who live to seek out and destroy any attempt at the construction of socialism, acknowledge that the PRC is capitalist, with 97 of the 153 members of the World Trade organization recognizing their “free market” status, and many capitalist countries happily trading with China and making billions off of the labor Chinese workers. While China and Russia both occasionally block the ambitions of the United States and their allies in the international arena, China abstained from the resolution against Libya, and acknowledged the reactionary National Transitional Council as legitimate while the rebels continued a pogrom against blacks in Libya.

China and Russia, when they oppose the U.S., don’t do so out of “proletarian internationalism” or “anti-imperialism.” China has 115 billionaires and the number of Chinese millionaires has increased, while the lot in life for most Chinese workers remains stagnant. In China, the means of production are owned by private hands who reap private benefits from the surplus value of workers — this is the very definition of a capitalist system. If any reader has doubts, they should examine the hyperlinks following the article and attempt to apply reason to this reality.

It is very easy to demonstrate the capitalist nature of contemporary China, yet to certain people, no amount of proof will ever be enough. The reason is that, in the name of their emotional conviction, they have made the decision to close off all doubt and critical analysis concerning the possibility that China may not be socialist. The reason for this isn’t too difficult to understand; the idea that there is a country with some 1.3 billion people in it that exists as a surviving bastion of socialism is comforting to someone who would give nearly anything to see socialism in their society. Yet, because of this delusion concerning a modern-day capitalist country, the theoretical tools for understanding both capitalism and socialism have been abandoned in favor of weak excuses attempting to conceal the obvious. The irony here is that such “socialists” are abandoning any chance of being able to achieve socialism for the security-blanket of a “socialism” that doesn’t exist!

Our World is Material; How Humans Feel Does Not Change It

The thing that these people haven’t realized, and need to, is that China is going to be what it is economically and politically whether they like it or not. No amount of emotional desire without material action will change the world — simply redefining things in order to make something seem like something that it is not will not create any significant change. To uphold this view is to be a postmodernist whose forte is self-deception.

Emotionalist perspectives encourage warped and incorrect views of the world. The same force that compels people to believe that China is socialist is also the same force which backs absurd theories such as astrology, lucky coins and rabbit-feet, other superstitious traditions, and even more reactionary and menacing theories such as race theory and the “Z.O.G.” (an acronym meaning Zionist Occupied Government, meaning the shadow rule of the whole world by secret Jewish autocratic bankers — a concept central to Nazi thought). People believe these things not because they have proof in the material sense of their validity, but because they want to believe them on an emotional level, and this is dangerous.

Conclusion: Emotion has its Place, But the Science Must Rule

Rather than attempting to convey our emotional opinions to anyone who will hear until we are blue in the face, in order to achieve the ends we desire to see in the world, we must discipline ourselves in our outlook and analysis. Emotions have their place, but not in our analysis and in our arguments. If we allow them to infiltrate these areas, we inhibit our own understandings and undermine our own positions. The things we want are material, therefore we must use methods to understand and reach them materially, not simply in our own minds.

Rather, we should endeavor to work as scientists would as they search for the cures for epidemic diseases. While the scientist may have their own biases, experiences and emotions connected with diseases, they don’t let those feelings interfere with their work. Rather than emotionally invest in arguing that a certain placebo is actually the cure, they must work systematically and objectively to find what the real cure is, since the cure to the disease lies within the material realm. We must do the same as we struggle against capitalism and bourgeois domination, and it is also the reason that we struggle against revisionist and emotionalist ideas that cloud our abilities to find the truth and determine how we act.

Sources

http://german.beijingreview.com.cn/german2010/Focus/2011-12/07/content_410316.htm [In German]

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-09/12/c_131134331.htm

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/03/09/134404286/forbes-billionaire-list-shows-power-of-asia-and-facebook

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/30382

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-06/24/content_12764564.htm

http://seekingalpha.com/article/30810-china-passes-law-bolstering-private-property-rights

Comments 4 Comments
Categories China, Dialectics, Imperialism, International, Media & Culture, Science, Theory, Workers Struggle
Author The Red Phoenix

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The Rise and Fall of Third Worldism – Part 1

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

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Revealed: Monsanto GM corn caused tumors in rats

New study says the Cheonan was sunk by mine, not North Korean torpedo

Scientific analysis shows signs of a powerful underwater explosion

Akin rape theory rooted in Nazi death camp experiments

Greenhouse in Greenland: 97% of ice surface shows melting

U.S. Army Funding Development of “Robot Soldier”

Cuba’s Lung Cancer Vaccine Could Save Your Life

On Emotionalism

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

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