People Before Profit blog

for t.m.... somewhere between a requiem and a te deum

Sat, 03 Aug 2013 12:45:00 +0000

the only

problem

with stand

your ground

is that we

need

to get

better

at standing

ours

on proletarian

feet not

on liberal

knees

subject

to being

capped

stand your

ground

at every

site where

a sister

or brother

was murdered

by a cop

every twenty

eight hours stand

your ground

at every

dark alley

where

a drug deal

goes foul

a back alley

abortion

turns fatal

at every

room in a

house where

someone

took someone's

or one's own

life

at every

newtown

columbine

virginia tech

schoolroom

where a

suburb turned

out to be

in the 'hood stand

your ground

with those

of us

working

struggling

fighting

praying

singing to

get to that

place where

we don't

have to stand

our ground

because we

can now sit

together

in peace

berkeley ca 7-25-2013

Photo: Creative Commons 3.0

China: The panda in the left's living room

Wed, 26 Jun 2013 15:07:00 +0000

This article is a slightly revised version of a presentation made by Rutgers historian and Political Affairs editorial board nember Norman Markowitz at the Annual Left Forum Conference on June 9th in New York. The presentation was part of a Panel "China, the Panda in the Left's Living Room," organized and chaired by U.S. China Friendship Association member and Political Affairs editorial Board member Gary Hicks.

Chair, Speakers: Gary Hicks -- Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library Oakland CA, Norman Markowitz -- Rutgers University, Wei Xiaoping -- Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Martin Rivlin -- independent scholar, Columbia University

China and the U.S. in the 21^st Century: A Marxist historian's perspective

The serious study of History is always about understanding the past as it relates to the present and on that basis trying to grasp what are the likely developments in the near future

Marxist analysis of history is about understanding the larger political economic system, the social classes in conflict within that system, and the dialectical relationships, that is dynamic interactions between changing conditions and social movements. Ideologies serve as bridges between social movements and changing conditions. In that sense, Marxism enables us to understand in a holistic way the relationship of the general to the specific, to understand the relationship of dominant ideologies to economic political systems, and the relationship of cultures to changing political economy. Finally, Marxism connects theory with practice. It is a science of society, with social class partisanship, providing a holistic analysis that can become a force in itself to advance positive change, the interests of the working class and show the path to socialism. Let me try to brief and apply that analysis in broad outline to Chinese- U.S. relations today and in the near future.

First a look at global political economy and the capitalist world system

The capitalist world system has developed for centuries, but for the questions we are asking concerning U.S. China relations, its most important developments have taken place with the rise of industrial capitalism in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Industrial capitalism produced modern imperialism, the imperialism of export capital and with it the world or global market, leading to globalized militarization, global wars, global depressions. This modern imperialism has produced its dialectical antithesis, attempts at socialist revolutions and anti-imperialist national revolutions, including the Chinese peoples Revolution, of the 20^th century. This Revolution, combining anti-imperialist national liberation with a commitment advanced by the Chinese Communist Party to construct a socialist society, is by far the most important, both in its time and today.

Let us look very briefly at the United States and how it got to where it is today. The United States had the first major anti-colonial revolution in modern history, a revolution that established an independent bourgeois republic. It became in the 19^th century the first large capitalist republic in modern history, expanding across North America. After 1890 it surpassed Britain to become the leading industrial capitalist nation. After WW I, it replaced Britain as the leading finance capitalist nation. Today in the early 21^st century its ruling class and the political economy that they control are in a very contradictory position.

The U.S. state was after WW II the founder and leader of the NAT0 bloc, against the Soviet Union and its allies and the world communist movement until the fall of the Soviet Union. This served as a 20^th century industrial capitalist version of the old 19^th century "Holy Alliance" which, with Britain in the background, fought against the expansion of the French Bourgeois revolution, against the revolutionary Jacobin state and the later Bonapartist empire. Britain used the forces that made up the Holy Alliance against the French Revolution and Napoleon, but the British state kept a distance from the Alliance's more reactionary expressions even as Britain advanced its initially hegemonic economic power to develop its global empire in the name of "civilization, "progress, and "free trade." Unlike the British, the U.S. state was always both the creator and leader of the NAT0 bloc and the advocate of its most aggressive and reactionary policies.

Also, the British economy emerged richer and more powerful from its "victory" in the wars of the French revolution. The U.S. economy, on the other hand, emerged from the U.S. NATO bloc's Cold War "victory" in a much weaker position in terms of industry and finance than it was immediately after WWII. Of course, this did not prevent U.S. leaders, George HW Bush and others, from foolishly proclaiming a "new world order" and genuflecting to the concept of "globalization." Although they would never admit it, in all likelihood even to themselves, the capitalist leaders of the U.S. fear that China will in the 21^st century follow their path of the 19^th and 20^th.

After winning independence, U.S. leaders, in practice, moved away from the stated principles of their anti-colonial revolution, first under Jefferson's slogan of an "empire for liberty" then under the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny. Then the commercial and later industrial/financial bourgeoisie led the U.S. to become an imperialist power fashioning a non-colonial imperialism, first in the Caribbean, Central America, and indirectly the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Then, under the banner of the Cold War, they undertook a global imperialism which "united ", and aimed to gain hegemony over all of the other imperialist powers.

And what will the 21^st Century bring? Will we see a Chinese "empire for a socialist market economy" controlling the industrial heart of Asia and controlling Asian markets, with preferential access to the raw materials of Africa and other parts of the world, with Chinese domination of the IMF World Bank system? I don't see that as China's likely future, and I am no more for that than the U.S. capitalists, but for of course very different reasons.

Now a look at China

China has, over the last three decades, been remarkably successful in ways that the defenders of capitalist policy fear is beating them at their own game, whatever the long-term effects of playing that game may be.

It has been the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party that has pursued the old axiom that nations have interests, not permanent enemies. It is the leadership of the Chinese Communist party which has put one foot in the capitalist world, and kept one large foot out-buying shares in the public debt of the U.S. to give it leverage against possible anti-Chinese policies launched by the U.S. state, balancing the largest mixed economy in human history, while controlling (to use Lenin's term about industry of a nearly a century ago) "the commanding heights" of finance capital. China is no longer capital poor, as the Soviet Union was until its end in 1991. It is the second economy of the world, as was the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union lost capital massively in subsidizing allies, having to take foreign capital at high interest rates, and selling nothing except raw materials on world markets. China has developed a mixed economy system which has accumulated capital domestically and internationally, becoming a major exporter of finished goods, high value goods, in international trade.

The major capitalist states established in the Cold War era all of their economic, political and military institutions under U.S. leadership to encircle and destroy the Soviet Union and its bloc. The one thing that they never had to worry about was Soviet competition for world markets. What worried them was the Soviets' support of revolutionary movements that would take more and more of the world out of the capitalist world system

Now, to use a favorite ploy of American comedians, there is for U.S. NAT0 bloc capitalists both good and bad news. The good news is that they don't have to worry about China actively supporting revolutionary movements that would remove major parts of the world out of the world capitalist system. The bad news is that if they seek to encircle China through a neo Cold War policy, destroy the government of the Peoples Republic and the Chinese Communist party and transform China into an enterprise zone for foreign investment and exports, not only will they fail, but they will in all likelihood create an economic catastrophe for the world capitalist system.

China's relationship to world politics and the capitalist world system is radically different than was the case with the Soviet Union. This means that any neo Cold War strategy of "containing China" by forging military alliances with Japan, South Korea, and other states bordering China would be not only sinister but absurd. The only beneficiary in the short-run would be the military industrial complex of the U.S. which has been a parasitic force, especially since Reagan's election to the presidency. It has absorbed trillions of dollars in public funds for projects which detracted from the development of the civilian economy, detracted from scientific and technological development which would have enabled the U.S. to sustain the great advantages that it previously possessed in terms of production technology, investment capital and a skilled labor force. U.S. military spending during the cold war alone, 1947 to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 has been estimated at 10 trillion dollars. This, along with the huge reduction in taxes on corporations and the wealthy and the post cold war "war against "terrorism" (and its spending of many trillions) has created the spectacular increase in the national debt which has made the U.S. if not capital poor, capital vulnerable.

What policies should a responsible American left see in U.S.-Chinese Relations?

First, it is important to grasp that China is vital to the maintenance of peace certainly in East Asia and the Pacific, to the development of a peace policy on the Korean Peninsula, to peace and development in Southeast Asia directly.

China also can play, and the responsible left should support, a role in the development of a peace process for South Asia generally. Here I think that the U.S. and China can work together fruitfully to both engage with India and disengage from Pakistan, with whom China has nothing really in common. (Pakistan is an anti-socialist, theocratic state ruled by a military junta which aids and abets reactionary Islamic terrorist groups, which have directly attacked the U.S. and potentially can be a threat to China, given its Islamic minorities).

It would be short-sighted in the extreme for China to see Pakistan as a geopolitical military pawn against India, since Pakistan's economic backwardness and militarist adventurism against India only undermines regional economic development and harms both India and China. Their mutual interest really is in expanding regional economic relationships. The U.S. policy of funding and arming Pakistan from the 1950s as an anti-Communist, anti-Soviet "containment state" and then allying with Pakistan to subvert and attack the Communist led Soviet supported government of Afghanistan in the 1980s led directly to the establishment of Al Qaeda, later to the Taliban government and all of the disasters of the recent past and present.

What else can the American Left, whose divisions sadly have undermined its development since the post WW II political persecutions, give in the form of constructive advice to China? First, I would advise the Chinese Communist Party activists to look seriously at what CPUSA leader Gus Hall called "bill of rights socialism," socialism with civil liberties, as a necessity for socialist development. Mao Tse-tung's concept of "from the people to the people" is in itself a Chinese expression as I see it of Bill of Rights Socialism, because trust in the masses of people and in their understanding and development, is necessary if the masses of people are to trust in you .

Just as the feudal Confucian philosophy had (as I remember from my studies of Chinese history at the University of Michigan over four decades ago) a concept of a righteous scholar representing both the Confucian path and the people against corruption, Chinese Communist cadres can perhaps develop the concept of the "righteous cadre" living with and for the people, not above them, teaching and learning from them. The cadre of the CPC could then lead to limit the accumulation of personal and family wealth, educate and organize the people to root out bribery and corruption, both domestic and that resulting of Foreign Direct Investment. It was, we should remember, this commitment to the people, to live with them and like them that enabled the Chinese Communist Party to defeat the Japanese and later U.S. imperialists, warlords, landlords, and the reactionary Kuomintang regime. It is something that should be remembered as China struggles to construct a socialist market economy.

I would also say to our Chinese comrades (broadly defined) that planning is the key component of all models of socialism. There are three components of planning in any system, including public sector institutions and corporations in capitalist systems. The first is strategic planning, that is policies to achieve long range goals like Deng's Four Modernizations at the end of the 1970s.

The second component is tactical planning, that is flexible responses to changing conditions in regard to the policies to achieve the goals of the plan.

The third component is human relations planning , that is, gaining the active participation, support, and trust of the masses of people. These are what one might call the three principles of effective planning.

Without the third component, effective human relations planning and policy, no planning process will ultimately be effective. I would say that adoption of and adaptation to national conditions of Bill of Rights socialism, socialism with civil liberties, is the most effective human relations policy for those seeking to develop socialism.

The development of socialism remains the stated goal of the Chinese Communist Party, which came into existence to liberate the Chinese people from domestic feudalism and foreign imperialism and to open the door to the construction of a socialist Society with Chinese characteristics.

Let me say also a word to those on the left who spend their time criticizing Chinese policy. Our struggle is here and our only real influence is and can be what we can do here to advance peoples movements in the direction of a socialist path and to unify ourselves so that we can fight monopoly capitalism and imperialism. Our primary task is not to attack countries which have had revolutions and whose stated aims are to establish socialist societies. By condemning China for its domestic and foreign policies, those on the left are "tailing"" (to use the old language of the Comintern) reactionaries and neo cold warriors.

If the left in the U.S. is to be taken seriously about anything, it might begin by looking at where the U.S political economy is today in comparison to China before blithely accusing the Chinese Communist Party and state of leading an exploitative capitalist system. Those who mock the CPC's stated commitment to develop a "socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics" should note that the political power structure of the United States, including the most progressive Democrats, would not dream of transforming the United States into "a socialist market economy with American characteristics".

Recently they, and here I include the Obama administration, have been so timid as to shy away from the policies associated with the American New Deal, that is, "social democratic" policies which the New Dealers drew in limited forms from the Communist and socialist movement: public works jobs for the unemployed, laws protecting trade unions, public old age pensions and unemployment benefits, large public developmental projects, even food stamps to assist the poor and food store proprietors. They have pursued instead such policies as "bailouts" to Wall Street and Banking and Industrial capital, with no concessions demanded from capital in terms of jobs, trade union rights, or serious tax reform. Such planning would, in terms of an anti-depression strategy and winning the support of the masses (similar to New Deal policies), in effect, have successfully borrowed, in a very limited form, socialist programs to both save and reform capitalism.

What the Chinese Communist party is doing or trying to do is to adopt, in a limited form, the capitalist policies of market, private investment and competition, to develop a socialist market economy and society. Whether they will succeed or not over time cannot of course be answered, but their attempts do not deserve to be prejudged.

The Obama administration, I would suggest, has a great deal to learn from the Chinese government's control of the banking system and its ability to channel capital investment into the Chinese economy through a planning process that makes "bailouts" reciprocal rather than a one way street.

We cannot look seriously at China and U.S. Chinese relations without looking at our political economy, power structure, and the policies which they have advanced.

Let me conclude with a few suggestions for the issues of those relations

First, the development of a clear co-existence policy that would defuse potential military conflicts in the Asia Pacific region and prevent arms races related to that region.

Second, working with China in and through the United Nations in campaigns against world hunger, environmental destruction in the poor countries, global environmental policies, instead of self-righteously denouncing Chinese pollution and ignoring the positive achievements of Chinese scientists in ecology. Third, the U.S. and China working together and with other nations through the United Nations social agencies to develop regional fair labor standards for a global economy.

Finally, I would strongly suggest as a necessary concomitant to such policies the dissolution of the NAT0 bloc.

Note: the following four paragraphs were omitted because of time constraints.

The U.S. through NATO continues to waste hundreds of billions of dollars in its adventures through the world and in maintaining military force against nonexistent enemies in Europe. These policies would permit the U.S. to reduce its military spending by more than half, which would still be first in the world and signicantly greater than China and also encourage China to reduce its non productive military spending

Some think that China will become a leader of a "Second World" including the BRIC nations, Brazil, Russia, India, China; that however is extremely unlikely and I would say not something to be wished for either.

A broad policy of Sino U.S. cooperation internationally and a changed U.S. Chinese economic relationship, one that encourages increased Chinese purchasing power, joint ventures, and bilateral trade agreements from which both China and the U.S. and the Chinese and American people would benefit, offers a much better and more realistic policy for Sino-U.S. relations. The Obama administration in its second term still is in a position to advance such policies, as the other major nations of the U.S. NAT0 bloc are not.

The U.S. is currently struggling to recover from a debilitating more than three decades old physical and mental illness-regressive, even infantile "neo liberal" capitalism or as I like to call it Friedmanitis. China, whatever it's relatively recent feudal past and the devastating effects of imperialist intervention for its people, does not have that illness to worry about. U.S. Chinese cooperation of the kind that I have suggested, through the United Nations and other global venues, can also help eradicate that illness, which still acts to undermine the economic and thus social and political health of people throughout the world.

Some postscript comments from other panelists and the chair

The discussion which followed the presentations was rich and interesting. Professor Wei in her presentation dealt seriously and insightfully with the problem of economic inequality in China today, the dangers of over production and inadequate consumption, given the adaption of market economy from capitalism. She also made the point that there are no models of socialism in the world today and that China, after initially adopting the Soviet model of central planning and no private business or market relations, has through trial and error and given the global necessity, moved toward the present socialist market economy. Martin Rivlin dealt with very contemporary developments in both China and U.S. Chinese relations, was critical of Deng Shao p'ing's tactical implementation of his four modernizations, but was extremely critical of U.S. finger pointing at China in terms of both its economic policy and its "human rights policy."

In response to criticisms of China's lack of "human rights", "labor's rights", and "democracy" all of the panelists saw this as hypocritical in the extreme. Chair Gary Hicks stated rightly that four years ago the Chinese Communist party and government demanded that Wal-Mart in China unionize and Wal-Mart did. Today, Wal-Mart in the U.S. is both the leading employer of non-union labor, and notorious for its violation of overtime pay and other U.S. labor laws. On the U.S. political system, Professor Wei mentioned that China does have a one party system and the U.S. a two party system , but the U.S. two party systems is controlled by the rich. Professor Wei contended that Chinese unions worked well for workers in the public sector but not well in the private sector where heads of firms bribed union representatives with stock issues. She was also very frank about the problem of corruption in China. I gave examples of corruption here and stated that the Chinese Communist Party had the power to effectively fight corruption. Gary Hicks, in response to my comments concerning an adaption of Gus Hall's concept of "Bill of Rights Socialism" argued that China had already implemented in principle the first ten amendments to the constitution.

Note. The following paragraphs also were not presented because I was running out of time.

When we look at rising Chinese inequality over the last decades, which no one should of course support, we should remember it has developed in a context in which more people have been raised out of destitution and poverty in China then in any society in human history over the last three decades.

The leadership of the Chinese Communist party deserves credit for having deterred the "jungle capitalism" of 19^th century Britain and the U.S, much less the brutal semi-colonial comprador capitalism that was China's developing fate under Chiang Kai' shek before the barbaric Japanese invasion (and Chiang was trying to return to after the defeat of the Japanese imperialists)

Higher levels of inequality in the U.S. during that time frame and in the nations of the NAT0 bloc have raised levels of real poverty everywhere and have been connected to economic stagnation, not real growth in the Keynesian sense of that, to the massive export of capital, and the creation of huge state, and in the U.S., crippling consumer debt, the latter providing super profits for finance capital and undermining what the Chinese leader Sun Yat -sen called the third principle of the people, the peoples livelihood.

Today, a Marxist analysis of history can tell us is that there is no first world, second world, third world anymore. The continuation of U.S. NAT0 bloc's anti-Soviet policies directed against China, that is, spreading fears of Chinese "expansion" in Asia and calls to "contain" China in military and political terms is senseless in the extreme. It is an example of the old definition of reactionary, that is, learning nothing from real conditions and forgetting nothing in terms of policy and advancing the same policies over and over again.

The authoritarian Asian regimes that reactionaries hailed as Asian Tigers have been shown to be paper tigers in regard to political economy. They have nothing offer the U.S. as part of an anti-Chinese alliance if that were possible. Japan remains a major capitalist competitor of the U.S.(and there are dangerous tendencies in Japan, from what I have read, forces seeking to abrogate the U.S. imposed postwar constitution which greatly limited Japan's military capacity, actions that are not in China's or the U.S. interests)

The 21^st century, given the distribution of world population and the dramatic, albeit different, developments in India and China, will in all likelihood be first and foremost an Asian Century. What kind of Asian century it will be will depend significantly on developing U.S. Chinese relations.

Photo: Chinese construction workers 2002 Creative Commons 3.0

All of Us

Fri, 21 Jun 2013 10:48:00 +0000

Still singing tonight about Scott Brown and

His dismissal of the heritage and lives of

The family of Elizabeth Warren and their

Cultures mixed as they were like so many

Of the rest of us Americans and our blood

We fell in love as all people do and the best

Of us didn't worry about how dark or light

The skin was or the hair's texture or how

Wide our noses were or the shape of our

Cheekbones. We loved and learned from

One another whether to fry or stew okra

Who could best imitate the scream of a

Panther in the Mississippi River bottomlands

The last panthers east of that river that

Split the continent. Maybe Ms. Warren's

Grandmas made cornbread or biscuits like

Mine or told stories on warm summer nights

Like mine or maybe her Grandpas taught her

And the boys to shoot what you could eat

And catch the fish you were willing to clean

Ms. Warren is beyond all that now even

Though some of get fresh sheller peas or

Mustard greens still or barbecues coon or

Wild hog roasted over an open hickory fire

See what Scott Brown and his pretty frat

'Boys don't know is when they make fun of

Her Cherokee or Delaware, they fun

Of my Cherokee and Chickasaw and African

There is not one race or ethnicity in this

Country, but so many and we still

Struggle to learn and live together and to

Honor one another and our people and how

We live and look and how proud we are of

The ancestors who traveled the Trail of

Tears and the others who hid in the

Mountains they knew from hunting there.

Scott Brown and his pretty frat boys don't

Even know these things. Posing for hand

Commercials don't leave time to learn

How people learned to live with each other

Across lines that only frustrate life.

Stewart Acuff

Silver Spring, MD

Appeared in Blue Collar Review Winter 2012-2013

The Congressional battle over immigration

Fri, 21 Jun 2013 09:05:00 +0000

The struggle for new immigration reform legislation is now going full blast, in Congress, in the media, and on the streets. This has been made possible by the strong impact that Latino voters had in defeating the Republicans in the November 2012 elections. Republicans and Democrats drew the conclusion that they had to "do something" on the immigration front if they were going to get, or keep, Latino votes in the future.

This can be counted as a major victory for the immigrants' rights movement and labor, who have been mobilizing at the grassroots for a new legalization program since the late 1990s, with a key moment being the Immigrant Workers' Freedom Ride in 2003.

That campaign solidified unity among the immigrants' rights movement and organized labor, which is still going strong.

What will be accomplished legislatively and at what price in concessions and trade-offs depends, however, on an intricate inside-outside battle between contending class-based forces which have different stakes in the game. The determining factor will be the balance of power, in Congress and in the country. This balance is not static but depends on the organizing abilities of all involved.

The key players in the immigration struggle include:

*The grassroots immigrants' rights movement and its labor and civil rights allies sees the big prize as the legalization of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, with the initial goal being to bring them into some legal status that will at least prevent them from being vulnerable to arrest and deportation threats that keep them from standing up for their rights and interests as workers and human beings. However, to keep the legalized immigrants in a perpetual "guest worker" status, in which their presence in the country depends on the job market and they never have access to green cards, let alone citizenship, is opposed. Equality in the workplace and the community is the aim. The working class stake in this is class unity and the empowerment of 11 million working class people who, under present circumstances, are oppressed both in the workplace and the community. This can be seen as the main working class position, though it is also supported by some other sectors.

*Various industries that use low-wage labor want to be able to operate legally (avoiding fines and other punishments), but without having to respect the rights of their employees to fair wages and the benefits or unionization, and they also do not want to be responsible for the well being of the families of their workers. A major objective of this sector, which includes agribusiness, hotels and restaurants, construction and remodeling, and home health care, is to facilitate access to low-wage guest workers who would replace the current undocumented immigrant work force. They want to see an expansion of guest worker programs. That is the priority of this section of the capitalist class.

*A second group of industries in more high-tech fields want to be able to bring in more guest workers with advanced skills and training, in order to be able to pay them less than they would have to pay U.S. workers. This is opposed by organized labor. It is also seen as very problematic by the governments of poorer countries who perceive a "brain drain" of highly trained personnel whose education has been paid for out of scarce national funds.

*Governments, civic organizations and political leaders in countries from which the largest number of undocumented workers originate want to avoid mass deportations of the current undocumented immigrants in the United States, which would stress their social welfare systems to the breaking point, as well as severely curtail crucially important remittances from the immigrants to their families and home communities from the United States. In 2012 alone, Mexican immigrants in the United States sent $23 billion home to their families and communities in Mexico, and the amounts sent to other countries are proportionally even higher. Moreover, these countries would like to see a regularization and increase of legal labor immigration to the United States, in order to put a stop to the non-stop bloodbath being carried out by criminal gangs against immigrants passing through Mexico to the U.S. border. They are under pressure from their own citizens to accomplish these things.

*Extremist right-wing politicians and their financial backers, who have staked their future on blaming this country's problems on immigrants and foreigners, have an interest in using the immigration issue to demagogically pose as the patriotic defenders of the United States against "invasions by foreign hordes." Though open to guest worker schemes, these elements try to sabotage the campaign to give legal status to the undocumented, and champion various repressive elements in the legislation. They are the main source of "poison pill" amendments to S 744, the principal immigration reform bill in the Senate. This is the position of the section of the ruling class that is moving in a quasi-fascist direction.

All of these are powerful forces and their influence will be seen in all the congressional debates and actions on the subject of immigration. Indeed, the influence of disparate groups is already visible in the main Senate immigration bill, S 744, now being debated in the Senate after being voted out of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and after the full Senate voted to go to debate on the floor. http://peoplesworld.org/battle-over-immigration-reform-starts-in-congress/ There is a long and complicated process, with many possible pitfalls, involved in achieving legalization, including provisions for new guest worker programs for both high and low skilled workers, and a lot of new harmful and unnecessary repressive "control measures."

In the Senate, the Democrats have a 52-seat majority. On the issue of immigration, the two independent senators (Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine) will probably align with the Democrats. The Republicans hold 46 Senate seats. This does not allow smooth sailing for S 744. In the first place, although the Senate voted to go ahead with debate, it is not guaranteed that at some point the bill will not be filibustered and that 60 votes can be found to stop the filibuster without the bill's sponsors making even more concessions to the right.

In the House, the Republicans have a 234 to 201 majority. Moreover, support by neither House nor Senate Democrats is 100 per cent. This is why it is not possible in this session of Congress to pass immigration legislation that is one-hundred-percent satisfactory for the immigrants, the immigrants' rights movement, and labor. The numbers are not there in Congress, so the balance of forces does not favor an optimal outcome.

The result of all this balancing of interests is a bill which holds out the possibility of legalization and an eventual path to citizenship to the majority of undocumented immigrants, but imposes procedures that are so lengthy and difficult that it is likely that many will not make it. Particularly worrisome are requirements that people undergoing legalization under this bill would have to maintain an income level of 125 percent of the poverty rate and not be unemployed for more than sixty days, over a 10-year period. This is a huge burden for poor immigrants, who face deportation if they fall through the cracks at any point, and it is also a big gift to employers.

On the other hand, there are some very positive elements. At least some people who have already been deported might be allowed to return on the basis of "family unity" considerations, and there is a fix for the outrageous "Hoffman Plastic Products" court decision. http://peoplesworld.org/analysts-say-bill-would-extend-labor-law-protection-to-immigrants/

Traded off against these are mostly negative features in the bill: New guest worker programs which will lend themselves to exploitation and abuse, and new enforcement mechanisms that are not going to stop undocumented immigration, but are rather, as well as being harsh and repressive, expensive boondoggles.

And the bill nowhere addresses any of the real causes of undocumented immigration, which lie in the extreme inequalities between rich and poor countries, and within poor countries, which are sharply exacerbated by the dynamics of corporate-controlled globalization. Since all Republicans in Congress and many or most Democrats support corporate globalization, they cannot deal with the real causes of undocumented immigration, but must fudge. So according to the language of the bill, undocumented immigration is going to be "stopped" not by working for equality and social justice worldwide, but by fences on the border, drones hovering over the desert, electronic detection mechanisms, workplace enforcement through check-ups on the authenticity of workers' Social Security Numbers (called e-verify) and cooperation in rooting out undocumented immigrants with local police forces that are sometimes racist, corrupt or incompetent (the badly named "Secure Communities" program).

Because of these negative features of the bill, some left-wing elements of the immigrants' rights movement appear to be getting ready to call for its defeat. But we must remember that not passing legislation this year also has consequences. The repressive elements in S 744, and the problematic guest worker clauses, are likely to be imposed one way or another through other legislation or executive action at the federal or state level even if this specific bill doesn't pass. Then the undocumented immigrants and their families will be facing increased repression without the element of even a flawed legalization program. The increase in arrests and deportations by the Obama administration is also a factor to be taken into consideration. The movement is correctly denouncing these things and demanding the suspension of most deportations, but there is no guarantee that these demands will be achieved. In such a case, without any legislation to permit even a difficult path to legalization, the situation of the undocumented will be radically worsened.

Those who wish to wash their hands of the legislation call for a return to mass demonstrations. But the mass demonstrations have never stopped. They have lost numbers because the participants have not seen forward motion at the institutional level, including in the legislative process. But every week sees picketing or civil disobedience in numerous areas of the country. This will continue as the Congressional debates go on. This is why even strong supporters of progressive, worker-friendly immigration reform are gritting their teeth and getting ready to support the current Senate legislation. For the moment, their attention will be focused on slapping down noxious amendments that have already been introduced, or that will be introduced shortly. Most of these will be designed to sabotage the bill entirely, or to make the legalization process even harder by delaying its initial steps until an impossible level of "security" is achieved on the border, or adding requirements such as fluency in English before legalization can proceed.

In the near future, one or more House bills will be introduced. Then the same debates that are going on in the Senate will continue there. The same forces will be competing over the architecture of the House bill as in the Senate. It will have a legalization mechanism for the undocumented, new guest worker programs, and new repressive control mechanisms.

How all thus turns out depends on the balance of class forces. So the emphasis must be for us to organize, organize, organize!

photo: peoplesworld.org

The crisis in public education: Causes and the way forward

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:50:00 +0000

The winning of universal publicly funded education is one of our nation's great achievements. Public education has provided a road out of poverty for millions of workers and their children. It has also created a literate working class with the tools to organize to end exploitation and build a system that puts people before profits.

Now public education is under attack. Severe budget cuts resulting in cuts in programs, teaching and other personnel and material resources have become the norm in recent years. The attack is disguised with progressive sounding phrases such as "improving failing schools" and overcoming the "achievement gap." But this current wave of "reform" threatens to dismantle our schools for the greater profit of finance capital and to the detriment of our children and our nation. This is the Hidden agenda of the so-called reform movement.

The crisis of education is taking place within the larger crisis of capitalism. This larger crisis is characterized by global economic stagnation, the increasing power of finance capital, and the growing monopolization, or centralization of capital, here and abroad. Capitalism's inherent drive to constantly increase its profits and ramp up the rate of exploitation has led to an assault on public institutions as monopoly finance capital tries to bend the public sector to its profit generating goals, undermining our democracy and our quality of life in the process.

We in the US spend $500 billion a year on education at the federal, state and local levels. While teachers, parents and students look at our schools and too often see under funded, understaffed and struggling institutions, finance capital sees profits to be made. This privatization and corruption of our public institutions has a sharp racist edge with the most severe blows aimed at working class communities, especially communities of color.

Education: Historic Arena of Struggle:

Universal education was not easily won in our country. The first free compulsory education was won by unions as part of labor's fight to end child labor. Newly freed African Americans struggled to win the first public schools in the South during Reconstruction. Education continues to have a special place in the American narrative and continues to be a cornerstone of democratic thought. Our proud achievement is now in danger because capitalists no longer see a need to educate millions through a free public education system.

In fact, the benefits of public education have never been equitably distributed in our country. Reliance on local funding sources, primarily property taxes, has meant that wealthier, more affluent communities provide better equipped and staffed schools. Having said this, we should hasten to add that many schools in working class or poor communities, now branded as "failing", have historically provided a stable and essential institution in those communities.

In any case, the attack has intensified recently. For the past 40 years public schools have had to deal with the brutal effects of the structural crisis of capitalism on families and children, which have devastated once thriving neighborhoods and undermined their schools. The percentage of children living under the poverty level has nearly doubled from 14.4 in 1973 to 22 in 2010, with 38 percent of African American children and 35 percent of Latino children living in poverty. There is a well established correlation between income level and educational success. Schools are being overwhelmed as poverty (and near poverty) grows across the country. The agenda of the corporate elite during this time, from Nixon to Reagan to the Bushes was to increase military spending, cut or privatize government services and slash taxes for the wealthiest Americans. Schools are facing ever more difficult challenges and teachers are trying to help students with greater needs in more crowded classrooms with few resources.

Throughout our history teachers and parents and their organizations have fought to democratize education and to meet the real educational and human needs of children. Teachers and their unions have been historically the most vocal and effective advocates for children and quality schooling. Communists and their allies gave important leadership in building the early teacher union movement during the first half of the last century. Teachers and their allies in the community and the larger political arena acting in support of quality education have been able to blunt the worst that capitalism had in store for children. In short, teachers have worked for children, the system has not. It is in this light that we can understand why the so-called "reform" movement has targeted teachers and their unions with such a relentless propaganda offensive, along with an all out assault on union rights in state after state.

Sources of the Education "Reform Movement":

A new characteristic of the right-wing assault on public institutions, including school systems, is the use of foundations, funded by tax-free dollars from modern day robber barons, which use their billions to shape public policy directly without input from those most affected by their desired changes. By doing and "end run" around government and elected officials these foundations fund programs that service their ends, frequently by seducing cash-starved school boards with grant money to do their bidding. This has been labeled "venture philanthropy" or "philantro-capitalism".

The largest of these are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Foundation, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. The goals of the Broad Foundation, for example, are to privatize public education, bust teacher unions, and deprofessionalize teaching. Towards this end it runs a school superintendent training institute where its ideological goals are instilled. It then subsidizes school districts that hire these superintendents to run them. The Foundation uses the rhetoric of closing "the achievement gap" to appeal to African American and Latino parents who are justly concerned about their children's education in school systems that have perpetuated inequality for decades. Signs that a school system has been taken over by Broad Foundation policies are:

Schools in your district are suddenly closed.... Repetition of the phrases ‘the achievement gap' and ‘closing the achievement gap' in district documents and public statements....Sudden increase in the number of paid outside consultants. Increase in the number of public schools turned into privately run charters.... Weak math text adopted....Possibly weak language arts too....The district leadership declares that the single most significant problem in the district is suddenly teachers! ....Excessive amounts of testing introduced and imposed on your kids....Your school board starts to show signs of Stockholm Syndrome. They vote in lock step with the Superintendent.... Grants appear from the Broad and Gates Foundations in support of the Superintendent, and his/her ‘Strategic Plan.' The Gates Foundation gives your district grants for technical things...and/or teacher "Effectiveness' or studies on charter schools. (Seattle Educator, April 2009, quoted in Foster, Monthly Review, July-August 2011)

The Walton Foundation's goals are to "create, sustain and promote alternatives to public education. Their agenda is choice, competition and privatization." (Ravitch: The Death and Life of the Great American School System) The Gates Foundation, besides working hand in glove with the Broad Foundation, also spends hundreds of billions of dollars supporting educational advocacy groups, so-called "astro-turf" (as opposed to grass roots) organizations, whose goals are breaking unions, privatization and charter schools. For example, it was Gates money that was behind the drive to end seniority in layoff decisions (LIFO or last in first out) in New York City schools. Ending LIFO would allow principals to layoff any teacher based on test scores or any other criteria and then hire whomever they choose. Both the Gates and Dell Foundations support technological solutions to the education "crisis". They are the driving force behind the "data driven classroom," where computers would be used to classify teachers according to their students' test scores on a day-to-day basis at the whim of administrators or outside managers. These foundations aim to de-professionalize teaching and to replace human beings as teachers with various forms of inherently less effective technology.

Prominent public officials have been active in this effort. Both Arne Duncan (US Secretary of Education and formerly head of Chicago's schools where many of these reforms have been tried) and Lawrence Summers (formerly President of Harvard, chief economist for the World Bank, Secretary of the Treasury, and advocate while in government for the deregulation of derivatives contracts, leading to the financial crisis) sit on the board of the Broad Foundation. The Gates Foundation funded Duncan's "reform" of the Chicago school system. In summary, some who have run the education system are aligned with corporate interests that stand to profit from the dismantling of public schools.

The Nature of the Education "Reforms":

The overall goal of the "reform" movement is to take tax monies out of the public sector and transfer it into private hands. In general, these "reforms" are characterized by the application of various business models to schools. There are several main thrusts to this orchestrated drive.

One thrust of the education "reform" movement is the restructuring of the management of schools. As workers across the economy have less and less control over their labor, as labor becomes increasingly specialized and globalized, as the division of labor becomes increasingly minute and isolated, managers have gained greater control over the labor process. This finds a parallel development in schools where newly instituted top-down, managerial control strives to wrest decision making and autonomy from teachers. Similarly, parents and their organizations are ignored in the public policy decision making process regarding schools. Boards of Education are disbanded for new mayoral rubber stamp bodies, and teachers' unions are ignored, sidestepped and attacked at every opportunity. Superintendents' micro-managing of teacher's classroom instruction, scripted lessons and prescribed pedagogies are all part of this de-professionalization of the teaching profession and dovetail with the blaming of teachers for all our educational ills.

In New York City and elsewhere the restructuring of the management of the school system has been virtually constant under the bizarre belief that our educational problems can be solved by some "magic bullet" or by more and more authoritarian, top-down directives. Increasingly superintendents are able to close schools and fire their administrations at will. The "reformers" argue that such "accountability" will force principals to force teachers to shape up, or be fired, using test scores as a cudgel to do so. Eleven years of mayoral control in New York City has proven that this is not the case. Though more and more schools are closed, and more and more principals summarily fired, every year, there has been no big improvement. The slight steady, increase in test scores began before mayoral control, again showing that teachers work, the system doesn't.

This management model is driven by a pro-business ideology. It is argued that schools are like small businesses run by entrepreneurs (principals) who must force their workers to work harder to turn out a better product (student test scores) for less money. This is why class size is not a mandated bargaining issue. Increasing class size is the educational equivalent of speed up. This dog-eat-dog approach to education, one of the most human of enterprises, is counter productive. Treating children like widgets, having kindergarten classes of 30 plus students and 2nd grade classes of 35 plus students, for instance, is not progress. Taking away recess and blocks in kindergarten, social studies (content) and art in upper grades is inhuman. Testing is not education. This approach to education turns children off to learning, and turns adults off to educating.

Vouchers, charter schools, and schools run by private managers are part of this application of business models to public education. They threaten to exacerbate the two-tier inequitable educational system in America. The rich still send their kids to the "best" schools. Other parents are forced to scramble to find a school for their children or see them relegated to the most under funded schools that are allowed to languish by a system that encourages them to fail opening the way for privately-run for profit or charter schools to take their place. Paid for by our tax dollars, charter schools are forced into existing public schools and get preferential treatment in terms of gym, yard, library, computers, basic maintenance, and other facilities, while the host public school and its students are allowed to languish. Charter schools can be seen as the educational equivalent of WalMart. They may be owned and operated by millionaires, giving life to the propaganda that they are locally-run experiments in education reform.

It is perfectly understandable that parents strive to get their children into the best schools possible. But since President George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" Law the leaders of the charter school movement are too often taking advantage of this legitimate goal to drive their own agenda, setting up a privately run parallel school system rather than make every school a quality school.

Charter schools rob Peter to pay Paul. They are doing nothing but rearranging the existing inequalities in the public school systems in our country. Some of the parents may feel they are winning for their child with a new charter school, but many parents are losing out, too. Indeed, many of the proponents of charter schools are the same people who were responsible for, and indifferent to, the inequalities of our education system previously. Many of their leaders are being paid two and three times as much as a principal in a regular public school, and our tax dollars are paying their salaries. Many charter schools are supported by tax-deductible foundation monies. These endowments are then invested in hedge funds, the same organizations that are funding, via tax advantaged donations, these foundations. Again, the result is anti-public education and anti-union and ultimately, anti-child. This is occurring despite the fact that more and more studies show that charter or publicly funded private schools are doing no better than public schools on average, and often horribly worse, since they are removed from public control.

The intense emphasis on test scores has additional negative results for education. Entire school districts, have been rocked by scandal as principals and superintendents submitted doctored scores to keep their jobs, just as Fortune 500 companies cook the books to manipulate their stock prices. In such an environment, scripted, timed lessons bought from large publishing houses are replacing the judgment and expertise of individual teachers. These publishing houses are the same ones that make $100s of millions on the tests themselves. Some like Macmillan and Co. had close ties to the Bush Administration and testing and curricular materials not from Macmillan were considered to be out of compliance with No Child Left Behind by the US Department of Education.

Teachers and their unions are being targeted for several reasons. Just as every airline crash is due to "pilot error," so too the problems of education are blamed exclusively on the workers. Management is held blameless. The fact that these attacks come often from the very people who were, or still are, responsible for huge school systems for years is telling: Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee and Eva Moskowitz have all become rich as professional critics of the education system that they were once or are currently responsible for. This anti-teacher rhetoric is self-serving and extremely profitable as Rupert Murdoch or other billionaires fund their anti-public education efforts.

Teacher unions also play a key role in the labor movement in the United States. The attack on teachers and their unions is part of the all out assault on the working class in America. Teachers are among the most broadly organized sector of the workforce, with teachers unions or other teacher organizations active in virtually every community in the country. The anti-teacher rhetoric is driven by a largely unspoken agenda that has nothing to do with improving education, but everything to do with cutting taxes on the rich, breaking unions and pauperizing workers and their children.

The dismantling of public education and the assault on teachers and their unions are part of the offensive to disempower and marginalize the vast majority of the American people. Attacks on social security, Medicare and Medicaid, Obamacare, and on public education, are all part of an offensive to rob workers, their children, and their allies of the knowledge and organization they need to struggle for progress and a secure life in our country. This dovetails exactly with the theft and the transfer of $100s of billions from public treasuries to the private coffers.

What is needed now:

The education of our children is critical to our nation's future and to each individual's viability. Toward this end, funding of schools is too important to leave entirely to local municipalities. Of all the developed countries, we in the US rely the most heavily on local resources to fund our schools. Experience has shown that local funding has too often led to criminal inequalities in educational services. The American educational system is "broken" in large measure to the degree that it is unequal. A critical component of any program to "fix" education must focus on how to make educational opportunity equal from community to community across income groups and racial divisions. Students in affluent suburbs generally have much better educational experiences than students in poor inner city neighborhoods and rural areas. This inequality has little to do with the quality of the teachers. It has everything to do with the allocation of resources.

Strong leadership from the Federal Government will be necessary for this effort to succeed. Federal funding and national standards for schools coupled with local control of implementation is necessary to overcome the funding gap that has gutted too many of our nation's schools and which is at the heart of the educational crisis today. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, a victory of the Civil Rights Movement, set a powerful precedent for a federal role in supporting and advancing public education in our country. We must now build on this foundation.

Education is a right, not a privilege. Every child deserves a quality, well-rounded education that best serves his or her needs. This means that students with the most needs receive the most services, the opposite of what exists currently in our educational system. The needs of the child as a contributing member of society must be the determining factor in education, not the needs of corporate America. If each child is educated to his/her full potential, then the needs of society will also be met as each individual can become a contributing member.

Public education must be public. It must be funded by tax dollars. Education policy must be debated and decided upon democratically in the public sphere. Similarly, schools are important community organizations. They are there to service the community. It has been shown that schools that provide services to the entire community, not just its children, serve the children of those communities the best. These "community schools" provide health care, day care, adult education, adult job-training, family counseling, parenting classes, ESL classes for adults, basic education in Spanish for adults and other services. Such schools aim to improve all the conditions that influence a child's ability to learn, inside and outside of the school.

Human beings are social animals and education, the most human of our activities, is necessarily a social enterprise. This means that everyone involved in the education of children must also be taken care of. Overworked educators, counselors and social workers cannot do the job as they wish to do if they are overwhelmed with their teaching or case loads. We need technical support, libraries with librarians, counselors, reading specialists, social workers, dieticians, nurses and more in the schools. Schools have to be able to address the social, emotional and other needs of students that can get in the way of their learning. Schools need more adults, not fewer, working with children. This is counter to the trend toward greater "efficiency" in schools

Schools will only improve if they focus on more than reading and mathematics, the subjects of many state tests. Developing skills without thinking and creating, independent of content, guts education of its purpose and demotivates students. Social studies, science, foreign languages and vocational courses are essential to developing a well-rounded person. Different children learn in many different ways. Music, art, dance, creative writing, among others, must all be extensively taught for all children to learn, for all children to develop as fully rounded individuals. They also need computer labs, access to technology classes, video, and graphic design, shop and other career classes, after school programs and sports. Students need age-appropriate sex-education and health services. Children need many opportunities to learn, in the classroom and out. They learn best when they construct their own knowledge, their own understanding of their physical and social world, through projects, exploration and experiential learning. Educators in successful schools help students navigate that journey of self-discovery. When schooling is reduced to scripted lessons of objective knowledge, evaluated solely by tests, the goal of a real education cannot be achieved. Education is not simply about higher scores, but producing responsible, thinking citizens.

Schools work best when they are democratically run, when children, parents, teachers, school leaders, staff, and the larger community all have a role in running them, shaping the nature of the education of our children. Students need to be involved in the real world problems of running their schools, of determining educational policy, and of what services and programs should be offered. In such a school where students have a voice, student involvement in problem solving and running the school helps young people learn how to self-reflect, self-manage and to collaborate with others. This prepares them to become active and responsible citizens when they become adults. Of course, schools work best when all their constituents work together. This means that there is no perfect management "solution" to our educational problems. In short, management of our schools is a process and not a structure. No one individual knows better than the whole. Greater and greater concentration of power and autocratic rule of our schools and school systems is moving in precisely the wrong direction and offers false hope for educational progress

Children are not widgets to be produced ever more efficiently for ever greater profit. They are human beings and so have many different needs, emotional, social, physical, economic, and artistic as well as intellectual. Schools are necessary but not sufficient to meet the various needs of students. Young people need excellent schools, but they also need families, and communities. It does take a village to raise a child. Study after study has shown that the first five years of life are critical to a child's mental development, and later school success. To address educational inequalities, we must as a country support families. The forces of economic insecurity cause families to dissolve and too often take parents away from their children. The US has the longest work week and longest work year among the OECD countries. For the great majority of families, the only increase in real wages over the last 30 years is due to women entering the workforce en masse. In effect, children are too often left alone to raise themselves.

Children need a safe and nurturing home. For schools to succeed, families must be supported. Full employment, a living wage, universal health care, paid maternity leave, affordable quality child care and early childhood programs, and economic security in old age are all necessary to remove the economic and time pressures from overworked and/or economically threatened families so that parents have the time and attention to support their young learners. Financial security is also critical to the nutritional wellbeing and physical and mental development of a child. Parents need further supports such as access to adult education in ESL, Spanish (or other languages of the family), job training, support for women, and after-school programs. In short, the educational crisis cannot be met by schools alone. Great schools populated by experienced educators are necessary, but not sufficient for the full development of each child. We must improve the conditions in which teachers teach and students learn rather than endlessly reorganize how schools systems are managed and controlled if we wish to fully address the educational needs of our children and our nation.

Despite all the attacks, public education continues to enjoy wide public support. There are encouraging signs that the right wing assault on public education is meeting a growing tide of resistance across the country. The widely supported strike by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is one example. The growing union/student/ community resistance to current attempts to privatize large sections of the Philadelphia School District is another. There are others. We welcome and support these developments and urge education activists, school workers, parents and other interested citizens to join in and help to build this effort.

We call for the following as a basic minimum program for our public schools:

Full and equitable funding for our nation's public schools, with additional funding for communities with the greatest needs, guaranteed by the federal government.

Class sizes, teacher/student ratios and adult/student ratios that allow students to get the attention and support they need.

A challenging, rich and wide ranging curriculum that encourages all students to reach their full potential.

A multicultural curriculum that exposes young people to the contributions that diverse peoples and groups, male and female, have made to building our country and the damage done by bigotry, racism and male chauvinism.

An educational system that aims to break down barriers of race, class and geography that have separated students and communities.

Fair treatment including the right to organize and bargain collectively, fair compensation and respect for teachers and all education workers charged with raising and educating our nation's youth.

Photo: Peoplesworld

Left unity is the result not the goal

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:44:00 +0000

This article is based on remarks made at a panel discussion June 5 in New York City. Titled "The Future of the Left - A Conversation on Socialist Unity", the event was hosted by Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, Communist Party USA, Democratic Socialists of America and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, with participation and support from Jacobin Magazine, Left Labor Project, and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung-New York Office. The panelists responded to opening remarks by Mark Solomon, whose article "“Whither the Socialist Left? Thinking the ‘Unthinkable” has generated a lot of discussion and debate on the topic in recent months.

Left unity should always be the outcome of the struggle, not its goal.

Because of this, unity in action is the basis of left unity. When we focus on reconciling differences in theory or program we naturally focus on differences between us. But when we work together in the movements we come together based on common work and what we agree on, not what divides us.

Of course, left unity won't come about on its own. We should strive for left unity, but not mechanically. There have been many attempts over the decades to forge "unity of the left" - a new group or alliance or merger - some more successful than others. Rarely do these attempts on their own represent a major shift in the actual capacity of the left or the balance of political forces.

History shows that actual moments of heightened left unity, or significant regroupements on the left, or the emergence of new organizations, usually appear due to a major shift in mass consciousness, or due to the birth of new powerful movements, or as the result of decisive shift of the balance of forces in society as a whole.

In other words, formal unity flows from the actual unity of social forces, not the other way around.

There are also several unique political realities and challenges in the U.S. that the left must grapple with in building left unity:

First, many people - probably most - who are moving towards socialist ideas are not in left organizations but are being radicalized in the social movements, and even sometimes outside of the social movements via the Internet, self-study, higher education, etc. And many of these leftists are skeptical of political parties and organization generally. While it is possible that uniting several left organizations will inspire some, it is also likely that it will go unnoticed by many more. An approach to left unity must address this sector of people.

Second, unlike in Europe and Latin America - where several left unity projects are underway - we do not have a parliamentary system and have little opportunity for electoral alliance. What does a non-electoral left alliance look like? How do we handle differences of approach to the elections and the two-party system? We must learn from the experiences of left unity around the globe both current and historical, but our left unity must be built in a U.S. context based on objective realities.

Third, the progressive mass social movements, be they labor, peace, environment, student, etc., while often led by or influenced by the left are not comprised primarily by "left" organizations. Uniting relatively small left groups in a country of millions will not have as big a political impact as building the strength of the working-class and democratic movements as a whole, and the unity of left action within those movements. There is also unprecedented openness to left ideas and even organizations in many movements. This opportunity should not be squandered or abused. So we must craft left unity that includes and involves these mass movements without dictating to them from the outside.

These three issues (among others) question the efficacy of merging left organizations alone as the solution (not to say that is what Solomon or anyone else is arguing for).

It should go without saying that left unity cannot distract us from the current democratic and class struggles. It must be forged within them, not separate from them, artificially. Left unity must therefore not take precedence over working-class unity, a much greater and more decisive task. Left unity should also not be pitted against left-center unity to greatly curb the ultra-right and the monopolies, which we believe is the strategic challenge of our time.

The left can and should initiate campaigns, concepts and struggles, but not set apart from the masses of people already in motion, not against the existing movements and mass organizations, but where it is strategic and unifies broader forces not just the left.

The fact is, a bigger, broader movement more engaged in the struggles will create the conditions for a vibrant left of greater size and scope. That is exactly what generated the largest radical upsurges in U.S. history.

Not that a successful new left form or a merger of existing players is or isn't necessarily going to come about in the future, but if it does, it would most likely be due to the ascendance of the working-class movement and a dramatic shift in the balance of political forces in a progressive direction, not from the left's weakness.

Of course there will never be a single "left unity" bringing everyone under one umbrella. There will be several hubs of unity where leftists who reach a level of agreement and cooperation will come together for a short time and in some cases for the long haul. Unity - even organizational unity - is also not won once and for all time, but is constantly struggled for and will have advances and setbacks. As it stands, any new significant structure or instrument of left unity on a national level is likely far down the road.

But that doesn't mean we should wait. Like-minded socialist groups can work more closely together, moving from cooperation to coordination and even collaboration. We can build a comradely dialogue and open new forms of communication and exchange. We can create social and political spaces to get to know each other. We can commit to relate to each other's organizations as equal partners, with no monopoly on the truth, with flexibility and respect. We can strive to work together where we are in agreement and learn to disagree without being disagreeable.

And we should keep talking. Not just among ourselves but with the broad left and progressive movement, organizations and individuals alike. I think these discussions, in various venues, both internal to our groups, public, private, among some of us or all of us, including the groups here and many others that are not, should continue.

The size, influence and political health of the broad left and the balance of forces in the country will be determined in the course of building the broader social movements and struggles. The Communist Party looks forward to continuing this dialogue and we look forward to continuing the work with others to unite and build a left that is up to the huge tasks at hand and in our future.

Photo: Wkikpedia

Big picture trade unionism

Fri, 31 May 2013 08:46:00 +0000

The labor movement is changing. Technology is changing how we work and produce. Capitalist globalization is creating new international divisions of labor. Global corporate power is restructuring class relations between labor and capital nationally and internationally.

Labor will have to change its structures and methods to cope with all these changes. That process is already well under way. No small tinkering around the edges will fit the times. There are no quick fixes. The "Big Picture" shifts labor needs to make are on a scale equal to those that took labor from craft unionism to industrial unionism in our country. Such change requires not only a lot of trial and error. It also requires a conscious discussion in the labor movement.

The need for change is widely accepted in the US labor movement today. The AFL-CIO has announced a major discussion throughout the federation on what changes labor and the unions need to make under these conditions. They have agreed to take these questions not only to union members, but also to the whole progressive movement and to labor allies. This follows on what has really been a number of years of change efforts and discussion of the need for change in labor.

What's Going On?

It's tempting to start with a description of all the remarkable things going on in the labor movement. Truly, in the face of tremendous odds and incredible political attack, the labor movement is fighting back with growing creativity and perseverance.

How can we not be inspired by the uprisings in Wisconsin, in Ohio, and in Indiana? How can we not be enthused by the teachers' strike in Chicago? These critical events are reflected in many discussions going on in local
unions executive boards, central labor councils, rank and file gatherings and conferences across the country. Labor is experimenting with new strategy and tactics in action, combined with thoughtful discussion in a search for solutions.

Union Density

The 2012 report on union density by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a grim reminder of just how challenging a time this is for labor. The economic crisis continues to take a heavy toll on union membership. Overall union density has dropped to only 11.3% of the workforce. In the private sector, where most of the industrial unions and manufacturing are based, it is down to 6.6%. (It is important to note that this tiny percentage of unionization applies to the main wealth-producing sector of the economy.) In the public sector, particularly in government jobs, union density is 35.9%.

These numbers for union density are the lowest they have been since these figures began being calculated in 1983. The steady decline underscores the ferocious attack on labor of the last 30+ years. Eight new states have passed right-to-work laws since 1983, several in the last couple of years. This brings the number of right-to-work states to 24, nearly half the states. New right-to-work laws are threatening in Missouri and Pennsylvania.

The big corporations have used the economic crisis to go on the offensive, attacking union wages, working conditions and labor rights. In particular the
corporations and the right wing have targeted union retirement and pension plans along with collective bargaining rights. In addition the overall global economic crisis has meant a global attack on labor throughout the world led by the giant transnational corporations and finance capital.

In the last few years the attack on labor in the US has become increasingly political. There is no doubt that since the elections of Pres. Obama, right-wing Republicans and their corporate sponsors have increasingly turned their sights on public worker unions. Not only because of the higher union density in that sector, but also to cripple rising union political action. They have always understood that the private sector industrial unions have been the base that makes public worker unions possible. The incredible low unions density in the private sector allows them to turn full force on the public and service worker unions.

Inequality, Racism and the Crisis

Many note that the attack on public workers has a particularly sharp edge against African-American, Latino and other communities of color. The sharp attack on public workers, teachers, government workers, and service workers falls disproportionately on workers who already face discrimination based on race, immigrant status, and gender. Whole communities are driven even further into poverty by these attacks. What is not so often talked about is the racist and sexist impact of the decline of union density in the private sector. Historically the industrial unions have been a critical factor in moving some families in these communities out of poverty. Industrial unions in manufacturing have been centers of struggle themselves for equality.

Here African American, Latino, women and others who have suffered discrimination have fought and won the right to learn skilled trades, to have more equal access to training and higher education through programs developed by the unions. More than that, good paying union jobs in the basic manufacturing industries have helped strengthen families and whole communities. In conjunction with civil rights, immigrant rights and women's equality struggles, union jobs have provided additional resources and opportunities. For example well-paid union jobs in these communities have meant more children able to go to college. Conversely the 30+ years of attack on labor has had a devastating effect on equality, not just in the work place, but also for whole communities. This is why combining the struggle for labor with the fight for equality and against racism is critical to any significant change in labor to meet the times.

The Fightback and New Features of Labor

In recent years almost every succeeding election cycle has seen a dramatic increase in independent political action by the nation's unions. 2012 continued the trend. In fact it is hard to overstate the incredible role of labor in the 2012 elections. 2008 marked a qualitative change in labor's independent political action. Not only did it mobilize a much larger boots-on-the-ground force, but it also created its own political action infrastructure. Labor campaigned out of its own union halls with its own messages on its own issues. In particular, union leaders and activists took the struggle against racism to a new level in the labor movement in the course of fighting to elect the first African-American President of the United States. Labor's message combined the struggle for union rights with the struggle for equality and democracy.

In the 2012 elections labor broadened its message further. Unions played a larger role in the coalitions that defeated the Tea Party extremists. The pooled money of organized workers helped neutralized the billions of dollars spent by the corporations and the far right. Once again labor was a clear voice for class unity and for democracy in a broad range of coalitions.

At the same time, labor is bringing to life new forms of struggle. Last November (2012) 1200 demonstrations and picket lines took action in front of Walmart stores in every state of the union. Tens of thousands of Walmart worker supporters, including some Walmart "associates" took part. It was a great coalition uniting union and nonunion supporters of economic justice. The coordination and mobilization for the 1200 actions is one of the largest and broadest labor-led activities in many years.

The efforts at Walmart are an innovation for today's labor movement. Rather than focusing on union recognition in individual stores, Walmart workers are establishing workers committees uniting workers in action at the shop floor level. These are not unions; instead they are workers committees ready to fight for their needs on a day-to-day basis. Given the current state of labor law, these are modern versions of the Steel Workers Organizing Committees of the ‘30's and ‘40's who also faced the challenge of organizing without the support of effective national labor law.

Innovative strategies are being used to organize other low-wage workers too. Some unions are experimenting with what is known as "minority union" strategies. This refers to a focus on getting as many workers as possible to
unite for collective action rather than getting a majority in an NLRB election.

(Here "minority" does not refer to racially or nationally oppressed workers.) It should be noted that this strategy very often results in bringing large numbers of racially and nationally oppressed workers, and women into the efforts of the labor movement.

Lets be clear, this is a strategy to get around existing labor law stacked against unions. Simultaneously the fight must be for labor law reform that gives every worker the right to organize and ends corporate domination and interference in the right of workers to free association. This includes repealing the Citizens United Supreme Court discussion.

There are other exciting nontraditional campaigns or efforts. In Los Angeles, car wash workers, mostly immigrants, now have a union contract in the city. In Las Vegas, taxicab drivers have a union. In Immokalee Florida agricultural workers are winning higher prices for their produce from big-box and fast food stores in order to raise their living standards.

In workplaces with traditional union contracts new ways of fighting are being tried. In the current economic crisis, as corporations play hardball and refuse to negotiate new contracts without huge cuts. Some unions are experimenting with what we might call "no contract" unionism. That is rather than agree to huge cuts and takeaways; the membership elects to fight their issues on a day-to-day basis without a contract, reserving the right to job actions.

Other unions are discussing and beginning to think about co-ops as a way to organize workers. The experiences of the Mondragon co-ops in Spain are gaining attention in the labor movement. Worker co-ops have a long history in our country. In the Great Depression the co-op movement was a vital part of working class survival. In addition those movements led to the establishment of important public projects that not only put people to work, but also provided better and cheaper services and products. One that endures to this day is the publicly, state owned Bank of North Dakota, one of the very few banks not harmed by the 2008 banking crisis.

A defining feature of labor today is a commitment to coalition building. The uprisings in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana, were vast coalitions, led by labor, uniting union and non-union workers in defense of labor rights. The Chicago teachers' strike victory resulted from a powerful labor-community coalition that united parents, teachers and communities into a powerful force. The teachers struck not only for their work place demands, but also for the students, for the schools and for the communities.

Increasingly, in rebuilding the labor movement, the unions fight for the common good, for the whole of the working class, every bit as hard as they fight for their own interests. This is illustrated in the priorities set by the national AFL-CIO for this year's work. Two of their top legislative goals include immigration reform with a path to citizenship rights and protection and expansion of voting rights.

Further the AFL-CIO is making tremendous efforts to build broad united coalitions with all kinds of working class organizations. They are hosting numerous meetings and conferences with all kinds of allied working class organizations, like those fighting for immigrant rights, civil rights, economic and social justice and more. They are very serious about not just consulting but also giving allies, including non-union workers, a voice in developing the future of the labor movement. They fully expect to have more delegates to their coming national convention from allied organizations, than from AFL-CIO affiliates.

Class-consciousness is on the rise. Five years ago, how many union members were talking about the Koch brothers? How many knew about the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and its role? Realizing that it is the banks, the big corporations, and big money that sponsor the right-wing attacks on labor is a giant step in class-consciousness for American workers.

A Changing Working Class

Big changes in the work force are an important factor driving changes in the labor movement. By the year 2020 the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts the US economy will add 20.5 million new jobs. The fastest growth will be in healthcare and construction. Jobs requiring Masters Degrees will see the fastest growth, while jobs that require only a high school diploma will see the slowest growth.

The BLS predicts that professional, scientific, and technical jobs will grow by 29% through 2020. Further, the number of computer systems designers will grow by 47% in that same period. The BLS also predicts that construction jobs will increase by 33%. Much of this growth will be to replace jobs lost in the current economic crisis. Construction skilled trades jobs will add about 1.1 million new jobs to the economy by 2020.

Learning From History

The change from craft unionism to industrial unionism did not come about merely because it was a "great idea." The change happened because the working class changed and production changed. Before 1920 most manufacturing work was done by individual craftspeople, who organized trade by trade. When modern mass production took over, craft unionism couldn't stand up to corporations like GM and US steel. It took decades to win over the labor movement to the idea that all workers in the given factory had to be in the same union to have real bargaining power. Only after that idea was severely tested and prevailed did the mass industrial union drives of the CIO sweep the nation in the 1930s and 40s. The change took decades, mirroring the processes of changing production and
production relationships. When we study the history of this period, certain historic events and great proponents of industrial unionism standout. We read accounts of Big Bill Haywood and the theories of the IWW, for example, or Eugene Debs and the great Pullman strike. But the CIO developed out of many streams of labor struggle, including many false starts and defeats. Decisive in making such a big change is an ongoing conscious discussion of the need for change. Our party played an important role throughout those decades of change in labor in the last century. At one point, mistakenly, we even set out to establish our own versions of industrial unionism. While these sectarian
efforts were only partially successful and only for a short time, they nevertheless contributed to industrial unionism. The limitation of those efforts showed everyone that fighting for industrial unionism required broader unity. They taught us much about the perils of dual unionism, of marginalizing ourselves, of getting out of the mainstream. Moreover our greatest influence came later as we fully participated in the trade union struggles of the day.

"Big picture Unionism" is just a phrase to use in encouraging this discussion. It is meant to project the idea that trade unionism today must find ways too work more broadly and on many different levels.

Let's look at what might be three main components of big picture unionism.

1) First is international trade union organization and solidarity. There are many important efforts underway in this direction. Mostly international trade federations no longer just exchange information and report on their own struggles. Now many have morphed more into coordinating committees for joint action and solidarity in various industries. We can all remember how the International Transport Workers Federation united longshoremen from around the globe to defeat the West Coast longshore workers lockout in 2002.

Or take the establishment of IndustriALL: last year 140 industrial unions from around the world joined together to form this new global federation. The United Steelworkers union played a major role in its founding. A quick glance at its website shows the range of struggles and solidarity they engage. For example, the Federation is building support for Mexican workers fired for trying to organize a union at a Finnish owned auto-parts plant. It is also bringing pressure on the Nigerian government to allow oil and gas workers the right to organize unions.

Another great example is the efforts to organize Nissan in Mississippi. Nissan workers around the world that have unions are standing in solidarity with the Mississippi workers. Nissan workers in Russia and Switzerland and many other countries have taken action in support. Former Brazilian President Lula also went to Mississippi to stand in solidarity. And the United Auto Workers union recognizes and supports the leading role that community, civil rights and faithbased organizations and leaders are playing to organize Nissan in Mississippi.

There is much for US workers to learn from labor around the world. Many unions rely more on direct action and legislative labor parties to defend worker's wages and conditions. Many negotiate industry wide contracts that affect all workers in an industry, union or non-union. We need to think about how to establish global industry agreements that match up with global corporations - how about a global General Motors contract that guarantees minimum standards for all GM workers? Not just union leadership, but workplace rank and file union members need to hear much more about global labor and actions for international solidarity.

We also need to learn much more about the international labor trade federations and try and build strong links with US unions. For example the Building and Woodworkers International federations is helping to pioneer the fight sustainable and green standards in forestry construction materials.

Another challenge is fighting for a genuine seat at the table of international affairs like trade agreements. Some have demanded that the International Labor Organization, that brings labor, business and governments to the table, should take charge of setting standards for international trade agreements. This should include veto rights for labor to guarantee labor important conditions like an international minimum wage, living and health and safety standards.

2) A second component of big picture unionism in the US is the ongoing drive to organize low-wage workers. This organizing speaks directly to the burning question of working-class unity. Every racially and nationally oppressed minority is projected to increase its numbers in the civilian workforce.

Because racially and nationally oppressed workers and women workers are highly represented in low-wage jobs, all of the creative and innovative organizing going on among low-wage workers will boost participation of these workers in the overall labor movement. Through the actions at Walmart, in the Chicago teachers strike, and in the carwash organizing campaigns numbers of dynamic African-American, Latino, and women workers are moving into leadership of the labor movement. These drives to organize low-wage workers have helped elevate the struggle against racism and for full equality in the labor movement.

3) Big picture Unionism must take a fresh look at highly skilled workers. It is clear that science and technology, automation and computerization are radically restructuring the production process and all work. Years ago we began to discuss the chips and robot revolution in production. Today that revolution is accelerating and changing production in ways that we could not have dreamed of those years ago. The BLS report shows that engineers, technical workers and computer workers have become central players in the production process. Such high tech workers are beginning to outnumber the older skills like machinists and tool and die makers. Engineers and computer analysts have been in the industrial workplace for many years, but not in the numbers, and not in the critical chokepoints of production that they are in today. (Chokepoints are critical places in production where a strike or other action can halt the whole process.) The large-scale introduction of robots and other automations have moved these workers even more to the fore.

The corporations have always tried to divide more highly skilled workers from other workers. Labeling them as "professionals," or even independent contractors. In the days of organizing the industrial unions the companies fought to exempt skilled workers like machinist and electricians. They were even glad to recognize craft unions for these workers in order to separate them from the rest of the work force. Any approach to big picture unionism has to include a far-reaching approach to recruiting these new categories of highly skilled workers.

Some More Programmatic Questions

Of course big picture unionism has to get into some questions of program besides the big general themes mentioned above. Program is a question for all levels of labor, local, national and international. Some quickly arise in this discussion:

The 30+ years of assault on labor has a strong political and legislative thrust. Labor law is very much stacked against labor. As Debs famously said, "The class that has the power to rob on a large scale has also the power to control the government and legalize their robbery." One question is at what point does political independence move toward a labor party. And equally important is not only fighting for real labor law reform and, for example, the Employee Free Choice Act, but also thinking about how to ignore and challenge existing bad labor law in a massive, non-violent but militant way. Many lessons here can be learned from the early CIO days and the civil rights movement.

There are two big picture conversion questions that demand labor and the lefts attention. There are many points of engagement between labor and the environmental movements. But one that needs special attention right now comes to light around the struggle to stop the XL pipeline. Conversion from dirty energy to clean energy demands a full conversion program that protects all the workers in the energy industries. The destruction of whole regional economies and working families cannot be a "gee that really is too bad" moment.

The livelihood and survival of miners and oil workers, their families and their communities has to have the same urgency as stopping climate change. The solutions have to come at the giant energy corporation's expense. Conversion has to mean a united labor and environmental movement fight for converting dirty energy jobs to clean energy jobs, not some time in the future, but immediately. For instance massive federal and state programs to weatherize public buildings and homes can immediately conserve energy, cut carbon emissions, and put thousands of the displaced to work. These and other conservation projects also stimulate industries that provide the needed materials.

Likewise a real peacetime conversion from wasteful military spending is needed. Again the jobs of workers in defense industries have to be converted to infrastructure jobs and jobs producing socially useful goods and services. Good and socially useful jobs also have to be guaranteed for returning GI's and military personnel. And again this conversion has to be at the expense of the giant defense industries.

Another area is the "you didn't build that" question. This is not just a question of workers tax dollars being spent to subsidize corporate needs for infrastructure, or for food stamps and medical care for workers not paid enough to live on, or for tax breaks for the 1% corporate powers. Rather it raises the question of everything that workers do to build and service the economy. It raises the question of social capital versus private capital.

Nothing is built under capitalism that does not involve workers not getting paid for everything they produce. But even short of socialism, the idea that what workers make should be more equitably distributed is powerful. It raises the fundamental question of the public good versus private profit. They really didn't build it, the working class did and the working class has the democratic right to a much larger voice in setting public priorities and the public share of the wealth created by them.

Big Questions for Big Picture Trade Unionism

This discussion piece is not meant so much to answer questions, as it is to raise questions for discussion. We believe that our party must fully engage in these conversations starting with ourselves. We got the ball rolling at meetings of our trade union commission on the West Coast and the Midwest. It was a great beginning. But now regional meetings seem too constrictive, so in addition we want to begin organizing meetings also in the larger districts. And even though we are raising these issues first in the party, this cannot be an inner organization discussion.

At the West Coast meetings we discussed a wide range of venues for this discussion. Some participants will organize discussions in their local unions where that's possible, or with their friends on the job.

On the West Coast we had good discussions, one-on-one, with some labor leaders and labor educators. This is another important venue. We need to draw in those we work with and include their thinking on these issues.

We want to consider public forums. We want to consider asking other allied organizations to have forums and venues to further this discussion. We need also to think about how to engage our international friends and allies.

Perhaps one of the most important questions is how does big picture unionism affect how we struggle at the local level and in the work place? Here's an example that has come up in the course of our discussions. At the same time that 1200 Walmart actions were taking place around the country, 112 women garment workers died in a horrible factory fire in Bangladesh. The factory in Bangladesh, a part of Walmart's supply chain, violated safety rules by chaining fire escape doors shut and ignoring flammable hazards in the plant. In the big picture, the Walmart that constantly violates the rights of its workers in the US is the same company largely responsible for those deaths. Those two sides of Walmart need to be exposed together. They must be two sides of the same struggle. (Just a quick aside, we heard in a solidarity-with-Walmart-workers-meeting in the Bay Area that a surviving Bangladesh garment worker was being invited to the United States to tour and speak about Walmart's role in that tragedy. That is a great example of big picture unionism.)

In no way can big picture unionism be an excuse for not fighting as hard as possible at the local level and on the shop floor. The question is how to show the connections between every local struggle, every national struggle, and every global labor struggle.

We also have to ask what kinds of new structures and organization are required by big picture unionism? Should more unions be looking at international mergers of national unions into global unions? Or how can the international trade federations become bigger players in national and local union fights? How do rank and file trade unionists and activists become more engaged with international labor bodies?

The struggle for labor rights is always also a struggle for democracy. How can big picture unionism become central to struggles for democracy locally, nationally, and internationally? For example let's take a look at trade issues. How can big picture Unionism help make the case for enforceable minimum labor standards, working conditions, and labor rights everywhere as the basis for fair trade instead of free trade?

How do we work at the local, national, and international level to curb transnational corporate power? Can we find a way to have international labor agreements with giant corporations like General Motors? Can we have global industry agreements to cover all workers at a particular multinational
corporation?

How can all of labor be more helpful in organizing low wage workers and highly skilled workers? How do the building trade unions need to evolve to meet the times including the increased introduction of new technology?

Again to stress that this is only the beginning of a discussion. This is not meant to be a rounded program for labor. This document raises more questions than it can possibly answer. It is not a question of agreeing or disagreeing with the things that are raised; it is a question of looking for ways to build the labor movement in numbers, in unity, and in strength for the working class. Most of the truly important questions will be answered in struggle.

To end where we began: No small tinkering around the edges will fit the times. There are no quick fixes. The "Big Picture" shifts labor needs to make are on a scale equal to those that took labor from craft unionism to industrial unionism in our country. Such change requires not only a lot of trial and error. It also requires a conscious discussion in the labor movement.

Photo: Peoplesworld.org

Marx Reloaded with blanks?

Fri, 24 May 2013 19:44:00 +0000

Jason Barker's film, Marx Reloaded, was released in 2011. The question addressed is if Marx's critique of capitalism is valid for our time. If the critique is valid then what comes next? Is communism going to make a return?

The film opens with an animation of Marx meeting Trotsky and Trotsky undertaking to enlighten Marx as to the significance of Marxism today. Trotsky will attempt to guide Marx to an understanding of how ideology works in society. Quite the tail wagging the dog.

The film then asks how economists today explain the greatest capitalist crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

First up is the late former chief economist of Deutsche Bank, Norbert Walter, who says, "We [bankers] made mistakes." E.g., in the US people could get mortgages at 110% of the value of their houses. The banks made money cheaply available, people borrowed too much and they couldn't pay back what they owed.

Later in the film he tells us that Marx's ideas about getting rid of capitalism by abolishing a society based on commodity production for profit would create a world that people would not want to live in, as that would lead to the abolishment of "the universal medium of money" which "turns everything around us into commodities," and "money is an essential medium for civilization, for peaceful coexistence, and the organization of complex societies."

This begs the question, since communism is a complex society based on production for human needs not commodities for profit. Mr. Walter must have forgotten about the two world wars that almost destroyed European civilization in the last century, when he opined that "peaceful coexistence" is one of the benefits of a money economy.

Next is Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute, and author of "Taming The Trade Unions", who tells us the crisis was caused by inflation due to governments printing too much money. That is all we hear from him.

On the more general level of the problems of capitalism and the meaning of what Marx wrote, the film interviews several people identified as philosophers, political philosophers, theorists, critics, etc. Some are well known to the academic community although their grasp of Marxism may be questionable.

We hear from Antonio Negri, co-author of Empire, an expert on Spinoza, and a founder of Italian Autonomism and "Worker's Power" (Potere Operaio), an ultra-left formation in Italy with a secret armed wing. Negri tells us that the capitalists [neo-liberals] cannot pay the workers the price of their labor; however, to say "a wage is the price paid for labor" doesn't make sense in Marxist terms. Negri should at least be talking about "the value of workers' labor-power," not "the price." They (the capitalists) remain in power and are able to wage wars around the world only as long as the working class remains quiescent due to high wages. But as we can see the capitalists cannot do that, so Marx is still relevant.

This line of thought is taken up by the film, which now asks if Marx's theory of exploitation holds true for today, or whether the way capitalists make their profits is changing? The answers are sought from more talking heads without any clear explanation being given as to what Marx's theory of exploitation is. What is clear is that, with a few exceptions, none of the answers given in this part of film deal with Marx's theory.

The philosopher Slavoj Zizek is now up to bat (what film on "Marxism" would be complete without this latter-day Eugen Dühring?). He is described as the "leader of a new movement" to revive Marxist and communist thinking. He revives Marx by proclaiming that the classical notion of exploitation (left unexplained) no longer works due to the knowledge explosion. He does not tell us exactly why this is so - it has something to do with computers, however, because we need them to communicate with each other, and so we have "pay rent" to Bill Gates because he owns part of our mental substance. I am tempted to think that in Professor Zizek's case Mr. Gates is a slumlord.

Finally, we are told that we need a redefinition of "proletariat," because the proletariat is larger than the working class. Zizek also notes that when the unemployed today demonstrate because they want jobs, they are saying to the capitalists "Please exploit us in the normal way." I think he strikes out as the leader of a new Marxist movement. He will appear again later.

Antonio Negri now reappears. Capitalism, he says, has evolved in ways Marx could not have predicted. There is exploitation not only of factory workers but of workers throughout society. You can't start a revolution with just the factory workers. You need them but also all the other workers too. I think Marx could have predicted this; in fact, he already knew it.

You need the other workers, Negri says, because they are the "most" exploited. What can that mean? The examples he gives are research and film industry workers and the like, because they produce more value. None of this makes much sense, because the Marxist concepts of "value," "surplus value," "labor power" and "exploitation" are never brought up in the film. If they were, none of the things these talking heads and intellectual will-o'-the-wisps are saying would make sense anyway - only the viewers would at least understand why.

Herfried Munkler now makes an appearance. Dr. Munkler, co-editor of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels and a professor at Humbolt University, in contrast to those who have appeared before, actually knows a thing or two about Marxism, although in its social democratic deformation. His concern is not limited to discussing the plight of working people in the West, but focuses on the exploitation of working people in the so-called Third World, where working conditions are subhuman and wages are ridiculously low in comparison to the advanced capitalist countries. Here it is obvious that Marxist ideas are relevant and that capitalism is being abusive.

Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri's collaborator on the book Empire, now appears to bring us back from the Third World to the the First. He tells us that the economy is now centered on "immaterial" and "immeasurable" products-- that is, on "ideas," not on "objects" like old-fashioned commodities such as cars, refrigerators, and toasters, the products of industrial manufacturing. Economics is about relationships and intangible assets (not, coal, oil or natural gas). He is listed as a literary critic and political philosopher. At least he talks about political philosophy like a literary critic.

Now it is time for Jacques Ranciere, the co-author with Louis Althusser of Reading Capital (although his part was left out of the English version). He is noted for his educational theory, which says a person can be a teacher without knowing anything about the subject he or she is going to teach - a view welcomed by not a few teachers. Ranciere makes three appearances in the film and manages to say nothing of importance in any of them. Here, he tells us that many societies have had exploitation without "explosions," so we cannot draw from exploitation the logic of an end to exploitation. According to Ranciere, economic exploitation is not the dominant factor in all social struggle. Ranciere seems oblivious to the Marxist view that, as Engels notes, in the last analysis all major social struggles in class-based societies have economic exploitation at their root. Each society and its economic formation needs to be individually studied. There have certainly been "explosions" over exploitation in all societies that have distinct social classes, despite Ranciere's contrary assertions.

The film now takes up a new subject. We are told that to understand capitalism we must delve into the the "mystic realm" of the COMMODITY. It is certainly true that without an understanding of the origin and role of commodities we will not understand our economic system, which is based on the production and exchange of commodities. Marx devotes the first chapter of Capital to the commodity. It is a difficult chapter, but once grasped the rest of Capital will be easily understood.

The film, however, does not deal with Marx's scientific analysis of commodities but skips to the last section of the chapter entitled "The Fetishism of Commodities." Without an understanding of the preceding sections it is easy to misunderstand this last section and, true to form, both the film's narrator and all the talking heads in this part of the film completely miss the point and fail to grasp Marx's ideas concerning commodity fetishism.

To make a long story short, Marx's point is that the laws of the capitalist system are not products of nature as are, say, the laws of gravity or aerodynamics, but are the result of human activity. Commodities and their relations are created by human beings and human beings can abolish them. Yet, because we are ignorant of the laws of economics we think of commodities as natural, as things which, although created by us, assume an existence independent of us and go into a market whose laws we are subject to and must conform to.

This is similar to the creation of religions or primitive belief systems, where a person creates a fetish and then bows down to it and thinks it has power over him, and that he must subject himself to its demands and will. The capitalist market appears to be the natural form of economic exchange and there is no alternative to it. It is not true, however, that there is no alternative. Humans can abolish capitalism and rid themselves of subjection to the laws of commodity production, and create an economic world which serves human needs, one where human needs do not take second place to the need to exchange commodities at a profit. None of this is addressed in this part of the film. Instead we get baloney. This is because the talking heads are in the grips of the very fetishism Marx warns us about.

Norman Bolz a media theorist says, "The theory of commodity fetishism is Marx's most important discovery." It isn't. Marx's most important discovery is the distinction between the value of labor and that of labor-power, which is the basis of the labor theory of value and of his analysis of capitalism. It is, however, one of the most important consequences of that discovery.

Bolz continues by saying Marx's theory reveals the secret as to why capitalism today "functions so well." [!] The secret is "that goods in the capitalist market place satisfy more than simple needs; they also convey a spiritual surplus value and this value is the real reason for the purchase." This is complete and utter nonsense.

Peter Sloterdijk (philosopher) is not so definite. He says the theory is "probably the most important part of Marxist doctrine." This is because "Marx is among those who discovered the fact that things live." He goes on to say that Walter Benjamin "discovered the structural similarity between human commodities and commodities as objects." He thus "universalized the category of prostitution."

While there may be a relationship between fetishism and prostitution on some level, I don't think this is what Marx was getting at. "Prositution is always present when a beautiful thing feigns life and tries to seduce passersby with an offer." I think Professor Sloterdijk should reread Marx's chapter on commodities.

Finally, there is Eamonn Butler's take: he says it is human psychology to want things. The economy is neutral - it just produces what people want.

Well then, that's it. Capitalism just produces what people want. Then why are there so many advertisements all over the place? Do we need to be constantly reminded about what we want?

The film now turns to Marxism and ecology-- only by now Marxism has been unloaded rather than reloaded. Zizek talks about "communism" in the sense of what we have "in common"-- the Earth is our "common substance" and we have to manage it together. He makes no proposal about how to do that. Michael Hart is also back, talking about the "common" in "communism" and how different that is from both the "communism" found in the Soviet Union (derived from Marx incidentally) and also the "communism" of American anti-communism. Evidently he doesn't approve of either kind of communism.

Herfried Munkler points out that Marx "applies exploitation not only to human labor but to the limited resources of nature," and says that "if the exploitation of nature continues nature will be destroyed." Munkler thinks that we can reduce the exploitation of nature under capitalism and have common ownership of the Earth without a Marxist society. But this is just social democratic optimism, as befits someone affiliated with the SPD [Social Democratic Party] in Germany. He gives no program. But at least he brings up an all important issue: the destruction of the environment under capitalism today.

John Gray (the British social philosopher) weighs in with the observation that international capitalism develops in ways impossible to predict and impossible to control (revealing that he is completely under the sway of the fetishism of commodities). He says the "New Leninists" (we have not met any Leninists thus far in the film-- nor will we) and Greens are correct about the fact that "human action" has destabilized the environment, but they are "deluded" in thinking that human action can restabilize it. It does not occur to him that it is not humans qua humans who are destructive, but only humans under the sway of particular sorts of economic and social relations. Even if humans could get together as a global collective, which Gray says will never happen, they could not restabilize the environment. Doom and gloom is all we can expect from Gray.

The film now asks if the current economic crisis was caused by an under-regulated banking system. Is the only solution now and in the future to have state-regulated economic systems? The film suggests we look back into history for solutions. I should note here that people who look to the past for solutions to present day problems are usually seen to be reactionaries.

We now return to Norbert Bolz, who likes the fact that in the 19th century banks issued their own scripts which functioned as money. You could take it to another bank and redeem it in coin of the realm-- if the other bank trusted it. This system would make all the banks very aware of the true value of their scripts and bad banks would be exposed. He thinks this is a really good idea, and one would suppose there were no banking crises in the 19th century, except that there were.

John Gray rightly thinks this idea is "nuts," because state monopoly capitalism has become so evolved and complicated since the 19th century. This has happened as a result of the close interconnection between capitalism and state power-- there is no going back. But is there any going forward?

Why is it that the state always rushes in to save capitalism? Is it possible, the film now asks, that these crises (like the one we are in right now which broke out in 2007) are not side-effects of capitalism but essential to its very existence?

Herfried Munkler tells us that Marx thought that crises would lead to the downfall of capitalism, but that since his day capitalism has gone through many crises and has "rejuvenated itself." He mentions Joseph Schumpeter's theory of crises as periods of "creative destruction." "Capitalism," Munkler concludes, "doesn't age. Crisis is its Fountain of Youth." This coming from the co-editor of Marx's Collected Works is rather strange. Marx thought that its internal contradictions would eventually bring about capitalism's collapse (or the mutual destruction of the contending classes within the system), but there was no timetable. He also argued that capitalism had at its disposal many tools to stave off immediate collapse, but would eventually prove dysfunctional, as had the economic forms (slavery and feudalism) that preceded it. Schumpeters "creative destruction" (destruction of the lives of workers and the majority of the population and creation of wealth for the top 1% - - the capitalists) is no refutation of Marx's theories.

The social theorist Alberto Toscano, one of the very few interviewed who seems to have his head in the right place, points out that capitalism, whatever its ultimate fate, is responsible for creating a gigantic surplus population that it does not know what to do with. He mentions the book "The Planet of Slums" by Mike Davis and talks about the "surplus humanity" that capitalism has on its hands, because its technological advances have made the number of workers it needs redundant. This is the "reserve army of labor" that Marx wrote about-- but now it is no longer a "reserve." It is just a surplus of human beings who are socially unneeded, piling up in the slums of the world with nowhere to go. The "creative destruction" they may eventually bring about capitalism may have a hard time dealing with. Only the Chinese, with a non-capitalist economic system, seem to have been able to cope with the massive poverty in the rural areas of their country (and, of course, Cuba and Vietnam and a few others with non-capitalist economies, and now Venezuela, are beginning to follow suit).

Finally, the film asks what sense there is in believing that another world, other than capitalism, is possible. TINA (There Is No Alternative) was Mrs. Thatcher's motto. Was she correct? Can a Communist alternative emerge after the experiences of the past century?

Antonio Negri states there is only capitalism, so we must fight the bosses as the bosses fight us. This seems to be an eternal struggle. It seems that to Negri there is only the Movement, as Bernstein thought. It is difficult to understand exactly what he means, so I may be incorrect here. He tells us what we all know-- Russia didn't have "communism," it had "socialism." What is socialism? For Negri, it is a way to manage capitalism, just like liberalism is. How, then, does communism come about? It "comes into being through a relation between transformations of reality and the will or decision to do it or to build it." After this bit of balderdash, Negri leaves us with the admonition to junk the old Communist Manifesto and to write a new one-- he is not , however, the man to do it.

Nina Power, a feminist philosopher, has more regard for the Communist Manifesto, and says that "it has continuing power to influence people." She is surely correct.

Zizek writes off 20th century Communist states, Social Democracy, the idea of local councils or collectives (the soviets, which first appeared at the time of the 1905 Russian Revolution), and their latter day reincarnations. What's left? He tells us he likes the idea that "a communist society is one in which each person could dwell in his own stupidity." Zizek is already doing that so he should be happy. He says he got that idea from reading Fredric Jameson, the American literary critic and political theorist. He thinks it would be great if communism turned out to be like a Bruegel painting. Whenever I hear Zizek expostulating like this, it brings to mind what Karl Marx said about Jeremy Bentham: "In no time and in no country has the most homespun common-place ever strutted about in so self-satisfied a way."

Micha Brumlik (professor of education at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main) maintains that after the 20th century we have the right to know what Communism is going to be like-- it has to be democratic to be supported. There will be a big fight over that, I fear, as different concepts of "democracy" will be put forth. But he is right to demand a politically active civil society not divorced from a democratic political system. He thinks that Hardt and Negri's unclear views on "the multitude" will never get that concept up and running or have any practical outcome.

Jacques Ranciere leaves us with the view that while Marx wanted a "classless society," what we really need is what he calls an "emancipatory society." This is one "in which each has an equal share." That has a vague utopian sound to it-- a throwback to pre-Marxist French socialist thinking. Marxist logic, Ranciere tells us, is to prepare for the future, but he believes instead that the idea of emancipation is really tied to the appearance, in the here and now, of "those we call the 'have-nots' and those who make their presence felt through their capacity to think, to intervene politically, and to prove themselves capable of organizing economic production." Ayn Rand would have liked this-- the have-nots and their masters-- only for Ranciere they would be good masters. This is a latter day reincarnation of Plato's Republic.

Ranciere goes on to criticize Negri. "Negri thinks capitalism produces communism." In the film, however, Negri appears to think capitalism is here for the long run and that it must always be struggled against, and if communism comes about it will be through the triumph of the will. In reality, then, capitalism only produces its own form of communism. But this is not the communism of everyone's capacity. There are those who say ‘look at what capitalism does; the idea of communism can't be so bad,' but I don't think those people are involved in constructing the idea of real equality today." What is this rambling discourse supposed to mean?

The last pronouncement I will consider comes from Peter Sloterdijk, who tells us that "people must join together to forge alliances against the lethal. They must provide mutual security and offer each other communities of solidarity on a planetary scale, because for the first time collective self-destruction is possible. Before we say 'communism' we must understand the principle of 'immunism' or the principle of our mutual insurance, which is the most profound motive of solidarity." So now we have a new "-ism" to worry about that sounds like an advertisement for NATO.

This is the sum and substance of the movie. Some of these thinkers are better than they appear to be in the film, but probably not by much. I don't think this film has reloaded Marx-- quite the contrary, I think it completely fails to present what Marxism is all about, its past accomplishments and future possibilities. No film can hope to present Marxism to the public without at the same time dealing with the real life problems of the labor and people's movements, and issues in the so-called Third World. As I pointed out at the beginning of this review, Marxism Reloaded completely ignores working class leaders and the leaders of political movements inspired by Marxism, and confines itself to interviewing intellectual talking heads who, quite frankly, often do not know what they are talking about. Thus rather than reloading, the film was largely shooting blanks.

Photo: Creative Commons 3.0

Sequestration: A rift in capital

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:36:00 +0000

Sequestration is the most glaring example of the raw political power of finance capital in recent American history. Every other sector of the American capitalist class has arrayed its political power against sequestration - including lobbying giants like the U.S. Chamber of Commernce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Northrop Grumman, the Areospace Industries Association, and the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Essentially, what amounts to most of the leading organizations of the manufacturing, defense, commercial and retail real estate, construction, wholesale and retail trade, health care, and accommodation and food service sectors. Only the finance and insurance sectors have strongly pressed for the measure - especially expressing such support in the traditional voices of finance capital, such as the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. More impressive still is the way finance capital has monopolized politicians of both parties on this issue, including politicians who have at times previously been more answerable to other sectors of American capital.

Sequestration is sometimes called the "poison pill" of American politics. It is often said that the members of Congress and the Obama administration who agreed to it never expected the measure to come into effect. However, it is difficult to imagine a national elected official who did not expect the Republican-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate to fail to reach compromise on fundamental budget issues. Indeed, a more plausible case can be made that both the administration and Congress were seeking cover of exactly such a "poison pill" on which to blame austerity measures - which Congressional Democrats could never otherwise support, given their constituencies, who vehemently oppose austerity measures. This is itself a measure of the power of finance capital in the current configuration of capitalist forces. By following the capitalists' lead, the Congressional Democrats risk alienating their bases. If the base stops believing in accidental austerity, the jig is up. To their credit, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has stated that we should just end the sequester.

Frequently we misattribute the interests of major funders of ALEC and the Tea Party - the Koch brothers, for example - as leading figures in the extractive (oil, natural gas, and coal) sector. However, while their extractive holdings are considerable, they derive more of their revenue from the finance sector. Therefore, they have been at the center of the movement to deliver political outcomes which overwhelmingly favor finance capital, even if to the detriment of other sectors in which they hold interests.

It is rare to have the AFL-CIO on the same side of an issue with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. Only the extraordinary amount of pressure brought by finance capital for austerity policies, which injure other sectors of American capital, can account for this - and for the willingness of politicians who are otherwise beholden to several sectors of capital for campaign financial support to have voted for the sequestration measure in the first place.

The reason for the considerable push-back by sectors of capital which do not traditionally oppose the wishes of finance capital can be seen in the Obama administration's own Office of Management and Budget projections of the impact of sequester cuts on state and local budgets.

The sequester cuts take a hefty toll on contractors who are dependent at the federal, state, and local levels on contracts covered by sequestration reductions, as well as providers of manufactured goods for such contractors and those dependent on upturns in employment and overall economic activity which are likely to be adversely affected by the federal cuts. Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the sequester would reduce 2013 economic growth by about 0.6 percentage points (from 2.0% to 1.4%) and adversely affect the creation or retention of about 750,000 jobs by year-end (economist-speak for 750,000 jobs being lost in 2013 alone). Even the International Monetary Fund plans to lower its 2013 GDP growth forecast for the U.S. from 2.0% to 1.5% if the sequester is implemented.

So manufacturers and contractors have every reason to be worried. And that's just the start: Over the 2014-2023 period, the sequester would reduce planned spending outlays by $995 billion with interest savings of $228 billion or a total of over $1.2 trillion in debt reduction.

Of course, sequester cuts affect the entire budget across the board, and that includes research and development, scientific and technological enterprises, social services, and earned benefits. With a 2% cut in Medicare spending and much higher cuts in R&D funding, we have an explanation for an alliance between healthcare and the defense industry against sequestration, even if we do not take into account defense-related cuts of up to 9.3%. But the likelihood is that push-back from defense contractors will reduce cuts to the discretionary defense budget, which House Republicans have already pushed back against. No such favoritism will be shown by Republicans to cuts in domestic spending - sequestration will fall most drastically on those who are least able to deal with cuts: the poor, the elderly, children, and people of color.

Photo: Creative Commons 3.0