Although he made the call “Workers of the world, unite!” Marx still insisted that workers in each country “first of all settle things with their own bourgeoisie.” The measures required to transform existing economic, political, and legal institutions would “of course be different in different countries.” But in every case, Marx would insist that the way to bring about radical change is first to get people to think ambitiously again.How likely is that to happen? Even at a moment when the financial crisis is bleeding dry a vast swath of the world’s people, when collective anxiety shakes every age, religious, and racial group, and when, as always, the deprivations and burdens are falling most heavily on ordinary working people, the prognosis is uncertain. If he were alive today, Marx would not look to pinpoint exactly when or how the current crisis would end. Rather, he would perhaps note that such crises are part and parcel of capitalism’s continued dynamic existence. Reformist politicians who think they can do away with the inherent class inequalities and recurrent crises of capitalist society are the real romantics of our day, themselves clinging to a naive utopian vision of what the world might be. If the current crisis has demonstrated one thing, it is that Marx was the greater realist.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Marx and the contemporary crisis
Leo Panitch, Thoroughly Modern Marx
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
A Green Revolution in Iran?
Moussavi's "Green Revolution" as a US-backed psychological operation? Paul Craig Roberts thinks so:
Why the US Wants to Delegitimize the Iranian Elections:
Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?
Get ready for Obama and Netanyahu to begin ramping up pressure for "regime change."Saturday, June 13, 2009
Revolutionary Road
My review of "Revolutionary Road" by way of a fragment of a conversation between myself and a good friend:
I watched "Revolutionary Road" last night and it reminded me what I meant to say in response to the points you raise about how easily the seduced the public can be by the promise (often only a promise) of greater comfort. I don't know if you've seen the movie but its about the "emptiness and hopelessness" of suburban life in the 50s - but despite the emptiness, the protagonists can't break with the security of suburban life. the promise of an even bigger house and still newer car seems sufficient consolation to keep them running along the hamster wheel. I think this has been a major problem for the Left for a century now- the danger that our constituency can be bought off with the promise of greater creature comforts. The Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci termed it Americanism/ Fordism, a system of mass production and mass consumption that keeps the masses safely within the system.
However, I think we are on the precipice a secular shift in the system's ability to provide the gooodies that keep a sufficient number of us contained. As empty and hollow as it was, the suburban house w/ two car garage (often more illusion than reality for whole categories of people) is no longer on offer. The amount of (fictitious) value that has evaporated over the last 6 months or so, in retirement savings, in home values, not to mention job losses and home foreclosures, is staggering, and it is and will continue to lead to the further accumulation of grievances. The system can no longer make a credible claim to provide what it promises, and more and more are losing faith in it (hence Obama... they had to bring in somebody pretty good to try and restore faith in a rapidly collapsing system). Of course people tend to believe in systems far longer than there is any rational basis for doing so, but this is where I think human agency comes in. The better we are at articulating the nature of the problems, and a vision of where we would like to go, the easier it will be for people to let go of their dying faith.
Of course Obama and the Establishment, would like to reflate the bubble, and get people to continue buying in. Dean Baker, Krugman and the other Keynsians seem to think that with enough stimulus this is possible. But the monetarists are saying, "look at the medium to long term implication of this strategy": who is going to buy all this US govt debt? the bond market is already falling off a cliff. Once they start printing the money willy-nilly, all bets are off... maybe Krugman is right and this is not the "Big One," maybe this is just a 30, or 70 year crisis of capitalism. If so, and this is not "the Big One," then is it is most certainly a harbinger, or preshock of the big one on the way. If not today, then sometime in Jordan and C'enna's lifetime. We're due for the 500 year crisis. Who knows what emerges out of the crisis, but the sooner we see through the false promises of the system, the sooner we can start dealing with the situation as it is. And in this, successfully dealing with the situation as it is, will certainly require operationalizing the new conception of the human that Wynter speaks of. Another ray of hope, is that SDS and the New Left did not end the war or recreate the world in the way they envisioned, but they planted some seeds that are coming to maturity. Wynter's new humanism, in my view, is the fruit of this effort. There is a consensus among intellectuals about this new humanism. The challenge is now putting that vision in effect.
I watched "Revolutionary Road" last night and it reminded me what I meant to say in response to the points you raise about how easily the seduced the public can be by the promise (often only a promise) of greater comfort. I don't know if you've seen the movie but its about the "emptiness and hopelessness" of suburban life in the 50s - but despite the emptiness, the protagonists can't break with the security of suburban life. the promise of an even bigger house and still newer car seems sufficient consolation to keep them running along the hamster wheel. I think this has been a major problem for the Left for a century now- the danger that our constituency can be bought off with the promise of greater creature comforts. The Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci termed it Americanism/ Fordism, a system of mass production and mass consumption that keeps the masses safely within the system.
However, I think we are on the precipice a secular shift in the system's ability to provide the gooodies that keep a sufficient number of us contained. As empty and hollow as it was, the suburban house w/ two car garage (often more illusion than reality for whole categories of people) is no longer on offer. The amount of (fictitious) value that has evaporated over the last 6 months or so, in retirement savings, in home values, not to mention job losses and home foreclosures, is staggering, and it is and will continue to lead to the further accumulation of grievances. The system can no longer make a credible claim to provide what it promises, and more and more are losing faith in it (hence Obama... they had to bring in somebody pretty good to try and restore faith in a rapidly collapsing system). Of course people tend to believe in systems far longer than there is any rational basis for doing so, but this is where I think human agency comes in. The better we are at articulating the nature of the problems, and a vision of where we would like to go, the easier it will be for people to let go of their dying faith.
Of course Obama and the Establishment, would like to reflate the bubble, and get people to continue buying in. Dean Baker, Krugman and the other Keynsians seem to think that with enough stimulus this is possible. But the monetarists are saying, "look at the medium to long term implication of this strategy": who is going to buy all this US govt debt? the bond market is already falling off a cliff. Once they start printing the money willy-nilly, all bets are off... maybe Krugman is right and this is not the "Big One," maybe this is just a 30, or 70 year crisis of capitalism. If so, and this is not "the Big One," then is it is most certainly a harbinger, or preshock of the big one on the way. If not today, then sometime in Jordan and C'enna's lifetime. We're due for the 500 year crisis. Who knows what emerges out of the crisis, but the sooner we see through the false promises of the system, the sooner we can start dealing with the situation as it is. And in this, successfully dealing with the situation as it is, will certainly require operationalizing the new conception of the human that Wynter speaks of. Another ray of hope, is that SDS and the New Left did not end the war or recreate the world in the way they envisioned, but they planted some seeds that are coming to maturity. Wynter's new humanism, in my view, is the fruit of this effort. There is a consensus among intellectuals about this new humanism. The challenge is now putting that vision in effect.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Abu Ghraib and the "Unknown Knowns"
Slavloj Zikez, "What Donald Rumsfeld Doesn't Know That He Knows," In These Times, May 2004
Responses to Obama's Cairo Univerity Speech
PBS round table on Obama Cairo University address:
There links to video and text of the speech.
In the roundtable As'ad AbuKhalil points out the contradiction of singing the song of democracy and human rights after a stopping off in Saudi Arabia, a kingdom where public beheading is still common.
Andrew Bacevich responds to Obama's address on KQED's Forum.
Max Blumenthal's shocking footage of the reaction by some Israelis and American Jews in Jerusalem to Obama's speech to the Muslim world.
Chomsky has a similar take:
There links to video and text of the speech.
In the roundtable As'ad AbuKhalil points out the contradiction of singing the song of democracy and human rights after a stopping off in Saudi Arabia, a kingdom where public beheading is still common.
Andrew Bacevich responds to Obama's address on KQED's Forum.
Max Blumenthal's shocking footage of the reaction by some Israelis and American Jews in Jerusalem to Obama's speech to the Muslim world.
Joel Beinin, in Jewish Voice for Peace: An articulate and charismatic President of the United States named Barack Hussein Obama giving a speech at Cairo University co-sponsored by al-Azhar, the most eminent institution of Muslim learning - now that's a new picture. Its enormous symbolic value is President Obama's biggest asset as he implements policy on the entire range of difficult issues he mentioned. The President stated, "Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail." This is an excellent basis for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The President did not provide details on how the conflict should be resolved beyond general support for "two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security." But the meaning of this formulation is now contested due to its empty repetition by presidents and prime ministers whose actions and inactions have undermined it. Instead President Obama emphasized U.S. rejection of "the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," saying nothing about the future of those settlements already existing and their nearly 500,000 inhabitants. By limiting himself to an apparently pragmatic "first step," President Obama may have made his task harder. If he does not produce concrete results very soon on this limited, albeit it absolutely necessary, measure, then the potential value of his fine words in Cairo will soon diminish. Joel Beinin June 4, 2009 Stanford, CA |
The Grim Picture of Obama's Middle East
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