Archive for July, 2010

Fast Capital and the City: ‘One Vast Gated Community for the Rich’

by Editors @ Thursday, July 22nd, 2010. Filed under Economy, Environment, Marxism

David Harvey's Urban Manifesto:

Down With Suburbia; Down With

Bloomberg's New York City

 

BY Greg Lindsay

Fast Company, Wed Jul 21, 2010'

via http://solidarityeconomy.net

 

"New York? The whole damn place has been turned into a suburb," sneered David Harvey, startling a roomful of New Yorkers who prided themselves on the same things he derided: the makeover of the city's parks; the new network of bike lanes; the pedestrian malls along Broadway. "The feel of the city is losing its urbanity and being made okay for suburbanites to enjoy Times Square," he continued, going on to condemn New York's gentrification not on aesthetic or nostalgic grounds, but for being at the root of the financial crisis.

Harvey is having a bit of a moment in America, as much as any neo-Marxist economic geographer can. Earlier this month, his lucid explanation of the "econopocalyspe" (accompanied by animated whiteboard doodles) was a modest hit on Boing Boing. Richard Florida borrowed his concept of the "spatial fix"--the idea that capitalism gets bigger and badder every time it's wriggles out of a crisis--for his latest book, The Great Reset. And Harvey's own book-length explanation of the crisis, The Enigma of Capital is set to be published on these shores in September.

On Tuesday night in Manhattan, Harvey made a rare American appearance to discuss "experimental geography" and the role cities and suburbia played in the crisis. Starting from the idea of a "geographic unconscious"--"the way we think of space and time as 'natural' when they're really constructed,"--Harvey blamed suburbia for brainwashing Americans into being good capitalists.

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Cleveland: Linking School Reform with Worker Coops

by Editors @ Monday, July 19th, 2010. Filed under Economy

Cleveland Public School Students

Wow Crowd at Foundation Meeting

 

Margaret Bernstein, The Plain Dealer Margaret Bernstein, The Plain Dealer

john hay grads.jpg

View full sizeMarvin Fong / The Plain Dealer

All the seniors from the Cleveland School of Science and Medicine will attend college.

CLEVELAND, Ohio, June 10 -- Cleveland Foundation leaders enlivened their annual meeting Tuesday at Severance Hall by spotlighting several examples of hope hewn from poverty.

President and Chief Executive Officer Ronald B. Richard said signs of success are sprouting for the 10 "innovation schools" his foundation has helped fund in the Cleveland school district in recent years.

He then wowed the crowd by telling them that 100 percent of seniors at the School of Science and Medicine on the John Hay campus have been accepted to four-year colleges.

The audience of about 600 cheered and some wiped away tears when nine John Hay youths in lab coats trooped on stage to announce, in confident voices, the colleges that accepted them and the scholarship dollars they won.

"Fixing America's failing public school systems is, at present, the single most important mission of our nation, and of our city," Richard said, to enthusiastic applause. "And for the Cleveland Foundation, it's priority No. 1."

He updated attendees on several other foundation projects, including the worker-owned Evergreen Cooperative in University Circle, which has created 38 jobs so far for Cleveland residents, with potential for 500 more.

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Workers Discuss ‘Workers Control’ and the Socialist Path in Venezuela

by Editors @ Thursday, July 15th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Labor Movement, Latin America, Socialism

from Venezuela Analysis

Workers’ Control and the

Contradictions of the Bolivarian Process

Interview with Gustavo Martínez

By Susan Spronk, Jeffery R. Webber

On June 10, 2010 we caught up with Gustavo Martinez, a union leader in the worker-controlled nationalized coffee company, Fama de América, in Caracas, Venezuela. The company has 350 workers at the national level, with two separate plants – one in Caracas and one in Valencia. We sat down with Martínez to discuss the centrality of workers’ control in the ongoing struggle to transition toward socialism and some of the most pressing contradictions of the Bolivarian process in Venezuela today.

To start off, can you tell us your name, how long you’ve worked in this coffee company, your job in the company, and your role in the union?

My name is Gustavo Martínez. I’m a union leader in Fama de América. I’ve worked here for nine years. I started in 2001. As you would expect, when I started there, Fama de América was a private enterprise, characterized by exploitation of the workers and rampant corruption. The owners of the enterprise, as capitalists, were only interested in extracting surplus; they didn’t care about the conditions of the workers. All of these characteristics we already know about capitalism.

There was a union at the time, first established in 1978, that was controlled by the [centre-right] party, Acción Democrática(Democratic Action, AD). Logically, as people on the left we were opposed to the union. I was one of those on the left. My parents are Colombian, and my father was a militant in the Communist Party in that country. He was pushed out of Colombia, displaced economically and politically, and therefore moved the family to Venezuela. He worked for a transnational and faced death threats for his political organizing in the workplace.

So I found myself here in Venezuela, working at the company, and there were others with a revolutionary background working here too.

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Envisioning the Future, Fanning the Flames

by Editors @ Tuesday, July 13th, 2010. Filed under Economic Democracy, Marxism, Organizing

15,000 Attend Detroit Social Forum:

High-Energy Gathering Fires Up

A New Generation of Activists in

U.S. Left and Social Movements

By Carl Davidson

Keep On Keepin' On!

When 15,000 vibrant and politically engaged people gather in one spot for five days and organize themselves into more than 1000 workshops, dozens of major plenaries and late night parties across five major cultural hot spots, no one article can claim to give a full account and get away with it.

But an event on that scale livened up Detroit, Michigan during the week of June 22-26 at the US Social Forum, when Cobo Hall and several nearby universities were buzzing with thousands of people trying to shape a new world.

I won’t even try to capture it all. I’ll just affirm the common conviction that it was a major happening on the left and a huge success, an inspiration and an affirmation of hope that progress is being made towards a better future. Then I’ll humbly offer my take on it. We’ll start with some highlights and, for those who aren’t familiar with the Social Forum movement, offer a few explanations.

The Forum started on June 22 with a massive march of thousands through the streets of a devastated and de-industrialized Detroit. “I’ve never seen anything like this, in Detroit or anywhere,” said Forum participant and Detroit resident Charnika Jett. “The sense of joy, support, and determination on the part of the people here, both Detroiters and visitors, is just incredible.”

“What an amazing day!” said Allison Flether Acosta of Jobs with Justice. “We held an orientation session for local coalition folks early in the day, then joined the march with the other members of the Inter-Alliance Dialogue and more than 10,000 people for a lively march through downtown! We ended at Cobo Hall, and then convened for the opening ceremonies.”

New entry of the Trade Unions

One important new addition to the young crowd in the streets was the participation of organized labor. According to the AFL-CIO News Blog, “Newly elected UAW President Bob King joined Metropolitan Detroit AFL-CIO President Saundra Williams; Al Garrett, president of AFSCME District Council 25; and Armando Robles, UE Local 1110 president, in leading a march and rally through the streets of Detroit. Chanting ‘Full and Fair Employment Now!’ and ‘Money for Jobs, Not for Banks!’ Participants demanded Congress address the pressing jobs emergency.”

The opening events, unfortunately, were either ignored or strangely spun by the mass media. “This ain’t no Tea Party,’ said Noel Finley, in a scarce account in the Detroit News, somewhat awed by the sight of it all. “The forum is a hootenanny of pinkos, environuts, peaceniks, Luddites, old hippies, Robin Hoods and urban hunters and gatherers.” Indeed it was, with even more variety. And the diverse crowds and meetings grew stronger as the week unfolded. To make sense of it all, some history and background is in order:

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21st Century Socialism: Angry Philosophers and the Making of History

by Editors @ Thursday, July 8th, 2010. Filed under Marxism, New Left, Socialism

Sartre, Camus and a

Marxism for the 21st Century

By David Schweickart

SolidarityEconomy.net

Ever since Marx, philosophy must lead to action. Otherwise it is irrelevant. . . . Philosophers must be angry, and, in this world, stay angry.

--Jean Paul Sartre (1972)[1]

I. The Quarrel

In 1952 in the August issue of Les Temps Modernes, its editor, Jean Paul Sartre, responded to a letter to the editor:

My dear Camus,

Our friendship has not been easy, but I shall miss it. If today you break it off, doubtless that means it would inevitably have ended some day. Many things brought us together, few separated us. But those few were still too many: friendship, too, tends to become totalitarian; there has to be agreement on everything or a quarrel, and those who don't belong to any party themselves behave like members of imaginary parties. I shall not carp at this: it is as it must be. But, for just this reason, I would have preferred our current disagreement to be over matters of substance and that there should not be a whiff of wounded vanity mingled with it. . . . I did not want to reply to you. Who would I be convincing? Your enemies, certainly, and perhaps my friends. And you--who do you think you are convincing? Your friends and my enemies. To our common enemies, who are legion, we shall both give much cause for laughter. That much is certain.

Unfortunately, you attacked me so deliberately and in such an unpleasant tone that I cannot remain silent without losing face. I shall, therefore, reply: without anger, but, for the first time since I've known you, without mincing my words. A mix of melancholy, conceit and vulnerability on your part has always deterred people from telling you unvarnished truths. The result is that you have fallen prey to a gloomy immoderation that conceals your inner difficulties and which you refer to, I believe, as Mediterranean moderation. Sooner or later, someone would have told you this, so it might as well be me.[2]

Sartre’s response did end the friendship. The two men never spoke to one another again.[3]

Camus’s letter was in response to a harshly critical review, by Francis Jeanson, of Camus’s The Rebel. Camus’s letter was not addressed to Jeanson, a junior member of the Les Temps Moderne editorial board, but to “M. Le Directeur,” i.e. to Sartre--thus provoking Sartre's reply.

What was the substance of this celebrated “quarrel”? Jeanson himself was a Marxist. Sartre, at that time, did not so self-identify, although he had been moving in that direction. Some months earlier, disgusted by the arrest of the head of the French Communist Party, Jacques Duclos, on the pretext that he had been using carrier pigeons to coordinate the demonstrators in Paris protesting the visit of General Matthew Ridgeway, Sartre had become convinced: An anti-Communist is a dog. Later, recalling that moment, he explains:

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In the Barrio: Venezuelan Socialism Meets the Solidarity Economy

by Editors @ Wednesday, July 7th, 2010. Filed under Economy

Venezuela Slum Takes Socialism Beyond Chavez

* Caracas slum a lab for Chavez's socialist project

* Radical groups are key part of president's support

* Opposition sees militants as Chavez's personal army

 

By Esteban Israel

Reuters, July 6, 2010

CARACAS, July 6 (Reuters) - While President Hugo Chavez struggles to revive the battered bolivar, in a hillside slum overlooking his palace, die-hard supporters are talking about getting rid of the Venezuelan currency altogether.

Welcome to the 23 de Enero barrio, home to about 100,000 people and something of a laboratory for Chavez's nationwide socialist experiment. Here you find dogs named "Comrade Mao", and even a "revolutionary car wash."

"We are creating a popular bank and are going to issue a communal currency: little pieces of cardboard," says Salvador Rooselt, a soft-spoken 24-year-old law student and community leader who often quotes Lenin and Marx.

Some 20 militant groups sometimes described as Chavez's "storm troopers" run this urban jungle in western Caracas, where hulking concrete buildings daubed with colorful murals -- one depicting Jesus Christ brandishing an AK-47 rifle -- show off the neighborhood's radical tradition.

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A Road Not Taken – Cybernetic Socialism in the USSR

by Editors @ Saturday, July 3rd, 2010. Filed under Marxism, Russia, Socialism

 

Book Review:

Red Plenty

by Francis Spufford

 

By Paul Cockshott
21st Century Socialism

This is a marvelous and unusual book. It sits in a remarkable way in between science popularisation, social history and fiction. The author describes it variously as a novel whose hero is an idea and a fairytale. The hero idea is that of optimal planning. The idea of running a planned economy in just such a way as to ensure that resources are optimally used in order to deliver the ’red plenty’ of the title.

Combining real and imagined characters, politicians like Khrushchev, mathematicians and economists like Kantorovich and Nemchinov with fictionalised minor characters, it gives a gripping and apparently realistic picture of life in the USSR during the 50s and 60s. It is not a single narrative as one expects from historical fiction. Instead it gives us a series of snapshots from the lives of individuals, separated by years. The common link is the project of the Cybernetic economic reformers, and the ambitions of Khrushchev to attain communist plenty.

The author shows real skill as a science populariser, explaining such diverse topics as how the Pentode valve logic of the early BESM computers worked, to the molecular mechanics of the carcinogenesis mechanism that eventually killed its designer. He vividly portrays the enthusiasm and self confidence of the USSR in the late 50s when Khrushchev’s boasts that they would overtake the USA by 1980 and achieve communism seemed plausible. He gives a good didactic account both of the basic mechanisms of the Soviet Economy, and, through the lives of incidental characters paints a picture of its real operation that is more detailed and convincing than any academic history. (more...)



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A Specter Haunting Globalized Austerity: Marxism on the Rise

by Editors @ Friday, July 2nd, 2010. Filed under Globalization, Marxism

Marxism 2010: Fixing a Broken System

  • alex

By Alex Callinicos

The Guardian, UK, July 1, 2010

Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek: one of the speakers at the Marxism 2010 festival. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

 

The death of Ken Coates last weekend silenced yet another strong and distinguished voice on the radical left. The past year or so has taken from us some of the most outstanding Marxist intellectuals of the 1968 generation – Giovanni Arrighi, Jerry Cohen, Peter Gowan, and, particularly painful for me, Chris Harman and Daniel Bensaïd. In the supposedly ideology-free world of the Con-Lib coalition, it would be tempting to conclude that these individual disappearances are representative of a much broader decline of Marxism as an intellectual and political tradition.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Even the constitutionally myopic financial markets are beginning to wake up to the fact that capitalism is very badly broken. The Keynesian economist Paul Krugman wrote a few days ago: "We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression," following those of the late 19th century and of the 1930s. Marx described his own intellectual project as the critique of political economy: Marxism therefore lives or dies by its ability to make sense of the dynamics of capitalism and to offer a way out of it.

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