tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54610442024-03-07T22:37:15.293-05:00ladypovertyA view of the top, from a perspective at the bottomJ.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.comBlogger1656125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-16203454666749876082018-10-05T15:56:00.002-05:002018-10-05T15:56:31.521-05:00Socialism in America<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TXNrVaJJfHA" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
What socialism is, what Communism was, and a summary of Marx's Capital Vol. 1.J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-42975709403320880262018-07-04T07:14:00.000-05:002018-07-04T07:14:37.990-05:00In Dependence DaysToday we celebrate trading British rule for corporate rule! What does being an American mean to you?J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-41223997608131329092012-02-13T11:17:00.000-05:002012-02-13T11:17:16.029-05:00Ties that bindAlexandra Popoff, <i><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=bQDPo13qIdEC&pg=PA204&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Sophia Tolstoy</a></i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">The Tolstoyan agricultural colonies were notorious for various incidents, which led to their breakup. Such colonies had sprung up in the 1880s, but none lasted longer than a year: people who fled convention were a disagreeable lot. Their attempts to live and work together were doomed -- quarrels were common, and since they rejected the law, there was no way of solving their disputes. They believed in the superiority of their moral principles but could not survive as a community. Commenting on what he perceived as a failure of their movement, Aylmer Maude would remark: "Again and again attempts have been made to cure social ills by persuading people to stand aside from the main stream of human life, and to save their souls by following an isolated course; but all paths of social improvement except the common highway trodden by the common man have proved to be blind alleys." Like Maude, Sophia [Tolstoy] met many idle and inefficient "wanderers" among the Tolstoyans. She was appalled by the scandals in the Tolstoy Colonies, which were widely known. In 1891, Nikolai Karonin, a populist writer, published "The Borskaya Colony," a story about intellectuals who founded a commune with the idea of helping peasants. Instead, they brought ruin: a peasant girl was raped and later committed suicide. The fact-based account appeared in the journal <i>Russian Thought</i> and produced a sensation, hurtful to Tolstoy's cause.</span></div>
</blockquote>
One needn't accept every assumption here to see that there is something to holding oneself in opposition to the "main stream of human life" which does not lend itself to anything better, and frequently contributes to some things that are worse.<br />
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I often give the example of abuses I have witnessed between people with the finest political pedigrees -- far worse in the damage they do than anything I have experienced coming from a boss.J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-63281806151983221012012-02-10T21:30:00.000-05:002012-02-10T21:38:00.768-05:00The noise made by peopleAnton Chekhov, <i>Peasants</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">During the summer and winter months there were hours and days when these people appeared to live worse than cattle, and life with them was really terrible. They were coarse, dishonest, filthy, drunk, always quarreling and arguing amongst themselves, with no respect for one another and living in mutual fear and suspicion. Who maintains the pubs and makes the peasant drunk? The peasant. Who embezzles the village, school and parish funds and spends it all on drink? The peasant. Who robs his neighbor, sets fire to his house and perjures himself in court for a bottle of vodka? Who is the first to revile the peasant at district council and similar meetings? The peasant. Yes, it was terrible living with these people; nevertheless they were still human beings, suffering and weeping like other people and there was nothing in their lives which did not provide some excuse: killing work which made bodies ache all over at night, harsh winters, poor harvests, overcrowding, without any help and nowhere to find it. The richer and stronger cannot help, since they themselves are coarse, dishonest and drunk, using the same foul language. The most insignificant little clerk or official treats peasants like tramps, even talking down to elders and churchwardens, as though this is their right. And after all, could one expect help or a good example from the mercenary, greedy, dissolute, lazy people who come to the village now and then just to insult, fleece and intimidate the peasants?</span></blockquote>
While greater in absolute terms, the treachery of having someone direct your productive activity through the course of a day's employment nevertheless becomes routine. Hey, something is expected of you, something is expected of them; this is how we all get through the day. It's a betrayal, but nothing personal. This is the good business model; it preempts disruption very well, in my view.<br />
<br />
But the betrayals that come from others subordinated by the same set of circumstances; really, these are a marvel to behold! Perhaps the bosses, by virtue of their position, enjoy the luxury; or else they observe the advantage which derives from not making things too personal. Only the idiots risk their salaries for their subordinates. But what the contemporary serf wouldn't do to brandish his rank to the rank-and-file. Yes, it is terrible working with these people; nevertheless you know what they contend with on a daily basis, and there is little in their lives which does not provide some excuse ...J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-47492369318298813112012-01-20T13:48:00.000-05:002012-01-20T13:48:47.111-05:00Yeah, buddies<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/business-travelers-in-vegas-a-survivors-guide-01112012-gfx.html" target="_blank">Bloomberg Businessweek</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">A businesswoman who can maintain her poise in a strip club will prove to be a team player. Try not to appear shocked by your surroundings, even if it's your first time. If you don't mind getting a lap dance, it will endear you to your male colleagues, though the endearment may not be reciprocal.<br />
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If you're unable to tolerate the teeming male sexuality, chat up the strippers. They may well appreciate the female companionship. To thank them for their time, either purchase them a drink or buy a man in your party a lap dance.</span></blockquote>
The businesswoman who can maintain her poise in a strip club may very well prove herself a team player, but one wonders about the goals.J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-27817694860959301332011-11-14T13:52:00.001-05:002011-11-14T15:49:39.742-05:00Free time: Marx and individualism"The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labor time so as to posit surplus labor, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labor of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them."<sup><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=bDyemaqiZjUC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=grundrisse&source=bl&ots=wJyHwxGXQ4&sig=cOp_aQQ-GQs_L-QwRTWY64hMdUM&hl=en&ei=L2PBTvTqAoXr0gG-9dnFCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=14&ved=0CI0BEOgBMA0#v=onepage&q=free%20development%20of%20individualities&f=false">1</a></sup><br />
<br />
"[Capital] is thus, despite itself, instrumental in creating the means of social disposable time, in order to reduce labor time for the whole society to a diminishing minimum, and thus to free everyone's time for their own development." 708<br />
<br />
"<b>[R]eal wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals.</b> The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labor time, but rather disposable time." 708<br />
<br />
"Free time -- which is both idle time and time for higher activity -- has naturally transformed its possessor into a different subject, and he then enters into the direct production process as this different subject." 712<br />
<br />
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=bDyemaqiZjUC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=grundrisse&source=bl&ots=wJyHwxGXQ4&sig=cOp_aQQ-GQs_L-QwRTWY64hMdUM&hl=en&ei=L2PBTvTqAoXr0gG-9dnFCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=14&ved=0CI0BEOgBMA0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Grundrisse</a><br />
<br />
Note: Capital, through technical development (automation, etc.), reduces to a minimum that portion of the day which we work for ourselves, in order to maximize that portion in which we work, uncompensated, for others (the for-profit employer). That portion in which we work for ourselves -- for our own subsistence or "reproduction," so that we may from our employer's perspective return to work the next day, week, and so on; or, from our own view, in order to <i>live</i> -- Marx calls "necessary labor time." The idea here is that if capitalism's development drives down, by means of technological advance, that portion of the day that people need to work in order to <i>meet their own needs</i>, then it is simultaneously creating the possibility that people would stop working, uncompensated, for others, for the "surplus" portion of their working time. This time, in turn, would become their own: "Free time -- which is both idle time and time for higher activity … transform[s] its possessor into a different subject … [who] then enters into the direct production process as this different subject."J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-50420450430779122472011-11-09T19:11:00.000-05:002011-11-09T19:11:33.127-05:00Dialectics"The dialectical mode of thinking, at least as I construe it, precludes closure of the argument at any particular point. The intriguing configurations of internal and external contradiction … force the argument to spin onwards and outwards to all manner of new terrain. The opening of new questions to be answered, new paths for enquiry to take, provokes simultaneously the re-evaluation of basic concepts -- such as value -- and the perpetual re-casting of the conceptual apparatus used to describe the world. Perhaps the most extraordinary insight to be gained from a careful study of Marx is the intricate fluidity of thought, the perpetual creation of new openings within the corpus of his writings. Strange, then, that bourgeois philosophers frequently depict Marxist science as a closed system, not amenable to the verification procedures with which they seek to close out their own hypotheses into universal and unchallengeable truths. Strange, also, that many Marxists convert deeply held and passionately felt commitments into doctrinaire dogmatism, as closed to new openings as traditional bourgeois modes of thought, when Marx's own work totally belies such closure."<br />
<br />
David Harvey, <i>The Limits to Capital</i>J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-18847158162086983972011-11-08T13:18:00.000-05:002011-11-08T13:18:06.521-05:00Malthus and overpopulation"[Malthus] … relates a specific quantity of people to a specific quantity of necessaries. Ricardo immediately and correctly confronted him with the fact that the quantity of grain available is completely irrelevant to the worker if he has no <i>employment</i>; that it is therefore the means of employment and not subsistence which put him into the category of surplus population.<br />
…<br />
The invention of surplus laborers, i.e. of propertyless people who work, belongs to the period of capital. The beggars who fastened themselves to the monasteries and helped them eat up their surplus product are in the same class as the feudal retainers, and this shows that the surplus produce could not be eaten up by the small number of its owners. It is only another form of the retainers of old, or of the menial servants of today. The overpopulation e.g. among hunting peoples, which shows itself in the warfare between the tribes, proves not that the earth could not support their small numbers, but rather that the condition of their reproduction required a great amount of territory for few people."<br />
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<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=bDyemaqiZjUC&lpg=PA555&pg=PA607#v=onepage&q&f=false">Grundrisse</a>J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-81228438029902423202011-10-30T15:16:00.000-05:002011-10-30T15:16:36.410-05:00Most Americans support Occupy Wall Street<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Last week a poll by the National Journal found that 59 per cent [of Americans] either fully or strongly agreed with the “aims” of [Occupy Wall Street]. An even larger share backed a 5 per cent tax surcharge on millionaires – something proposed by Mr Obama. It has become common to hear that the richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150m. It is also true."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Edward Luce, <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/242bd162-0152-11e1-b177-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1cIRXo7J2">Financial Times</a></span>J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-59601419553499059982011-10-29T12:48:00.000-05:002011-10-29T21:29:56.353-05:00A brief guide to contemporary economics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://lifeispublic.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-philly-day-six-1.html" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/lifeispublic/YAu9pZO2rnrdLRMJMJgEpRlaWFI24RXIULw0njZvpfmKDGhExPsC0JJmgtq8/p20111011-131738.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Market capitalism creates inherent difficulties. The two most obvious are macroeconomic instability and extremes of inequality. The tendency of a market-oriented financial system to run away with itself has, again, been demonstrated on a large scale. On the free market right people argue that if only we went back to the gold standard or ended fractional reserve banking, all would be well. I question such claims. Instability is inherent in the game of betting on the future. Humans seem prone to self-fulfilling waves of optimism and pessimism. Ways of mitigating the extent and the consequences of such instability always need to be found.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is impossible to define an acceptable level of inequality. Any inequality is corrosive if those with wealth are believed to have rigged the game rather than won in honest competition. As inequality rises, the sense that we are equal as citizens weakens. In the end, democracy is sold to the highest bidder. That has happened often before in the history of republics. Peaceful protest is the right of free people. More important, it is a way to bring issues to our attention. The left does not know how to replace the market. But pro-marketeers still need to take the protests seriously. All is not well."</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Martin Wolf, <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/86d8634a-ff34-11e0-9769-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1cBw483s2">Financial Times</a></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-66365357239007304982011-10-26T13:19:00.000-05:002011-10-29T13:04:46.228-05:00"The future of work"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://nakedphiladelphian.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-philly-showdown-near.html"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyjY47wwtkAI4JTfWrF1Ua2K6IHtOrq0zRdlDkGU362ZD0u3o_TpjsgP3HAmLYzdMw-b-hkwjQLgJyhWg5d_XaeezJl81we6GITo6oGHvfZfZ8n4VKA6jOd54Y-S5UTrwLnPNRng/s640/100_0964.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;">What about the people who do not command any kind of premium in the marketplace? One strategy could be to find a high-flyer and stick close. Even if joining their posse is out of reach, there are still horses to be fed and watered. The time-poor new rich are generating demand for household staff, and this sort of work can be very well paid. A private secretary and general factotum can earn up to $150,000 a year nowadays. Salaries for standard butlers range from $60,000 to $125,000 and a head butler can make as much as $250,000, according to the website of the Butler Bureau."</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21528429">The Economist</a></span></span>J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-1325022068026520092011-10-20T14:17:00.000-05:002011-10-29T13:09:47.064-05:00Spending within your means<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047869/Occupy-Wall-Street-protests-Millionaires-March-target-Rupert-Murdochs-home.html"><img border="0" height="424" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/10/11/article-2047869-0E55453200000578-127_634x424.jpg" width="634" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Hence still today the demand for industriousness and also for <i>saving</i>, <i>self-denial</i>, is made not upon the capitalists but on the workers, and namely by the capitalists. Society today makes the paradoxical demand that he for whom the object of exchange is subsistence should deny himself, not he for whom it is wealth."</span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Karl Marx, <i>Grundrisse</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Winter, 1857</span>J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-33572337343373205442011-10-12T11:29:00.000-05:002011-10-12T11:29:58.921-05:00Occupy Philly<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/30395076?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/30395076">It's True in Philadelphia, Too: A Film for All Youse Articulate Activist Types.</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user8874593">Dog, Pig, and Wise Horse</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-61410299917569683032011-08-30T20:24:00.000-05:002011-08-30T20:24:24.485-05:00PSA from my momGoing away for a while. When I come back I hope you will be fully prepared to discuss Season 1 of the <i>Jersey Shore</i>.<br />
<br />
Also: My mom really wants me to tell you not to hold your cell phone directly against your skull or gonads. It's microwave radiation, after all. See the related book, <i>Disconnect</i> -- but beware the verb which fashionably becomes a noun. J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-67925848194653706042011-08-26T13:36:00.001-05:002011-08-26T13:41:18.094-05:00Marx and communismSamuel Brittan, <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8779690c-ce60-11e0-99ec-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1W9sTp9oS">Financial Times</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Marx has suffered not only from sycophants, but from critics who identify him with the Stalin dictatorship or even the regime of Mao Zedong. It is, of course, absurd to blame Marx, who lived from 1818 to 1883, for the crimes committed decades after his death. Indeed, the great man himself once said: “Whatever else I am, I am not a Marxist.” Many serious analysts have written on what Marx meant or should have meant. I am not one of their number and my main excuse for giving my own highly selective take is that I have neither demonised nor worshipped the man.<br />
<br />
The aspect of Marx that originally intrigued me was his division of history after the end of the Dark Ages -- feudalism, capitalism, socialism and communism. By socialism Marx meant something like an extreme version of the British Labour party’s former clause four, which envisaged public ownership of all the means of production, distribution and exchange. But communism did not have anything like its later meaning. It was a utopia in which a short working day would provide all society’s needs and people would be free to “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon and discuss philosophy in the evening”. The vision of such a society kept in the Marxist fold some idealists who might otherwise have bolted.</div></blockquote><br />
The basic idea here is that industrialization lets you produce a lot. If production were oriented toward meeting people's needs rather than turning out ever-increasing amounts of disposable junk for profit, people could work relatively little while living in abundance. That's theoretical communism, as Marx envisioned it.<br />
<br />
To his credit, Brittan gets a lot of this right. He mixes up the issue of "return on capital" with Marx's concern that the employer/employee relation is based on dependency: the employer extracts profit through an unequal power relation. For Marx, profit isn't wrong because you charge more than the cost of production; it is wrong when you appropriate for yourself (the employer) a value that has been created by others (the employees).<br />
<br />
Anyway, see what you think.J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-22202018152977608482011-08-25T14:28:00.002-05:002011-08-31T14:43:58.920-05:00Libya and the leftUS citizens have a relationship to their government which obligates them to oppose its crimes against themselves and others. Because this is an uncontroversial principle amongst the radical left, it is usually assumed to be part of a shared outlook.<br />
<br />
While the US radical left inherits this relationship to its own government, it also has the potential to develop relationships with other popular or principled groups beyond what is implied through domestic resistance alone. We show support and solidarity for others fighting different fights, or the same fight in different places.<br />
<br />
Regarding Libya, most of us are fine on the first point, rhetorically anyway, since that's what we are already doing, most of the time. We point out what's criminal about US foreign policy, for example, a lot. Good!<br />
<br />
It's worth bearing in mind that what is criminal about US foreign policy is our responsibility, primarily. Libya is an example where a popular rebellion seeking to remove a dictator solicited international assistance to down the dictator's air force and other heavy military infrastructure. In the current geopolitical context, "international assistance" effectively means NATO, and NATO means the US. US interests are not Libyan interests. But none of this is the Libyans' fault, anymore than it was necessarily their fault that they needed assistance in the first place. <br />
<br />
It's remarkable to me that portions of the US left get this backwards -- that because the rebellion required assistance, the rebels are compromised for having received the only available kind. Why weren't other kinds available? Why does the only kind available look so grim? We might look at ourselves -- at our relationship with our own government -- and not the people facing the tanks.<br />
<br />
So on my second point, when it comes to showing solidarity toward people who not only don't control the global order but are sacrificing a lot more than most of us to change it, it's worth putting our responsibilities in perspective when compared to theirs. J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-14275121593591261262011-08-19T16:06:00.001-05:002011-08-19T18:09:16.172-05:00Radicalism and reformAnarchism has always made the point, correctly, that states exist to defend a minority of wealth and privilege against the majority of the community. They don't exist to provide necessary services to the majority: they only do this when the majority compels them, or when failure to do so imposes a cost that is unacceptably high. If you just tune out and let a government do its thing, like most of us do when we are preoccupied with trying to survive, you see lots more government for the rich and much "less government" for everybody else. That's happening right now, in fact.<br />
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When people understand this -- that government "represents" them only when it has no choice -- they are in a better position to influence their government -- and in the past they have. The achievements, like Social Security, unemployment benefits, and any other number of rights and freedoms, are at the same time 1) very important to people and 2) not bound to the point about the nature of government in any particular way. You might support them for the simple reason that no non-state substitutions yet exist to address those problems.<br />
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There are radical reasons for supporting moderate reforms when the proposed alternative is not yet plausible, as is the case when vulnerable populations, encompassing both majority and minority groups, retain more confidence in government solutions than non-government proposals. That most Americans associate "no government" with free-market capitalism or gang rule, instead of highly-organized societies liberated from coercive rule, is an indication that we have a lot more work to do before the point that governments defend the rich can be of greater immediacy than what is daily required to survive. J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-42397555301715162692011-08-18T15:59:00.002-05:002011-08-18T16:05:15.835-05:00The grapes of laughsThe <i>New York Times</i> wants to know how much an apple would cost if farm workers had rights like other Americans. Might it unduly discourage US consumers from eating their fruits and veggies? Could the industry even <i>survive</i>? And doesn't it insult hardworking immigrant workers to suggest that their rights aren't good enough already -- that they need to live up to <i>our</i> lofty standards? Join the informed debate -- only at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/08/17/could-farms-survive-without-illegal-labor?ref=opinion">nytimes.com</a>. J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-83623381007134916082011-08-16T12:38:00.000-05:002011-08-16T12:38:49.441-05:00Capital concernsGautam Malkani, <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/8c42acba-c40f-11e0-b302-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1V0s3XP7g">Financial Times</a>:<br />
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<blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Another much-discussed difference was the role of consumerism. In place of the traditionally anti-capitalist stance of previous youth counter-cultures came reports of rioters in low-end fashion retailers, engaged in the new practice of “trying before you loot”. This form of extreme consumerism meant that, by the end of the week, the biggest bogeyman was our culture of rampant materialism and instant gratification. In a consumer society, identities are constructed from owning things. But the widespread sense of self-entitlement revealed by the riots also betrays a broader fetishism of objects. Some of Britain’s urban centres are so atomised that it is now easier to connect with things than with people. Likewise, digitally reduced attention spans have also contributed to a culture of superficial “bling”.</div></blockquote><br />
You see, rampant materialism and instant gratification don't <i>normally</i> betray a broader fetishism of objects. If you spend your money on electronics products instead of nutritious foods, that's healthy. If you have new rims but no roof -- no problem! Only you know what is best for you. Treat yourself. You've earned it.<br />
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But how to explain the behavior of those whose self-entitlement has eclipsed the most pressing needs of others: the need for profit amongst the profiteers? Capital has its own line of cultural criticism, and it has delivered a verdict: There is something very wrong with society, indeed!J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-53390061249567482352011-08-11T15:27:00.002-05:002011-08-16T17:38:16.133-05:00Indignities of labor<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21525352">Economist</a>:<br />
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<blockquote>The movement [Joe] Hill lived and died for has proved less durable. As Mr Adler recalls, the Wobblies flourished for a brief, electrifying moment at the dawn of the 20th century, when industrial capital was new, raw and brutal. At the time the IWW’s vision of a new worker-controlled order seemed “if not on the verge of becoming reality, not preposterous either”.</blockquote><br />
And yet the fundamental relationships have not changed. Americans, for example, have yet to achieve the same "rights and freedoms" in the workplace that they revere everywhere else -- freedom of speech, freedom of association, the right to privacy, elected representation, etc. -- and this in the very space where they spend the bulk of their lives! To step into the private workplace is to surrender one's rights on a daily basis; surrendering them all the more, the more hours one works. The paradox must be regarded as natural in the context of capitalist "government by the people": the governors are not the people, and the people spend precious little of their time governing; rather, they are working, and with no access to the rights by which they regard themselves American.<br />
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Concomitant to questions of rights and freedoms, however, there are perceptions of dignity, and it is only by obscuring the relationship between classes that US culture has arrived at a place where dignity becomes more a question of fitting in than acting human. Not bearing the stamp of social exclusion is significant: to be a "team member" is qualitatively different than being "illegal," even if neither means being free. To be singled-out for a special abuse within its broader application is what most people notice and respond to best, as opposed to general lack of freedom in "the way things are." <br />
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In the early industrial period, the working classes understood themselves as occupying this role of social inferiority. They weren't yet consumers or title-inflated quasi-professionals. Because household wealth was not contrived through debt, they had fewer illusions about how far their actual wealth could take them. Wherever they lacked the means, they went without. They understood their "place" as assigned by class.<br />
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Today there are many more avenues for American poor and working people to "keep up appearances" via consumer credit than in the earlier periods attended by labor radicalism. You can own an Escalade, and nobody has to know your social standing based on the clothes you wear. Orwell writes about being shamed for not having money to buy a loaf of bread: the whole neighborhood might know he was a pauper, and treat him that way.<sup>1</sup> But in the US today, even if you dress like a bum you might be a wealthy person; the implications under consumerism just aren't as obvious.<br />
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When communities detect they are being singled-out, they often flare up, and this comes back to questions of dignity, though not always freedom. Dignity relates to how one is seen, and whether one's place warrants respect. One's place needn't be a place of equality of power with others -- what freedom means -- it could be an "honorable" position of servitude: being seen as a "human being," even if human beings aren't free. <br />
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It's much easier to organize <i>into</i> accepted standards than to organize <i>beyond</i> them. When workers of the 1910s saw their rich neighbors enjoying "the good things in life" they saw things they wanted for themselves that they couldn't obtain by any other means than fighting. When workers today see things they want for themselves, they become indebted to rich people to have them. They don't have to go without in the eyes of others, but the price they pay is their freedom, and there is nothing dignified about that.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">1. Orwell, writing in the same general period, but from Europe; <i>Down and Out in Paris and London</i>. </span>J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-63726144875869054012011-08-08T20:14:00.000-05:002011-08-08T20:14:35.804-05:00My own private John Carpenter soundtrack<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/wlRAmUhWzJk?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-24770696802401020792011-08-02T17:02:00.004-05:002011-08-03T15:13:04.350-05:00A socialist case against "small government"<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21524874">Economist</a>:<br />
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<blockquote>Once upon a time the American right led the world when it came to rethinking government; now it is an intellectual pygmy. The House Republicans could not even get their budget sums right, so the vote had to be delayed. A desire to curb Leviathan is admirable, but the tea-partiers live in a fantasy world in which the deficit can be reduced without any tax increases: even Mr Obama’s attempts to remove loopholes in the tax code drive the zealots into paroxysms of outrage.</blockquote><br />
Because the Republican Party’s electoral strategy amounts to identifying the US government as “large” on one hand, while positioning themselves as “opposed” on the other, there is something irresistible about watching when they succeed at big government. <br />
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“Big government” is actually redundant. To the extent that we have government in the world today, it is going to be big -- and grow bigger. We can debate what kind of big government it will be -- what it does and where it does more of it -- but it’s not going to become smaller. No government limits its size or tempers its ambitions, insofar as a potential remains. Republican administrations are proof enough of this in and of themselves.<br />
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To advocate smaller government is in fact to pursue a course identical to every politician: to reduce or eliminate the programs you don’t like while expanding the ones you do. It is in this way that governments grow larger over time, not smaller, irrespective of ideology.<br />
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One of the advantages of a socialist perspective is that it presumes this to be the case: it does not pretend that big government becomes smaller by putting individuals philosophically opposed to big government on its payroll. Consequently, it assumes that <i>how</i> the government expands, who it helps and who it hurts, is the meaningful question, insofar as governments in their current form exist. <br />
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Since long before the time of Karl Marx, socialists have thought seriously about the possibilities for getting rid of government altogether, since the whole business about making it smaller is truly utopian. Even Marx conceived the evolution of socialism as culminating in communism, which he defined as a stateless society. That is certainly ideal, since it implies some kind of "self-government" which encompasses social and economic pursuits. But presently we are a long way from it -- and in the meantime government continues to expand.<br />
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The wrangling over a debt deal in Washington this week revolved not around questions of big or small government, but which parts of an ever-expanding government deserve to be curbed. In fact, it is the same debate that has gone on ever since the US government got into the business of fielding concerns incidental to business -- like public health, for example. Cuts invariably fall on those least able to influence their government: people who are either too poor, too busy working, or too few in number to make an impact politically. Since most of us fall into one or more of these categories, the cuts fall on people like you and me.<br />
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The Tea Partiers are an interesting case of ordinary people organized by much wealthier people around this idea that government is too big; it is too “socialist.” Again, socialism as a tradition was never meant to describe “big government.” Socialists presumed modern governments were big; they distinguished themselves by insisting that government work more actively on behalf of working people and the poor, since every government already works actively on behalf of the rich. (The last point is universally true, and forms the animating inspiration behind “government” in the first place.)<br />
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A good question to ask when government becomes smaller is “Have my burdens become larger?” This might include a rise in the retirement age, a hike in public transit fares, or the now prevalent expectation amongst young people that Social Security will someday cease to exist. These are all examples of areas where the US government, which is indeed big, has in the past made life easier for ordinary people rather than making it more onerous. <br />
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Tea Party claims notwithstanding, we can rest assured that big government will carry on unabated; and by one means or another it will always assist the rich. The only question is whether you can honestly count yourself in that category.J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-46770063892005579802011-07-27T19:38:00.000-05:002011-07-27T19:38:08.161-05:00Kissing the joy as it fliesWhen you experience something beautiful there is often a kind of high that accompanies it; and like any high it is hard to sustain intensely. Consider Blake:<br />
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<blockquote>He who bends himself to a joy<br />
Does the winged life destroy <br />
But he who kisses the joy as it flies <br />
Lives in eternity’s sunrise</blockquote><br />
To “kiss the joy as it flies” is an important idea. Joy is always flying; you don’t know where it will show up. To anticipate where you will encounter joy -- being in the same place at the same time where you experienced it before -- guarantees nothing. The impulse is to control the relationship, because we want to contain the high. We bend ourselves to our own idea of what we must do to remain joyful, only to end up miserable instead.<br />
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If you pursue the things that are most meaningful to you in life, I think you can live with a kind of joy. But <i>how</i> you are has to become a bigger part of <i>who</i> you are. You see, many of us come to our ideas about identity as though it is a received space that we occupy. To some extent this is true: we exist in the world in a particular way, and the world acts on us accordingly. There are always injustices attendant to this. We develop an awareness of them, and get very preoccupied with how others are toward us. Often we’re correct in our judgment that things aren’t fair.<br />
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But if we depart from identity at the point where we meet ourselves, we never begin to ask, “OK, <i>how</i> am I in response?” It’s a totally different question. How others are toward us is not the same question as how we are toward them; we have a totally different measure of control over each, respectively. We don’t control how other people are toward us; what we control is how we are within the relationship. The latter can influence the former, that’s all. Strategically, it’s very important to know where you exert control.<br />
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If you imagine yourself and another person in a prison cell, of course it’s meaningful to acknowledge, “We’re in a prison cell.” But that doesn’t mean you’re the same person. How you are will demonstrate who you are in that context. Surely there are people who won’t get past the fact that they are in a prison cell, because they believe there can be no joy or beauty there. Before these can be fulfilled, conditions have to change. We all have our prison cells, of one sort or another, and you see this reaction all the time. Recognizing the obvious wrong -- what is happening to us -- is usually as far as we get. <br />
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But now we recall Tolstoy:<br />
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<blockquote>Happiness does not depend on outward things<br />
but on the way we see them</blockquote><br />
The whole scenario changes if prison is part of our objective. As with many imprisoned people, this might stem from the choice to live a principled life. In other words, if we aspire to live a principled life, we may accept that "prisons" of one sort or another -- "roads less traveled" -- will be part of it, and to a degree greater than someone who “bends” in order to avoid imprisonment. If we are already at peace with this reality, our energy isn’t used up by it. Our energy is available for other uses, like creating the conditions necessary to walk out of our cell. There can be great meaning in that pursuit, if only we begin. <br />
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"Kissing the joy as it flies" means embracing the things you don't control without forgetting your capacity, after all, to kiss. There is joy in developing our own capacities, even if this isn't easy; there is beauty in developing as a person, even though this comes with age. These things are available to us, regardless of what is not. We don't control all outcomes, but we can push toward the ones we desire; and it is through the mastery of our own abilities in different contexts that invites the highest grounds for joy.J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-71663609905042080882011-07-21T19:40:00.000-05:002011-07-21T19:40:54.683-05:00Dividing linesFrom every corner you hear the refrain, "I am this way, they are that way -- and they're wrong." It's very common amongst working people, who have a terrific view of the stupidity of institutions, but who can also miss the relationship between personal and class advantage. <br />
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It's important to underline the ways "they're wrong" -- for example, having work organized like dictatorship. But if that's wrong, you want to empathize with the victims. These organizations create lots of victims, directly or indirectly. This month I have been hanging out with a model employee who is recovering from triple bypass. His efforts were always praised at the staff meetings he hated to attend.<br />
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It's important to see what's wrong with the bigger picture, but there's also a built-in temptation as humans to say "they're wrong" for no other reason than that it feels good. It has an addictive quality to it, and I think you see it online -- for example, in blogs -- in full force. You fill up every space where you might otherwise ask, “What is right?” <br />
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Perhaps it is useful to think about the kinds of people you like to relate with in real life, and decide whether they are the type who never tire in explaining what is wrong about everybody and everything else; who, in fact, take their energy from it. I can think of several off the top of my head, and they are among the least compelling people I know. <br />
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This is significant if our goal is to persuade, not the "staunch, diminishing minority," but working people at the point of their concerns. Working people have a range of concerns, and if reaffirming those which attend a "politics of the working class" can succeed, I find you have to get past the many fleeting preoccupations generated by a technologically-advanced consumer culture. You have to be fluent in these things in order to get beyond them -- which is why I always hit a wall when it comes to sports, for example; but why it has been to my advantage to know video games and the other “trifling” elements of urban consumption.<br />
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Within the concept of the working class, you don’t have me over here, you over there, and this heavy distinction between the two. You have “us” -- and “we” are behaving a certain way. There is a responsibility for “our” behavior. Either we are consolidating an awareness of ourselves as totally dependent on somebody else to live well; or we aren’t doing this, for reasons that include drawing too fine a distinction between each other.J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5461044.post-58911963114363745152011-07-12T15:19:00.000-05:002011-07-12T15:19:09.779-05:00Sex musketsI am called out for not "knowing" who Johnny Rotten is. I say, "I don't know lots of things." It's an appeal to knowledge: you want them to know who you are by considering the borders of what you're not. And I will tell you one thing. When I am playing music, I am not thinking about Johnnys Rotten, Shelf-stable, or otherwise.J.R. Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09076895859826581960noreply@blogger.com5