Thank God it has come and gone. The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall threatens to become a regular ritual celebrating the triumph of capitalism and the bankruptcy of socialism. The ruling ideology needs landmarks and symbols to reassure that capitalism is both good and enduring to those barred by an invisible wall from entering the elite club of wealth and power. The 1989 opening of the barrier between East and West Berlin serves as such a symbol and, accordingly, is celebrated with much acclaim by the elites and their media lapdogs. They are confident that the louder and more extravagantly they celebrate, the more the rest of us will buy the old Cold War myths of socialist slavery and capitalist freedom. Tragically, many buy it.
But thank God there are some out there who expose the myths, though they lack the megaphone to pierce the bleating of the corporate media. I cannot praise enough the recent, brilliant postings by Stephen Gowans. The first (1) corrects the history and tallies the accomplishments of the departed German Democratic Republic. And the second (2) uses recent polling results to reveal the views that count the most: the folks who actually lived, worked, raised families and experienced the realities of Eastern European socialism. Their views are scorned and dismissed by our public pontificators in favor of the “dissidents” – most of whom weigh their own privileged opportunities that would be bestowed in a capitalist society over any consideration of the common good. The citizens' concerns are belittled as insignificant before the higher values of unlimited travel, intellectual license, and shallow “success” as defined by Western vulgarians.
Significantly, the citizens of former socialist countries value security, health care, employment, education, cultural engagement and the other basics that socialism guaranteed over the abstract right to travel unrestrained from Kharkov to Paris, especially when they see no prospects of ever attaining the means to exercise that right. The Ivy League graduates in business suits that populate urban condos and suburban mansions scoff at their concerns, ridiculing them as unsophisticated and trivial. Of course they’re trivial to those privileged by wealth and power to have no need for them!
It is shameful to see the political elites scurry to Berlin, along with the media pack, to toast the demise of a system that delivered more social good with more justice and humanity than the system that replaced it. It is just my opinion, of course, but the Pew and GlobeScan polls cited by Gowans, show that many, if not most, of the citizens of Eastern Europe – armed with the experience of both systems – agree with me.
Hypocrisy abounds, especially in the US. Our fearless media has earned a deserved reputation of finding some credibility in every pronouncement emanating from a corporate or government source. Conversely, they have succeeded in burying their heads deeply in the sand to avoid any inconvenient truth like the sentiments of Eastern Europeans. After all, what do they know about the relative merits of capitalism and socialism when compared with Merkel, Brown or Obama? Class-based journalism reigns.
Today’s news brings the revelation that 49 million US citizens experienced hunger – what the Bureau of Euphemism calls “food insecurity” - in 2008, a rise of 13% over 2007. With one out four children knowing hunger last year, it might be worthy of note that even the poorest socialist country succeeded in eliminating hunger within a decade. But what is the fate of millions of the hungry or unemployed when compared to the complaints of a poet in Cuba, a feudal lord in Tibet, or a businessman in Venezuela? The former remain voiceless while the latter command the big media stage.
But it’s not just the media that carries the water for a system that leaves bodies strewn across the landscape from hunger, war, lack of health care and neglect; there are also those in the lofty reaches of academe who willingly embrace the task of legitimizing capitalism, its culture, and its history. They are not merely anticommunist professors, but professors of anticommunism. To excel at this task, one has to be willing to not only condemn Communism, but to swear that there was actually nothing – not the tiniest value or virtue- in the movement or its instantiation in power.
Arguably, the dean of this “discipline” was the late Sir Isaiah Berlin, an academic who earned knighthood for his services to the capitalist state. While his philosophical work was both meager and slight, his dogged disparaging of Communism attained for him fame and veneration.
Since his demise, others have scrambled for his mantle. A strong contender for this dubious distinction is the current Professor of European Studies and Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow at St. Antony’s College, Oxford and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute, Timothy Garton Ash. From his early career roaming around Eastern Europe, to his later career as a journalist, to his current academic station, Ash has unswervingly served the cause of capitalism (he would, of course, recoil from this description, preferring “liberal democracy”) and demonized socialism. In this regard, he is a worthy successor to Berlin, but apparently not yet worthy of knighthood since he has only earned a lesser chivalric title, CMG (Companion, The Most Distinguished order of St. Michael’s and St. George). This title is generally awarded to members of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (James Bond got one!) and poses an interesting juxtaposition with his academic stature.
Ash has peddled anticommunism for many, many years, often choosing the equally rabid anticommunist The New York Review of Books as his soapbox. In the December 3, 2009 addition, he offers a curious argument for establishing the so-called Velvet Revolution in 1989 Czechoslovakia as the historic template for future social change: “The hypothesis is that 1989 established a new model of nonviolent revolution that now often supplants, or at least competes with, the older, violent model we associate with 1789”. Thus, VR, as he calls the new model, explains the many “color” revolutions that have befallen Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries, social movements that coincide almost perfectly with foreign policy goals of the US and Western European powers. To deflect anyone suspicious of this coincidence, he stretches to include South Africa, Chile, and Portugal in this model, an inclusion that those familiar with these prolonged, militant, and left-led “old school” revolutions will find laughable.
With equal elasticity, Ash struggles to find some other content (other than serving imperial interests!) to these new breed “revolutions”, conceding and quoting Francois Furet that the 1989 changes in Eastern Europe stirred “not a single new idea.” Rather, they were a “turning of the wheel back to a real or imaginary better past”. Certainly most practitioners of Ash’s discipline would call this wheel-turning to the past “counter-revolution”, a word that Ash assiduously avoids. And in the end, he relents that “[the] “new idea” is the form of revolutionary change itself, not the content of its ideological aspirations”.
But if they have no content to inspire action, what drives these social movements? Many of us who have studied the heralded protests in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Central and South America (these go unmentioned by Ash – perhaps, because they were so transparently coups posing as popular risings) have concluded that they had a social base of privileged elites with decisive help from external agents. Herds of innocuous sounding NGOs have been manufactured to do the work formerly exclusive to foreign intelligence agencies. One cannot help noting the presence of abundant resources – technological, material, and agitational – in the media accounts of the demonstrations and rallies in these otherwise economically poorer countries. Ample evidence exists demonstrating the elaborate training and preparation offered by well-funded NGOs.
Dutifully, Ash scoffs at this explanation: “These are not Western plots, as authoritarian rulers from Russia to China to Iran now claim – supported in their paranoia by a few conspiracy-minded Western observers”. One wonders if Ash had his fingers crossed when he wrote this!
But he goes on: “To be sure, there is often Western involvement, some of it public, some covert, but in no single case can one possibly claim that it has been decisive” [my italics]. And several column inches later, in chiding the Indian government for remaining neutral in regard to turmoil in neighboring countries, Ash argues a different conclusion: “Or will non-Western democracies in time warm to the … enterprise of helping people in less free countries to help themselves? The answer they give may be decisive for the future of VR” [my italics]. Now those of us without Ash’s impressive credentials my find this to be contradictory; on one hand, external intervention has never been decisive, on the other, it may well be the decisive factor in future uprisings. Are we to believe that Western powers, with far more resources and a history of imperial intervention, showed great restraint in Ash’s Velvet-like revolutions, offering non-decisive aid when Western foreign policy goals were clearly within reach? Are we to believe, on the other hand, that the Indian government, less inclined to intervention and less well endowed, is to be faulted by not playing a decisive role in toppling governments not favored by Ash?
When you’ve abandoned any pretense of respecting self-determination, it’s easy to have it both ways.
Ash and the media lapdogs undermine not only their own credibility, but the credibility of their respective professions that pretend to be scholarly and unbiased. Their fawning submission to power and wealth stands in sharp contrast to the work of independent, but avowedly partisan writers like Stephen Gowans.
(1) http://gowans.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/polls-show-a-spectre-is-haunting-europe…and-much-of-the-rest
(2) http://mltoday.com/en/democracy-east-germany-and-the-berlin-wall-702.html
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Exploitation Soars, Unemployment Jumps!
This sure is some recovery! The first week in November brought remarkable results for an economy widely held to be on the mend. Earnings of corporations are on the rise, the stock market is perking up, and the Administration is claiming credit for pulling the economy back from the brink and setting it well on the course to health.
But in the other world, the world outside of Wall Street, gated communities, and the political elite, the news is catastrophic, pushing the misery index dramatically higher.
Exploitation
The rate of exploitation, as measured by output per hour of labor has increased by 9.6% in the third quarter of this year, more than four times its average growth over the last 25 years. This increase comes on the heels of a 6.9% rise in the second quarter. Put simply, these numbers mean that for every worker engaged in some form of productive activity, on average, he or she produced almost 10% more in the third quarter of this year over the same quarter last year. Intuitively, this means that the capitalist system has squeezed another dollar in value from workers who produced ten dollars in value last year. Or, put another way, for every hour of labor, workers were forced to do 10% more productive work.
Some might respond that it doesn’t follow that workers necessarily worked harder for these productivity gains. That may well be true in some cases, but we have other Labor Department data that bear on this matter. We also know that total employment is on the decline (see below). In addition, the Labor Department reports that the hours worked were down again for the ninth straight quarter. Combine that fact with a 4% rise in output, and it’s pretty clear that workers were squeezed harder.
Capitalist apologists would be quick to point out - and they always do – that other factors may contribute to productivity increases besides worker effort such as technological innovations and investment in more efficient equipment and techniques. This response evaporates in the face of the dramatic decline in investment brought on by the broad economic crisis.
Of course it would be possible that workers worked harder because they wanted to make more money, producing more because they wanted to earn a commensurately larger compensation. This, however, is belied by the fact that unit labor costs were down 5.2% in the third quarter: every unit of value produced earned the workers 5.2% less than it did in the third quarter of 2008.
We have then a stubborn fact: workers worked a lot harder most of this year than they did last year with a smaller share of the value produced.
This stubborn fact goes unacknowledged and unexplained. It will not be discussed on the Sunday morning talk shows. The media – from The New York Times to the organs of the labor movement – will pass over this fact, often hailing it as a harbinger of recovery. Academic and working economists assign it no special place, no event of great consequence.
It is only in the Marxist tradition that this fact occupies a central role and is properly explained. In fact, it is the fundamental notion in the political economy of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, exposing the primary mechanism of profit generation in the capitalist mode of production. In the end, they argued, increases in the rate of profit come from workers getting a smaller portion of the product of their labor. They labeled this measure the rate of exploitation. From the Marxist perspective, the capitalist class intensifies exploitation – raises its rate – to restore or increase the rate of profit. Indeed, this is axiomatic in the Marxist system.
While mainstream economists strain to explain the rise in profits and the stock market in the face of climbing unemployment and slack consumption, they refuse to attend to the role of labor exploitation in this development.
In our time, this sharp increase in labor exploitation signals two disturbing truths:
Thus, the burden of the capitalist recovery – profits and stock equity values – is borne squarely by the working class.
Unemployment
It is not just that workers are working harder; fewer are also working. The October official unemployment rate rose to 10.2%, the highest rate since 1983 and only the second time since records have been kept (1948) that the unemployment rate topped 10%! When workers without full-time work or those discouraged from working are counted, the actual rate is 17.5%, a rate nearly equal to or greater than all but the four peak years of the Great Depression. Where the Roosevelt Administration resorted to public jobs programs to restore employment after 1934, the current Administration, guided by its dogmatic neo-liberal economic team, has largely relied upon restoring the health of the private sector with generous bailouts and massive loan guarantees, furthering shifting the burden of recovery onto the future tax obligations of the working class.
The impact upon families of working people – saddled with escalating health care and education costs, massive debt, and uncertainty – is devastating. With nearly one out of five US citizens without a secure, sustainable job, the economic crisis is far from over for the overwhelming majority.
As Doug Henwood has pointed out (Left Business Observer, #122), even with women entering the work force in very great numbers, the percentage of people in the work force (employment/population) has fallen to within striking distance of the level when the Government first kept statistics (1948).
For the unemployed, the prospect of getting a job has diminished to unprecedented levels: the median length of unemployment now stretches to nearly five months. Therefore, the average worker, out of desperation, will likely consider employment at a wage and benefit level well below their former rate. This downward pressure on wages contributes to the willingness of those with employment to accept increased exploitation in order to retain a job. With the unemployed willing to work for less, it is likely that those with jobs will fear for the loss of theirs.
Conclusions
The numbers, the reports from the Government’s Labor Department, are stark, yet they fail to convey the pain, the misery, the desperation that underlies increasing exploitation and expanding unemployment. Their impact will appear later in poverty figures, suicides, broken families, crime statistics, child malnutrition, avoidable illnesses and deaths, and other measures of neglect and human suffering.
It is irresponsible and dishonest not to locate their cause in policy decisions. It doesn’t have to be this way.
The decisions taken by the new Administration, decisions taken to address a profound economic crisis, did not have to place the burden upon the vast majority of our fellow citizens. History shows other responses: Roosevelt’s second term – also hailed as an endorsement of transformational change and a rebuke of past approaches – strove to place many of the resources of government directly for the benefit of those most harmed by economic catastrophe. But this is not the approach that this Administration chose. Instead it hewed to the corrupted line that extending a helping hand to corporate USA – the perpetrators of the crisis – would pull everyone up, a bankrupt return to the cynical approach of the Reagan gang.
Looking forward, this approach will only encourage more corporate irresponsibility and more pain for the vast majority. We, on the left, cannot continue to shirk our duty to speak loudly for a new policy that will put the future of working people at the top of the agenda. It is time to return to a vigorous oppositional stance and cast aside the misplaced, naïve trust in the Democratic Administration. The season of childish fantasy is over.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
But in the other world, the world outside of Wall Street, gated communities, and the political elite, the news is catastrophic, pushing the misery index dramatically higher.
Exploitation
The rate of exploitation, as measured by output per hour of labor has increased by 9.6% in the third quarter of this year, more than four times its average growth over the last 25 years. This increase comes on the heels of a 6.9% rise in the second quarter. Put simply, these numbers mean that for every worker engaged in some form of productive activity, on average, he or she produced almost 10% more in the third quarter of this year over the same quarter last year. Intuitively, this means that the capitalist system has squeezed another dollar in value from workers who produced ten dollars in value last year. Or, put another way, for every hour of labor, workers were forced to do 10% more productive work.
Some might respond that it doesn’t follow that workers necessarily worked harder for these productivity gains. That may well be true in some cases, but we have other Labor Department data that bear on this matter. We also know that total employment is on the decline (see below). In addition, the Labor Department reports that the hours worked were down again for the ninth straight quarter. Combine that fact with a 4% rise in output, and it’s pretty clear that workers were squeezed harder.
Capitalist apologists would be quick to point out - and they always do – that other factors may contribute to productivity increases besides worker effort such as technological innovations and investment in more efficient equipment and techniques. This response evaporates in the face of the dramatic decline in investment brought on by the broad economic crisis.
Of course it would be possible that workers worked harder because they wanted to make more money, producing more because they wanted to earn a commensurately larger compensation. This, however, is belied by the fact that unit labor costs were down 5.2% in the third quarter: every unit of value produced earned the workers 5.2% less than it did in the third quarter of 2008.
We have then a stubborn fact: workers worked a lot harder most of this year than they did last year with a smaller share of the value produced.
This stubborn fact goes unacknowledged and unexplained. It will not be discussed on the Sunday morning talk shows. The media – from The New York Times to the organs of the labor movement – will pass over this fact, often hailing it as a harbinger of recovery. Academic and working economists assign it no special place, no event of great consequence.
It is only in the Marxist tradition that this fact occupies a central role and is properly explained. In fact, it is the fundamental notion in the political economy of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, exposing the primary mechanism of profit generation in the capitalist mode of production. In the end, they argued, increases in the rate of profit come from workers getting a smaller portion of the product of their labor. They labeled this measure the rate of exploitation. From the Marxist perspective, the capitalist class intensifies exploitation – raises its rate – to restore or increase the rate of profit. Indeed, this is axiomatic in the Marxist system.
While mainstream economists strain to explain the rise in profits and the stock market in the face of climbing unemployment and slack consumption, they refuse to attend to the role of labor exploitation in this development.
In our time, this sharp increase in labor exploitation signals two disturbing truths:
1. The relative strength and privilege of capital. Monopoly capital wields sufficient power, unrestrained by the organs of popular sovereignty – the government, to extract dramatically more effort from the working class.
2. The relative weakness of labor. The labor movement lacks sufficient strength, determination, or government influence to at the very least retain a proportionate share of the product of its efforts.
Thus, the burden of the capitalist recovery – profits and stock equity values – is borne squarely by the working class.
Unemployment
It is not just that workers are working harder; fewer are also working. The October official unemployment rate rose to 10.2%, the highest rate since 1983 and only the second time since records have been kept (1948) that the unemployment rate topped 10%! When workers without full-time work or those discouraged from working are counted, the actual rate is 17.5%, a rate nearly equal to or greater than all but the four peak years of the Great Depression. Where the Roosevelt Administration resorted to public jobs programs to restore employment after 1934, the current Administration, guided by its dogmatic neo-liberal economic team, has largely relied upon restoring the health of the private sector with generous bailouts and massive loan guarantees, furthering shifting the burden of recovery onto the future tax obligations of the working class.
The impact upon families of working people – saddled with escalating health care and education costs, massive debt, and uncertainty – is devastating. With nearly one out of five US citizens without a secure, sustainable job, the economic crisis is far from over for the overwhelming majority.
As Doug Henwood has pointed out (Left Business Observer, #122), even with women entering the work force in very great numbers, the percentage of people in the work force (employment/population) has fallen to within striking distance of the level when the Government first kept statistics (1948).
For the unemployed, the prospect of getting a job has diminished to unprecedented levels: the median length of unemployment now stretches to nearly five months. Therefore, the average worker, out of desperation, will likely consider employment at a wage and benefit level well below their former rate. This downward pressure on wages contributes to the willingness of those with employment to accept increased exploitation in order to retain a job. With the unemployed willing to work for less, it is likely that those with jobs will fear for the loss of theirs.
Conclusions
The numbers, the reports from the Government’s Labor Department, are stark, yet they fail to convey the pain, the misery, the desperation that underlies increasing exploitation and expanding unemployment. Their impact will appear later in poverty figures, suicides, broken families, crime statistics, child malnutrition, avoidable illnesses and deaths, and other measures of neglect and human suffering.
It is irresponsible and dishonest not to locate their cause in policy decisions. It doesn’t have to be this way.
The decisions taken by the new Administration, decisions taken to address a profound economic crisis, did not have to place the burden upon the vast majority of our fellow citizens. History shows other responses: Roosevelt’s second term – also hailed as an endorsement of transformational change and a rebuke of past approaches – strove to place many of the resources of government directly for the benefit of those most harmed by economic catastrophe. But this is not the approach that this Administration chose. Instead it hewed to the corrupted line that extending a helping hand to corporate USA – the perpetrators of the crisis – would pull everyone up, a bankrupt return to the cynical approach of the Reagan gang.
Looking forward, this approach will only encourage more corporate irresponsibility and more pain for the vast majority. We, on the left, cannot continue to shirk our duty to speak loudly for a new policy that will put the future of working people at the top of the agenda. It is time to return to a vigorous oppositional stance and cast aside the misplaced, naïve trust in the Democratic Administration. The season of childish fantasy is over.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Support the Ford Workers!
Confronting corporate power directly constitutes the sharpest, most challenging, and most politically advanced form of political struggle, of class struggle. At a time of compromise, half-steps, modest aspirations, and low expectations, these moments are unfortunately rare. One such moment occurred with the determined, courageous efforts of the single-payer advocates in their effort to retire profit-driven insurance corporations from the field of health care provision. In the face of the predictable demonology of “socialism” and “government involvement”, they have fought a relentless struggle – including civil disobedience – to put patients before profits. Single-payer, in its HR676 incarnation, attacks corporate dominance by financing health care from taxes on the rich as well as kicking out the private insurance companies. Where the compromised public option feeds the rapacious insurance industry and burdens the working class, single-payer is a direct assault on the interests of the ownership class, an assault benefiting the vast majority of US citizens. While victory is hardly assured, their efforts will continue to gather momentum long after any tepid, corporate-friendly legislation is passed by the Congress.
Now we have the stirrings of another – long overdue, but heartily welcome – counterattack in the war against corporate dominance. The union workers at Ford Motor Company have voted overwhelmingly to reject a concessionary proposal offered by Ford and urged by the United Autoworkers leadership.
Nationwide, over 70% of the Ford UAW membership voted against contract concessions that were demanded by the auto giant. The UAW top leadership which has negotiated and urged ratification of decades of concessions met a fierce resistance from the rank-and-file and local leaders. The head of the UAW’s Ford division was booed and heckled at local meetings in Michigan and President Ron Gettelfinger’s former local rejected the proposal by over 80% despite his personnel appearance and appeal. The happy message of “win-win” class collaboration fell on deaf ears this time. By rejecting these concessions, workers chose a different path – the path of class struggle.
Knowing full well of the relative advantages it enjoys, Ford argued that it deserved the same deal that the UAW accepted for its bankrupt competitors, GM and Chrysler. The US government granted each of the other two domestic auto makers a bailout in return for a promise to close plants, layoff employees, and shed brands and dealerships. The UAW sweetened the deal further by granting further concessions on its 2007 contract with GM and Chrysler. In fact, the UAW had accepted two sets of concessions to Ford since the 2007 contract, and this third group of demands spurred the membership’s overwhelming rejection. This is in stark contrast to the French auto bailouts that required the domestic producers to retain jobs in order to receive government aid. In the case of France, a rabid conservative President Sarkozy was faced down by a militant labor movement and popular support. In the case of the US, a corporate-coddling government and a collaborationist union leadership kicked autoworkers in the teeth.
Cynically, Ford and the UAW International leaders agreed to schedule the concession ratification before the declaration of Ford’s third quarter earnings so they could best make the case for “making Ford competitive” against the crippled competition. Nonetheless, the UAW members soundly rejected the contract concessions even before Ford announced net third quarter earning of over a billion dollars, the most since 2006.
Nothing shows the bankruptcy of the business union model better than this crass fealty to the corporate interests of The Ford Motor Company. Nothing shows an awakening rank-and-file militancy better than the overwhelming rejection of this offensive proposal.
After years of urging concessions that have stripped benefits and hourly wages, the UAW top leadership is now faced with a membership in open rebellion against its no-struggle policies. The membership recognizes, far better than the top officials, that it is now time to stop the retreat and use the power of working people to improve their future. For too long the union’s top leaders have acted as a kind of third party linking the position of the workers to the continued prosperity of the corporations and “selling” that bankrupt notion to the members. The union belongs to the members and this vote demonstrates that they want it back. This is a banner moment for working class consciousness and anti-corporate action. The top leadership of the union should heed this or step aside.
For the left, this is a re-affirmation of the centrality of the labor movement in its confrontation with wealth and power. The action of tens of thousands of autoworkers rocks the corporate agenda far more than high-sounding electoral rhetoric or parliamentary horse-trading. As these early sprouts of emerging labor independence mature, the left must help nurture this movement into a powerful social force, a force worthy of the UAW’s legacy. For some on the left, this requires shedding the illusions and comfortable ties with the top leadership of the labor movement. The reality is that the contradiction between the needs of working people and a complacent, corporate-accommodating leadership will grow ever more apparent.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
Now we have the stirrings of another – long overdue, but heartily welcome – counterattack in the war against corporate dominance. The union workers at Ford Motor Company have voted overwhelmingly to reject a concessionary proposal offered by Ford and urged by the United Autoworkers leadership.
Nationwide, over 70% of the Ford UAW membership voted against contract concessions that were demanded by the auto giant. The UAW top leadership which has negotiated and urged ratification of decades of concessions met a fierce resistance from the rank-and-file and local leaders. The head of the UAW’s Ford division was booed and heckled at local meetings in Michigan and President Ron Gettelfinger’s former local rejected the proposal by over 80% despite his personnel appearance and appeal. The happy message of “win-win” class collaboration fell on deaf ears this time. By rejecting these concessions, workers chose a different path – the path of class struggle.
Knowing full well of the relative advantages it enjoys, Ford argued that it deserved the same deal that the UAW accepted for its bankrupt competitors, GM and Chrysler. The US government granted each of the other two domestic auto makers a bailout in return for a promise to close plants, layoff employees, and shed brands and dealerships. The UAW sweetened the deal further by granting further concessions on its 2007 contract with GM and Chrysler. In fact, the UAW had accepted two sets of concessions to Ford since the 2007 contract, and this third group of demands spurred the membership’s overwhelming rejection. This is in stark contrast to the French auto bailouts that required the domestic producers to retain jobs in order to receive government aid. In the case of France, a rabid conservative President Sarkozy was faced down by a militant labor movement and popular support. In the case of the US, a corporate-coddling government and a collaborationist union leadership kicked autoworkers in the teeth.
Cynically, Ford and the UAW International leaders agreed to schedule the concession ratification before the declaration of Ford’s third quarter earnings so they could best make the case for “making Ford competitive” against the crippled competition. Nonetheless, the UAW members soundly rejected the contract concessions even before Ford announced net third quarter earning of over a billion dollars, the most since 2006.
Nothing shows the bankruptcy of the business union model better than this crass fealty to the corporate interests of The Ford Motor Company. Nothing shows an awakening rank-and-file militancy better than the overwhelming rejection of this offensive proposal.
After years of urging concessions that have stripped benefits and hourly wages, the UAW top leadership is now faced with a membership in open rebellion against its no-struggle policies. The membership recognizes, far better than the top officials, that it is now time to stop the retreat and use the power of working people to improve their future. For too long the union’s top leaders have acted as a kind of third party linking the position of the workers to the continued prosperity of the corporations and “selling” that bankrupt notion to the members. The union belongs to the members and this vote demonstrates that they want it back. This is a banner moment for working class consciousness and anti-corporate action. The top leadership of the union should heed this or step aside.
For the left, this is a re-affirmation of the centrality of the labor movement in its confrontation with wealth and power. The action of tens of thousands of autoworkers rocks the corporate agenda far more than high-sounding electoral rhetoric or parliamentary horse-trading. As these early sprouts of emerging labor independence mature, the left must help nurture this movement into a powerful social force, a force worthy of the UAW’s legacy. For some on the left, this requires shedding the illusions and comfortable ties with the top leadership of the labor movement. The reality is that the contradiction between the needs of working people and a complacent, corporate-accommodating leadership will grow ever more apparent.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Bringing Chiquita Brands to Justice
The history of Latin America, particularly its domination by the US, is inseparable from the machinations of the United Fruit Company. The interventions of the UFC are the legends of anti-imperialists in the South, especially its most esteemed writers and intellectuals. No corporate entity has demonstrated a more callous disregard for the independence of Central and South American countries, using bribes, extortion, subsidies, and coup-mongering to influence domestic politics to its advantage.
In its latest incarnation as Chiquita Brands International, the company was caught red-handed funding Colombian terrorists, the notorious Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, a collection of right-wing paramilitaries responsible for the assassination and disappearance of tens of thousands of Colombians perceived as in opposition to the big landowners and corporations. From the umbrella organization’s inception in 1997, Chiquita funded the paramilitaries through its Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, S.A. In 2007, a US District Court confirmed this connection and payments to AUC totaling $1.7 million through 2004. Testimony showed that one shipment alone – off-loaded from a Chiquita ship – put 3000 assault rifles and ammunition into the hands of the terrorists.
The matter was forced to the attention of US courts because of the September 2001 designation by the US government of AUC as a terrorist organization, a fact too obvious for even the Bush administration to deny.
Court proceedings indicate that Chiquita executives were aware of the collaboration with the terrorists at least by 2002. Moreover, despite a Justice Department finding and the advise of outside counsel, the firm continued to fund AUC from April 24, 2003 until February 4, 2004. In order to avoid disclosure and face personal incrimination, the executives agreed to a $25 million settlement of fines to the US Justice Department.
Interestingly, the current Attorney General, Eric Holder, legally represented Chiquita Brands before the US District Court, a dubious credential for his appointment as the top judicial officer in the US.
As matters were left after the settlement, Chiquita was, of course, instructed to desist in its support for the terrorists. But, according to a Colombian newspaper account (El Espectador, September 5, 2009), the Columbian Attorney General’s office has disclosed evidence that Chiquita has, through closely allied companies, continued to finance terrorist organizations in Colombia from 2004 through 2007.
The Colombian prosecutor’s office contends that Chiquita Brand engaged two cover firms, Invesmar SA (through Colombian subsidiary, Banacol SA) and Olinsa, to continue the engagement with AUC. Testimony has been taken from one judicially protected terrorist leader that Banacol SA paid around 3 billion Colombian Pesos to his group. He affirmed that he served as a liaison with Chiquita Brands and that they agreed to an arrangement of three cents on the dollar for the paramilitaries from every box of bananas produced.
An accounting examination by the Attorney General’s Office of the Banacol SA confirmed a voluntary diversion of funds to the terrorist groupings.
Olinsa was set up in 2005 with an extremely generous loan from Chiquita Brands at interest rates well below those prevailing in Colombia. Nearly all of its business is conducted with Chiquita Brands. Ninety-four per cent of Olinsa’s shares are held by an ex-employee of Chiquita Brands, according to the accounting report of the Attorney General’s office.
These two firms, strongly suspected of continuing support for AUC, are demonstrably linked to Chiquita Brands International (other related firms are also under investigation). As the investigation continues, all agree that testimony by US Chiquita executives would be decisive in concluding the matter. Unfortunately, this is hindered by the confidentiality agreement secured with the settlement of the $25 million fine.
It would be most helpful if the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, would re-open the case in the US in light of the findings of the Colombian Attorney General. Surely, the evidence suggesting the continued aid by Chiquita Brands to AUC warrants cooperation on the part of the US authorities. If the support continued after the 2007 settlement, it constitutes both contempt for US law and flagrantly criminal activity on the part of the corporation.
For Attorney General Holder, cooperating with the Colombian investigation is not only a legal duty, but a test of his commitment to equal justice given his former role as counsel for Chiquita Brands. Any reluctance to follow the leads opened by Colombian authorities will surely risk the taint of prejudice in favor of his former client.
Every effort should be made to bring the Chiquita investigation to the attention of elected officials and the Justice Department.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
In its latest incarnation as Chiquita Brands International, the company was caught red-handed funding Colombian terrorists, the notorious Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, a collection of right-wing paramilitaries responsible for the assassination and disappearance of tens of thousands of Colombians perceived as in opposition to the big landowners and corporations. From the umbrella organization’s inception in 1997, Chiquita funded the paramilitaries through its Colombian subsidiary, Banadex, S.A. In 2007, a US District Court confirmed this connection and payments to AUC totaling $1.7 million through 2004. Testimony showed that one shipment alone – off-loaded from a Chiquita ship – put 3000 assault rifles and ammunition into the hands of the terrorists.
The matter was forced to the attention of US courts because of the September 2001 designation by the US government of AUC as a terrorist organization, a fact too obvious for even the Bush administration to deny.
Court proceedings indicate that Chiquita executives were aware of the collaboration with the terrorists at least by 2002. Moreover, despite a Justice Department finding and the advise of outside counsel, the firm continued to fund AUC from April 24, 2003 until February 4, 2004. In order to avoid disclosure and face personal incrimination, the executives agreed to a $25 million settlement of fines to the US Justice Department.
Interestingly, the current Attorney General, Eric Holder, legally represented Chiquita Brands before the US District Court, a dubious credential for his appointment as the top judicial officer in the US.
As matters were left after the settlement, Chiquita was, of course, instructed to desist in its support for the terrorists. But, according to a Colombian newspaper account (El Espectador, September 5, 2009), the Columbian Attorney General’s office has disclosed evidence that Chiquita has, through closely allied companies, continued to finance terrorist organizations in Colombia from 2004 through 2007.
The Colombian prosecutor’s office contends that Chiquita Brand engaged two cover firms, Invesmar SA (through Colombian subsidiary, Banacol SA) and Olinsa, to continue the engagement with AUC. Testimony has been taken from one judicially protected terrorist leader that Banacol SA paid around 3 billion Colombian Pesos to his group. He affirmed that he served as a liaison with Chiquita Brands and that they agreed to an arrangement of three cents on the dollar for the paramilitaries from every box of bananas produced.
An accounting examination by the Attorney General’s Office of the Banacol SA confirmed a voluntary diversion of funds to the terrorist groupings.
Olinsa was set up in 2005 with an extremely generous loan from Chiquita Brands at interest rates well below those prevailing in Colombia. Nearly all of its business is conducted with Chiquita Brands. Ninety-four per cent of Olinsa’s shares are held by an ex-employee of Chiquita Brands, according to the accounting report of the Attorney General’s office.
These two firms, strongly suspected of continuing support for AUC, are demonstrably linked to Chiquita Brands International (other related firms are also under investigation). As the investigation continues, all agree that testimony by US Chiquita executives would be decisive in concluding the matter. Unfortunately, this is hindered by the confidentiality agreement secured with the settlement of the $25 million fine.
It would be most helpful if the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, would re-open the case in the US in light of the findings of the Colombian Attorney General. Surely, the evidence suggesting the continued aid by Chiquita Brands to AUC warrants cooperation on the part of the US authorities. If the support continued after the 2007 settlement, it constitutes both contempt for US law and flagrantly criminal activity on the part of the corporation.
For Attorney General Holder, cooperating with the Colombian investigation is not only a legal duty, but a test of his commitment to equal justice given his former role as counsel for Chiquita Brands. Any reluctance to follow the leads opened by Colombian authorities will surely risk the taint of prejudice in favor of his former client.
Every effort should be made to bring the Chiquita investigation to the attention of elected officials and the Justice Department.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
A Response to Valentin Zorin and Anonymous
Two commentators on the recently posted account of the Pittsburgh G-20 actions demand a deeper and more thoughtful discussion of the state and prospects of the left in the US. Anonymous speaks with insight of the shortcomings and obstacles plaguing the US left, pointing to the many mechanisms employed by US rulers to thwart any labor or socialist militancy. Anonymous, briefly, but effectively, exposes the resourceful opponents of social change as well as noting the unfortunate diversions that serve to dilute developing struggles. At the risk of simplification, this correspondent reminds us of the often quoted sympathy of Che Guevara who consoled the US left over the difficulties of working “in the belly of the beast”.
With a small dose of sarcasm and a large dose of skepticism, Valentin Zorin challenges the US left to face some unpleasant, humbling facts. Though a Russian, Zorin has earned the right to speak directly and candidly to the US left. Arguably the doyen of Soviet-era journalists commenting on the US, he has lived among us and encountered the leading figures in the history of the Cold War. Today, he is respected for his insights on the US and active on Voice of Russia radio.
Zorin is right to point to the absence of a revolutionary party in the US at a critical time when dissatisfaction and frustration have reached a flashpoint. This is a harsh, but merited criticism that we simply cannot side-step. With Anonymous, I could construct an elaborate and detailed explanation of the forces arrayed against the revolutionary left in the US, not least of which is a security service far more advanced and technologically adept than any other in history. The rest of the world knows this only too well.
Historical, demographic, even geographical factors play a role as well. Despite our revolutionary heritage, forces have shaped the US into a nation ravaged by an unprecedented radical individualism that has successfully foreclosed collective action. No nation, no era has become so completely self-absorbed. The expression of this with the left is the aching desire for a knight on a white horse – an FDR, a Kennedy, or an Obama in our time- that would carry the burden of change while we, as Zorin puts it, “tend to our garden”. Collective action is demeaned, while we patiently wait for our Lenin. We see this in the qualitative leap that the anti-war movement took after Cindy Sheehan’s bold, but individual confrontation with George W. Bush. We see it today in the hope that Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story will raise the masses to a new consciousness… but without the hard, collective work of organization and joint action.
And, yes, the gardens we tend are rather large and luxuriant. As a Marxist, I object to the uncritical, unscientific term “middle class” for all those beneath the very rich and above the very poor. Nonetheless, the privileges of empire and the benefits of US hegemony afford most US citizens a comfortable, agreeable way of life that we believe rivals anyone else in the world. Though the economic crisis is challenging this view, millions have yet to feel its sharp edge and care little for its victims.
Our citizens are narcotized by a media that would shock George Orwell and other oracles of “totalitarianism”. No ruling class has mastered so skillfully the manipulation of consent to serve the interests of monopoly capitalism, wealth, and power. The two-party electoral system has absorbed all political energy into an empty ritual held periodically, pitting one snake oil salesman against another.
But do not view this as “American Exceptionalism”. For those living outside our borders, it is surely a foretaste of what capitalism will bring them in the future. The once-thriving multi-party systems of many European nations are inexorably morphing into the insidious two-party circus (France, Italy). US cultural and social values are spreading throughout the world like a virus, even deeply penetrating the former socialist countries and the People’s Republic of China.
Nevertheless, Zorin’s challenge persists. While all these factors extenuate, they do not change the brutal fact that the US left is far from adequate to meet the needs of the moment, or far into the future.
We can draw some solace from the fact that the US empire is an empire in decline. US imperial aggression has, despite enormous resources and sophistication, failed to prevail. The once staggering economic engine is running decidedly slower. Debt has become not only the currency of finance but the pillar of sinking living standards. If there is an American Century, this is not it.
So for those of us on the Marxist left, the challenge is to thrust ourselves into these new realities. It is important to recognize that our role must be cast in a larger picture. Generations of revolutionaries have never seen revolution. Those who have that good fortune enjoyed the efforts that preceded them. From the early Christian movements and the early Roman slave revolts to the handful of revolutionaries gathering in Mexico to venture on to Cuba, there is no way to anticipate the impact of the actions of a few dedicated to radical change.
But Zorin says: “It’s already too late. Finis”. Perhaps, but I think that this is a far too hasty conclusion. I am reminded of Lenin’s scolding of those who, after the brutally suppressed 1905 revolution, fell into despair, inaction, and “tending their gardens”. Of course things changed dramatically with the slaughter of the First World War.
It would be foolish to press this analogy too vigorously. The US is not Czarist Russia. Nor has the US left yet overcome the rank revisionism and craven opportunism that swept the left in Europe and the US, including many Communist Parties, after the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Without clarity on this matter, a revolutionary movement has no chance of gaining traction.
Yet one legacy of the Soviet-era continues with genuine Marxist-Leninists: Internationalism. While US Marxists may be small in number and relatively ineffectual, they proceed with the knowledge that they are part of a world movement sharing both victories and setbacks. The crisis of the world economy brings this point home dramatically, with Marxists around the world playing an increasingly important, though not yet decisive role in shaping the response.
Surely Zorin understands the need for revolutionary patience and persistent organizing. In his own country – Russia - recent studies show that the average male now has a life expectancy of 60 years, dramatically down from the Soviet era and on a par with impoverished, sub-Saharan Africa. Demographically, this is a catastrophe – in terms of literally millions of unnecessary deaths – that rivals great famines and major wars. The Cold War calculators would place the blame for this devastation – holocaust, if you will – squarely on the back of the prevailing social system – in this case, capitalism. Yet despite, this blow to the Russian people, and despite a substantial Communist Party, this has not sparked a revolutionary upsurge. As in the US, the forces of crisis containment, distraction, and calculated obfuscation hinder this development. Capitalism has demonstrated great resiliency throughout the world.
Zorin raises the specter of US fascism. Of course this is a danger. Yet the fascistic 25% of the population has always been lurking in the body politic. During the great gains of the left during the New Deal, the Liberty Lobby, the Black Legions, the reactionary movement around the media celebrity, Father Coughlin, and the KKK enjoyed their greatest following. That was and remains a constant on the US scene. Unfortunately, much of the US left has posed confronting this evil as the sole task, cuddling up to the soulless Democrats in a twisted, misguided application of Popular Front policies. This has only added to the bleak landscape of left politics that Zorin correctly identifies.
So going forward, we – and our international comrades – have the daunting task of restoring revolutionary Marxism to the stature enjoyed in the twentieth century. There is much to digest, much to learn, and much to do. Admittedly, the US presents unique challenges, but we, and our friends abroad, should not underestimate the impact of a small revolutionary movement on the currents of US politics. The history of our twentieth century Communist Party shows many instances of its influence on major shifts in the trade union movement, the civil rights movement and the struggles against US aggression. If we are to help direct the course of this decaying empire, we must amplify these efforts.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
With a small dose of sarcasm and a large dose of skepticism, Valentin Zorin challenges the US left to face some unpleasant, humbling facts. Though a Russian, Zorin has earned the right to speak directly and candidly to the US left. Arguably the doyen of Soviet-era journalists commenting on the US, he has lived among us and encountered the leading figures in the history of the Cold War. Today, he is respected for his insights on the US and active on Voice of Russia radio.
Zorin is right to point to the absence of a revolutionary party in the US at a critical time when dissatisfaction and frustration have reached a flashpoint. This is a harsh, but merited criticism that we simply cannot side-step. With Anonymous, I could construct an elaborate and detailed explanation of the forces arrayed against the revolutionary left in the US, not least of which is a security service far more advanced and technologically adept than any other in history. The rest of the world knows this only too well.
Historical, demographic, even geographical factors play a role as well. Despite our revolutionary heritage, forces have shaped the US into a nation ravaged by an unprecedented radical individualism that has successfully foreclosed collective action. No nation, no era has become so completely self-absorbed. The expression of this with the left is the aching desire for a knight on a white horse – an FDR, a Kennedy, or an Obama in our time- that would carry the burden of change while we, as Zorin puts it, “tend to our garden”. Collective action is demeaned, while we patiently wait for our Lenin. We see this in the qualitative leap that the anti-war movement took after Cindy Sheehan’s bold, but individual confrontation with George W. Bush. We see it today in the hope that Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story will raise the masses to a new consciousness… but without the hard, collective work of organization and joint action.
And, yes, the gardens we tend are rather large and luxuriant. As a Marxist, I object to the uncritical, unscientific term “middle class” for all those beneath the very rich and above the very poor. Nonetheless, the privileges of empire and the benefits of US hegemony afford most US citizens a comfortable, agreeable way of life that we believe rivals anyone else in the world. Though the economic crisis is challenging this view, millions have yet to feel its sharp edge and care little for its victims.
Our citizens are narcotized by a media that would shock George Orwell and other oracles of “totalitarianism”. No ruling class has mastered so skillfully the manipulation of consent to serve the interests of monopoly capitalism, wealth, and power. The two-party electoral system has absorbed all political energy into an empty ritual held periodically, pitting one snake oil salesman against another.
But do not view this as “American Exceptionalism”. For those living outside our borders, it is surely a foretaste of what capitalism will bring them in the future. The once-thriving multi-party systems of many European nations are inexorably morphing into the insidious two-party circus (France, Italy). US cultural and social values are spreading throughout the world like a virus, even deeply penetrating the former socialist countries and the People’s Republic of China.
Nevertheless, Zorin’s challenge persists. While all these factors extenuate, they do not change the brutal fact that the US left is far from adequate to meet the needs of the moment, or far into the future.
We can draw some solace from the fact that the US empire is an empire in decline. US imperial aggression has, despite enormous resources and sophistication, failed to prevail. The once staggering economic engine is running decidedly slower. Debt has become not only the currency of finance but the pillar of sinking living standards. If there is an American Century, this is not it.
So for those of us on the Marxist left, the challenge is to thrust ourselves into these new realities. It is important to recognize that our role must be cast in a larger picture. Generations of revolutionaries have never seen revolution. Those who have that good fortune enjoyed the efforts that preceded them. From the early Christian movements and the early Roman slave revolts to the handful of revolutionaries gathering in Mexico to venture on to Cuba, there is no way to anticipate the impact of the actions of a few dedicated to radical change.
But Zorin says: “It’s already too late. Finis”. Perhaps, but I think that this is a far too hasty conclusion. I am reminded of Lenin’s scolding of those who, after the brutally suppressed 1905 revolution, fell into despair, inaction, and “tending their gardens”. Of course things changed dramatically with the slaughter of the First World War.
It would be foolish to press this analogy too vigorously. The US is not Czarist Russia. Nor has the US left yet overcome the rank revisionism and craven opportunism that swept the left in Europe and the US, including many Communist Parties, after the disappearance of the Soviet Union. Without clarity on this matter, a revolutionary movement has no chance of gaining traction.
Yet one legacy of the Soviet-era continues with genuine Marxist-Leninists: Internationalism. While US Marxists may be small in number and relatively ineffectual, they proceed with the knowledge that they are part of a world movement sharing both victories and setbacks. The crisis of the world economy brings this point home dramatically, with Marxists around the world playing an increasingly important, though not yet decisive role in shaping the response.
Surely Zorin understands the need for revolutionary patience and persistent organizing. In his own country – Russia - recent studies show that the average male now has a life expectancy of 60 years, dramatically down from the Soviet era and on a par with impoverished, sub-Saharan Africa. Demographically, this is a catastrophe – in terms of literally millions of unnecessary deaths – that rivals great famines and major wars. The Cold War calculators would place the blame for this devastation – holocaust, if you will – squarely on the back of the prevailing social system – in this case, capitalism. Yet despite, this blow to the Russian people, and despite a substantial Communist Party, this has not sparked a revolutionary upsurge. As in the US, the forces of crisis containment, distraction, and calculated obfuscation hinder this development. Capitalism has demonstrated great resiliency throughout the world.
Zorin raises the specter of US fascism. Of course this is a danger. Yet the fascistic 25% of the population has always been lurking in the body politic. During the great gains of the left during the New Deal, the Liberty Lobby, the Black Legions, the reactionary movement around the media celebrity, Father Coughlin, and the KKK enjoyed their greatest following. That was and remains a constant on the US scene. Unfortunately, much of the US left has posed confronting this evil as the sole task, cuddling up to the soulless Democrats in a twisted, misguided application of Popular Front policies. This has only added to the bleak landscape of left politics that Zorin correctly identifies.
So going forward, we – and our international comrades – have the daunting task of restoring revolutionary Marxism to the stature enjoyed in the twentieth century. There is much to digest, much to learn, and much to do. Admittedly, the US presents unique challenges, but we, and our friends abroad, should not underestimate the impact of a small revolutionary movement on the currents of US politics. The history of our twentieth century Communist Party shows many instances of its influence on major shifts in the trade union movement, the civil rights movement and the struggles against US aggression. If we are to help direct the course of this decaying empire, we must amplify these efforts.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
Monday, September 28, 2009
Some Reflections on the G-20
Six days of G-20 actions in Pittsburgh highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the left, but also the raging hypocrisy of those who rule.
Though the G-20 was rejected by other cities, the City and County officials of this Western Pennsylvania metropolis leaped at the chance to welcome 19 national leaders for the public spectacle of determining the destiny of the world in the period ahead. Long the target of democratic forces, the G-meetings expose the elitism and arrogance of the most powerful nations in a way that cries out for protest. Flaunting the credible though flawed, more democratic mechanism – The United Nations – G-meetings send the clear and shameless message that the wealthier countries and their ruling classes are in full control of the world’s affairs. While little more than wining, dining, signing off on previously determined policies and vague statements is accomplished, its all done with feudal-like ceremony and conspicuous pomp.
The Pittsburgh elites saw this circus as an opportunity to show case the “new” Pittsburgh – a glitzy Potemkin village hiding the devastated, neglected neighborhoods and towns of this once industrial giant. Today’s Pittsburgh – out-of-sight of the world’s leaders – is a depopulated, low income, aging city weighted down by decades of debt accumulated from ill-conceived, but highly profitably development schemes. The tax base has been scooped out to retain extortionate corporate giants and to lure new businesses that seldom come. The formerly well-paying manufacturing and mining jobs have disappeared only to be replaced with low-paying, benefit-lacking, service sector employment. Decades of political leadership rigidly wedded to corporate obeisance have left the region with a broken infrastructure, decrepit public services, and crippling poverty. If anything, Pittsburgh is a lesson in the destructiveness of unfettered corporate governance. The loss of good-paying industrial jobs has been most devastating to the African-American community: the city is one of the most segregated in the US with African-American poverty, infant mortality, crime, and abject poverty rivaling any city in America.
The city spared no expense in polishing the downtown buildings, streets, and public spaces where world leaders or the media might cast a critical eye. But, more than anything, Pittsburgh committed to an unprecedented show of force to confront anyone bent on crashing the party: nearly twenty-million dollars and 6,500 police (most imported) and National Guard. Despite the natural security advantages of the so-called “Golden Triangle” – a confined area at the convergence of two rivers – the heavy-handed security arrangements insured that downtown Pittsburgh was essentially a ghost town for two and a half days. The fears generated by the hysterical media (demonstrators will hurl bags of excrement, wield weapons, assault by-standers, etc. etc.) along with the barriers, choke points, and security check points virtually guaranteed that no visitor would cast an eye upon the peasants dependent upon downtown employment. Pittsburghers got a harsh taste of what life must be like in Baghdad or Kabul.
The week’s events kicked off with a jobs rally and march from Monumental Baptist Church in the city’s predominantly African-American Hill District neighborhood to the storied Freedom Corner, a landmark of civil rights activism. Around five hundred marchers echoed probably the week’s most militant and focused demands for social and racial justice with a strong anti-capitalism voice. Like this rally, other events held at the Church reflected the widest diversity of all of the many held during the week. The rally enjoyed endorsements from both the Steelworker’s union (USW) and the United Electrical Workers Union (UE), representatives of which spoke at the concluding rally along with other union leaders and the indomitable Pennsylvania State Senator, Jim Ferlo, who castigated President Obama for his disdainful dismissal of the anti-G-20 movement.
The police presence at the rally was only a foretaste of the Storm trooper tactics to be displayed later in the week after the “guests” arrived. Police made a provocative and thorough photographic record of the participants and leaders, a practice that accompanied all of the mass events to follow. Pittsburghers can be assured that these photos and other reports and records will be retained and researched. If the city didn’t have a “Red Squad” before, it has one now.
The Authorities
Led by the Secret Service, the local security apparatus exacerbated tensions by denying permits to assemble and march until the very last minute and only with ACLU legal prodding. Clearly they hoped to dampen participation and thwart planning. The huge police presence received training modeled after counter-insurgency tactics with units organized in platoon-sized groups fitted with full body armor and armed with assault rifles and shotguns. They maintained a steady helicopter presence above the skies of this city under siege. Before the actual meetings, police conducted raids on city gathering places as innocuous as urban gardens. We visited one such garden placed under constant surveillance by a well-placed camera fitted just for the G-20 meeting.
Their security plans became apparent as the week proceeded: they located any gathering, surrounded the participants, and ordered dispersal with the slightest provocation. This tactic guaranteed confusion and confrontation. Repeatedly, participants reported that they were unable to exit when dispersal orders were issued.
The authorities engaged a new weapon in Pittsburgh: a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) that sends a loud, 150 decibel sound into crowds, leaving victims confused and disoriented. This weapon, used by the US in Iraq, is ironically the same device recently employed against the Brazilian Embassy sanctuary to dislodge the elected president, Zelaya, who was deposed by a military coup. Agents of repression think alike.
The Ghost of Alexander Berkman
Like their Yippie and Weatherman predecessors, the anarchists were the specter that haunted respectable Pittsburgh. For months, the media, especially the local talk radio, made every effort to conflate anarchists with terrorists, portraying them as feces-throwing, window breaking nihilists hiding in abandoned buildings, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike. Veterans of the left have encountered the black-garbed, bandana-wearing youth at demonstrations for many years. To my admittedly jaded mind, many, if not most, are the sons and daughters of the upper reaches of the middle-class playing at revolution. Like their predecessors, they refuse to accept the discipline of Marxist or labor-led struggle. And like their predecessors, some will mature politically and some will move on –disappointed with the backwardness of the masses – to take their places in the capitalist hierarchy. Nonetheless, they cut a rakishly revolutionary figure and have an understandable appeal with some angry youth.
In Pittsburgh, they planned an un-permitted march to disrupt the G-20 on Thursday. Gathering at a Pittsburgh park, several hundred anarchists and sympathizers drew an even greater force of police for the moment of which the media had prepared everyone. Preempting the march, the police declared the gathering illegal and demanded that the crowd disperse. In short order, the LRAD weapon was employed (some say, for the first time in the US), sending the crowd to re-organize a few blocks away, only to be gassed and sent scattering. The police, supported by helicopter surveillance, attempted to corral any remaining groups by surrounding them with massive forces. Police tactics moved mobile units in a chess game to block both the advance and withdrawal of any groups, tactics that virtually guaranteed confrontation and an excuse to make arrests. Rocks were thrown, some windows broken, and dumpster barricades were constructed, but resistance was no match for gas and rubber bullets. The TV-ready confrontation exhausted both sides by nightfall with little more damage and casualties than the aftermath of a Pittsburgh Steeler victory rally. Nonetheless, the residence of several Pittsburgh neighborhoods got a taste of what the authorities have in store for any vigorous resistance movement.
The action plan of the security forces was calculated and provocative and the sight of massive, storm trooper-like maneuvers left many by-standers alarmed. What they saw as kids-at-play was met with enormous, repressive force. The reckless use of gas in the narrow streets and alleyways of Pittsburgh neighborhoods troubled many. Was this the face of Pittsburgh’s future? It is the height of foolishness to think that the tactical police will simply go back to business as usual after this repressive exercise. The toothpaste is out of the tube.
The Battle for the University
The G-20 planners organized few glitzy events outside of the high-security “Green Zone” constructed downtown. One was a reception near the University of Pittsburgh. Essentially an Oscar-like fashion show for the G-20 celebrities and the media, organizers had no intention of allowing ordinary folks that are normally drawn to such extravaganzas. University students – idled for two days by the G-20 – quite naturally gathered to get a glimpse of the People Magazine-worthy dignitaries. But the police – battle-hardened by the afternoon skirmish with the anarchists – would have none of it, pressing the students away from the event and demanding that they disperse. The heavy-handedness of the police was met by some resistance, but resulted largely in panic, fear, and some arrests.
Undoubtedly many students – seeing the face of police thuggery for the first time - were moved to join the Friday march in solidarity with those abused and arrested Thursday evening.
After the close of the G-20, students gathered again near the site of Thursday’s action and were again attacked by the police. For the most part, the 400 students gathered Friday night were more social than political. Nonetheless they were subjected to the LRAD weapon, batons, and rubber bullets. The violent police assault resulted in 110 arrests, including members of the media. The police could not resist one more strike against civility and Constitutional guarantees.
The Media
Sensationalism drew the media like a moth to a light. The local media bought the official public relations effort in its entirety, bombarding people with a catalogue of benefits that would surely befall the city with the hosting of the G-20. Pittsburgh media has always ignored the critical reports of the city’s decline, showcasing the profit-driven promises of developers and consultants who have driven the region into unprecedented debt. Neighborhood needs, public services, minority set-asides, and good paying jobs have always been overshadowed by the grandiose urban revivals imposed by the city’s wealthy and their political minions. The old legacy of a few dominant families, like the Mellons and Scaifes, telling people how to think has never been completely shed.
Pittsburgh media dwelled incessantly on the security needs for the world’s leaders, demonizing the arrival of anarchists and the potential for terrorism. During the week of political action, they trivialized the resistance events, singling out the most obscure and off-beat of demands in a crude attempt to render all participants marginal and frivolous. In gatherings, they showed a particular interest and fascination with the masked activists, hoping to paint the thousands committed to peacefully advocating a host of serious issues as bent upon some nefarious act of vandalism or outrage.
In one rare instance, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette broke through the wall of hypocrisy, describing fairly, fully, and with some outrage the police assault on the University of Pittsburgh students on Friday night. No doubt this was because the rioting police assaulted and arrested one of their own: a young reporter. That made all the difference.
Labor
Leo Gerard, the President of the Steelworkers (USW) union, seemed to be everywhere, speaking on many occasions and with passion about the sins of the G-20. The union’s endorsement of events, including the opening and closing marches was significant and commendable. A few other unions made notable contributions; most were not involved. Yet there was little mass participation by labor in the week’s events. In a city and region famous for its concentration of organized labor, rank-and-file labor participation would have made a truly qualitative difference in the impact of the G-20 protests. With thousands of members and retirees in the area, it is hard to believe that any great effort was made to mobilize members in support of these events.
The wide gap between official endorsement and member participation points to the long period of labor’s dependency on electoral strategy and faithfulness to the Democratic Party. The machinery of mass action has grown rusty from disuse and desperately in need of repair. The bodies and voices of the rank-and-file were sorely missed at the G-20. Without some official distance between the labor movement and the Democratic Party, members are understandably reluctant to protest an event hosted by President Obama. Needless to say, with few exceptions, Democratic Party leaders were nowhere to be found amongst the anti-G-20 folks.
The Big Finale
Friday’s concluding march brought thousands to the streets of Pittsburgh in a show of resistance unseen in this city since the highpoint of anti-Vietnam War activities. Eight, perhaps nine, thousand marchers trekked to the heart of Pittsburgh to hear speakers positioned at the City-County Building, before marching on to the city’s Northside. This final, permitted march brought together all the causes advocated over the six days of protest in a peaceful, joyful celebration of dissent from the G-20 agenda.
Thanks to the energy and determination of the event’s sponsor – The Thomas Merton Center, a long-time catalyst for social justice – and its indefatigable organizer - Pete Shell - the Friday march was a success on ever level. Despite further intimidating police presence, there were no clashes (rumors abounded that the police planned to stage a provocation, a suspicion reinforced by the staging of mounted police and a mass of riot police near the City-County Building).
For the final march and throughout the week, Shell made a conscious effort to center the events around issues of peace, equality and economic justice, a task made difficult by the diverse, and sometimes conflicting, agendas of the many participants. The lack of focus has plagued all G-protests and, though no threat to unity, has blunted the critique of the undemocratic, corporate-friendly essence of the G-20.
The clarion call of the marchers – “This is what democracy looks like” – stands in sharp relief to the call to arms of the G-20 organizers. Those participating in opposition might point to the huge gathering of the tools of repression and say with equal vigor: “This is what fascism looks like”.
The best laid plans of the security agencies failed to frighten thousands from participating in G-20 activities. Yet far more can be mustered if we could find a way to bring rank-and-file labor into the streets. Far more would join us if we could better integrate African-Americans, Hispanics, and other minority peoples and their issues into the struggle.
Traditionally, it has been the role of the left – especially the Marxist left – to make these connections, to bring clarity and focus to the issues. But for some time, the left has been split into narrow sectarians and timid apologists for a broken, backward political and economic regime.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
Though the G-20 was rejected by other cities, the City and County officials of this Western Pennsylvania metropolis leaped at the chance to welcome 19 national leaders for the public spectacle of determining the destiny of the world in the period ahead. Long the target of democratic forces, the G-meetings expose the elitism and arrogance of the most powerful nations in a way that cries out for protest. Flaunting the credible though flawed, more democratic mechanism – The United Nations – G-meetings send the clear and shameless message that the wealthier countries and their ruling classes are in full control of the world’s affairs. While little more than wining, dining, signing off on previously determined policies and vague statements is accomplished, its all done with feudal-like ceremony and conspicuous pomp.
The Pittsburgh elites saw this circus as an opportunity to show case the “new” Pittsburgh – a glitzy Potemkin village hiding the devastated, neglected neighborhoods and towns of this once industrial giant. Today’s Pittsburgh – out-of-sight of the world’s leaders – is a depopulated, low income, aging city weighted down by decades of debt accumulated from ill-conceived, but highly profitably development schemes. The tax base has been scooped out to retain extortionate corporate giants and to lure new businesses that seldom come. The formerly well-paying manufacturing and mining jobs have disappeared only to be replaced with low-paying, benefit-lacking, service sector employment. Decades of political leadership rigidly wedded to corporate obeisance have left the region with a broken infrastructure, decrepit public services, and crippling poverty. If anything, Pittsburgh is a lesson in the destructiveness of unfettered corporate governance. The loss of good-paying industrial jobs has been most devastating to the African-American community: the city is one of the most segregated in the US with African-American poverty, infant mortality, crime, and abject poverty rivaling any city in America.
The city spared no expense in polishing the downtown buildings, streets, and public spaces where world leaders or the media might cast a critical eye. But, more than anything, Pittsburgh committed to an unprecedented show of force to confront anyone bent on crashing the party: nearly twenty-million dollars and 6,500 police (most imported) and National Guard. Despite the natural security advantages of the so-called “Golden Triangle” – a confined area at the convergence of two rivers – the heavy-handed security arrangements insured that downtown Pittsburgh was essentially a ghost town for two and a half days. The fears generated by the hysterical media (demonstrators will hurl bags of excrement, wield weapons, assault by-standers, etc. etc.) along with the barriers, choke points, and security check points virtually guaranteed that no visitor would cast an eye upon the peasants dependent upon downtown employment. Pittsburghers got a harsh taste of what life must be like in Baghdad or Kabul.
The week’s events kicked off with a jobs rally and march from Monumental Baptist Church in the city’s predominantly African-American Hill District neighborhood to the storied Freedom Corner, a landmark of civil rights activism. Around five hundred marchers echoed probably the week’s most militant and focused demands for social and racial justice with a strong anti-capitalism voice. Like this rally, other events held at the Church reflected the widest diversity of all of the many held during the week. The rally enjoyed endorsements from both the Steelworker’s union (USW) and the United Electrical Workers Union (UE), representatives of which spoke at the concluding rally along with other union leaders and the indomitable Pennsylvania State Senator, Jim Ferlo, who castigated President Obama for his disdainful dismissal of the anti-G-20 movement.
The police presence at the rally was only a foretaste of the Storm trooper tactics to be displayed later in the week after the “guests” arrived. Police made a provocative and thorough photographic record of the participants and leaders, a practice that accompanied all of the mass events to follow. Pittsburghers can be assured that these photos and other reports and records will be retained and researched. If the city didn’t have a “Red Squad” before, it has one now.
The Authorities
Led by the Secret Service, the local security apparatus exacerbated tensions by denying permits to assemble and march until the very last minute and only with ACLU legal prodding. Clearly they hoped to dampen participation and thwart planning. The huge police presence received training modeled after counter-insurgency tactics with units organized in platoon-sized groups fitted with full body armor and armed with assault rifles and shotguns. They maintained a steady helicopter presence above the skies of this city under siege. Before the actual meetings, police conducted raids on city gathering places as innocuous as urban gardens. We visited one such garden placed under constant surveillance by a well-placed camera fitted just for the G-20 meeting.
Their security plans became apparent as the week proceeded: they located any gathering, surrounded the participants, and ordered dispersal with the slightest provocation. This tactic guaranteed confusion and confrontation. Repeatedly, participants reported that they were unable to exit when dispersal orders were issued.
The authorities engaged a new weapon in Pittsburgh: a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) that sends a loud, 150 decibel sound into crowds, leaving victims confused and disoriented. This weapon, used by the US in Iraq, is ironically the same device recently employed against the Brazilian Embassy sanctuary to dislodge the elected president, Zelaya, who was deposed by a military coup. Agents of repression think alike.
The Ghost of Alexander Berkman
Like their Yippie and Weatherman predecessors, the anarchists were the specter that haunted respectable Pittsburgh. For months, the media, especially the local talk radio, made every effort to conflate anarchists with terrorists, portraying them as feces-throwing, window breaking nihilists hiding in abandoned buildings, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike. Veterans of the left have encountered the black-garbed, bandana-wearing youth at demonstrations for many years. To my admittedly jaded mind, many, if not most, are the sons and daughters of the upper reaches of the middle-class playing at revolution. Like their predecessors, they refuse to accept the discipline of Marxist or labor-led struggle. And like their predecessors, some will mature politically and some will move on –disappointed with the backwardness of the masses – to take their places in the capitalist hierarchy. Nonetheless, they cut a rakishly revolutionary figure and have an understandable appeal with some angry youth.
In Pittsburgh, they planned an un-permitted march to disrupt the G-20 on Thursday. Gathering at a Pittsburgh park, several hundred anarchists and sympathizers drew an even greater force of police for the moment of which the media had prepared everyone. Preempting the march, the police declared the gathering illegal and demanded that the crowd disperse. In short order, the LRAD weapon was employed (some say, for the first time in the US), sending the crowd to re-organize a few blocks away, only to be gassed and sent scattering. The police, supported by helicopter surveillance, attempted to corral any remaining groups by surrounding them with massive forces. Police tactics moved mobile units in a chess game to block both the advance and withdrawal of any groups, tactics that virtually guaranteed confrontation and an excuse to make arrests. Rocks were thrown, some windows broken, and dumpster barricades were constructed, but resistance was no match for gas and rubber bullets. The TV-ready confrontation exhausted both sides by nightfall with little more damage and casualties than the aftermath of a Pittsburgh Steeler victory rally. Nonetheless, the residence of several Pittsburgh neighborhoods got a taste of what the authorities have in store for any vigorous resistance movement.
The action plan of the security forces was calculated and provocative and the sight of massive, storm trooper-like maneuvers left many by-standers alarmed. What they saw as kids-at-play was met with enormous, repressive force. The reckless use of gas in the narrow streets and alleyways of Pittsburgh neighborhoods troubled many. Was this the face of Pittsburgh’s future? It is the height of foolishness to think that the tactical police will simply go back to business as usual after this repressive exercise. The toothpaste is out of the tube.
The Battle for the University
The G-20 planners organized few glitzy events outside of the high-security “Green Zone” constructed downtown. One was a reception near the University of Pittsburgh. Essentially an Oscar-like fashion show for the G-20 celebrities and the media, organizers had no intention of allowing ordinary folks that are normally drawn to such extravaganzas. University students – idled for two days by the G-20 – quite naturally gathered to get a glimpse of the People Magazine-worthy dignitaries. But the police – battle-hardened by the afternoon skirmish with the anarchists – would have none of it, pressing the students away from the event and demanding that they disperse. The heavy-handedness of the police was met by some resistance, but resulted largely in panic, fear, and some arrests.
Undoubtedly many students – seeing the face of police thuggery for the first time - were moved to join the Friday march in solidarity with those abused and arrested Thursday evening.
After the close of the G-20, students gathered again near the site of Thursday’s action and were again attacked by the police. For the most part, the 400 students gathered Friday night were more social than political. Nonetheless they were subjected to the LRAD weapon, batons, and rubber bullets. The violent police assault resulted in 110 arrests, including members of the media. The police could not resist one more strike against civility and Constitutional guarantees.
The Media
Sensationalism drew the media like a moth to a light. The local media bought the official public relations effort in its entirety, bombarding people with a catalogue of benefits that would surely befall the city with the hosting of the G-20. Pittsburgh media has always ignored the critical reports of the city’s decline, showcasing the profit-driven promises of developers and consultants who have driven the region into unprecedented debt. Neighborhood needs, public services, minority set-asides, and good paying jobs have always been overshadowed by the grandiose urban revivals imposed by the city’s wealthy and their political minions. The old legacy of a few dominant families, like the Mellons and Scaifes, telling people how to think has never been completely shed.
Pittsburgh media dwelled incessantly on the security needs for the world’s leaders, demonizing the arrival of anarchists and the potential for terrorism. During the week of political action, they trivialized the resistance events, singling out the most obscure and off-beat of demands in a crude attempt to render all participants marginal and frivolous. In gatherings, they showed a particular interest and fascination with the masked activists, hoping to paint the thousands committed to peacefully advocating a host of serious issues as bent upon some nefarious act of vandalism or outrage.
In one rare instance, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette broke through the wall of hypocrisy, describing fairly, fully, and with some outrage the police assault on the University of Pittsburgh students on Friday night. No doubt this was because the rioting police assaulted and arrested one of their own: a young reporter. That made all the difference.
Labor
Leo Gerard, the President of the Steelworkers (USW) union, seemed to be everywhere, speaking on many occasions and with passion about the sins of the G-20. The union’s endorsement of events, including the opening and closing marches was significant and commendable. A few other unions made notable contributions; most were not involved. Yet there was little mass participation by labor in the week’s events. In a city and region famous for its concentration of organized labor, rank-and-file labor participation would have made a truly qualitative difference in the impact of the G-20 protests. With thousands of members and retirees in the area, it is hard to believe that any great effort was made to mobilize members in support of these events.
The wide gap between official endorsement and member participation points to the long period of labor’s dependency on electoral strategy and faithfulness to the Democratic Party. The machinery of mass action has grown rusty from disuse and desperately in need of repair. The bodies and voices of the rank-and-file were sorely missed at the G-20. Without some official distance between the labor movement and the Democratic Party, members are understandably reluctant to protest an event hosted by President Obama. Needless to say, with few exceptions, Democratic Party leaders were nowhere to be found amongst the anti-G-20 folks.
The Big Finale
Friday’s concluding march brought thousands to the streets of Pittsburgh in a show of resistance unseen in this city since the highpoint of anti-Vietnam War activities. Eight, perhaps nine, thousand marchers trekked to the heart of Pittsburgh to hear speakers positioned at the City-County Building, before marching on to the city’s Northside. This final, permitted march brought together all the causes advocated over the six days of protest in a peaceful, joyful celebration of dissent from the G-20 agenda.
Thanks to the energy and determination of the event’s sponsor – The Thomas Merton Center, a long-time catalyst for social justice – and its indefatigable organizer - Pete Shell - the Friday march was a success on ever level. Despite further intimidating police presence, there were no clashes (rumors abounded that the police planned to stage a provocation, a suspicion reinforced by the staging of mounted police and a mass of riot police near the City-County Building).
For the final march and throughout the week, Shell made a conscious effort to center the events around issues of peace, equality and economic justice, a task made difficult by the diverse, and sometimes conflicting, agendas of the many participants. The lack of focus has plagued all G-protests and, though no threat to unity, has blunted the critique of the undemocratic, corporate-friendly essence of the G-20.
The clarion call of the marchers – “This is what democracy looks like” – stands in sharp relief to the call to arms of the G-20 organizers. Those participating in opposition might point to the huge gathering of the tools of repression and say with equal vigor: “This is what fascism looks like”.
The best laid plans of the security agencies failed to frighten thousands from participating in G-20 activities. Yet far more can be mustered if we could find a way to bring rank-and-file labor into the streets. Far more would join us if we could better integrate African-Americans, Hispanics, and other minority peoples and their issues into the struggle.
Traditionally, it has been the role of the left – especially the Marxist left – to make these connections, to bring clarity and focus to the issues. But for some time, the left has been split into narrow sectarians and timid apologists for a broken, backward political and economic regime.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Why is Marxism a “Science”?
The claim that Marxism is a science is particularly pertinent in light of the same, but dubious claim made on behalf of modern economics. The economics taught in most universities, alongside physics, chemistry and biology, surely has only a loose claim on that honorific title after its abysmal performance explaining and taming our tenacious economic crisis. Despite all of the formalisms, quantifications, models, and theorems (the trappings of modern science) bloating the books and papers of academic economics, the discipline has a rather weak record in steering economic life towards rationality, efficiency, and, of course, justice. If physics were as mired in conventionality as economics, we would still be searching for phlogiston. Despite the wealth of new data, computational tools, and economic experience, it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that the conceptual toolbox collected by the Classical Economists –Adam Smith and David Ricardo – would have served us as well in understanding and addressing the current economic storm.
But the failing of economics, or sociology, or social psychology, in no way proves that an alternative approach – for example, Marxism - is superior or more scientific.
I was reminded of what makes good science by reading a recent opinion piece written by Richard Dawkins, the distinguished evolutionary biologist, and appearing in The Wall Street Journal (“Evolution leaves God with Nothing to Do”, 9-12/13-09). Though Dawkins ostensible target was the existence of God, I was drawn to his splendid defense of Darwinism and the scientific world-view. We would do well to reflect upon one particular passage:
This passionate defense and crystal clear exposition of the place of Darwinian evolution in the body of science could equally serve as a defense and exposition – with the replacement of a few key words – of Marxism as science. Society, like life, shows a vast array of forms with distinctive patterns of development. Society, like life, changes over time in adaptive ways that spring from seemingly random factors. At the heart of both processes – biological evolution and societal transformation – is the struggle to survive and thrive, a natural process that separates the rocks, gas clouds, and whirlpools that Dawkins mentions from amoeba and social institutions. It was Marx and Engels’ great insight in 1845 and 1846 (in writing The German Ideology) to view social change as an evolutionary pattern generated by this struggle. It was Darwin’s great insight in 1859 (with The Origin of the Species) to see the vast, diverse mass of living things as the result of an intelligible evolutionary process. Where Darwin’s great insight drew upon an enormous survey of the diversity of life, Marx and Engels drew upon an enormous wealth of social and historical data. Both investigations revealed patterns: species evolution in the former case, societal evolution in the other.
This common insight, a centerpiece of all biological sciences, but largely scorned by the social science establishment, stands as the pillar of Marxism’s claim for scientific stature. Before Darwin’s landmark work was published, Marx and Engels identified a social evolution that mapped the continuous development of humans and their social organizations, driven - as with biological evolution - by a struggle with nature. In order to better meet the challenges of nature – climate, scarcity, security, disease, etc. – humans created more and more complex social relations that improved humanity’s chances in the battle for survival. The dramatic increase in the life expectancy of humans from pre-historic times demonstrates vividly this process, a success unmatched by any other biological organism. The biological development of consciousness, self-awareness, and symbolic representation birthed the construction of community and social relations, accounting for this distinct advantage accruing to humans in the survival of the fittest.
For Marx and Engels, the fittest social organizations survived and thrived just as the fittest biological organisms survived over their less adapted rivals. They saw the creation of an economic surplus – a reserve of the means of sustenance - as determinative of a society’s edge in the struggle against nature and rival social organizations. The more that a community could accumulate the material means of survival, the more it could take steps to accumulate even more of these material means and further advance in the struggle for survival. But accumulation is slow and limited in a community lacking both domination and privilege; early egalitarian, peaceful societies tended to seek little more than enough to overcome pangs of hunger, avoid pain and mortality and reproduce. In this regard, they mirrored the behavior of other species. But thanks to the unique features evolved by humans, communities emerged with an evolutionary advantage: they took to plundering and domination. With the material advantages gained by these survival adaptive activities, these societies were able to both expand and protect their privileges; new social structures emerged that elevated the material means – the adaptive sustainability – of a few by dominating the many.
It was this engine of domination and primitive exploitation (little different in the beginning from what we now call “thievery”) that Marx and Engels placed at the center of social evolution. As social scientists, they viewed this coldly as an essential process of social transformation (though as humans, they could not help but vividly paint the pain and degradation of the process). Moreover, they saw this social process as the basis for the creation of divisions of labor – workers, soldiers, etc. – and class differentiation (insofar as this process may mirror a society of bees, it must be remembered that humans generated these divisions socially and not genetically).
Just as with species evolution, some paths of social transformation were unsuccessful or preserved by natural boundaries or isolation, leaving societies sustainable, but frozen in time. But the mechanisms of exploitation and class dominance marched on in others, producing greater and greater accumulated surpluses. Marx and Engels identified the patterns of exploitation – slavery, serfdom, and the purchase of the power of free labor – that established distinct markers in the social evolution of humans. Drawing upon their careful studies of these previous changes, Marx and Engels foresaw a time when the mechanism of exploitation would not only outlive its usefulness in driving social development, but, indeed, become a restraint upon human survival. I would argue that we are well into a period where that projection is a reality. The dominant form of social organization – capitalism – now threatens human survivability on so many fronts – war, environmental chaos, extreme poverty, declining living standards, cultural degradation, loss of community, hollow values – that further transformation is not only desirable, but necessary.
On a final note, Dawkins makes passing, casual reference to the laws of thermodynamics, noting that those who see a conflict between these laws and Darwinism are ignorant. He is referring, with this aside, principally to the Second Law of Thermodynamics – the irreversible increase in entropy within closed systems. Increasing entropy - crudely, the tendency of order to dissolve into disorder – represents a unique law that introduces directionality into physical processes. Where most processes are reversible – water into steam and back into water – the Second Law posits a process that will, in the long run, reduce what we perceive as order or organization into a bland, random disorder: our shoes wear out, our sandcastles deteriorate, our mountains erode, and our muscles weaken. But this randomizing often generates interesting new combinations, such as life itself. This fascinating organic accident bears an equally interesting feature: though life has a fragile hold on its advantage, it succeeds by harnessing random changes to improve its survivability. The evolution of new species has managed to stay a step, a tenuous step, ahead of the increasing entropy in our closed system. All but the ignorant recognize this as both consistent with and dependent upon the Second Law.
Like Darwinian evolution, the Marxist theory of social transformation – commonly called “Historical Materialism” – embraces the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but in this case, by the persistent re-organization of society to battle entropy’s infinite challenges to human survival: disease, starvation, environmental calamities, and self-destruction. As with biological evolution, social evolution is a fragile process that, under the best of conditions, stays a step ahead of the dissolving forces of nature. But in the case of society, it is not random changes selected by fitness to survive, but conscious human constructions selected in their resistance to the challenges of nature and human folly that is determinative.
Engels, writing in the Introduction to the Dialectics of Nature, acknowledged the science of Darwin while foreseeing the enormous possibilities unleashed by an understanding of the science of society:
It is this deeper search for an understanding of societal evolution that Marx and Engels brought to science. It is this science that is so sorely needed to address the problems of our times.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
But the failing of economics, or sociology, or social psychology, in no way proves that an alternative approach – for example, Marxism - is superior or more scientific.
I was reminded of what makes good science by reading a recent opinion piece written by Richard Dawkins, the distinguished evolutionary biologist, and appearing in The Wall Street Journal (“Evolution leaves God with Nothing to Do”, 9-12/13-09). Though Dawkins ostensible target was the existence of God, I was drawn to his splendid defense of Darwinism and the scientific world-view. We would do well to reflect upon one particular passage:
The laws of physics, before Darwinian evolution bursts out from their midst, can make rocks and sand, gas clouds and stars, whirlpools and waves, whirl-pool shaped galaxies and light that travels as waves while behaving like particles… But now enter life. Look through the eyes of a physicist, at a bounding kangaroo, a swooping bat, a leaping dolphin, a soaring Redwood. There never was a rock that bound like a kangaroo, never a pebble that crawled like a beetle seeking a mate… Not once do any of these creatures disobey the laws of physics. Far from violating the laws of thermodynamics (as is often so ignorantly alleged) they are relentlessly driven by them. Far from violating the laws of motion, animals exploit them to their advantage as they walk. Run, dodge and jink, leap and fly, pounce on prey or spring to safety.
Never once are the laws of physics violated, yet life emerges into uncharted territory. And how is the trick done? …Darwinian evolution, the nonrandom survival of randomly varying coded information.
This passionate defense and crystal clear exposition of the place of Darwinian evolution in the body of science could equally serve as a defense and exposition – with the replacement of a few key words – of Marxism as science. Society, like life, shows a vast array of forms with distinctive patterns of development. Society, like life, changes over time in adaptive ways that spring from seemingly random factors. At the heart of both processes – biological evolution and societal transformation – is the struggle to survive and thrive, a natural process that separates the rocks, gas clouds, and whirlpools that Dawkins mentions from amoeba and social institutions. It was Marx and Engels’ great insight in 1845 and 1846 (in writing The German Ideology) to view social change as an evolutionary pattern generated by this struggle. It was Darwin’s great insight in 1859 (with The Origin of the Species) to see the vast, diverse mass of living things as the result of an intelligible evolutionary process. Where Darwin’s great insight drew upon an enormous survey of the diversity of life, Marx and Engels drew upon an enormous wealth of social and historical data. Both investigations revealed patterns: species evolution in the former case, societal evolution in the other.
This common insight, a centerpiece of all biological sciences, but largely scorned by the social science establishment, stands as the pillar of Marxism’s claim for scientific stature. Before Darwin’s landmark work was published, Marx and Engels identified a social evolution that mapped the continuous development of humans and their social organizations, driven - as with biological evolution - by a struggle with nature. In order to better meet the challenges of nature – climate, scarcity, security, disease, etc. – humans created more and more complex social relations that improved humanity’s chances in the battle for survival. The dramatic increase in the life expectancy of humans from pre-historic times demonstrates vividly this process, a success unmatched by any other biological organism. The biological development of consciousness, self-awareness, and symbolic representation birthed the construction of community and social relations, accounting for this distinct advantage accruing to humans in the survival of the fittest.
For Marx and Engels, the fittest social organizations survived and thrived just as the fittest biological organisms survived over their less adapted rivals. They saw the creation of an economic surplus – a reserve of the means of sustenance - as determinative of a society’s edge in the struggle against nature and rival social organizations. The more that a community could accumulate the material means of survival, the more it could take steps to accumulate even more of these material means and further advance in the struggle for survival. But accumulation is slow and limited in a community lacking both domination and privilege; early egalitarian, peaceful societies tended to seek little more than enough to overcome pangs of hunger, avoid pain and mortality and reproduce. In this regard, they mirrored the behavior of other species. But thanks to the unique features evolved by humans, communities emerged with an evolutionary advantage: they took to plundering and domination. With the material advantages gained by these survival adaptive activities, these societies were able to both expand and protect their privileges; new social structures emerged that elevated the material means – the adaptive sustainability – of a few by dominating the many.
It was this engine of domination and primitive exploitation (little different in the beginning from what we now call “thievery”) that Marx and Engels placed at the center of social evolution. As social scientists, they viewed this coldly as an essential process of social transformation (though as humans, they could not help but vividly paint the pain and degradation of the process). Moreover, they saw this social process as the basis for the creation of divisions of labor – workers, soldiers, etc. – and class differentiation (insofar as this process may mirror a society of bees, it must be remembered that humans generated these divisions socially and not genetically).
Just as with species evolution, some paths of social transformation were unsuccessful or preserved by natural boundaries or isolation, leaving societies sustainable, but frozen in time. But the mechanisms of exploitation and class dominance marched on in others, producing greater and greater accumulated surpluses. Marx and Engels identified the patterns of exploitation – slavery, serfdom, and the purchase of the power of free labor – that established distinct markers in the social evolution of humans. Drawing upon their careful studies of these previous changes, Marx and Engels foresaw a time when the mechanism of exploitation would not only outlive its usefulness in driving social development, but, indeed, become a restraint upon human survival. I would argue that we are well into a period where that projection is a reality. The dominant form of social organization – capitalism – now threatens human survivability on so many fronts – war, environmental chaos, extreme poverty, declining living standards, cultural degradation, loss of community, hollow values – that further transformation is not only desirable, but necessary.
On a final note, Dawkins makes passing, casual reference to the laws of thermodynamics, noting that those who see a conflict between these laws and Darwinism are ignorant. He is referring, with this aside, principally to the Second Law of Thermodynamics – the irreversible increase in entropy within closed systems. Increasing entropy - crudely, the tendency of order to dissolve into disorder – represents a unique law that introduces directionality into physical processes. Where most processes are reversible – water into steam and back into water – the Second Law posits a process that will, in the long run, reduce what we perceive as order or organization into a bland, random disorder: our shoes wear out, our sandcastles deteriorate, our mountains erode, and our muscles weaken. But this randomizing often generates interesting new combinations, such as life itself. This fascinating organic accident bears an equally interesting feature: though life has a fragile hold on its advantage, it succeeds by harnessing random changes to improve its survivability. The evolution of new species has managed to stay a step, a tenuous step, ahead of the increasing entropy in our closed system. All but the ignorant recognize this as both consistent with and dependent upon the Second Law.
Like Darwinian evolution, the Marxist theory of social transformation – commonly called “Historical Materialism” – embraces the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but in this case, by the persistent re-organization of society to battle entropy’s infinite challenges to human survival: disease, starvation, environmental calamities, and self-destruction. As with biological evolution, social evolution is a fragile process that, under the best of conditions, stays a step ahead of the dissolving forces of nature. But in the case of society, it is not random changes selected by fitness to survive, but conscious human constructions selected in their resistance to the challenges of nature and human folly that is determinative.
Engels, writing in the Introduction to the Dialectics of Nature, acknowledged the science of Darwin while foreseeing the enormous possibilities unleashed by an understanding of the science of society:
Darwin did not know what a bitter satire he wrote on mankind, and especially on his countrymen, when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence, which the economists celebrate as the highest historical achievement, is the normal state of the animal kingdom. Only conscious organisation of social production, in which production and distribution are carried on in a planned way, can lift mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect, in the same way that production in general has done this for men in their aspect as species. Historical evolution makes such an organisation daily more indispensable, but also with every day more possible. From it will date a new epoch of history, in which mankind itself, and with mankind all branches of its activity, and especially natural science, will experience an advance that will put everything preceding it in the deepest shade.
It is this deeper search for an understanding of societal evolution that Marx and Engels brought to science. It is this science that is so sorely needed to address the problems of our times.
Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com
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