Question for "State Capitalism" Proponents
Sam
progressive than capitalist states (despite nationalization of
property), then how can proponents of the "state capitalism" theory
defend as progressive (and work within) social movements calling for
government intervention or nationalization?
Einde O'Callaghan
Briefly. There is nothing inherently progressive about state ownership.
See, for example, Engels in "Anti-Dühring".
However, when social movements demand state intervention in the economy
they are expessing a desire for greater socialisation of the economy and
greater mcsocial control over the economy, even within the confines of
capitalism.
Finally i would point out that my tendency, the International Socialist
tendency, cally for "nationalisation under workers control", when it is
appropriate, and not simply nationalisation.
Einde O'Callaghan
kevinmurphy
> Sam wrote:
> > If Stalinist states were "state capitalist" and therefore no more
> > progressive than capitalist states (despite nationalization of
> > property), then how can proponents of the "state capitalism" theory
> > defend as progressive (and work within) social movements calling for
> > government intervention or nationalization?
>
> Briefly. There is nothing inherently progressive about state ownership.
> See, for example, Engels in "Anti-Dühring".
Stalinism is perfect example of this: the largest peace-time decline
in real wages (1929-32) in world history to near starvation levels,
the smashing of trade unions that had defended workers into
institutions for the maximum expropriation of surplus value to pay for
industrialization, forcibly driving millions of peasants into the
cities for cheap labor, exporting grain while millions starved to
death, sending tens of thousands of dissidents who criticized these
policies to the Gulags, etc. All this was implemented by a ruling
class that *controlled* the state. What was "progressive" about this?
Slavery, feudalism, and capitalism have all had both private and state
legal forms of property relations. For Marxists, the mode of
production is determined by the forces of production and social
relations--who controls the surplus value produced by workers and in
whose interest?
Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
>Stalinism is perfect example of this: the largest peace-time decline
>in real wages (1929-32) in world history to near starvation levels,
>the smashing of trade unions that had defended workers into
>institutions for the maximum expropriation of surplus value to pay for
>industrialization, forcibly driving millions of peasants into the
>cities for cheap labor, exporting grain while millions starved to
>death, sending tens of thousands of dissidents who criticized these
>policies to the Gulags, etc. All this was implemented by a ruling
>class that *controlled* the state. What was "progressive" about this?
It depends on what you mean by "this". Trotsky considered a planned
economy, nationalization of the means of production and a monopoly on
foreign trade as conquests of October 1917. Stalin did not dispense
with these measures, did he? Stalin's crimes are well-documented, but
if we are speaking about modes of production, these crimes don't
basically change that. By analogy, Sweden has had a very benign social
democratic regime since the 1930s, while Spain and Portugal were ruled
by fascist dictatorships for most of that period. But capitalism
existed in both societies. The same thing is true of postcapitalist
societies. Stalin ruled the USSR with an iron fist, while Tito's
Yugoslavia was relatively democratic by comparison. You had workers
self-management, a lively and critical socialist press, etc. In any
case, I can understand why Murphy dwells on 1929-1932. It serves his
anti-Communist purposes quite well to see the entire experience of
postcapitalist societies from that perspective.
Louis Proyect, ln...@panix.com
The Marxism mailing list: www.marxmail.org
kevinmurphy
> On 16 Jul 2003 07:08:07 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
> >
> >Stalinism is perfect example of this: the largest peace-time decline
> >in real wages (1929-32) in world history to near starvation levels,
> >the smashing of trade unions that had defended workers into
> >institutions for the maximum expropriation of surplus value to pay for
> >industrialization, forcibly driving millions of peasants into the
> >cities for cheap labor, exporting grain while millions starved to
> >death, sending tens of thousands of dissidents who criticized these
> >policies to the Gulags, etc. All this was implemented by a ruling
> >class that *controlled* the state. What was "progressive" about this?
>
> It depends on what you mean by "this". Trotsky considered a planned
> economy, nationalization of the means of production and a monopoly on
> foreign trade as conquests of October 1917. Stalin did not dispense
> with these measures, did he?
Instead referencing your bible (when it fits Proyect's needs he is
very religious indeed), explain how workers benefited from these
conquests. If you had read Trotsky thoroughly you would know that his
position changed many times on his methodology for analyzing the
Soviet system. For example in his 1928 letter to Boradai (and others)
he does not even *mention* your mechanical schema above but asserts
that in a very brief period
*nothing* will remain of the proletarian state and the need for a new
*social* revolution. Obviously this does not fit in to a mechanical
reading of Trotsky.
Proyect, you really should leave Trotsky out of your latest crackpot
"postcapitalist" theory. BTW, what happened to your "transitional
societies" quackery from a couple years ago?
> Stalin's crimes are well-documented, but
> if we are speaking about modes of production, these crimes don't
> basically change that. By analogy, Sweden has had a very benign social
> democratic regime since the 1930s, while Spain and Portugal were ruled
> by fascist dictatorships for most of that period. But capitalism
> existed in both societies. The same thing is true of postcapitalist
> societies.
Explain these "postcapitalist societies". Why are they more
progressive than capitalism, how did these "postcapitalist societies"
magically appear without the working class playing a role in their
creation, why did most of these "postcapitalist societies" then
disappear, why are workers in North Korean workers better off than
South Korean workers. Is it the workers' bomb, one station radios, or
perhaps the 7 am jumping jacks?
> Stalin ruled the USSR with an iron fist, while Tito's
> Yugoslavia was relatively democratic by comparison. You had workers
> self-management, a lively and critical socialist press, etc.
Again, what criteria are you using to claim they are
"postcapitalist"--other than a laundry list of middle class moralism?
> In any
> case, I can understand why Murphy dwells on 1929-1932. It serves his
> anti-Communist purposes quite well to see the entire experience of
> postcapitalist societies from that perspective.
Criticize Stalinism = anti-Communist.
vngelis
> Einde O'Callaghan <einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote in message news:<bf2m5g$a8m2i$1...@ID-93601.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> > Sam wrote:
> > > If Stalinist states were "state capitalist" and therefore no more
> > > progressive than capitalist states (despite nationalization of
> > > property), then how can proponents of the "state capitalism" theory
> > > defend as progressive (and work within) social movements calling for
> > > government intervention or nationalization?
> >
> > Briefly. There is nothing inherently progressive about state ownership.
> > See, for example, Engels in "Anti-Dühring".
>
> Stalinism is perfect example of this: the largest peace-time decline
> in real wages (1929-32) in world history to near starvation levels,
> the smashing of trade unions that had defended workers into
> institutions for the maximum expropriation of surplus value to pay for
> industrialization, forcibly driving millions of peasants into the
> cities for cheap labor, exporting grain while millions starved to
> death, sending tens of thousands of dissidents who criticized these
> policies to the Gulags, etc. All this was implemented by a ruling
> class that *controlled* the state. What was "progressive" about this?
>
overthrow its foreign yoke in that period of time nor could it
industrialise the nation. So we should either conclude that the
Russian ruling class was able to industrialise without colonies and
that it had a different social makeup. Either which way one would also
need to explain how imperialism was so obssessed with this russian
'ruling class' to the point of fighting WWII over it and the cold war.
It must have had some special ingredients no one else could duplicate,
or was it because they were Russian and liked the cold??
vngelis
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
>Explain these "postcapitalist societies". Why are they more
>progressive than capitalism, how did these "postcapitalist societies"
>magically appear without the working class playing a role in their
>creation, why did most of these "postcapitalist societies" then
>disappear, why are workers in North Korean workers better off than
>South Korean workers. Is it the workers' bomb, one station radios, or
>perhaps the 7 am jumping jacks?
In fact North Korea was much better off than South Korea for the
longest time. The collapse of the USSR has had a dire effect on the
North, but you of course could be less interested in economic
realities such as these. The North Korean workers would be advised to
make a stew of Tony Cliff's books. That would fill their stomachs, I'm
sure.
>
>Again, what criteria are you using to claim they are
>"postcapitalist"--other than a laundry list of middle class moralism?
What is my criteria? Liquidation of the capitalist class. Like the
ones who went to Miami. Just ask them. They'll tell you.
Louis Proyect
Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org
kevinmurphy
> On 16 Jul 2003 14:51:29 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
> >
> >Explain these "postcapitalist societies". Why are they more
> >progressive than capitalism, how did these "postcapitalist societies"
> >magically appear without the working class playing a role in their
> >creation, why did most of these "postcapitalist societies" then
> >disappear, why are workers in North Korean workers better off than
> >South Korean workers. Is it the workers' bomb, one station radios, or
> >perhaps the 7 am jumping jacks?
>
> In fact North Korea was much better off than South Korea for the
In fact, you cut the section on Trotsky's letter to Boradai which
refutes your shallow reading of Leon Trotsky. Sleazy Proyect adopts
the Stalinist methodology of argumentation: quotes from the Talmud to
show his devotion to the religion but when a Trotsky citation
contradicts a Talmudic reading, it is simply cut out.
> longest time. The collapse of the USSR has had a dire effect on the
> North, but you of course could be less interested in economic
> realities such as these. The North Korean workers would be advised to
> make a stew of Tony Cliff's books. That would fill their stomachs, I'm
> sure.
>
Nothing but a wild assertion that North Koreans were materially better
off than South Korean workers "for the longest time". Were East German
workers also better off than West German workers "for the longest
time"?
Don't expect more from Louis Proyect--he is an intellectual fraud who
cannot explain the most elementary issues about these bogus
"postcapitalist" societies.
Just to clarify what *all* ex-Trotskyists (now apologists for
Stalinism) asserted after WW2:
1) The working class does not have to participate in the creation of a
"postcapitalist" state. The jackboot of the Red Army or a military
coups can substitute for the self-emanciption of the working class.
2) Workers in {degenerated|deformed|postcapitalist} workers' states
benefited *materially* from Stalinism.
Nobody in their right mind would now argue that starving workers in
North Korean benefit materially from Stalinism.
3) Workers would not allow the gains imposed by Red Army to be
dismantled without fierce, bloody resistance--they supposedly
understood how lucky they were to live under the jackboot of
Stalinism.
1989-93 proved this assertion totally wrong. Workers helped overthrow
Stalinism and helped secure the right to assemble, freedom of the
press, elections, etc. Cyberspace lunatics like Louis Proyect
consider this process a "counterrevolution".
4) The economies of these bogus workers' states were historically more
progressive than capitalism, and would out perform capitalists
countries.
Again, proven totally wrong. It was not the argument at the time that
the bogus workers' states necessitated massive support from the Soviet
Union ($5,000,000,000.00 a year in the case of Cuba) to sustain
growth--the state capitalist regimes were supposedly *inherently* more
dynamic than capitalism. The goal posts have shifted because the
apologists for Stalinism have been proven wrong. Again, nobody in
their right mind would now assert that the economy of the starving
workers' state of North Korean is outperforming South Korea.
> >
> >Again, what criteria are you using to claim they are
> >"postcapitalist"--other than a laundry list of middle class moralism?
>
> What is my criteria? Liquidation of the capitalist class. Like the
> ones who went to Miami. Just ask them. They'll tell you.
Cuba pharmaceutical inc./sugar inc./prostitute infested hotels inc.,
etc. don't operate as capitalist enterprises? Tell that to the
$.50/day wage workers…
Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
>Nothing but a wild assertion that North Koreans were materially better
>off than South Korean workers "for the longest time". Were East German
>workers also better off than West German workers "for the longest
>time"?
>
Martin Hart-Landsberg, "Korea: Divison, Unification and US Foreign
Policy," Monthly Review Press, 1998:
The North Korean "Economic Miracle"
During the first two decades after division, many Koreans, perhaps
even a significant majority, viewed North Korea more favorably than
South Korea. Reflecting this sense of superiority, it was the North,
not the South, that made repeated offers for greater North-South
communication and exchange. The South Korean government not only
rejected these offers, it refused to make any counterproposals.
Perhaps even more revealing of Korean impressions of the two Koreas is
the fact that in 1960, some 450,000 Koreans living in Japan officially
selected North Korea as their "mother country" as compared with
165,000 that selected the South. This difference is even more
impressive because the great majority of Koreans living in Japan were
originally from southern Korea. Between 1959 and 1962, approximately
75,000 Koreans left Japan to permanently settle in the DPRK.
One reason that North Korea was able to confidently approach the South
and attract tens of thousands of Koreans from Japan was its economic
superiority. While South Korea struggled with recession and high rates
of unemployment during the 1950s, the North Korean economy generated
full employment and rapid growth. And even though new state-dominated
relations of production enabled the South Korean economy to grow
rapidly over the following decade, the North Korean economy continued
to outperform it in terms of employment, income distribution, and
growth.
North Korea’s strong economic performance was the result of a thorough
state-directed transformation of Northern economic and social
relations. Although Japan did "industrialize" Korea, it did so in an
uneven way. In 1940, approximately 85 percent of Korea’s heavy
industry was in the north while 75 percent of the country’s light
manufacturing and almost all its agricultural production was in the
south. The division of the country left each side with half an
economy. The North Korean leadership responded to this historical
legacy by implementing a number of sweeping reforms which radically
changed workplace, gender, and ownership relations. It also launched a
series of economic plans--one-year plans in 1947 and 1948, and a
two-year plan covering 1949 to 1950--that were designed to create a
more balanced and self-sufficient economy. These initiatives were both
popular and effective.
North Korea’s economic progress was temporarily interrupted by the
Korean War. At the end of the war, power production was only 26
percent of what it had been in 1949, fuel 11 percent, chemicals 22
percent, and metallurgy 10 percent. Agriculture was also in chaos
(primarily because of the massive U.S. bombing of the country’s dikes
and dams).
Almost immediately after the armistice, the North began an impressive
rebuilding program, pursuing what Stewart Lone and Gavan McCormack
call "possibly the most centralized and planned economic development
strategy of any country in the world." A three-year plan was produced
for 1954 to 1956 that gave priority to the development of heavy
industry. The plan’s targets were actually met some six months ahead
of schedule. A five-year plan was then drawn up covering 1957-1961,
and its targets were also met ahead of schedule. According to the
DPRK, its completion meant that the country had successfully built "a
base for the development of an independent national economy." A new
seven-year plan was launched in 1961, with the aim of modernizing the
country’s newly created industrial base, as well as establishing more
technologically advanced industries.
In the postwar period, the state also completed the task of
eliminating private ownership of productive assets. Agriculture went
through a process of collectivization which proceeded in stages
between 1953 to 1958, a process largely driven by the destruction left
by the Korean War, which made the pooling of limited resources and
labor necessary for survival. Lone and McCormack describe the
collectivization experience as follows:
"Despite the urgency of the task of capital accumulation for
industrialization, the regime seems not to have squeezed the farmers
too hard, allowing them to experience gradually rising living
standards and reduced taxation levels, until the tax on the
agricultural yield was eliminated entirely in 1966. Irrigation,
terracing of hillsides, mechanization (large scale production and
allocation of tractors) and chemicalization (use of fertilizers) were
promoted on a large scale."
Urban handicraft as well as small-scale, privately owned enterprises
involved in commerce and industry also went through a similar process
of collectivization. By August 1958, the North Korean leadership,
basing its assessment on the extent of state ownership, announced that
the country had achieved "the socialist transformation of the
relations of production, in both the rural and the urban communities."
North Korea’s economic achievements were truly remarkable.
Agricultural output grew by an average of 10 percent a year during the
1950s and 6.3 percent during the 1960s. By the end of the 1960s, the
government was able to declare that the country had achieved food
self-sufficiency. Industrial growth rates were even more noteworthy.
Gross Industrial Product in 1956 was almost three times what it had
been in 1953; in 1960 it was almost 3.5 times what it had been in
1956. As a result, industry’s share of national income rose from 16.8
percent in 1946 to 64.2 percent in 1965." And by 1960,
machine-building had become the country’s largest industrial sector.
These achievements were so remarkable that even Western economists
began to speak of the "North Korean Miracle." In fact, according to
the economist Joan Robinson, writing in 1965, "All economic miracles
of the postwar world are put in the shade by these achievements."
The End of the Economic Miracle
North Korea’s economic advance began to slow in the second half of the
1960s. The government announced in 1966 that its seven-year plan
would not be completed on time, and the planning period was extended
for three years, until 1970. A new six-year plan was launched in 1971.
Although the North announced its successful completion in late 1975,
four months ahead of schedule, no new plan was presented in either
1976 or 1977. In spite of these difficulties, even CIA estimates, as
summarized by Lone and McCormack, showed that, "as of early 1976, the
North Korean economy was out-producing the South in per capita terms
in almost every sector, from agriculture through electric power
generation, steel and cement, to machine tools and trucks (but not in
televisions and automobiles)." Nevertheless, the North was losing the
economic race. Between 1960 to 1976, Northern per capita GNP grew by
an average annual rate of 5.2 percent; Southern per capita GNP grew by
7.3 percent. The South caught the North on a per capita basis sometime
in the mid to late 1970s, and then continued to pull further ahead.
North Korea’s economic difficulties had several causes. Among the most
important were the decline in aid from the Soviet Union and the
division impelled diversion of scarce resources into the military
sector. While North Korea has always prided itself on following an
economic strategy based on the traditional principle of juche
(self-reliance), the country also benefited significantly from foreign
aid. For example, North Korea received substantial aid from the Soviet
Union and other Eastern European countries in 1953 and 1956 that
helped finance its three-year plan. According to one scholar: During
the Three Year Plan, 75.1 percent of all capital investments of the
DPRK was financed from the grants from the communist bloc. In these
years 24.6 percent of the Pyongyang state budget was financed from aid
from the bloc countries (including credits). Finally, aid and credits
from socialist countries financed 77.6 percent and 3.9 percent
respectively of all DPRK imports during the Three Year Plan.
The Soviet Union also gave substantial scientific and technical aid,
almost all without charge. By 1962, the Soviets had given North Korea
over 2,581 technical documents; some 935 were drawings of complete
plants or machinery. This technical support enabled North Korea to
produce many industrial products, including trucks, cranes,
compressors, agricultural machinery, electric motors, transformers,
and tractors, which greatly contributed to the country’s rapid
industrialization.
Beginning in the late 1950s, relations between the DPRK and the Soviet
Union grew tense. In 1956, the Soviets started pressuring the North to
give up its attempt to construct a heavy industrial base and instead
concentrate on producing light manufactures and primary commodity
exports as part of a COMECON-structured division of labor. The DPRK
did join COMECON in 1957, but only as an observer; it refused to
accept any limitations on its national planning.
Complicating the dispute over economic strategy was a growing split
between China and the Soviet Union. Kim had worked hard to remain
friendly with both countries and was therefore placed in an awkward
position by this development, especially the increasingly frequent
Soviet criticisms of China. Kim actually supported the Chinese in
their confrontation with the Soviet Union. He was critical of what he
saw as Soviet revisionism, especially the policy of "peaceful
coexistence" with the United States, the very country that had
prosecuted the Korean War. Kim believed that "peaceful coexistence"
reflected a racist attitude on the part of the Soviet Union toward
Asia. As he saw it, détente was a policy that was developed strictly
within, and had meaning only in, a European context. It could have no
meaning for Vietnamese, Chinese, or Koreans, people whose countries
were divided, with the socialist halves under threat of attack from
the United States.
In the early 1960s, when the Soviets started openly criticizing the
DPRK for its economic plans and unwillingness to condemn China, Kim
stood his ground. The result was the sudden withdrawal of Soviet aid
and technical support and, from 1962 to 1965, a reduction in trade
between the two countries. Not surprisingly, this had a serious impact
on the North Korean economy
kevinmurphy
> On 17 Jul 2003 07:04:49 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
>
> In the early 1960s, when the Soviets started openly criticizing the
> DPRK for its economic plans and unwillingness to condemn China, Kim
> stood his ground. The result was the sudden withdrawal of Soviet aid
> and technical support and, from 1962 to 1965, a reduction in trade
> between the two countries. Not surprisingly, this had a serious impact
> on the North Korean economy
This is fourth-rate Stalinist apologia rubbish. Most Stalinist thug
states went through rapid growth during the process of the primitive
accumulation of capital, only to enter severe crisis in the late
1950s. Why were North Korean workers wages reduced to starvation
levels in the 1990s--was this also the result of "withdrawal of Soviet
aid" 25 years earlier or did Proyect's Stalinist hero Kim's deliberate
plan to build workers' bombs at the expense of workers' material
well-being have something to do with it?
Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>This is fourth-rate Stalinist apologia rubbish.
Well, Martin Hart-Landsberg is also an editor of the Bulletin of
Concerned Asian Scholars, the most respected voice of radical
scholarship on the region. Furthermore, an imbecile grad school
dropout like you is about as qualified to judge the editors and
contributors to this journal as Hulk Hogan is qualified to lecture on
Renaissance Art.
> Most Stalinist thug
>states went through rapid growth during the process of the primitive
>accumulation of capital, only to enter severe crisis in the late
>1950s. Why were North Korean workers wages reduced to starvation
>levels in the 1990s--was this also the result of "withdrawal of Soviet
>aid" 25 years earlier or did Proyect's Stalinist hero Kim's deliberate
>plan to build workers' bombs at the expense of workers' material
>well-being have something to do with it?
Yes, those bombs. It would have better for the North Korean people to
rely on pistols and daggers after the experience of the Korean War
which left more than 800,000 casualties in the north. This is nearly
10 percent of the population. Maybe somebody should stick a dynamite
stick up Murphy's ass. That would certainly leave one less
anti-Communist fanatic to deal with on apst, after Hunter Watson.
kevinmurphy
> On 17 Jul 2003 14:15:30 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
> >This is fourth-rate Stalinist apologia rubbish.
>
> Well, Martin Hart-Landsberg is also an editor of the Bulletin of
> Concerned Asian Scholars, the most respected voice of radical
> scholarship on the region.
You mean most respected by members of your Stalinioid chat-room?
Furthermore, an imbecile grad school
> dropout like you is about as qualified to judge the editors and
> contributors to this journal as Hulk Hogan is qualified to lecture on
> Renaissance Art.
Proyect avoids every basic question about his Stalinist apologia and
drops his drawers yet again. Stalinist methodology by the Stalinist
punk.
>
> > Most Stalinist thug
> >states went through rapid growth during the process of the primitive
> >accumulation of capital, only to enter severe crisis in the late
> >1950s. Why were North Korean workers wages reduced to starvation
> >levels in the 1990s--was this also the result of "withdrawal of Soviet
> >aid" 25 years earlier or did Proyect's Stalinist hero Kim's deliberate
> >plan to build workers' bombs at the expense of workers' material
> >well-being have something to do with it?
>
> Yes, those bombs. It would have better for the North Korean people to
> rely on pistols and daggers after the experience of the Korean War
Marxists are against nuclear weapons you Stalinist idiot. You worship
Stalinist rulers as if they actually represent the interests of "the
people", this is just third-worldist crap that has absolutely nothing
to do with Marxism. The "North Korean people" had absolutely no say on
the issue of food versus famine plus "workers' bomb". I suspect that
if that if given a choice they might have voted against starvation,
but that's just a wild assertion, not a profound apologia by a
"Concerned Asian Scholar". Good thing that the North Koreans have
brain-damaged "postcapitalist" thug rulers to decide for them.
A sixty something ex-Trostkyist dinosaur sits in his miserable cubicle
venting on the internet about merits of Stalinism and the "workers'
bomb" as if his psychotic rage will turn the clock back to the good
old days of Comrade Joe. Truly incredible...
> which left more than 800,000 casualties in the north. This is nearly
> 10 percent of the population. Maybe somebody should stick a dynamite
> stick up Murphy's ass.
This is the response we get to the basic questions about Proyect's
"postcapialist" pet quack theory. Don't expect more from this
nutter--he is a fraud.
Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
>You mean most respected by members of your Stalinioid chat-room?
MARTIN HART-LANDSBERG
Department of Economics
Lewis and Clark College
0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road
Portland, Oregon 97219-7899
Phone: (503) 768-7624
Fax: (503) 768-7611
Email: ma...@lclark.edu
Bio
Martin Hart-Landsberg is Professor of Economics and Director of the
Political Economy Program at Lewis and Clark College, Portland,
Oregon; and Adjunct Researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences,
Gyeongsang National University, South Korea. His areas of teaching and
research include political economy, economic development,
international economics, and the political economy of East Asia. He
is the author of three books: Development, Crisis, and Class Struggle:
Learning From Japan and East Asia (with Paul Burkett), St. Martin's
Press, 2000; Korea: Division, Reunification, and U.S. Foreign Policy,
Monthly Review Press, 1998 (reprinted in Korean with new introduction,
Dang Dae Publishers, 2000); and The Rush to Development: Economic
Change and Political Struggle in South Korea, Monthly Review Press,
1993. He has also published articles on issues related to
globalization and third world development in journals such as Monthly
Review, Critical Asian Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Review
of Radical Political Economics, Against the Current, and Historical
Materialism. He is a member of the Workers’ Rights Board (Portland,
Oregon), and has served as consultant for the Korea program of the
American Friends Service Committee, and as a regional coordinator for,
and on the national steering committee of, the Union for Radical
Political Economics.
>
>Proyect avoids every basic question about his Stalinist apologia and
>drops his drawers yet again. Stalinist methodology by the Stalinist
>punk.
You remind me of the guy on the subway car this morning preaching to
the bored captive audience about Satan, except you use Stalin as a
scare word.
>Marxists are against nuclear weapons you Stalinist idiot.
Really? You mean that when the USA developed nuclear weapons to use
against the USSR, it was a mistake for the USSR to develop such
weapons to defend itself? Oh, I forgot. You think that the USSR was an
evil empire. How silly of me to try to talk sense to crazed
anti-Communist like yourself.
>You worship
>Stalinist rulers as if they actually represent the interests of "the
>people", this is just third-worldist crap that has absolutely nothing
>to do with Marxism. The "North Korean people" had absolutely no say on
>the issue of food versus famine plus "workers' bomb". I suspect that
>if that if given a choice they might have voted against starvation,
>but that's just a wild assertion, not a profound apologia by a
>"Concerned Asian Scholar". Good thing that the North Koreans have
>brain-damaged "postcapitalist" thug rulers to decide for them.
Translation: North Korea does not correspond to my fantasies about
socialism, therefore I oppose their right to defend themselves against
US imperialism by any means necessary.
>A sixty something ex-Trostkyist dinosaur sits in his miserable cubicle
>venting on the internet about merits of Stalinism and the "workers'
>bomb" as if his psychotic rage will turn the clock back to the good
>old days of Comrade Joe. Truly incredible...
Grad school drop-out. Failure. Loser. Can you imagine the soiled
toilet paper this guy used to turn in to his professors at Brandeis?
What a waste of his daddy's hard-earned money.
A. G. Phillbin
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
^Marxists are against nuclear weapons you Stalinist idiot.
Why would Marxists be against nuclear weapons? Do they prevent the
economy from being collectivized, or prevent the workers from
controlling the collectivized economy? What is it about nuclear
weapons that you believe Marxists should oppose? This is of a piece
with your "socialists oppose the death penalty" shibboleth that you
raised in another debate with Proyect. I asked you why, and your
silence spoke volumes. And Proyect, please don't answer for Murphy
this time -- let him attempt his own thinking.
All you seem to know is a bunch of placard slogans, but none of the
background information to judge their relation to reality.
Louis Proyect
<agfilbi...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>And Proyect, please don't answer for Murphy
>this time -- let him attempt his own thinking.
Why do I think of the Australopithecines and the monolith in Kubrick's
"2001" when I read this?
kevinmurphy
> Oregon), and has served as consultant for the Korea program of the
> American Friends Service Committee, and as a regional coordinator for,
> and on the national steering committee of, the Union for Radical
> Political Economics.
So what? He is impressed with the political economy of a starving
workers' state. That should be at the top of his CV.
>
> >
> >Proyect avoids every basic question about his Stalinist apologia and
> >drops his drawers yet again. Stalinist methodology by the Stalinist
> >punk.
>
> You remind me of the guy on the subway car this morning preaching to
> the bored captive audience about Satan, except you use Stalin as a
> scare word.
Actually you are so impressed by North Korean Stalinism that you claim
it is a "postcapitalist" society. Certainly this has nothing to do
with basic notions of Marxism such as the self-emancipation of the
working class, production to satisfy human needs, workers' control
over their own state, etc.
Given that you reject Marxism, you need to explain what methodology
you are using that so impresses you about North Korean Stalinism. Is
it the khaki uniforms, the 7 am jumping jacks, the grim mandatory
"demonstrations" in support of Kim II, the starvation wages, maybe the
workers' bomb?
Is the North Korean economy more dynamic than private capitalism? Do
workers benefit materially from the "postcapitalist" system? Again,
very basic questions that someone who wasn't a complete fraud would be
willing to answer instead of deleting out of embarrassment...
>
> >Marxists are against nuclear weapons you Stalinist idiot.
>
> Really? You mean that when the USA developed nuclear weapons to use
> against the USSR, it was a mistake for the USSR to develop such
> weapons to defend itself? Oh, I forgot. You think that the USSR was an
> evil empire. How silly of me to try to talk sense to crazed
> anti-Communist like yourself.
Nuclear weapons can never be used in the interest of the working
class. A "weapon" is only meaningful if one has the intention to use
it. For example, if you screamed in my ear at the top of your lungs
(instead of the internet) about the merits of a brain-damaged workers'
state--I would tell you to fuck off or I'd flatten you face. This
would only be a meaningful if I was willing to do it.
How can nuclear weapons ever be used in the interests of the working
class?
>
> >You worship
> >Stalinist rulers as if they actually represent the interests of "the
> >people", this is just third-worldist crap that has absolutely nothing
> >to do with Marxism. The "North Korean people" had absolutely no say on
> >the issue of food versus famine plus "workers' bomb". I suspect that
> >if that if given a choice they might have voted against starvation,
> >but that's just a wild assertion, not a profound apologia by a
> >"Concerned Asian Scholar". Good thing that the North Koreans have
> >brain-damaged "postcapitalist" thug rulers to decide for them.
>
> Translation: North Korea does not correspond to my fantasies about
Translation: mandatory 7am jumping jacks, starvation wages, and a
nuclear workers' bomb *do* correspond to Louis Proyect's fantasies
about socialism. What a lunatic.
Louis, take this post to your therapist. Maybe he can make some sense
of deranged fantasies.
Louis, here's a reality check that might help you check back in with
planet earth. Pick a co-worker, anyone will do. Crawl out of your
cubicle and whisper in their ear that you are really impressed with
the North Korean nuclear workers' bomb. Then report back to us.
Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
>So what? He is impressed with the political economy of a starving
>workers' state. That should be at the top of his CV.
What does your CV look like? Do you have a section for grad schools
that you dropped out of? And dissertations that you were too stupid to
write?
>Actually you are so impressed by North Korean Stalinism that you claim
>it is a "postcapitalist" society. Certainly this has nothing to do
>with basic notions of Marxism such as the self-emancipation of the
>working class, production to satisfy human needs, workers' control
>over their own state, etc.
Do you get your information on North Korea from Fox TV or from CNN?
What would you recommend to apst'ers? We are waiting with bated
breath.
>Given that you reject Marxism, you need to explain what methodology
>you are using that so impresses you about North Korean Stalinism. Is
>it the khaki uniforms, the 7 am jumping jacks, the grim mandatory
>"demonstrations" in support of Kim II, the starvation wages, maybe the
>workers' bomb?
I guess you are not impressed with Asiatic people throwing out the
imperialists. What did you do during the Vietnam war? Jerk off in a
Vermont commune?
>Is the North Korean economy more dynamic than private capitalism? Do
>workers benefit materially from the "postcapitalist" system? Again,
>very basic questions that someone who wasn't a complete fraud would be
>willing to answer instead of deleting out of embarrassment...
You should go to a library and find copies of the Bulletin of
Concerned Asian Scholars to find out more about North Korea. While you
are at it, you should look at NACLA or Latin American Perspectives for
information about Cuba. If you can drag yourself away from CNN and Fox
TV.
>Nuclear weapons can never be used in the interest of the working
>class. A "weapon" is only meaningful if one has the intention to use
>it. For example, if you screamed in my ear at the top of your lungs
>(instead of the internet) about the merits of a brain-damaged workers'
>state--I would tell you to fuck off or I'd flatten you face. This
>would only be a meaningful if I was willing to do it.
Did you read this in Lenin? You are quite the theoretician.
>Translation: mandatory 7am jumping jacks, starvation wages, and a
>nuclear workers' bomb *do* correspond to Louis Proyect's fantasies
>about socialism. What a lunatic.
I didn't fantasize. I crossposted Marty Hart-Landsberg. That is better
than your racial stereotyping about the yellow peril with nukes.
>Louis, here's a reality check that might help you check back in with
>planet earth. Pick a co-worker, anyone will do. Crawl out of your
>cubicle and whisper in their ear that you are really impressed with
>the North Korean nuclear workers' bomb. Then report back to us.
Why do I need to speak to fellow workers? I can get the untutored mob
by listening to you.
kevinmurphy
> On 18 Jul 2003 10:59:11 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
> >
> >So what? He is impressed with the political economy of a starving
> >workers' state. That should be at the top of his CV.
>
> What does your CV look like? Do you have a section for grad schools
> that you dropped out of? And dissertations that you were too stupid to
> write?
OK, just updated the CV Louis. It now reads "set up a web-site and
chat-room to promote my sorry Stalinist ass as no one else will
publish my crap."
>
> >Actually you are so impressed by North Korean Stalinism that you claim
> >it is a "postcapitalist" society. Certainly this has nothing to do
> >with basic notions of Marxism such as the self-emancipation of the
> >working class, production to satisfy human needs, workers' control
> >over their own state, etc.
>
> Do you get your information on North Korea from Fox TV or from CNN?
> What would you recommend to apst'ers? We are waiting with bated
> breath.
When you have secret information from any Concerned Asian Scholar that
workers' councils have popped up in North Korean let us know...
>
> >Given that you reject Marxism, you need to explain what methodology
> >you are using that so impresses you about North Korean Stalinism. Is
> >it the khaki uniforms, the 7 am jumping jacks, the grim mandatory
> >"demonstrations" in support of Kim II, the starvation wages, maybe the
> >workers' bomb?
>
> I guess you are not impressed with Asiatic people throwing out the
> imperialists. What did you do during the Vietnam war? Jerk off in a
> Vermont commune?
The issue was "postcapitalist" societies. This assertion (which you
cannot explain) was indeed based on you rotten third-worldist training
from the Vietnam era. Your SWP moralists claimed Vietnam had a set up
a "workers and farmers government". Pure horseshit. The Marxists (I
was in grammar school at the time grandpa-not everyone is tired
deranged dinosaur like you) supported the NLF but did not paint them
as socialist like did and still do.
>
> >Is the North Korean economy more dynamic than private capitalism? Do
> >workers benefit materially from the "postcapitalist" system? Again,
> >very basic questions that someone who wasn't a complete fraud would be
> >willing to answer instead of deleting out of embarrassment...
>
> You should go to a library and find copies of the Bulletin of
> Concerned Asian Scholars to find out more about North Korea. While you
> are at it, you should look at NACLA or Latin American Perspectives for
> information about Cuba. If you can drag yourself away from CNN and Fox
> TV.
You are the one with the illusions in Stalinism Proyect--explain why
these bogus Stalinist countries, including North Korea are (and were)
"postcapitalist". You've whiffed on the questions several thousand
times but try again: what criteria are you using to claim they are
"postcapitalist"? Given that the working class played no role in the
creation of your deranged workers' state and therefore you are not a
Marxist, what methodology are you using--aside from middle class
outrage? Can a military junta set up a "postcapitalist" society, the
Red Army? Does a "postcapitlist" society economically outperform a
capitalist society or this dependent on how much aid the Soviet Union
gave it 40 years ago? Do workers benefit materially (compared to
capitalism) in a "postcapitalist" society?
Let's be clear why you won't answer these questions Proyect: you
cannot, you merely spout this pathetic third-worldist crap that you
learned in your youth half a century ago and still have some zany
emotional attachment to. That's why you will delete these question (I
will then repost under a new thread Proyect: Postcapitalist Fraud).
>
> >Nuclear weapons can never be used in the interest of the working
> >class. A "weapon" is only meaningful if one has the intention to use
> >it. For example, if you screamed in my ear at the top of your lungs
> >(instead of the internet) about the merits of a brain-damaged workers'
> >state--I would tell you to fuck off or I'd flatten you face. This
> >would only be a meaningful if I was willing to do it.
>
> Did you read this in Lenin? You are quite the theoretician.
>
> >Translation: mandatory 7am jumping jacks, starvation wages, and a
> >nuclear workers' bomb *do* correspond to Louis Proyect's fantasies
> >about socialism. What a lunatic.
>
> I didn't fantasize. I crossposted Marty Hart-Landsberg. That is better
> than your racial stereotyping about the yellow peril with nukes.
Lying shitbag: you are impressed that North Korean thug rulers built
nuclear weapons instead of feeding the population.
There used to be a small anarchist outfit called "food not bombs".
Perhaps they'll give you their banner, a little cutting and pasting to
fit your insane idea of what a "postcapitalist" society looks like:
"Postcapitlism: bombs not food!" You could then take it to a demo and
show people what a real proletarian hero you are--wait that's right,
you don't venture out of you cyberspace deranged world to interact
with people...
>
> >Louis, here's a reality check that might help you check back in with
> >planet earth. Pick a co-worker, anyone will do. Crawl out of your
> >cubicle and whisper in their ear that you are really impressed with
> >the North Korean nuclear workers' bomb. Then report back to us.
>
> Why do I need to speak to fellow workers?
OK, here's how it works Louis. On planet earth most people have social
relations with other humans: friends, aquaintences, fellow workers,
and so. Even those who work in cubicles occaisonally venture out to
interact with their workmates. By not speaking with your fellow
workers, you are only reinforcing your deranged fantasies about
Stalinism.
What I'm arguing for here is a bit of a reality check. Sure, you can
find a nutcase or two on APST who is just as impressed with the
workers' bomb as you are. That doesn't really count--try running some
of your insane ideas about the wonders of "bombs not food"
postcapitalist societies with someone who is NOT cyberspace Stalinist
nutter like yourself.
Kevin Murphy
eality
kevinmurphy
> On 18 Jul 2003 03:19:19 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
>
>
> ^Marxists are against nuclear weapons you Stalinist idiot.
>
> Why would Marxists be against nuclear weapons? Do they prevent the
> economy from being collectivized, or prevent the workers from
> controlling the collectivized economy? What is it about nuclear
> weapons that you believe Marxists should oppose?
Wow, tough question there A.G...Hmm, why on earth would socialists be
against a nuclear holocaust that would end life on planet earth? Wow,
that's a real chin scratcher there AG...you got me.
OK, I have to admit that after reading Louis Proyect's brilliant
advocacy of the starving workers' nuclear bomb and watching Terminator
III, I'm starting to get fantasies about a nuclear nightmare scenario
that would not have a happy ending. OK A.G., let me think about that
one for a while and get back to you...In the mean time, why don't you
describe a scenario where deranged workers' state would fire off
nuclear weapons and explain how this would benefit the workers of the
world?
Kevin Murphy
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>MARTIN HART-LANDSBERG
>Department of Economics
>Lewis and Clark College
>He has also published articles on issues related to
>globalization and third world development in journals such as Monthly
>Review, Critical Asian Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Review
>of Radical Political Economics, Against the Current, and Historical
>Materialism.
Isn't "Against the Current" the journal of Solidarity USA? If it is
the journal which I think it is, it's somewhat odd to list it with the
other academic journals in this sentence, as it is not really an academic
journal.....
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>Do you get your information on North Korea from Fox TV or from CNN?
>What would you recommend to apst'ers? We are waiting with bated
>breath.
You didn't answer this part of Louis's question, Kevin. What sources
of information about North Korea do you recommend?
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>OK, just updated the CV Louis. It now reads "set up a web-site and
>chat-room to promote my sorry Stalinist ass as no one else will
>publish my crap."
Actually, without even trying very hard, I have been published by
scholarly journals such as Journal of the History of Economic Thought,
as well as a range of independent Marxist print publications like "New
Politics". Without even trying, I might add. In any case, I have no
aspirations to make it in the academy as you did a while back. What
caused you to drop out anyhow? Too many spelling errors for the
Brandeis profs to tolerate? They have online spelling tools, you know.
You should have looked into this before wasting daddy's precious
money.
>When you have secret information from any Concerned Asian Scholar that
>workers' councils have popped up in North Korean let us know...
North Korea was a top-down bureaucratic state, but it also had all of
the socio-economic institutions that compelled Trotsky to defend the
USSR against middle-class reformists like you.
>
>The issue was "postcapitalist" societies. This assertion (which you
>cannot explain) was indeed based on you rotten third-worldist training
>from the Vietnam era. Your SWP moralists claimed Vietnam had a set up
>a "workers and farmers government". Pure horseshit. The Marxists (I
>was in grammar school at the time grandpa-not everyone is tired
>deranged dinosaur like you) supported the NLF but did not paint them
>as socialist like did and still do.
You were in grammar school when the Vietnam war was going on? Murphy,
I realize that you have some kind of aversion to scholarly literature,
but you can find out about Vietnam from a wide variety of sources. I'd
recommend Marilyn Young's "The Vietnam Wars", although I feel rather
like somebody recommending chess openings to a chimpanzee in doing so.
For Marxist revolutionaries, the sight of a North Korean or Vietnamese
fighter standing up to US imperialism is rather inspiring. I realize
that you get your rocks off watching CNN or Fox TV, but don't let us
stop you.
>You are the one with the illusions in Stalinism Proyect--explain why
>these bogus Stalinist countries, including North Korea are (and were)
>"postcapitalist". You've whiffed on the questions several thousand
>times but try again: what criteria are you using to claim they are
>"postcapitalist"? Given that the working class played no role in the
>creation of your deranged workers' state and therefore you are not a
>Marxist, what methodology are you using--aside from middle class
>outrage? Can a military junta set up a "postcapitalist" society, the
>Red Army? Does a "postcapitlist" society economically outperform a
>capitalist society or this dependent on how much aid the Soviet Union
>gave it 40 years ago? Do workers benefit materially (compared to
>capitalism) in a "postcapitalist" society?
Capitalism is a mode of production. Karl Marx described it in ample
detail in V. 1 of Capital. I urge you to read this classic if you
haven't done so. In 1917 this mode of production was eliminated in
Russia. It was replaced by collective ownership of the means of
production, a planned economy and a monopoly on foreign trade. The
economic basis of what Trotskyists call a workers state remained
intact until Yeltsin's rise to power. By way of comparison, both
social democratic Sweden and fascist Spain were capitalist in the
1950s. In Sweden you had totally free elections, a free press and a
highly progressive income tax that tended to equalize income. In Spain
you had a brutal dictatorship and extreme income inequality. But both
countries rested on private property and firms were driven by the need
to show a profit. That is what Marxists mean when they use the term
capitalism. What addled Cliffites like you decide to call capitalism
is entirely your privilege. It is far more important that
revolutionaries and their adversaries in the ruling class understand
by the term. Both I and George Tenet understand that there is no such
thing as capitalism in Cuba, except for the tourist hotels that have
been let in begrudgingly by the Cuban government. If you want to
believe that state-owned sugar farms that provide guaranteed
employment, free health care, day care centers and a whole range of
social services are operated on the same economic principles as United
Fruit Company plantations in Honduras, why let me stop you. The guy in
the next cubicle from me is a scientologist and I wouldn't waste much
time trying to convince him that this was horseshit.
>Lying shitbag: you are impressed that North Korean thug rulers built
>nuclear weapons instead of feeding the population.
Oooh, aren't we so angry that North Korea wasted money on nuclear
weapons. The Marxists here understand that this is the main thing that
would stave off a "regime change". Of course, since you don't know the
difference between a capitalist society and one that has abolished
capitalism, this distinction is utterly lost on you.
>OK, here's how it works Louis. On planet earth most people have social
>relations with other humans: friends, aquaintences, fellow workers,
>and so. Even those who work in cubicles occaisonally venture out to
>interact with their workmates. By not speaking with your fellow
>workers, you are only reinforcing your deranged fantasies about
>Stalinism.
Really? I know for a fact that all of them are die-hard Rush Limbaugh
fans. During the war in Iraq, they all acted as if a big football game
was going on. The simple truth is that they know about as much about
North Korea as you do. In fact, you haven't said anything much
different than I can hear over the cubicle wall. At least they don't
pretend to be socialists like you do.
Louis Proyect
(Sayan Bhattacharyya) wrote:
>
>Isn't "Against the Current" the journal of Solidarity USA? If it is
>the journal which I think it is, it's somewhat odd to list it with the
>other academic journals in this sentence, as it is not really an academic
>journal.....
>
Furthermore, his article is titled "Behind the New Korean Crisis" and
appears in the March-April issue. For people unfamiliar with ATC, the
editor is David Finkel who was a long-time member of the group that
Murphy's co-thinkers were once part of. Finkel has never renounced his
Shachtmanite analysis, so the decision to publish Hart-Landsberg's
article indicates that we are not dealing with Stalinist apologetics
no matter what the screeching liberal Murphy believes.
Sayan Bhattacharyya
>Furthermore, his article is titled "Behind the New Korean Crisis" and
>appears in the March-April issue. For people unfamiliar with ATC, the
>editor is David Finkel who was a long-time member of the group that
>Murphy's co-thinkers were once part of.
Out of curiosity, what was the name of this group?
Louis Proyect
(Sayan Bhattacharyya) wrote:
>Louis Proyect <ln...@panix.com> wrote:
>
>>Furthermore, his article is titled "Behind the New Korean Crisis" and
>>appears in the March-April issue. For people unfamiliar with ATC, the
>>editor is David Finkel who was a long-time member of the group that
>>Murphy's co-thinkers were once part of.
>
>Out of curiosity, what was the name of this group?
International Socialism.
kevinmurphy
> > > What did you do during the Vietnam war?
> >The issue was "postcapitalist" societies. This assertion (which you
> >cannot explain) was indeed based on you rotten third-worldist training
> >from the Vietnam era. Your SWP moralists claimed Vietnam had a set up
> >a "workers and farmers government". Pure horseshit. The Marxists (I
> >was in grammar school at the time grandpa-not everyone is tired
> >deranged dinosaur like you) supported the NLF but did not paint them
> >as socialist like did and still do.
>
> You were in grammar school when the Vietnam war was going on?
Yes Grampa, what part of that sentence didn't you understand?
> Murphy,
> I realize that you have some kind of aversion to scholarly literature,
> but you can find out about Vietnam from a wide variety of sources. I'd
Actually I've explained your SWP failures during the Vietnam War. The
second most significant radicalization in US history and your SWP
utterly failed to build anything. Your liberal slogans were to the
right of millions of young people who were open to revolutionary
politics. Time magazine noted with disgust that over a million
students considered themselves revolutionaries--the SWP had absolutely
nothing to offer them.
> recommend Marilyn Young's "The Vietnam Wars", although I feel rather
> like somebody recommending chess openings to a chimpanzee in doing so.
> For Marxist revolutionaries, the sight of a North Korean or Vietnamese
> fighter standing up to US imperialism is rather inspiring. I realize
> that you get your rocks off watching CNN or Fox TV, but don't let us
> stop you.
>
> >You are the one with the illusions in Stalinism Proyect--explain why
> >these bogus Stalinist countries, including North Korea are (and were)
> >"postcapitalist". You've whiffed on the questions several thousand
> >times but try again: what criteria are you using to claim they are
> >"postcapitalist"? Given that the working class played no role in the
> >creation of your deranged workers' state and therefore you are not a
> >Marxist, what methodology are you using--aside from middle class
> >outrage? Can a military junta set up a "postcapitalist" society, the
> >Red Army? Does a "postcapitlist" society economically outperform a
> >capitalist society or this dependent on how much aid the Soviet Union
> >gave it 40 years ago? Do workers benefit materially (compared to
> >capitalism) in a "postcapitalist" society?
>
> Capitalism is a mode of production. Karl Marx described it in ample
> detail in V. 1 of Capital. I urge you to read this classic if you
> haven't done so.
You clearly have not read Capital. Nor have you answered any of the
questions above...
> In 1917 this mode of production was eliminated in
> Russia. It was replaced by collective ownership of the means of
> production, a planned economy and a monopoly on foreign trade. The
> economic basis of what Trotskyists call a workers state remained
> intact until Yeltsin's rise to power.
You can't drag Trotsky's name through the mud with this stupidity.
Trotsky's position changed many times. You cut out the reference to
Boradai in which you schematic copy-book approach is not even
mentioned. Again, how do North Korean workers benefit materially from
Stalinism, does the system outperform private capitalism?
> By way of comparison, both
> social democratic Sweden and fascist Spain were capitalist in the
> 1950s. In Sweden you had totally free elections, a free press and a
> highly progressive income tax that tended to equalize income. In Spain
> you had a brutal dictatorship and extreme income inequality. But both
> countries rested on private property and firms were driven by the need
> to show a profit. That is what Marxists mean when they use the term
> capitalism. What addled Cliffites like you decide to call capitalism
What a mess, does anyone know what Proyect is talking about?
> is entirely your privilege. It is far more important that
> revolutionaries and their adversaries in the ruling class understand
> by the term. Both I and George Tenet understand that there is no such
> thing as capitalism in Cuba, except for the tourist hotels that have
> been let in begrudgingly by the Cuban government. If you want to
> believe that state-owned sugar farms that provide guaranteed
> employment, free health care, day care centers and a whole range of
> social services are operated on the same economic principles as United
> Fruit Company plantations in Honduras, why let me stop you. The guy in
> the next cubicle from me is a scientologist and I wouldn't waste much
> time trying to convince him that this was horseshit.
>
> >Lying shitbag: you are impressed that North Korean thug rulers built
> >nuclear weapons instead of feeding the population.
>
> Oooh, aren't we so angry that North Korea wasted money on nuclear
> weapons. The Marxists here understand that this is the main thing that
> would stave off a "regime change".
This is the same logic used by Beria, Kaganovich, and Yagoda in the
1930s. Stalinist thugs know what's best for the workers, even if they
had to kill a few million in the process, so what?
>Of course, since you don't know the
> difference between a capitalist society and one that has abolished
> capitalism, this distinction is utterly lost on you.
Assertion. Again, why is North Korean Stalinism more progressive than
capitalism? Saying it's better because it's better isn't an argument.
Do workers benifit materially, is the system inherently more dynamic
than private capitalism (Trotsky's position which obviously you cannot
slap as a "copybook label" as Trotsky warned because it doesn't fit).
Warning here Proyect, you have to actually think for yourself instead
of cutting and pasting 40 year-old SWP rhetoric...
>
> >OK, here's how it works Louis. On planet earth most people have social
> >relations with other humans: friends, aquaintences, fellow workers,
> >and so. Even those who work in cubicles occaisonally venture out to
> >interact with their workmates. By not speaking with your fellow
> >workers, you are only reinforcing your deranged fantasies about
> >Stalinism.
>
> Really? I know for a fact that all of them are die-hard Rush Limbaugh
> fans.
Typical. Stalinists now assume their total isolation from workers is
because workers are all reactionary scum. What complete dishonesty.
The ISO has meetings at Columbia University that draw 50 or more, some
office workers included.
Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>Actually I've explained your SWP failures during the Vietnam War.
I have no interest in defending the SWP, if you hadn't noticed.
>You can't drag Trotsky's name through the mud with this stupidity.
>Trotsky's position changed many times. You cut out the reference to
>Boradai in which you schematic copy-book approach is not even
>mentioned. Again, how do North Korean workers benefit materially from
>Stalinism, does the system outperform private capitalism?
Excuse me? Stalin's Russia was far more brutal than North Korea, but
Trotsky defended it as a workers state. I am simply trying to apply
this basic methodology to North Korea, using the data found in
Hart-Landsberg's study. Since you have never read anything about North
Korea, it is difficult to have an intelligent conversation with you.
Why do you enjoy flaunting your ignorance like a peacock its feathers?
>What a mess, does anyone know what Proyect is talking about?
Of course they do. Most people who take part in a Trotsky newsgroup
can make elementary class distinctions. They understand that
capitalism can have a parliamentary system with extensive welfare
state provisions. It can also look like Pinochet's Chile. But in
either case, we are dealing with capitalism. The same thing is true of
countries that have abolished capitalism. They can either be tyrannies
like Romania or they can be relatively democratic like Tito's
Yugoslavia or Cuba. Since all these distinctions are lost on an
ignorant anti-Communist like you, I suppose that it is a waste of time
to make them. Maybe you can get a brain transplant one of these days.
That might help.
>This is the same logic used by Beria, Kaganovich, and Yagoda in the
>1930s. Stalinist thugs know what's best for the workers, even if they
>had to kill a few million in the process, so what?
What does this have to do with the need of a country under threat from
the USA to arm itself adequately. Your "principles" against nuclear
arms and the death penalty are what one might hear from a Mother Jones
subscriber, not a revolutionary socialist.
>Assertion. Again, why is North Korean Stalinism more progressive than
>capitalism? Saying it's better because it's better isn't an argument.
Stalinism is not more progressive. A planned economy and all the
other economic features associated with October 1917 are. The
bureaucracy is a parasite on the underlying socialized property
relations, but that does not invalidate the principles upon which the
economy is organized. Despite the ravages of civil war, Stalinist
repression and WWII, the USSR was able to achieve impressive social
and economic gains. It is a testament not to Stalinism, but to a
planned economy and to nationalization of the means of production.
North Korea's difficulties are attributable to economic isolation not
to the way that the economy is organized. Any country that lost its
major trading partner and that was the target of US hostility would
suffer whether it was a postcapitalist society or in a process
evolving toward that. Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique and Grenada were
all tormented by the combined power of the dollar and the CIA. It is
easy for most radicals to grasp this but I can understand why
CNN-addicted liberals like yourself would not.
>Do workers benifit materially, is the system inherently more dynamic
>than private capitalism (Trotsky's position which obviously you cannot
>slap as a "copybook label" as Trotsky warned because it doesn't fit).
>Warning here Proyect, you have to actually think for yourself instead
>of cutting and pasting 40 year-old SWP rhetoric...
What are you asking me to do? Compare North Korea and South Korea like
a Coke and Pepsi taste test? Or whether a Honda gets more mileage and
needs less repairs than a Toyota? This is just the stupidest thing
I've ever heard. Let me just put it this way. If the entire world had
gone socialist and the only two countries in the world that were
trying to build capitalism were Jamaica and South Korea, how would
they compare to Cuba and North Korea? To even pose the question is to
show how ridiculous it is. In fact you are ridiculous.
>Typical. Stalinists now assume their total isolation from workers is
>because workers are all reactionary scum.
Not all workers are "reactionary scum", but the people I am surrounded
by are not typical workers. They make $75,000 per year and are highly
qualified network engineers. They are all also die-hard libertarians.
But as I point out, their hostility to North Korea or Cuba is only
matched by your own..
Abel Aravidze
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
^A. G. Phillbin <agfilbi...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<os4ghv4ppos9s9r31...@4ax.com>...
^> On 18 Jul 2003 03:19:19 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
^> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
^>
^>
^>
^> ^Marxists are against nuclear weapons you Stalinist idiot.
^>
^> Why would Marxists be against nuclear weapons? Do they prevent the
^> economy from being collectivized, or prevent the workers from
^> controlling the collectivized economy? What is it about nuclear
^> weapons that you believe Marxists should oppose?
^
^Wow, tough question there A.G...Hmm, why on earth would socialists be
^against a nuclear holocaust that would end life on planet earth? Wow,
^that's a real chin scratcher there AG...you got me.
Childish, Kevin, even for you, and that's going some. I didn't ask you
if nukes were lethal. I asked you what is "anti-socialist" about them.
A capitalist could be against nukes for the exact same reason you
gave. After all, how do you make a profit if all the workers and
consumers are dead? Nor did I ask you whether a "nuclear holocaust"
would be a good idea. I asked, by implication only (too subtle for
you), if you believe that it is always a bad idea for a (hypothetical)
workers state to posess nukes. Or, to put it more directly, how does
the mere posession of a nuclear weapon prevent the development of
socialism? Note, I said "posession," not the launch of a full nuclear
arsenal.
^
^OK, I have to admit that after reading Louis Proyect's brilliant
^advocacy of the starving workers' nuclear bomb and watching Terminator
^III, I'm starting to get fantasies about a nuclear nightmare scenario
^that would not have a happy ending.
Predictably stupid, Kevin. Do you believe, putting aside any
differences on definition, that workers states should use all means to
deter nuclear attack by capitalist states? Or would a workers state
have to be pacifist to meet your definition of a workers state? Or
would they merely have to be pacifist in regards to nuclear weapons?
^OK A.G., let me think about that
^one for a while and get back to you...In the mean time, why don't you
^describe a scenario where deranged workers' state would fire off
^nuclear weapons and explain how this would benefit the workers of the
^world?
Let me give you a more intelligent scenario. A hypothetical workers
state has it's very existence threatened by an imperialist state,
which already posesses nukes. In order to prevent the imperialist
state from blowing the workers state to smithereens, the hypothetical
workers state decides to build it's own nukes, so that the imperialist
state won't destroy them with a push of a few buttons. Let us further
say, for the sake of argument, that we both agree that said workers
state is indeed a workers state. Should such a state, under conditions
given above, abjure the construction of nuclear weapons on the grounds
that they are "anti-socialist?"
Prove to us that your "socialism" is more than a collection of
placards you keep under the bed, awaitng the day when you will be
called to "demonstrate" against an impending nuclear strike.
^
^Kevin Murphy
^
^
^
^
^> This is of a piece
^> with your "socialists oppose the death penalty" shibboleth that you
^> raised in another debate with Proyect. I asked you why, and your
^> silence spoke volumes. And Proyect, please don't answer for Murphy
^> this time -- let him attempt his own thinking.
^>
^> All you seem to know is a bunch of placard slogans, but none of the
^> background information to judge their relation to reality.
Abel Aravidze
<lnp3@panix_nospam.com> wrote:
^On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 15:40:29 GMT, A. G. Phillbin
^<agfilbi...@pacbell.net> wrote:
^
^
^>And Proyect, please don't answer for Murphy
^>this time -- let him attempt his own thinking.
^
^Why do I think of the Australopithecines and the monolith in Kubrick's
^"2001" when I read this?
Be careful, Louis. Kevin might throw a bone at you.
^
^Louis Proyect, ln...@panix.com
^
^The Marxism mailing list: www.marxmail.org
Abel Aravidze
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
^A. G. Phillbin <agfilbi...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<os4ghv4ppos9s9r31...@4ax.com>...
^> On 18 Jul 2003 03:19:19 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
^> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
^In the mean time, why don't you
^describe a scenario where deranged workers' state would fire off
^nuclear weapons and explain how this would benefit the workers of the
^world?
I have a better idea -- why don't you tell us, in detail, how a
workers state allowing itself to be destroyed by a capitalist state
firing nuclear weapons at it benefits the workers of the world? Or,
more concretely, regardless of whether or not you, Proyect or myself
agree on how to characterize North Korea, how does it help the
"workers of the world" for North Korea to allow itself to be attacked
by an imperialist United States placing it on the "axis of evil" list?
You are aware, are you not, that this is the main reason why North
Korea is developing nuclear weapons? And are you incapable of
understanding that North Korea's posession of nukes is the only reason
the USA is negotiating instead of attacking? Nuclear weapons are
useful to ANY state, socialist or capitalist. Get it now?
Abel Aravidze
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
^Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix_nospam.com> wrote in message news:<pirfhv0c6qt25o3jc...@4ax.com>...
^> On 18 Jul 2003 03:19:19 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
^> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
^> >
^Nuclear weapons can never be used in the interest of the working
^class. A "weapon" is only meaningful if one has the intention to use
^it. For example, if you screamed in my ear at the top of your lungs
^(instead of the internet) about the merits of a brain-damaged workers'
^state--I would tell you to fuck off or I'd flatten you face. This
^would only be a meaningful if I was willing to do it.
BULLSHIT. It would be meaningful if a) Proyect thought you were
willing to do it, and b) if Proyect believed that he would be badly
hurt in the ensuing exchange of blows. This is the same basic
psychology that applies to nuclear weapons, or less deadly military
techniques and tools. Too bad you don't have the subtlety to
comprehend it.
^
^How can nuclear weapons ever be used in the interests of the working
^class?
By preventing the capitalists from flattening a workers state with
their own nukes, or other weapons. How is posession of a gun in the
interest of it's owner?
A. G. Phillbin
A. G. Phillbin
A. G. Phillbin
A. G. Phillbin
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
^
^Kevin Murphy
^
^
^
^
^> This is of a piece
^> with your "socialists oppose the death penalty" shibboleth that you
^> raised in another debate with Proyect. I asked you why, and your
^> silence spoke volumes. And Proyect, please don't answer for Murphy
^> this time -- let him attempt his own thinking.
^>
^> All you seem to know is a bunch of placard slogans, but none of the
^> background information to judge their relation to reality.
kevinmurphy
> On 19 Jul 2003 14:35:17 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
> >Actually I've explained your SWP failures during the Vietnam War.
>
> I have no interest in defending the SWP, if you hadn't noticed.
>
> >You can't drag Trotsky's name through the mud with this stupidity.
> >Trotsky's position changed many times. You cut out the reference to
> >Boradai in which you schematic copy-book approach is not even
> >mentioned. Again, how do North Korean workers benefit materially from
> >Stalinism, does the system outperform private capitalism?
>
> Excuse me? Stalin's Russia was far more brutal than North Korea, but
> Trotsky defended it as a workers state. I am simply trying to apply
> this basic methodology to North Korea, using the data found in
> Hart-Landsberg's study. Since you have never read anything about North
> Korea, it is difficult to have an intelligent conversation with you.
> Why do you enjoy flaunting your ignorance like a peacock its feathers?
Trotsky's basic methodology? Totally dishonest Proyect, though we
suspect he as has never actually read Trotsky systematically. Trotsky
argued:
1. A workers' state can be established only by the working class.
Basic Marxism.
2. That the Soviet economy was more dynamic private capitalism.
3. That the rule of the bureaucracy was extremely temporary and would
lead to either the rule of the working class or capitalism.
4. That workers benefitted materially from the Stalinist system.
Proyect drags Trotsky's name through the mud with this
"postcapitalist" stupidity. Even Proyect's "Concerned Scholar" wrote
about the merits of Stalinism during the period of primitive
accumulation of capital in the 1950s. 2003 versus 1960, see the
difference Proyect?
No one in their right mind would now assert that:
1. North Korean workers participated in the creation of the
"postcapitalist" state.
2. The North Korean economy is more dynamic than the South.
3. That the rule of Kim dynasty (Kim II inhereted the entire regal
state from his father) was "extremely temporary".
4. That hungry North Korean workers benefit materially from Stalinism.
So Proyect, what does your mess have to do with Trotsky or Marxism?
> >What a mess, does anyone know what Proyect is talking about?
>
> Of course they do. Most people who take part in a Trotsky newsgroup
> can make elementary class distinctions. They understand that
> capitalism can have a parliamentary system with extensive welfare
> state provisions. It can also look like Pinochet's Chile. But in
> either case, we are dealing with capitalism. The same thing is true of
> countries that have abolished capitalism.
You might want to read Leon Trotsky on the role of the tsarist state
in "Results and Prospects", the section on state capitalism by Engels
in "Anti-Duhring", or the numerous citations I've posted earlier by
CLR James, Cliff, Harman, Bukharin or Lenin on state capitalism. Every
serious Marxist theoretician in the twentieth century recognized the
role of the state in the process of primitive accumulation of
capital--particularly in underdeveloped countries. That you are
unfamiliar with the basic works of Marxism on this topic is hardly my
fault.
> They can either be tyrannies
> like Romania or they can be relatively democratic like Tito's
> Yugoslavia or Cuba. Since all these distinctions are lost on an
> ignorant anti-Communist like you, I suppose that it is a waste of time
> to make them. Maybe you can get a brain transplant one of these days.
> That might help.
>
> >This is the same logic used by Beria, Kaganovich, and Yagoda in the
> >1930s. Stalinist thugs know what's best for the workers, even if they
> >had to kill a few million in the process, so what?
>
> What does this have to do with the need of a country under threat from
> the USA to arm itself adequately.
The Marxists in South Korean focus their agitation against the US and
have been arrested for treason for doing so. However, they are not
advocates of the "nuclear workers' bomb"--and have no illusions in
North Korean Stalinism. Proyect mimics the rhetoric of the North
Korean ruling class and claim they represent "the people" of North
Korea. This methodology is completely Stalinist. Proyect cannot
distinguish between the North Korean rulers who advocate the
starvation and workers bomb versus those who actually starved. To
Proyect they are all "the people". Louis, perhaps the first page of
the Communist Manifesto will help you comprehend the difference:
"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,
guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed,
stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time
ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large,
or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
> Your "principles" against nuclear
> arms and the death penalty are what one might hear from a Mother Jones
> subscriber, not a revolutionary socialist.
>
> >Assertion. Again, why is North Korean Stalinism more progressive than
> >capitalism? Saying it's better because it's better isn't an argument.
>
> Stalinism is not more progressive. A planned economy and all the
> other economic features associated with October 1917 are.
So "postcapitalism" in now NOT more progressive than capitalism. What
a mess...
> The
> bureaucracy is a parasite on the underlying socialized property
> relations, but that does not invalidate the principles upon which the
> economy is organized. Despite the ravages of civil war, Stalinist
> repression and WWII, the USSR was able to achieve impressive social
> and economic gains. It is a testament not to Stalinism, but to a
> planned economy and to nationalization of the means of production.
> North Korea's difficulties are attributable to economic isolation not
> to the way that the economy is organized. Any country that lost its
> major trading partner and that was the target of US hostility would
> suffer whether it was a postcapitalist society or in a process
> evolving toward that. Nicaragua, Angola, Mozambique and Grenada were
> all tormented by the combined power of the dollar and the CIA. It is
> easy for most radicals to grasp this but I can understand why
> CNN-addicted liberals like yourself would not.
>
> >Do workers benifit materially, is the system inherently more dynamic
> >than private capitalism (Trotsky's position which obviously you cannot
> >slap as a "copybook label" as Trotsky warned because it doesn't fit).
> >Warning here Proyect, you have to actually think for yourself instead
> >of cutting and pasting 40 year-old SWP rhetoric...
>
> What are you asking me to do? Compare North Korea and South Korea like
> a Coke and Pepsi taste test?
Let's see, you barge into a Trotskyist NG and claim North Korea is
some sort of "postcapitalist" society. You should be able to explain
this in a comparative context. You cannot because your whacky
assertion is complete rubbish. Only a dinosaur Stalinist would ever
argue this crap.
If you came around a socialist meeting and claimed Kim II represented
"the people" of North Korea and investing in the nuclear "workers'
bomb" was more important than the basic necessities of life, the
argument would NOT be "How do we convince this nutcase about the
basics of Marxism?" The argument would be "How do we get this whacko
away from us?"
No one under the age of 30 who comes around Marxism today shares
Proyects illusions in Stalinism. No one.
> Or whether a Honda gets more mileage and
> needs less repairs than a Toyota? This is just the stupidest thing
> I've ever heard. Let me just put it this way. If the entire world had
> gone socialist and the only two countries in the world that were
> trying to build capitalism were Jamaica and South Korea, how would
> they compare to Cuba and North Korea? To even pose the question is to
> show how ridiculous it is. In fact you are ridiculous.
>
> >Typical. Stalinists now assume their total isolation from workers is
> >because workers are all reactionary scum.
>
> Not all workers are "reactionary scum", but the people I am surrounded
> by are not typical workers. They make $75,000 per year and are highly
> qualified network engineers. They are all also die-hard libertarians.
> But as I point out, their hostility to North Korea or Cuba is only
> matched by your own..
Again, plenty of people at Columbia University interested in Marxism,
the large ISO meetings prove that. Those interested in North Korean
Stalinism as an example of "postcapitalism": one, Stalinist dinosaur
Louis Proyect. Imminent extinction--that is what explains your rage
Louis.
Kevin Murphy
Stephen Diamond
kevinmu...@hotmail.com (kevinmurphy) wrote:
> However, they are not
> advocates of the "nuclear workers' bomb"
Who worries about the N. Korean bomb? Why, the Cliffites and G.W. Bush.
srd
Louis N Proyect
> 1. A workers' state can be established only by the working class.
> Basic Marxism.
So what is your point? By 1930 or so, the USSR was not a workers state any
longer, according to your definition. So Trotsky was "wrong" to describe
the USSR in this fashion when he wrote "Revolution Betrayed". I'll take
Trotsky's "wrong" analysis over your state-capitalist nonsense any day of
the week. He actually made mincemeat out of the state-capitalist
"analysis" in Revolution Betrayed, as I am sure you are aware.
> 2. That the Soviet economy was more dynamic private capitalism.
The USSR was a huge country with some of the greatest mineral, petroleum
and agricultural resources in the world. North Korea, by comparison, is
plagued by drought, scarce petroleum resources (hence the drive to use
nuclear power) and other natural barriers to dynamic growth. If the
workers seized power in Zambia with its arid soil and exhausted copper
mines, the economy would not be more dynamic than neighboring South
Africa. Why do I have to explain the abc's of capital accumulation to this
nitwit?
> 3. That the rule of the bureaucracy was extremely temporary and would
> lead to either the rule of the working class or capitalism.
He was right in the long run.
> 4. That workers benefitted materially from the Stalinist system.
He was talking about the USSR, not generalizing how all countries would
fare after a socialist revolution. North Korea and Cuba are having
economic difficulties because the USSR disappeared and because the USA is
conducting economic warfare. The fact that this doesn't enter your
thinking is interesting. No, I take that back. What's interesting is that
you seem to lack the ability to think.
> "postcapitalist" stupidity. Even Proyect's "Concerned Scholar" wrote
> about the merits of Stalinism during the period of primitive
> accumulation of capital in the 1950s. 2003 versus 1960, see the
> difference Proyect?
Yes, the USSR collapsed. Any fool can see this.
> No one in their right mind would now assert that:
> 1. North Korean workers participated in the creation of the
> "postcapitalist" state.
Did you hear this on CNN? When in your miserable life did you ever read
scholarly literature on North Korea? North Korea did in fact have powerful
revolutionary struggles of both peasants and workers--unlike much of
Stalinist East Europe. Go read something, you stupidhead.
>
> You might want to read Leon Trotsky on the role of the tsarist state
> in "Results and Prospects", the section on state capitalism by Engels
> in "Anti-Duhring", or the numerous citations I've posted earlier by
> CLR James, Cliff, Harman, Bukharin or Lenin on state capitalism. Every
> serious Marxist theoretician in the twentieth century recognized the
> role of the state in the process of primitive accumulation of
> capital--particularly in underdeveloped countries. That you are
> unfamiliar with the basic works of Marxism on this topic is hardly my
> fault.
Your numerous citations? Don't make me laugh. All you do is Stalin-bait
and denounce nuclear weapons being used by countries under direct threat
by the USA, or the death penalty as some kind of "principle". Furthermore,
CLR James was very positive about Cuba, if you weren't aware of this--as
I am sure you weren't.
> The Marxists in South Korean focus their agitation against the US and
> have been arrested for treason for doing so. However, they are not
> advocates of the "nuclear workers' bomb"--and have no illusions in
> North Korean Stalinism.
I have no illusions in Stalinism either. I do, however, understand that
capitalism was eliminated root and branch in the North. Marxists advocate
retention of the planned economy, state-owned property and a monopoly on
foreign trade, whoever is in the government. Your failure to make
elementary class distinctions on the basis of property relations indicates
an utter lack of familiarity with the abc's of Marxism. Unfortunately, the
CIA is all too aware that private property is non-existent in the North.
> "Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,
> guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed,
> stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
> uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time
> ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large,
> or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
How is reading this going to break the US economic campaign against North
Korea? Words alone cannot change the world. It takes action. You are for
"socialism" in the abstract, but refuse to take sides when the USA
threatens a country that dared to break with capitalism. If Max
Shachtman's state-department socialism was tragedy, you are farce.
>
> Let's see, you barge into a Trotskyist NG and claim North Korea is some
> sort of "postcapitalist" society. You should be able to explain this in
> a comparative context. You cannot because your whacky assertion is
> complete rubbish. Only a dinosaur Stalinist would ever argue this crap.
Actually, my position on North Korea is exactly the same as any Trotskyist
in the world. It is not my fault that you find this unacceptable. Maybe yo
should start a "state capitalist" newsgroup.
Einde O'Callaghan
others are leftist or radical academic journals. The standard of
analysis in both Monthly Review and Against the Current is as rigorous
as that in any academic journal.
Einde O'Callaghan
Bert Byfield
>and agricultural resources in the world. North Korea, by comparison, is
>plagued by drought, scarce petroleum resources (hence the drive to use
>nuclear power) and other natural barriers to dynamic growth. If the
They have no shortage of economic excuses, though.
Einde O'Callaghan
> On Sun, 20 Jul 2003, kevinmurphy wrote:
>
>>1. A workers' state can be established only by the working class.
>>Basic Marxism.
>
>
> So what is your point? By 1930 or so, the USSR was not a workers state any
> longer, according to your definition. So Trotsky was "wrong" to describe
> the USSR in this fashion when he wrote "Revolution Betrayed". I'll take
> Trotsky's "wrong" analysis over your state-capitalist nonsense any day of
> the week. He actually made mincemeat out of the state-capitalist
> "analysis" in Revolution Betrayed, as I am sure you are aware.
>
pages in Revolution Betrayed, two of which are devoted to distinguishing
the Soviet system from capitalist etat-ism. The culmination of his
critique of the idea of state capitalism is the second paragraph, which
I quote in full:
"Theoretically, to be sure, it is possible to conceive a situation in
which the bourgeoisie as a whole constitutes itself a stock company
which, by means of its state, administers the whole national economy.
The economic laws of such a regime would present no mysteries. A single
capitalist, as is well known, receives in the form of profit, not that
part of the surplus value which is directly created by the workers of
his own enterprise, but a share of the combined surplus value created
throughout the country proportionate to the amount of his own capital.
Under an integral "state capitalism", this law of the equal rate of
profit would be realized, not by devious routes—that is, competition
among different capitals—but immediately and directly through state
bookkeeping. Such a regime never existed, however, and, because of
profound contradictions among the proprietors themselves, never will
exist—the more so since, in its quality of universal repository of
capitalist property, the state would be too tempting an object for
social revolution."
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/ch09.htm#ch09-1)
This doesn't look like mincemeat to me. He states here "Such a regime
never existed, however, and, because of profound contradictions among
the proprietors themselves, never will exist ..." There is of course one
possibility he ignores, i.e. the situation where a capitalist class has
been annihilated by revolution (or perhaps by war) and where the state
becomes the repositiory of all capital while the revolution is defeated.
This is of course what happened in Russia - the indigenous capitalist
class (and their imperialist allies) were unable to destroy the
revolution from without, but the working class, the social basis of teh
revolution, was almost destroyed in the process - the state bureuacracy
then usurped the control of the prostrate working class and in the
course of the following decade became conscious of its independent
social role and destroyed all potential competitors - the rural
capitalists (kulaks) through collectivisation, the urban petty
capitalists (the NEPmen) and the renascent working class through forced
industrialisation.
That Trotsky didn't recofgnise this absolutely new phenomenon
immediately isn't any disservice to his memory. However, he did
recognise that if Stalinism survived the coming war his analysis would
be called into question, cf., for example "The USSR in War" (part of "In
Defence of Marxism" which contains the following passage, among several
others that are relevant to this question:
"The second imperialist war poses the unsolved task on a higher
historical stage. It tests anew not only the stability of the existing
regimes but also the ability of the proletariat to replace them. The
results of this test will undoubtedly have a decisive significance for
our appraisal of the modern epoch as the epoch of proletarian
revolution. If contrary to all probabilities the October Revolution
fails during the course of the present war, or immediately thereafter,
to find its continuation in any of the advanced countries; and if, on
the contrary, the proletariat is thrown back everywhere and on all
fronts - then we should doubtlessly have to pose the question of
revising our conception of the present epoch and its driving forces. In
that case it would be a question not of slapping a copybook label on the
USSR or the Stalinist gang but of re-evaluating the world historical
perspective for the next decades if not centuries: Have we entered the
epoch of social revolution and socialist society, or on the contrary the
epoch of the declining society of totalitarian bureaucracy?"
(http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1942-dm/ch01.htm)
Precisely this scenario is what happened - in case you haven't noticed
there wasn't a proletarian revolution in any advanced capitalist country
after the Second World War. Some sections of the Trotskyist movement
refused to admit this at first, e.g. James P. Cannon's notorious comment
in november 1945 that the war was obvously not over because Trotsky's
prognosis hadn't been fulfilled.
In an attempt to come to grips with this situation some held on to the
old orthodoxy, e.g. the 1948 World Congress of the FI held that Russia
remained a workers' state whereas the Eastern European "people's
democracies" remained capitalist states, only to revise their position
without any real discussion within a few months and decide that the
Eastern European states were after all "deformed workers' states".
Others, including Tony Cliff, CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya, came to
the concludsion that a more profound re-appraisal was necessary and came
to the conclusion that the workers' state thesis was untenable and
proposed that a better understanding of teh dynamic could be reached by
analysing the Soviet Union and the "buffer states" as being a form of
state capitalism - their theories are not identical.
They may have been wrong, but so too was Trotsky. Trotsky actually said
in "In Defgence of Marxism" that if the SU survived the war his theory
was refuted. It isn't very plausible to quote Trotsky talking about the
Soviet Union in 1936 to prove that North Korea (a different country, in
case you hadn't noticed) in 2003 is some form of workers state.
>
<snip>
>
>>3. That the rule of the bureaucracy was extremely temporary and would
>>lead to either the rule of the working class or capitalism.
>
>
> He was right in the long run.
>
Unfortunately, Trotsky was talking about the short term. He predicted
that the Stalinist regime wouldn't be able to survive the War. As we
know the system came out of the War greatly strengthened and within half
a decade had spread to cover "the socialist sixth of the world" - to
quote the old Stalinist propaganda - containing about a quarrter of the
world population. It is normal practice to revise predictions when they
are proven wrong.
Einde O'Callaghan
Louis Proyect
<einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote:
>Louis N Proyect wrote:
>
>They may have been wrong, but so too was Trotsky. Trotsky actually said
>in "In Defgence of Marxism" that if the SU survived the war his theory
>was refuted. It isn't very plausible to quote Trotsky talking about the
>Soviet Union in 1936 to prove that North Korea (a different country, in
>case you hadn't noticed) in 2003 is some form of workers state.
Frankly, if I gave the impression that Trotsky was the last word on
these questions, it was not my intention. I prefer to read the kinds
of scholarly radical literature found in Bulletin of Concerned Asian
Scholars, Latin American Perspectives, Monthly Review, etc.
Unfortunately, both the organized Trotskyist movement as well as the
Cliffite movement breed dogmatism and intellectual complacency.
John Holmes
"Einde O'Callaghan" <einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote in message
news:bff1me$dv0lc$1...@ID-93601.news.uni-berlin.de...
...
> Trotsky made "mincemeat" of a strawman in three - yes, only three -
> pages in Revolution Betrayed, two of which are devoted to distinguishing
> the Soviet system from capitalist etat-ism. The culmination of his
> critique of the idea of state capitalism is the second paragraph, which
> I quote in full:
He dealt at greater length with the concept elsewhere, as I'm sure
you know. He didn't bother dealing with it at any great length in
his major work on the USSR because the idea is essentially silly, to
anyone who has any real familiarity with the Soviet Union.
In fact, the whole book, by describing what the USSR was in 1936,
was one long refutation of "state capitalism."
Asserting that the Soviet Union under Stalin was capitalist is essentially
the equivalent of asserting that the earth is flat. No actual capitalists
ever,
under any circumstances, had the illusion that the Soviet Union was their
kind of state.
"State capitalism" is a sectarian, semi-religious nostrum,
adopted by would-be Marxists who cannot otherwise figure
out how to match ugly Soviet reality to their abstract theories,
and terribly convenient as an excuse for not defending it against
their own capitalist classes, often an unpopular and dangerous
thing to do.
>
> "Theoretically, to be sure, it is possible to conceive a situation in
> which the bourgeoisie as a whole constitutes itself a stock company
> which, by means of its state, administers the whole national economy.
> The economic laws of such a regime would present no mysteries. A single
> capitalist, as is well known, receives in the form of profit, not that
> part of the surplus value which is directly created by the workers of
> his own enterprise, but a share of the combined surplus value created
> throughout the country proportionate to the amount of his own capital.
> Under an integral "state capitalism", this law of the equal rate of
> profit would be realized, not by devious routes葉hat is, competition
> among different capitals傭ut immediately and directly through state
> bookkeeping. Such a regime never existed, however, and, because of
> profound contradictions among the proprietors themselves, never will
> exist葉he more so since, in its quality of universal repository of
> capitalist property, the state would be too tempting an object for
> social revolution."
> (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/ch09.htm#ch09-1)
>
> This doesn't look like mincemeat to me. He states here "Such a regime
> never existed, however, and, because of profound contradictions among
> the proprietors themselves, never will exist ..." There is of course one
> possibility he ignores, i.e. the situation where a capitalist class has
> been annihilated by revolution (or perhaps by war) and where the state
> becomes the repositiory of all capital while the revolution is defeated.
That's a fairly good description of what much of the world, especially
the Third World, looked like after World War II, except for the part
about revolution being defeated.
And in fact, you did have "state capitalist" regimes in places like Syria,
much of Africa, Burma (Tony Cliff's favorite example) and notably Iraq.
Such states obviously were intent on constructing private capitalism and
a capitalist class, would-be capitalists to be found in the state hierarchy.
As soon as convenient, the "Marxist" rhetoric these governments sometimes
used was dropped, especially after the Soviet sugar daddy collapsed.
That the Cliffites can't tell the difference between regimes like that and
places like China, Cuba, Vietnam and N. Korea demonstrates that
"Cliffism" is worthless for understanding the real world.
> This is of course what happened in Russia - the indigenous capitalist
> class (and their imperialist allies) were unable to destroy the
> revolution from without, but the working class, the social basis of teh
> revolution, was almost destroyed in the process - the state bureuacracy
> then usurped the control of the prostrate working class and in the
> course of the following decade became conscious of its independent
> social role and destroyed all potential competitors - the rural
> capitalists (kulaks) through collectivisation, the urban petty
> capitalists (the NEPmen) and the renascent working class through forced
> industrialisation.
Destroyed? Under the Czar, the working class was 6 million strong,
a tiny minority of the population. Under Stalinism, the working class
became the sociologically-dominant class of society. By the time of
Brezhnev, virtually all top officials, starting of course with Brezhnev
himself, got their start as factory workers. The Brezhnev Politburo
was the most "proletarian" by social origin ruling body in the history
of the world -- far more than in Lenin's time, by the way. And auto
workers were better paid than doctors.
Probably something like a quarter of the Soviet workers who managed
to survive the Civil War became government officials. And under Stalin,
the middle-class-by-origin revolutionary intellectuals of Lenin's time were
exterminated and replaced with Stalin-worshipping upwardly mobile
factory workers, disinterested in revolution but very interested in the
better things in life.
Anyone who hasn't met such people in their daily lives doesn't get
out much, and should spend less time on the Internet.
If that ain't "proletarian dictatorship," what is?
Indeed, the biggest social grievance of the "dissidents" was the fact that
intellectuals like them weren't better paid than ordinary workers.
Of course, Brezhnev-style "working class consciousness" had much
more in common with Archie Bunker than socialist values. But that's
another story.
>
> That Trotsky didn't recofgnise this absolutely new phenomenon
> immediately isn't any disservice to his memory. However, he did
> recognise that if Stalinism survived the coming war his analysis would
> be called into question, cf., for example "The USSR in War" (part of "In
> Defence of Marxism" which contains the following passage, among several
> others that are relevant to this question:
>
> "The second imperialist war poses the unsolved task on a higher
> historical stage. It tests anew not only the stability of the existing
> regimes but also the ability of the proletariat to replace them. The
> results of this test will undoubtedly have a decisive significance for
> our appraisal of the modern epoch as the epoch of proletarian
> revolution. If contrary to all probabilities the October Revolution
> fails during the course of the present war, or immediately thereafter,
> to find its continuation in any of the advanced countries; and if, on
> the contrary, the proletariat is thrown back everywhere and on all
> fronts - then we should doubtlessly have to pose the question of
> revising our conception of the present epoch and its driving forces.
But the proletariat wasn't thrown back on every front after WWII,
quite the contrary. The Soviet Army defeated Nazism (not proletarian
revolution, as Trotsky had hoped). World imperialism was tremendously
shaken, and revolution swept much of the world. And even in America
and England, there was a big outburst of working-class militancy, which
compelled sweeping concessions.
Unfortunately, the dominant role of Stalinism in the world workers movement,
tremendously reinforced by the Soviet victory over Hitler, channeled that
tremendous revolutionary movement into an expansion of Stalinism, except
in the imperialist country which actually won WWII and became the
master of the world, namely America.
(I suppose you could consider England a victor in WWII, sort of.
Churchill had his doubts.)
Despite Deutscher, it should be remembered that Trotsky was a Marxist
theorist and activist, not a prophet. He did not foresee the USSR, almost
singlehandedly, defeating Nazism. Had he been still alive after the battle
of Stalingrad, he certainly would have revised some of his perspectives.
Unfortunately, his epigones in the FI were unable to. They divided into
two camps: the "orthodox Trotskyists" (Cannon, Healy) who attempted
to maintain Trotsky's positions of 1940 into a much-changed postwar
world, and the "revisionists" (Pablo primarily) who recognized the
world was a changed place, but used this as an excuse to opportunistically
adapt to Stalinism.
This became incredibly clear after the Cuban Revolution, where, in the
entire world, only one grouping claiming the mantle of "orthodox
Trotskyism,"
the Spartacist League, was able to figure out the elementary point that the
Castro regime was essentially similar to the Soviet regime, something just
about all other human beings outside of the "Trotskyist movement" with some
knowledge of Cuba and capable of rational thought were aware of.
> In
> that case it would be a question not of slapping a copybook label on the
> USSR or the Stalinist gang but of re-evaluating the world historical
> perspective for the next decades if not centuries: Have we entered the
> epoch of social revolution and socialist society, or on the contrary the
> epoch of the declining society of totalitarian bureaucracy?"
> (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1942-dm/ch01.htm)
>
The theoretical possibility he is imagining here is the one Burnham and
Shachtman based their program on, namely, the Hitler-Stalin pact
as a basis for a "totalitarian" world, with Hitler and Stalin amically
dividing up Europe as the new world order. If that had happened,
then any surviving Marxist theorists would have had to think
about Trotsky's question. Of course, no such thing was possible,
precisely because Trotsky's analysis of Stalinism was correct.
Nazism and the USSR were irreconcilable enemies, which is why Hitler
invaded the USSR. He, in his own way, understood the class nature
of the Soviet Union much better than Tony Cliff did.
Narrow-minded military historians treat that as Hitler's great mistake.
It was no mistake, destroying Communism was what Nazism was
all about. Jews were just a substitute. It is no coincidence, after
all, that the Holocaust began the day Nazi troops stepped on
Soviet soil.
> Precisely this scenario is what happened - in case you haven't noticed
> there wasn't a proletarian revolution in any advanced capitalist country
> after the Second World War. Some sections of the Trotskyist movement
> refused to admit this at first, e.g. James P. Cannon's notorious comment
> in november 1945 that the war was obvously not over because Trotsky's
> prognosis hadn't been fulfilled.
See above.
>
> In an attempt to come to grips with this situation some held on to the
> old orthodoxy, e.g. the 1948 World Congress of the FI held that Russia
> remained a workers' state whereas the Eastern European "people's
> democracies" remained capitalist states, only to revise their position
> without any real discussion within a few months and decide that the
> Eastern European states were after all "deformed workers' states".
Ditto. They were obviously right the second time, though their theoretical
explanations of this were indeed a bit on the feeble side. The head of the
FI,
Michel Pablo, then started waxing "theoretical," with unfortunate
consequences. I believe the 1948 position is actually still upheld
by the LO in France.
>
> Others, including Tony Cliff, CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya, came to
> the concludsion that a more profound re-appraisal was necessary and came
> to the conclusion that the workers' state thesis was untenable and
> proposed that a better understanding of teh dynamic could be reached by
> analysing the Soviet Union and the "buffer states" as being a form of
> state capitalism - their theories are not identical.
This started, I think, with an ultraleft Spaniard named Munis who was close
friends with Trotsky's widow. Ultralefts, and cloud-dwellers like
Dunayevskaya
and interesting eccentrics like CLR, can get by just fine with theories that
don't
match reality very well.
The perfect example of this is the classic ultralefts, the Bordigaists. I
haven't
read Amadeo Bordiga's book on the Soviet Union, but a friend of mine that
has told me that his version of "state capitalism" was very simple. If you'd
dug
up the floorboards at the Kremlin, you'd have found where the Soviet
capitalists
hid their stocks and bonds, and get to see the Soviet version of Wall
Street,
complete with ticker tape.
Practical politicians, e.g. Tony Cliff, will only stick with bizarre
theories like
that if they are practically useful. And, being that the basic doctrine
of the British Labor Party since the days of Karl Kautsky et.al. has been
that
the Soviet Union is "state capitalist," the practical utility is obvious.
>
> They may have been wrong, but so too was Trotsky. Trotsky actually said
> in "In Defgence of Marxism" that if the SU survived the war his theory
> was refuted.
I think he left himself some out clauses. But hey, nobody's perfect.
Anyways,
I've dealt with this above.
> It isn't very plausible to quote Trotsky talking about the
> Soviet Union in 1936 to prove that North Korea (a different country, in
> case you hadn't noticed) in 2003 is some form of workers state.
>
Yes, but it's sociologically very similar. And politically, for that matter.
In fact, if there's any state on earth that resembles the USSR circa 1936
to a T, it's obviously North Korea (Proyect claims that N. Korea is
much nicer than the USSR under than Stalin, but that's because he's more
than a bit of a Stalinist himself, just not the Moscow brand).
> >
> <snip>
> >
> >>3. That the rule of the bureaucracy was extremely temporary and would
> >>lead to either the rule of the working class or capitalism.
> >
> >
> > He was right in the long run.
> >
> Unfortunately, Trotsky was talking about the short term. He predicted
> that the Stalinist regime wouldn't be able to survive the War. As we
> know the system came out of the War greatly strengthened and within half
> a decade had spread to cover "the socialist sixth of the world" - to
> quote the old Stalinist propaganda - containing about a quarrter of the
> world population. It is normal practice to revise predictions when they
> are proven wrong.
>
> Einde O'Callaghan
>
Why, yes. But in doing so, you don't want to throw out the baby with the
bathwater, as you, and, in various different ways, just about all the world
Trotskyist movement did after WWII.
Trotsky was very worried about his followers doing just that. That's why
there's all that emphasis on getting his followers to learn Marxist
dialectics
in his last writings. Regrettably, the SWP's main "dialectician," John G.
Wright, was the main SWP culprit for the dogmatic, undialectical,
unthinking "Trotskyist orthodoxy" that defined the SWP's declining
years as a revolutionary organization, before it collapsed over Cuba.
-John Holmes-
Louis Proyect
<jdho...@igc.apc.org> wrote:
>
>This became incredibly clear after the Cuban Revolution, where, in the
>entire world, only one grouping claiming the mantle of "orthodox
>Trotskyism,"
>the Spartacist League, was able to figure out the elementary point that the
>Castro regime was essentially similar to the Soviet regime, something just
>about all other human beings outside of the "Trotskyist movement" with some
>knowledge of Cuba and capable of rational thought were aware of.
That should be qualified. The human beings Homes is referring to are
people like Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Irving Howe, Todd Gitlin, Thomas
Friedman and other anti-Communist warriors. For normal people who
marched against the war in Vietnam, joined SDS, subscribed to the
Guardian newspaper, etc.--in other words, the 1960s radicals--this
made no sense at all. If the USSR had sent the Minister of Banking in
1967 to direct a guerrilla insurgency against some client state of the
USA, then one might judge the two governments to be "essentially
similar". Interesting, btw, how the Cuban government is a "regime".
Somebody could write an interesting article for a scholarly journal on
how this term gained currency as a term of stigmatization, while
appearing neutral.
Louis Proyect, ln...@panix.com
The Marxism mailing list: www.marxmail.org
kevinmurphy
> On Sun, 20 Jul 2003, kevinmurphy wrote:
> > 1. A workers' state can be established only by the working class.
> > Basic Marxism.
>
> So what is your point?
The "point" is that you are not a Marxist in any sense of the word.
You believe a military coup in North Korea can establish a
"postcapitalist" society. North Korea currently incarcerates %5 of
their *entire* population in slave labor Gulag camps, over 10% of the
adult population: starvation wages, 18 hour days, attempting to catch
rats with shoes to get some nourishment. This is your idea of
"postcapitalist" society.
> By 1930 or so, the USSR was not a workers state any
> longer, according to your definition. So Trotsky was "wrong" to describe
> the USSR in this fashion when he wrote "Revolution Betrayed". I'll take
> Trotsky's "wrong" analysis over your state-capitalist nonsense any day of
> the week. He actually made mincemeat out of the state-capitalist
> "analysis" in Revolution Betrayed, as I am sure you are aware.
You clearly have not read Leon Trotsky. Prior to 1933, Trotsky's
position of the Soviet Union as workers' state depended on social
relations, that is the degree to which workers had control over their
own state. With the Nazi's coming to power in 1933, (most high school
students know this was 1933-not "1930 or so") Trotsky asserted that
the Soviet Union could not be reformed: either proletariat or
capitalism would rule "within a very short period of time." Again,
read Leon Trotsky, you might learn something.
>
> > 2. That the Soviet economy was more dynamic private capitalism.
>
> The USSR was a huge country with some of the greatest mineral, petroleum
> and agricultural resources in the world. North Korea, by comparison, is
> plagued by drought, scarce petroleum resources (hence the drive to use
> nuclear power) and other natural barriers to dynamic growth. If the
Stalinism declined because of a "natural disaster". Complete rubbish.
North Korea has a military force of 1,000,000, and a slave labor
population that was per capita was only exceeded by the Nazi
occupation in Poland, massive hunger and malnution, all because the
ruling class deems the workers' bomb more important than feeding the
population.
> workers seized power in Zambia with its arid soil and exhausted copper
> mines, the economy would not be more dynamic than neighboring South
> Africa. Why do I have to explain the abc's of capital accumulation to this
> nitwit?
>
> > 3. That the rule of the bureaucracy was extremely temporary and would
> > lead to either the rule of the working class or capitalism.
Again, read Leon Trotsky. He was talking about several months, not a
half century.
>
> He was right in the long run.
>
>
> > 4. That workers benefitted materially from the Stalinist system.
>
> He was talking about the USSR, not generalizing how all countries would
> fare after a socialist revolution.
A socialist revolution? So now the brain-damaged North Korean Gulag
state had a "socialist revolution"?
> North Korea and Cuba are having
> economic difficulties because the USSR disappeared and because the USA is
> conducting economic warfare. The fact that this doesn't enter your
> thinking is interesting. No, I take that back. What's interesting is that
> you seem to lack the ability to think.
>
>
> > "postcapitalist" stupidity. Even Proyect's "Concerned Scholar" wrote
> > about the merits of Stalinism during the period of primitive
> > accumulation of capital in the 1950s. 2003 versus 1960, see the
> > difference Proyect?
>
> Yes, the USSR collapsed. Any fool can see this.
>
> > No one in their right mind would now assert that:
> > 1. North Korean workers participated in the creation of the
> > "postcapitalist" state.
>
> Did you hear this on CNN? When in your miserable life did you ever read
> scholarly literature on North Korea? North Korea did in fact have powerful
> revolutionary struggles of both peasants and workers--unlike much of
> Stalinist East Europe. Go read something, you stupidhead.
This canned US-SWP rhetoric.
> >
> > You might want to read Leon Trotsky on the role of the tsarist state
> > in "Results and Prospects", the section on state capitalism by Engels
> > in "Anti-Duhring", or the numerous citations I've posted earlier by
> > CLR James, Cliff, Harman, Bukharin or Lenin on state capitalism. Every
> > serious Marxist theoretician in the twentieth century recognized the
> > role of the state in the process of primitive accumulation of
> > capital--particularly in underdeveloped countries. That you are
> > unfamiliar with the basic works of Marxism on this topic is hardly my
> > fault.
>
>
> Your numerous citations?
Do a search of state capitalism, plenty of citations nitwit.
> Don't make me laugh. All you do is Stalin-bait
> and denounce nuclear weapons being used by countries under direct threat
> by the USA, or the death penalty as some kind of "principle". Furthermore,
> CLR James was very positive about Cuba, if you weren't aware of this--as
> I am sure you weren't.
>
>
> > The Marxists in South Korean focus their agitation against the US and
> > have been arrested for treason for doing so. However, they are not
> > advocates of the "nuclear workers' bomb"--and have no illusions in
> > North Korean Stalinism.
>
> I have no illusions in Stalinism either.
Except that they supposedly led "socialist revolution". Read your own
post jerk off.
> I do, however, understand that
> capitalism was eliminated root and branch in the North. Marxists advocate
> retention of the planned economy, state-owned property and a monopoly on
> foreign trade, whoever is in the government. Your failure to make
> elementary class distinctions on the basis of property relations indicates
> an utter lack of familiarity with the abc's of Marxism. Unfortunately, the
> CIA is all too aware that private property is non-existent in the North.
>
> > "Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf,
> > guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed,
> > stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an
> > uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time
> > ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large,
> > or in the common ruin of the contending classes."
>
> How is reading this going to break the US economic campaign against North
If you could comprehend that sentence, you would not assert that Kim
II represented "the people" of North Korea. Work on that sentence and
we might get to page 2 of the Communist Manifesto.
> Korea? Words alone cannot change the world. It takes action. You are for
> "socialism" in the abstract, but refuse to take sides when the USA
> threatens a country that dared to break with capitalism. If Max
>
> Shachtman's state-department socialism was tragedy, you are farce.
>
> >
> > Let's see, you barge into a Trotskyist NG and claim North Korea is some
> > sort of "postcapitalist" society. You should be able to explain this in
> > a comparative context. You cannot because your whacky assertion is
> > complete rubbish. Only a dinosaur Stalinist would ever argue this crap.
>
> Actually, my position on North Korea is exactly the same as any Trotskyist
> in the world.
No, most Trotskyist are ashamed of their loopy former position and are
quiet about it. You bark at the top of your lungs about the wonders of
a starving workers state and do so only on the internet. Organize a
meeting at Columbia if you are really so impressed with North Korean
Stalinism. Oh, that's right--you only "play" Stalinist dirtbag on the
internet...
kevinmurphy
> "Einde O'Callaghan" <einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote in message
> news:bff1me$dv0lc$1...@ID-93601.news.uni-berlin.de...
> ...
> > Trotsky made "mincemeat" of a strawman in three - yes, only three -
> > pages in Revolution Betrayed, two of which are devoted to distinguishing
> > the Soviet system from capitalist etat-ism. The culmination of his
> > critique of the idea of state capitalism is the second paragraph, which
> > I quote in full:
>
> He dealt at greater length with the concept elsewhere, as I'm sure
> you know. He didn't bother dealing with it at any great length in
> his major work on the USSR because the idea is essentially silly, to
> anyone who has any real familiarity with the Soviet Union.
>
> In fact, the whole book, by describing what the USSR was in 1936,
> was one long refutation of "state capitalism."
>
> Asserting that the Soviet Union under Stalin was capitalist is essentially
> the equivalent of asserting that the earth is flat. No actual capitalists
> ever,
> under any circumstances, had the illusion that the Soviet Union was their
> kind of state.
{snip}
Lots of pompous hot air here John but no content. Since Louis Proyect
is such an intellectual coward, why don't you attempt to "slap on the
copybook label" (Trotsky's warning to rote repetition hacks) to North
Korea. Try to explain why North Korean workers who have near
starvation wages, with 10% of the adult population in Gulag slave
labor camps, and whose children roam the streets searching pillaging
for insects is a "workers' state". Do starving North Korean workers
benefit materially from Stalinism, is the shattered North Korean
economy more dynamic than private capitalism, do workers have to play
a role in the creation of workers' state (all positions of Trotsky on
the SU)?
I'm willing to wager that John Holmes is yet another APST fraud who
has absolutely no comprehension of Leon Trotsky's writings and is
completely incapable of mechanically "slapping on the copybook label"
to North Korea. Any takers?
Kevin Murphy
kevinmurphy
Strange from someone has posted nothing recanned rhetoric that he
learned 40 years ago and who thinks the Nazis came to power in 1930.
Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>The "point" is that you are not a Marxist in any sense of the word.
>You believe a military coup in North Korea can establish a
>"postcapitalist" society. North Korea currently incarcerates %5 of
>their *entire* population in slave labor Gulag camps, over 10% of the
>adult population: starvation wages, 18 hour days, attempting to catch
>rats with shoes to get some nourishment. This is your idea of
>"postcapitalist" society.
What is your documentation for North Korean gulags? I am not
questioning that there are such things. I am merely interested to find
out the sort of source material you rely on and to see what other
allegations are made there.
>You clearly have not read Leon Trotsky. Prior to 1933, Trotsky's
>position of the Soviet Union as workers' state depended on social
>relations, that is the degree to which workers had control over their
>own state. With the Nazi's coming to power in 1933, (most high school
>students know this was 1933-not "1930 or so") Trotsky asserted that
>the Soviet Union could not be reformed: either proletariat or
>capitalism would rule "within a very short period of time." Again,
>read Leon Trotsky, you might learn something.
Sorry, I can't keep track of sectarian minutiae about how people like
you (or the Maoists) date the arrival of "capitalism" in the USSR. My
point, however, is quite simple. It is that when Trotsky wrote
"Revolution Betrayed", he was describing a society that had all the
social, political and economic characteristics of North Korea today.
Really quite simple. You don't agree with Trotsky's analysis, but you
are entitled to your own opinion.
>Stalinism declined because of a "natural disaster". Complete rubbish.
>North Korea has a military force of 1,000,000, and a slave labor
>population that was per capita was only exceeded by the Nazi
>occupation in Poland, massive hunger and malnution, all because the
>ruling class deems the workers' bomb more important than feeding the
>population.
If the collapse of the USSR was a "natural disaster", then we agree. I
said, however, that the combination of this basic economic fact plus
an intractable, long-term drought explain North Korea's situation more
than anything else.
>> workers seized power in Zambia with its arid soil and exhausted copper
>> mines, the economy would not be more dynamic than neighboring South
>> Africa. Why do I have to explain the abc's of capital accumulation to this
>> nitwit?
>>
>> > 3. That the rule of the bureaucracy was extremely temporary and would
>> > lead to either the rule of the working class or capitalism.
>
>Again, read Leon Trotsky. He was talking about several months, not a
>half century.
Why do you evade the point I was making about Zambia? Is this a
confession that you cannot answer it? Well, as the psychiatrists say,
this is a sign of progress. Let me repeat the point so that somebody
as untutored and as simple-minded as you can understand it.
Overthrowing capitalism is no guarantee of economic success. It does
not guarantee "dynamic" economic growth. Most countries in the 1980s
that attempted to break with capitalism in one fashion or another were
tortured by low-intensity warfare, economic blockade and political
subversion. Mozambique, Nicaragua, Angola, Burkina Fasso and Grenada
were all victims of the Reagan-era counter-revolutionary crusade. Most
normal people understand that North Korea and Cuba are being
victimized in the same fashion. It is only a liberal pinhead like
yourself that would sweep such evidence under the rug. North Korea
has been the victim of economic sanctions and pressures of all sorts.
To what end? Turn to a June 1, 2003 LA Times article to find out:
---
If North Korea wants to survive, it should look to China to learn how
a failed communist state can reform without collapsing, U.S. Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told Asian defense ministers in a
speech here Saturday...
"Twenty-five years ago, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, China
pointed the way for how a failed communist system can undertake a
process of reform without collapsing," Wolfowitz said. "That is the
course North Korea needs to pursue if it is to avoid the kind of
collapse that is viewed with apprehension throughout the region.
"If North Korea abandons the provocative course on which it is
embarked and ends the wasteful diversion of scarce resources to
military capabilities it does not need and cannot afford, it will find
the door open" to help from other Asia-Pacific nations, Wolfowitz
said.
---
In other words, the USA is putting enormous pressure on North Korea to
adopt capitalism, as China has. Cuba is undergoing the same kinds of
pressure. Everybody in the world understands this. It is only the
state-department socialist Kevin Murphy who does not.
>A socialist revolution? So now the brain-damaged North Korean Gulag
>state had a "socialist revolution"?
You really have no knowledge of the guerrilla movement against
Japanese occupation that was led by the Communist Party, do you? It is
really interesting that you are "intervening" around the question of
North Korean history and politics without ever having read a *single*
book or scholarly article on the subject. Where do you get your
arrogance?
>No, most Trotskyist are ashamed of their loopy former position and are
>quiet about it. You bark at the top of your lungs about the wonders of
>a starving workers state and do so only on the internet. Organize a
>meeting at Columbia if you are really so impressed with North Korean
>Stalinism. Oh, that's right--you only "play" Stalinist dirtbag on the
>internet...
I believe that it is "most Trotskyists".
kevinmurphy
> Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix_nospam.com> wrote:
>
> >Do you get your information on North Korea from Fox TV or from CNN?
> >What would you recommend to apst'ers? We are waiting with bated
> >breath.
>
> You didn't answer this part of Louis's question, Kevin. What sources
> of information about North Korea do you recommend?
Sayan, the ISJ has many articles on the role of the state in modern
capitalism. The IST group in Korea has produced many articles on the
economies of both North and South Korea, you'd have to ask Einde about
that.
You should also check out any human rights web site (Amnesty
International for example). No one (aside from some crackpots here in
APST) would deny that North Korea is one of the most repressive
regime's in the history of the world.
60 Minutes Mike Wallace (one of the most respected news reporters in
the US) did a piece recently on North Korea. North Korea currently has
1 million slave laborers in Gulags (10 % of the adult
population--exceeded by only Nazi Germany's occupation of Poland) who
work 18 hours a day and attempt to catch rats for nourishment.
Estimates of starvation during the 1990s range from 1.5 to 3 million.
The Wallace piece showed emaciated children in orphanages and children
digging in dirt for insects. North Korean women feed their children
rat poison to avoid the painful process of death by starvation. There
was also video of traffic cops directing traffic in Pyongyang even
though there weren't any vehicles. Loud speakers blare the wise words
of Kim II but there is complete blockade of any information from
outside the workers' paradise--except for the ruling class who have
access to the internet and US film videos--nutter Kim II's favorite.
The North Korean "miracle" economy is completely shattered except for
arms production which is geared to supplying the army of 1 million and
the infamous "workers' bombs". 60 minutes showed a satellite image of
the Korean Peninsula: most of the South (and areas in China) lit up
but complete utter darkness in North Korea.
Let's be clear: only some completely loopy Stalinist hacks on the
internet could possibly argue that North Korean represents some step
forward compared to capitalism.
Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
>Strange from someone has posted nothing recanned rhetoric that he
>learned 40 years ago and who thinks the Nazis came to power in 1930.
Murphy, until you answer Sayan's question about what scholarly
references you would recommend to learn about North Korea, a subject
that you have posted thousands of words on at this point, you should
keep your ugly trap shut about what other people read/recommend.
Nothing you have been posting differs from what you can read on David
Horowitz's website. Is that your primary source of information?
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>Sayan, the ISJ has many articles on the role of the state in modern
>capitalism. The IST group in Korea has produced many articles on the
>economies of both North and South Korea, you'd have to ask Einde about
>that.
Oh, I see. As should be clear now, you really have never read anything
on the left that contradicts your dogma. It must help you sleep at
night to keep your mind free of counter-indicative information. Have
you tried sucking your thumb?
>You should also check out any human rights web site (Amnesty
>International for example). No one (aside from some crackpots here in
>APST) would deny that North Korea is one of the most repressive
>regime's in the history of the world.
Amnesty International is not in the business of analyzing class
relations.
>60 Minutes Mike Wallace (one of the most respected news reporters in
>the US)
Says it all... The cat is out of the bag...
Louis Proyect
>the US) did a piece recently on North Korea. North Korea currently has
>1 million slave laborers in Gulags (10 % of the adult
>population--exceeded by only Nazi Germany's occupation of Poland) who
>work 18 hours a day and attempt to catch rats for nourishment.
What a fucking idiot.
If you go to the Sixty Minutes website, you'll find an article about
this very show.
Here is what they say:
"U.S. officials also told 60 Minutes that North Korea has a dozen such
slave-labor camps that together contain perhaps a million people -
five percent of the country's population of 22 million."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/16/60minutes/main563623.shtml
In other words, the source of the allegation on gulags comes from the
same government officials that tell us that Saddam Hussein had nuclear
weapons and that tax cuts will benefit working people.
What kind of "socialist" would be circulating Black Book of Communism
and US government propaganda on a newsgroup devoted to Trotsky's
thought? You got it, friends. A Max Shachtman state-department
socialist.
John Holmes
> {snip}
>
> Lots of pompous hot air here John but no content.
In other words, Murphy can't refute what I wrote, so he
wants to change the subject a bit.
> Since Louis Proyect
> is such an intellectual coward, why don't you attempt to "slap on the
> copybook label" (Trotsky's warning to rote repetition hacks) to North
> Korea. Try to explain why North Korean workers who have near
> starvation wages, with 10% of the adult population in Gulag slave
> labor camps, and whose children roam the streets searching pillaging
> for insects is a "workers' state".
As to the gulags, I actually agree with Project. Sounds inflated but hey,
maybe not, I don't claim to be a huge expert on N. Korea. What's your
sources.
For the rest, that's not too bad a description of Russia during the Civil
War, under Lenin and Trotsky. So was that a workers state?
> Do starving North Korean workers
> benefit materially from Stalinism,
Well, yes. Bad as the situation is in NK, if capitalism were restored,
it would suddenly get much worse. What happened in the Soviet Union
and Eastern Europe proves this. Take Rumania, which was the Eastern
European regime that was the most similar to the North Korean. And
where opinion polls have repeatedly shown that average Rumanians
think life was better under Ceausescu!
is the shattered North Korean
> economy more dynamic than private capitalism,
I'll let you argue that one with Project. That the USSR under Stalin had
a more dynamic economy than most of the rest of the world during the
Great Depression is historic fact. Trotsky didn't claim that was a universal
rule for Stalinist states, after all during his life there was only one, so
he didn't need to formulate any such historic rules.
do workers have to play
> a role in the creation of workers' state (all positions of Trotsky on
> the SU)?
And where does Trotsky state this? Trotsky didn't think creating
workers states without the participation of the workers involved
was a very good idea, that's why he was dubious about invading
Poland in 1920. But he certainly didn't think it was impossible in
principle, in fact on several occasions, the Red Army, then under
his command, marched into various areas where the bulk of the
population, sometimes including the workers, were not in favor.
Such are the vicissitudes of war.
So if he ever had laid down "the Murphy law" KM wants to say
is a basic Trotskyist principle, that would have been rank hypocrisy.
>
> I'm willing to wager that John Holmes is yet another APST fraud who
> has absolutely no comprehension of Leon Trotsky's writings and is
> completely incapable of mechanically "slapping on the copybook label"
> to North Korea. Any takers?
>
> Kevin Murphy
Yawn. I think Murphy meant "capable," but maybe not.
Murphy has obviously used that line so often that he no longer
remembers to proofread himself.
-John Holmes-
John Holmes
But on this one, he certainly has Murphy dead to
rights.
"60 minutes" is his source on 10% of North Koreans
being in gulags, and Mike Wallace freely admits he
got the figure from "US officials"!
Who, as everybody knows, always tell the truth
about everything.
I've actually always had my doubts about whether the North
Koreans actually had nuclear weapons, or are just
bluffing. Now that Murphy's "US officials" are saying
the same thing, that probably means that finally, they really
do have some.
-John Holmes-
"Louis Proyect" <lnp3@panix_nospam.com> wrote in message
news:6u0ohvc7jl8jq03fg...@4ax.com...
kevinmurphy
> On 21 Jul 2003 07:34:51 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
> >Sayan, the ISJ has many articles on the role of the state in modern
> >capitalism. The IST group in Korea has produced many articles on the
> >economies of both North and South Korea, you'd have to ask Einde about
> >that.
>
> Oh, I see. As should be clear now, you really have never read anything
> on the left that contradicts your dogma. It must help you sleep at
> night to keep your mind free of counter-indicative information. Have
> you tried sucking your thumb?
>
> >You should also check out any human rights web site (Amnesty
> >International for example). No one (aside from some crackpots here in
> >APST) would deny that North Korea is one of the most repressive
> >regime's in the history of the world.
>
> Amnesty International is not in the business of analyzing class
> relations.
Nothing on the 1 million slave laborers Louis? What a surprise...
>
> >60 Minutes Mike Wallace (one of the most respected news reporters in
> >the US)
>
> Says it all... The cat is out of the bag...
Yes, the footage of the emaciated children digging for insects was a
CBS conspiracy. CBS deliberately cut out their comments, "Spiders for
me are fine as long as we have the workers' bomb."
This is Louis Proyect's conception of "postcapitalism."
Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
(kevinmurphy) wrote:
>
>Nothing on the 1 million slave laborers Louis? What a surprise...
Was there a reference to "US offiicals" on their website. I know that
this would cinch it for you. I am somewhat more skeptical.
>Yes, the footage of the emaciated children digging for insects was a
>CBS conspiracy. CBS deliberately cut out their comments, "Spiders for
>me are fine as long as we have the workers' bomb."
You really need to read people like Robert McChesney or the late Herb
Schiller on the media. Your faith in CBS is touching. CBS is owned by
Viacom. Shortly after September 11th, Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone,
Ruppert Murdoch and other media moguls met with Karl Rove in Los
Angeles in order to hammer out the entertainment industry's role in
the fight against "terrorism". Do I need to remind you that North
Korea is part of the "axis of evil"?
Why is it necessary for me to point out such things to you?
I know. It is because you are a stupidhead and a liberal.
DCQ
So what's your point in this whole ridiculous diatribe, Louis? Why
begin a debate if you've already made up your mind and think we're
dogmatic and intellectually complacent? Do you expect anything
positive to come out of the debate?
For my part, I've come to loathe these sectarian rants: they're stupid
and childish. But there are some things I can clarify for you (and the
original poster) that may get rid of some of the anti-"Cliffite"
straw-men arguments.
For the record, we do not suppose any equivalence between the US and
North Korea or Cuba or Vietnam or any other Stalinist state...not even
the USSR at the height of the Cold War. We always recognized that the
US was the primary enemy and the home of international reaction. For
every major and minor intervention of the US, we took sides against
the US. Even in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion, the ISO
called for the US to stop meddling and pointed out how the US
maneuvered the USSR into invading.
That we do this is not opportunism, or chucking our theory out in the
face of reality. All of this flows directly from our politics. We
supported the Nicaraguan revolution not because we were impressed by
the stalinist politics of the leadership, but in spite of them and
their hesitations, compromises, and ultimately self-defeating
policies. We knew that North Vietnam would establish an undemocratic
regime after defeating the US, but that doesn't matter to us. For the
same reasons we opposed the war in Iraq, not because we had illusions
in Hussein (many groups tried to turn him into some sort of
anti-imperialist hero), but despite the Baath Party's politics.
Likewise, we oppose the US's current provocations against North Korea
and Cuba (and Iran, etc.) unconditionally--not because we think those
societies are peachy-keen, but because we are opposed to US
imperialism--whoever its victim.
In anti-imperialist struggles, we always support the
anti-imperialists, even if their politics are shit. As long as the
struggle represents a genuine movement for national liberation--and
not the interests of some foreign ruling class--we support it. The
politics of the leadership are largely irrelevant from any stance we
take.
However, those politics are not irrelevant to developing our
perspectives on the prospects for the resistance. Take Iraq: while
many socialists are spending time wondering about back-room deals and
betrayals by Baath Party members (essentially conspiracy theories) to
explain the rapid collapse of the regime, we understood from the
beginning that the only thing that could have beaten back the US was a
popular mobilization--something that the Baath Party feared more than
occupation. Likewise, the only thing that can guarantee that the
situation on the Korea peninsula won't turn into a nuclear holocaust
is national unification. A popular uprising could achieve that and
drive the US out in short order. But the leaders of both North and
South Korea are more interested in taking things slow so as not to
"lose control" of the situation (in addition to SK fearing to
antagonize its master). Meanwhile, every day that partition continues
is another day that the US might decide that a war on the peninsula
(and a million dead Koreans and Japanese in the first week) just might
be the thing it needs. Finally, in the crisis with Cuba, it is obvious
that the Cuban regime has no strategy for unentagling itself from the
crisis. It hopes to keep a lid on things long enough to get the US
embargo ended (something a growing section of US capital wants) and
end hostilities with the US (which should tell you something about the
regime already). "Keeping a lid on things" means playing nice-nice
with international capital (even banning unions from the growing
private sector), jailing dissidents, and executing desperate migrants.
Of course, many of the "dissidents" are US stooges, bought and paid
for with Washington's blood-money. But that doesn't change the fact
that these harsh measures play directly into the hands of the most
reactionary neo-con wing of the US ruling class: the wing that doesn't
want to cooperate with the regime, but replace it with a willing
puppet, or even an outright occupation.
Calling for military defeat of the US (or, conversely, calling for
military vicotry for the anti-imperialists) does not--or should
not--imply calling for political support (still less political
allegience) for the resistance. (Witness the Bolshevik's military
support for the provisional government against Kornilov without
political support; see:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/aug/30.htm .)
All of this brings up another question: the question of tactics. That
is, do any of these so-called
socialist/Stalinist/post-capitalist/whatever states have a strategy
for leading to international revolution? After all, even the
apologists for the Communist Parties back in the 30s argued that
because Stalin's Russia was economically superior/more dynamic than
the depression-ridden west Stalin's "Socialism in One Country" theory
was a strategy that would eventually lead to world socialism. Do any
of the remaining Stalinist states have even that as a strategy? If
not, then what is the point of "supporting" such a state? Since we are
all supposedly Marxists on this NG (or at least interested in it for
some reason), we know that capitalism is a world system and has an
innate drive to expand itself and break down all barriers, and that
any isolated state--no matter how "progressive"--will ultimately
become a victim of the great powers in time (again, if it has no
strategy for spreading revolution).
To me, it seems that this should be nothing more than a peculiarity of
tastes between comrades, and certainly doesn't merit the amount of
bile that these questions normally produce on the left. Comrades might
as well discuss whether or not the new Star Wars movies are any good,
since both that question and the question about the nature of the
Cuban or North Korea state are irrelevant to the fight for
international socialism. If we both understand that the fight for
socialism in, say, Brazil, is a task for the working class of Brazil
leading the peasants and leading to an international workers
revolution throughout Latin America and--yes--even the US, then I want
to fight side-by-side with you. If however, you believe that Cuba
provides an alternate (and presumably better or easier) model--or that
Castro's regime could be a reliable ally--then we have some arguments
to have out. (If on the other hand, you have no interest in fighting
for a future socialist society, and simply want to sling bullshit to
prove how well-read you are, then you deserve nothing but abuse as far
as I'm concerned.)
This is getting long, so I'll end with a final comment on the nature
of socialism itself. For Marx, the central feature of a socialist
society was the democratization of economic life--in addition to
political life. The two were one and the same. Marx became a socialist
essentially because he saw the limits the capitalist mode of
production placed on democracy-i.e., people couldn't vote on whether
or not to close a factory, produce shoes versus chateaus and warships,
etc. Furthermore, the only way the working class can exercize power as
a class is through democracy (and of course, once it does so, it
ceases to be "the working class"). The working class is unique in that
way (among others). Previous ruling classes could wield power in a
variety of ways. Feudalism could be administered through a centralized
monarch, a federation of independent princes, an oligarchy, the
church, etc. Likewise, while capitalists might prefer to exercise
power through a form of political democracy (which best fits
capitalism's ever-changing, dynamic nature), it is not averse to
giving up formal authority to a bureaucracy or single individual. And
in states arriving late to capitalism, native proto-capitalist classes
may be far too weak to either compete internationally or to overthrow
the former ruling class; in that case, the state may take on many
economic functions such as forced proletarianization of the peasantry,
forced mergers of smaller capitals, state direction of the economy,
and even outright nationalization. (Of course, many of these functions
may be taken on for various reasons by the state even in advanced
capitalist countries.)
The working class is different. Socialism itself ceases to function if
democracy is curtailed for whatever reason. If someone else exercizes
authority over the economy (let alone political life), then the
working class is returned to its position as the object of history and
must struggle to regain its supremacy. This is why I prefer to frame
the discussion of socialism in terms of "workers democracies"; it's a
term whose meaning is less manipulable, less reified. It's easy to
call a country socialist when reformists can call Sweden socialist and
Bill O'Reilly can call Chirac a communist. Likewise, someone can get
away with calling North Korea "socialist" (or better yet, a
"proletarian dictatorship") but even right-wing wackos would most
likely object to calling it a "worker's democracy."
sorry for the ramble,
-DCQ
PS For an expanded (though still too short) version of an article that
appeared in SW on the crisis in Cuba, which goes through many of these
issues more eloquently than I have here, see the latest issue of the
ISR at:
http://isreview.org/issues/30/cuba.shtml
Louis Proyect
wrote:
>
>
>To me, it seems that this should be nothing more than a peculiarity of
>tastes between comrades, and certainly doesn't merit the amount of
>bile that these questions normally produce on the left.
This would have more impact if you could persuade Murphy to behave
himself. He is really discredting your current by associating himself
with it, even as a sympathizer.
>
>PS For an expanded (though still too short) version of an article that
>appeared in SW on the crisis in Cuba, which goes through many of these
>issues more eloquently than I have here, see the latest issue of the
>ISR at:
>http://isreview.org/issues/30/cuba.shtml
But this is just a pastiche of references from the Chicago Tribune and
the Miami Herald covered by a thin veneer of socialist rhetoric. Until
you people can provide on-the-spot information from Cuba, the way that
other leftists do, and until you can cite radical sources such as the
professors and journalists who contribute to NACLA, it will be
difficult to take articles such as this seriously.
DCQ
> On 21 Jul 2003 12:33:30 -0700, dcourten...@mindspring.com (DCQ)
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >To me, it seems that this should be nothing more than a peculiarity of
> >tastes between comrades, and certainly doesn't merit the amount of
> >bile that these questions normally produce on the left.
>
> This would have more impact if you could persuade Murphy to behave
> himself. He is really discredting your current by associating himself
> with it, even as a sympathizer.
>
Implying that you are what? A shining example of intellectual
objectivity, openmindedness, and fraternal solidarity? Sorry. You have
some interesting things to say once in a while. But the vast majority
of your posts are sectarian rants rivaling anything the Baptist
firebreathers down the road can conjure up (except you use more fecal
imagery). Face it Louis, you still act like a sectarian. You just
don't have a group anymore. Just like non-denominational Christians
are often the biggest firebreathers, quitting a group does not
automatically absolve you of the sin of political sectarianism. What
matters to the workers movement is your impact on the world, not your
own idea of yourself.
As for Kevin, I have no interest in policing anyone. Beyond that, not
only is he usually right, he has the additional merit of being damn
funny.
> >
> >PS For an expanded (though still too short) version of an article that
> >appeared in SW on the crisis in Cuba, which goes through many of these
> >issues more eloquently than I have here, see the latest issue of the
> >ISR at:
> >http://isreview.org/issues/30/cuba.shtml
>
> But this is just a pastiche of references from the Chicago Tribune and
> the Miami Herald covered by a thin veneer of socialist rhetoric. Until
> you people can provide on-the-spot information from Cuba, the way that
> other leftists do, and until you can cite radical sources such as the
> professors and journalists who contribute to NACLA, it will be
> difficult to take articles such as this seriously.
>
http://isreview.org/issues/11/cuba_crisis.shtml
Happy? (Why do I have a feeling the answer is 'no'?) Feel free to
peruse the archives and you'll find that the ISR's journalistic
standards rival or exceed those of any radical journal.
And in any case, I already mentioned the article is still too short.
But quite frankly, the major issue in "the Cuban crisis" at this point
isn't Cuba. It's the behavior of the American left, which is where the
thrust of the article (polemic, really) was directed. Its purpose is
to lay out a principled strategy that allows the left to oppose the
Bush regime effectively, while not burying its head in the sand about
the obvious democratic shortcomings in Cuba and lumping together
everyone who has any criticisms of the Castro clique as an agent is US
imperialism (which strengthens US imperialism by leaving genuine
dissidents only one "friend"...the US ruling class, which has made an
art form out of manipulating the genuine grievances of a people for
its own purposes).
Beyond that, the purpose of the ISR isn't to impress academics with
erudition and lengthy works cited pages, but to arm a new generation
of activists with the facts and theories necessary to turn the world
upside down. If what impresses you is meticulous and variegated end
notes rather than politics, then the ISR is probably not for you.
Guarnot
No, he acts like a curmudgeon. There is a difference.
Louis Proyect
wrote:
>
>As for Kevin, I have no interest in policing anyone. Beyond that, not
>only is he usually right, he has the additional merit of being damn
>funny.
Yes, I admit that it is rather amusing to see somebody trained in the
ISO crossposting preposterous items from the Black Book of Communism
and deferring to the judgment of Viacom Inc. and US government
officials on what's going on in North Korea. Did he learn the art of
disinformation at one of your summer schools?
>And in any case, I already mentioned the article is still too short.
>But quite frankly, the major issue in "the Cuban crisis" at this point
>isn't Cuba. It's the behavior of the American left, which is where the
>thrust of the article (polemic, really) was directed. Its purpose is
>to lay out a principled strategy that allows the left to oppose the
>Bush regime effectively, while not burying its head in the sand about
>the obvious democratic shortcomings in Cuba and lumping together
>everyone who has any criticisms of the Castro clique as an agent is US
>imperialism (which strengthens US imperialism by leaving genuine
>dissidents only one "friend"...the US ruling class, which has made an
>art form out of manipulating the genuine grievances of a people for
>its own purposes).
I would love to see the Cliffites in charge of some country. If you
can expel the American section for "not understanding Seattle", can
you imagine what they would do if they were under real pressure from
imperialism?
>
>Beyond that, the purpose of the ISR isn't to impress academics with
>erudition and lengthy works cited pages, but to arm a new generation
>of activists with the facts and theories necessary to turn the world
>upside down. If what impresses you is meticulous and variegated end
>notes rather than politics, then the ISR is probably not for you.
Why write your own articles on Cuba at all? You can simply refer
readers to the Miami Herald and the Chicago Tribune.
Bert Byfield
>No, he acts like a curmudgeon. There is a difference.
The two conditions are not mutually exclusive, of course...
Hunter Watson
So what's the issue here, gents? Whether 10%--or only 5% of the North
Korean population is in the regime's gulag? Whether any are? Whether
there is a socialist abundance of rats in the gulags? Whether the
North Koreans in the gulag are any more hungry than those outside? Or
is it as usual just your cult of personality bashing which is at work
here? I suppose, Proyect, that it's just a Black Book myth when we
hear that but for capitalist food aid the North Koreans starve,
excepting the army and nomenklatura that is.
Hunter Watson
DCQ
Hector's first article, to which he referred readers of his current
article and I referred you, includes all of the criteria you required:
on-the-spot information from Cuba and NACLA references (among many
others). I figured, since you decided to make an issue of the end
notes, you would have figured that out on your own.
And by the way, my point was not that those who write for the
ISR--which includes some of the best-known and most respected writers
and journalists on the international left--do not have meticulous and
variegated end notes. Most articles are impeccably researched and
argued. The point was that its the politics that matter in the ISR.
The impressive end notes (for those who are impressed by such things)
are a by-product of looking reality square in the face.
-DCQ
>
> Louis Proyect, ln...@panix.com
Louis Proyect
wrote:
>
>Hector's first article, to which he referred readers of his current
>article and I referred you, includes all of the criteria you required:
>on-the-spot information from Cuba and NACLA references (among many
>others). I figured, since you decided to make an issue of the end
>notes, you would have figured that out on your own.
I guess you didn't understand me. When I say *on-the-spot*, I mean
like literally on the ground in Cuba interviewing people. The odd
thing about enemies of the Cuban revolution of either the
state-capitalist variety or Z Magazine anarchism variety (two strands
of idealism really) is the failure to spend time on the island the way
that other radicals do when they decide to put together an analysis.
Unless you people think that you will be arrested and tortured for
believing in Cliff-thought or something. My understanding is that even
evangelical Christians are tolerated down there.
Turning directly to Reyes's article, it is riddled with errors of the
kind usually associated with state-capitalism which mainly boil down
to an inability to understand the Marxist theory of the state. For
example, he writes:
"In the context of the early 1960s, the state was seen by many as an
instrument of economic progress. Even countries not claiming to be
socialist, such as Japan and South Korea, made extensive use of
state-directed investment. The rate of annual growth of the USSR was
around 10 percent throughout the 1950s. Cuban leaders looked to Russia
and saw it as a model for development. However, before fully allying
itself with the Soviet Bloc in the 1970s, Cuba first went through a
series of zigzags throughout the 1960s."
It is not simply a question of "state-direction". In Japan and South
Korea, you had a capitalist class whose electronics and auto plants
the state was subsidizing and protecting. The chaebol is a distinctly
capitalist phenomenon. But I won't waste any time going over such
abc's since most Marxists grasp them readily.
I will, however, focus in on the ISO's adaptation to the Zapatistas
which was rather widespread in the middle-class left at the time:
"Today, Cuba no longer claims to be a revolutionary beacon, and
national and revolutionary struggles around the world no longer claim
its mantle as they once did. The people in revolt in Indonesia or East
Timor don’t cite Cuba as their revolutionary signpost, and neither do
the Zapatistas in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Cuba has publicly
disowned any real support for the Zapatista National Liberation
Army--due in no small measure to increased investment of Mexican
capital in Cuba, as well as the significant degree of trade between
Mexico and Cuba."
To put it bluntly, the Zapatista movement has been an abject failure
for the simple reason that it has not addressed the question of state
power. The fetishization of the Zapatista movement by anarchists and
the autonomist left is driven by the same kind of idealism that is
found in the ISO. It constructs a dichotomy between an ideal thing
called communism or socialism and rejects everything that does not
match that ideal.
Notwithstanding Cuba's difficulties, the revolution has made a
significant impact on peoples' lives, so much so that it earned the
praise of James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, in May of
2001: "Cuba has done a great job on education and health and if you
judge the country by education and health they've done a terrific
job."
Wolfensohn was simply recognizing the reality of statistics in the
bank's World Development Indicators report that showed Cubans living
longer than other Latin Americans, including residents of the US
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Literacy levels were on a par with
Uruguay, while the life expectancy rate was 76 years, second only to
Costa Rica at 77. Infant mortality in Cuba was seven deaths per 1,000
live births, much lower than the rest of Latin America.
While it is true that Cuba is enmeshed in a myriad of ways within the
world capitalist economy, it did withdrew from the World Bank and its
sister lending agency, the International Monetary Fund, in 1959.
Despite the collapse of the USSR and continuing efforts to destroy the
country economically by the USA, Cuba continues to develop its
productive capabilities and raise the cultural level of the people.
Turning to Chiapas, the general picture is far less encouraging. In a
February 3, 2003 Newsday article titled "Infant Deaths Plague Mexico",
we learn that the Comitan hospital serves nearly 500,000 people in
Chiapas. Burdened by inadequate staffing and supplies, babies die at
twice the national rate. Meanwhile, the February 21, 2001 Financial
Times reported on a study conducted by the Association for the Health
of Indigenous Children in Mexico in the village of Las Canadas,
Chiapas. It found that not one girl had adequate nutritional levels
compared with 39.4 per cent of boys. Female malnutrition has actually
led to physical shrinking over the last decade from an average height
of 1.42 meters to 1.32 meters. At the same time, more than half of
women who speak an indigenous language are illiterate - five times the
national average.
While nobody can blame the EZLN for failing to make a revolution in
Mexico, we would be remiss if we did not point out the obvious
material differences between the two societies, especially in the
countryside where poverty has traditionally been extreme. With its
abundant natural resources, including oil and fertile farmland, it is
not too difficult to imagine how much of a difference a Mexican
version of Cuba would have made in the lives of the poor.
EFE News Service January 25, 2003
MEXICO-CUBA/HEALTH CUBAN DOCTORS MAY BE SENT TO TREAT INDIANS IN
MEXICO
Tuxtla Gutierrex, Mexico, Jan 25 (EFE).- Health authorities in the
southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas have announced that Cuban
medical teams might be coming to the region to offer health care to
indigenous communities.
A Health Secretariat spokesman told EFE Friday that a Cuban Health
Ministry delegation had been in the state since last week "touring
Indian communities to assess their major health problems."
The delegation, made up of four experts headed by Cuban Deputy Health
Minister Gonzalo Estevez, is evaluating health needs to determine the
number and type of physicians that would be required in Chiapas.
But the Chiapas Health Secretariat said that any arrangement for Cuban
doctors to work in the state would be contingent on an agreement's
being reached between the Mexican and Cuban governments.
"This depends on the signature of an agreement between the Mexican and
Cuban presidents (Vicente Fox and Fidel Castro, respectively)," the
secretariat's spokesman said.
Thirty-six children, including 30 newborns, have died in recent months
at a public hospital in Comitan, Chiapas, allegedly due to medical
negligence, though the state government said lack of adequate supplies
and infrastructure was to blame.
The state attorney general's office ordered 26 of the bodies exhumed
to determine the cause of death.
Hunter Watson
Hello John,
It's been a long time. How 'bout rejoining us here on apst. I rather
enjoyed your righteous certainties. Speaking of those I suppose you
don't have any ad hominem quips to make about North Korean officials?
It is just for me to presume that, right?
P.S. What happened to that "edu" address you used to have?
Hunter Watson
DCQ
> On 22 Jul 2003 22:39:55 -0700, dcourten...@mindspring.com (DCQ)
> wrote:
> >
> >Hector's first article, to which he referred readers of his current
> >article and I referred you, includes all of the criteria you required:
> >on-the-spot information from Cuba and NACLA references (among many
> >others). I figured, since you decided to make an issue of the end
> >notes, you would have figured that out on your own.
>
> I guess you didn't understand me. When I say *on-the-spot*, I mean
> like literally on the ground in Cuba interviewing people. The odd
> thing about enemies of the Cuban revolution of either the
> state-capitalist variety or Z Magazine anarchism variety (two strands
> of idealism really) is the failure to spend time on the island the way
> that other radicals do when they decide to put together an analysis.
> Unless you people think that you will be arrested and tortured for
> believing in Cliff-thought or something. My understanding is that even
> evangelical Christians are tolerated down there.
"Enemies of the Cuban revolution"? Lou, your paranoia is showing. The
IS tradition stands firmly behind the Cuban Revolution. We stand
behind it in the same way we stand behind all genuine national
liberation struggles that topple an imperialist regime. We just don't
happen to think it was a socialist revolution as well. You can
disagree with this position--fine. But when you start lying, calling
us "enemies of the Cuban Revolution," it just makes you look like a
typical sectarian windbag.
As for going to the island. What's the big deal? Now nobody who has
not been to a country can comment on it? Puts a wrench in things if we
wanna talk about, say, ancient Rome, eh?
For the record, I have no idea if Hector has been to Cuba or not. I
know several members of the ISO who have gone to Cuba, but I don't
make a habit out of keeping track of the academic or vacation plans of
my comrades.
[Interestingly, I had a relatively long conversation about Cuba with a
member of the SWP (US) at our recent Socialism 2003 conference. He
started out acusing the ISO (he didn't know I was a member, or he may
not have been so friendly) of not supporting the Cuban Revolution.
(When I corrected him, he kind of stuttered and then lamely said "Well
they don't support it like I do." Fair enough.) Note how little the
Proyectian apple has fallen from the tree.]
>
> Turning directly to Reyes's article, it is riddled with errors of the
> kind usually associated with state-capitalism which mainly boil down
> to an inability to understand the Marxist theory of the state. For
> example, he writes:
>
> "In the context of the early 1960s, the state was seen by many as an
> instrument of economic progress. Even countries not claiming to be
> socialist, such as Japan and South Korea, made extensive use of
> state-directed investment. The rate of annual growth of the USSR was
> around 10 percent throughout the 1950s. Cuban leaders looked to Russia
> and saw it as a model for development. However, before fully allying
> itself with the Soviet Bloc in the 1970s, Cuba first went through a
> series of zigzags throughout the 1960s."
>
> It is not simply a question of "state-direction". In Japan and South
> Korea, you had a capitalist class whose electronics and auto plants
> the state was subsidizing and protecting. The chaebol is a distinctly
> capitalist phenomenon. But I won't waste any time going over such
> abc's since most Marxists grasp them readily.
Let me explain briefly. By about 100 years ago, most Marxists had
recognized that firms were growing so large that they were dominating
entire sectors and even entire economies. A merger between monopoly
capital and the state was taking place. This understanding is central
to the Marxist understanding of, among other things, imperialism. The
point then is that state control of the economy is no gaurantee that
any social progress has been made. Hector was merely commenting on how
many on the left in the post-war world, influenced by a mix of
keynesianism and marxism (either classic reformism or stalinism),
looked to "the state" (as a reified entity devoid of its
class-content) as an instrument that could steer society through
various problems and eventually provide a decent life for everyone.
This was not a new phenomenon and is still with us today, but it had
particular currency in the post-war world since it seemed to match
reality in a very specific way: i.e., the 30s--after a period of
capitalist reform and wartime planning, resulting in a massively
increased role for the state in economic life around the world--gave
way to the longest and biggest boom in capitalism's history.
>
> I will, however, focus in on the ISO's adaptation to the Zapatistas
> which was rather widespread in the middle-class left at the time:
>
> "Today, Cuba no longer claims to be a revolutionary beacon, and
> national and revolutionary struggles around the world no longer claim
> its mantle as they once did. The people in revolt in Indonesia or East
> Timor don?t cite Cuba as their revolutionary signpost, and neither do
> the Zapatistas in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Cuba has publicly
> disowned any real support for the Zapatista National Liberation
> Army--due in no small measure to increased investment of Mexican
> capital in Cuba, as well as the significant degree of trade between
> Mexico and Cuba."
>
> To put it bluntly, the Zapatista movement has been an abject failure
> for the simple reason that it has not addressed the question of state
> power. The fetishization of the Zapatista movement by anarchists and
> the autonomist left is driven by the same kind of idealism that is
> found in the ISO. It constructs a dichotomy between an ideal thing
> called communism or socialism and rejects everything that does not
> match that ideal.
You're really grasping at straws here. The ISO and the rest of the IS
tradition have longstanding critiques of the Zapatistas. See Lance
Selfa's article in the SWP (E&W)'s ISJ number 75 (summer 97),
available online at http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj75/selfa.htm.
However, we defend the Zapatistas as a genuine revolutionary current
expressing the aspirations of the Mexican rural poor, even if we think
they are making some big mistakes, theoretically and practically.
Hector was commenting on the fact that a modern revolutionary movement
that has so much in common with the origins of the Cuban revolution
does not look to modern Cuba in any way as a model. Nothing more.
>
> Notwithstanding Cuba's difficulties, the revolution has made a
> significant impact on peoples' lives, so much so that it earned the
> praise of James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, in May of
> 2001: "Cuba has done a great job on education and health and if you
> judge the country by education and health they've done a terrific
> job."
>
> Wolfensohn was simply recognizing the reality of statistics in the
> bank's World Development Indicators report that showed Cubans living
> longer than other Latin Americans, including residents of the US
> Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Literacy levels were on a par with
> Uruguay, while the life expectancy rate was 76 years, second only to
> Costa Rica at 77. Infant mortality in Cuba was seven deaths per 1,000
> live births, much lower than the rest of Latin America.
You fly off the handle when Kevin quotes Amnesty International. And
then you quote James Wolfensohn as an authority on Cuba!?!?! (I'm not
disputing either Wolfensohn's comment or Cuba's impressive health and
educational record...just commenting on the apparent hypocricy.)
I could make the pedantic comment at this point that a) the Zapatistas
did not win their revolution; and b) Cuba had relatively favorable
trading status with the giant Russia economy and the rest of the
Comecon. But why bother? I will, however, point out that if you are
trying to blame the Zapatistas for the miserable health and
educational standards in the region, you have your head buried much
farther up your ass than I thought.
-DCQ
Hunter Watson
Here it is, guys. There is really no excuse for characterizing it
without having read it. I suppose Dr. Vollertsen is a U.S. official?
Or the relief groups cited by Wallace? All American officials? Or
Hazel Smith of the U.N.? She's probably moonlighting for the CIA,
right? Maybe Human Rights Watch is made up exclusively of U.S.
officials? Then there is Senator Brownback from Kansas, certainly a
government official, but a congenital liar as to what he saw and
heard in China among the Korean refugees along the border? And all
those refugees themselves. Their testimony must be disregarded, right?
Correspondent Mike Wallace reports.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Norbert Vollertsen, a German family physician, spent a year and a
half in North Korea as a member of a German group that provides
medical aid to the country.
Vollertsen told 60 Minutes he was stunned by what he saw and was able
to capture on videotape when he managed to travel around much of this
secretive country.
"There are little children in Children Hospital. Eight years old, 6
years old, some of them 15 years old but looking like a 10-year-old
because they are suffering from malnutrition," says Vollertsen.
"But what shocked me mainly was how they are looking," he says. "How
sad. There's no more emotional reaction in those eyes. They can't cry
anymore. They can't laugh anymore."
This German doctor also said he was struck by the stripes on their
pajamas.
"It was nearly the same picture from Dachau, Auschwitz. We, Germans,
were accused that we kept silent during Hitler's Nazi regime, that
there was nobody who, who spoke out," he says. "I saw those children
and I gave a promise. That I will not keep silent. Silence is killing
in North Korea."
According to relief groups, 60 percent of the children in North Korea
suffer from silence and malnutrition. Tuberculosis and other diseases
are also spreading, but doctors are practically powerless to treat
them.
"In North Korean hospitals, there is nothing. There is no running
water, no heating system, there is no soap. There is no medicine,"
says Vollertsen. "That's the reality in North Korea. And nobody knows
about that."
He said some hospitals have to use empty beer bottles for IV's. But
many hospitals have simply shut down.
While driving his jeep around the country, Vollertsen said he saw
hungry, malnourished people everywhere foraging for food: "And I saw
little children at the roadside picking up all those little insects
and whatever they can eat. Women who are looking for some leaves and
special herbs."
Sadly, no birds were chirping. "The people are killing whatever can
run, whatever can fly," says Vollersten.
Hazel Smith, who recently spent 13 months in North Korea for the U.N.,
monitoring food aid shipments, confirms his reports. She said it's not
just hospitals, but the whole country that lacks the most basic
necessities.
Here's a sampling from her list: No clean running water. Lack of fuel
to boil much water. No soap, no disinfectant, no toilet paper. No
toothpaste. No sanitary napkins, but many women have stopped
menstruating because of malnutrition.
"There is chronic malnutrition throughout the country now. Which means
that children and adults don't grow very much," says Smith.
However, you wouldn't know it by looking at the capital Pyongyang,
which is in large part a Potemkin village, built for show. A towering
triangle touted to be the world's tallest hotel has so many structural
flaws that it has never opened for business. Wide boulevards feature
decorative female traffic wardens directing imaginary traffic, with
robot-like precision.
Everyone needs a government pass to get in - or out - of Pyongyang,
where only those judged most loyal to the regime are allowed to live.
But, except for top officials, life in Pyongyang is tough, too. Very
little works there.
"Even if you're quite privileged, you're going to live in a cold
apartment. Having access to water, to sanitation, to electricity is
pretty difficult," says Smith. "The worst thing about life in North
Korea now is that people don't know whether they're going to have
enough food to survive."
They may not have food, but they have liquor.
"All the shops in Pyongyang empty. No food, no rice, nothing at all
but thousands of bottles of sojo, very cheap, produced North Korean
liquor," says Vollersten. "It's real poison. It's toxic, but it will
make you drunken immediately and that's the purpose, in order to make
people happy."
Happiness, however, is in short supply, for the economy collapsed in
the '90s, when most factories had to shut down after Russia stopped
sending North Korea free oil.
So what do all the people who used to work there do now?
"Some of them are dying because they don't have access to income or
food. And North Korea is becoming a nation of petty traders because
people have to get by," adds Smith, who says black markets have sprung
up where people barter whatever they can for their next meal.
Floods and mismanagement in the mid '90s caused the famine that has
killed more than a million people. And many more would be dying
without massive food aid from neighboring countries and the U.S.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But here's the paradox. Despite years of misery, even the U.S.
Government admits the vast majority of North Koreans remain loyal to
their leadership - proud of their government.
Why? Because they simply don't know any other way.
During their 50 years of communist rule, Kim Il Sung, and now his son
Kim Jong Il, have sealed off North Koreans from the outside world.
Their radios and TVs are specially made to receive only government
stations.
The government publishes all newspapers and magazines. No foreign
media. No internet. Only loudspeakers everywhere praising Kim Jong Il.
From the early childhood, young children are educated to love Kim Jong
Il, says Vollertsen. "To worship him like a god. And that's the main
point. It's more like a cult. He's using this brainwashing process,
with steady propaganda from early in the morning up to the evening."
Kim Jong Il is a purposefully mysterious figure, and has never given a
public speech. But Harold Koh saw him up close two years ago when Koh,
then a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, accompanied his boss
Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang.
"He's probably about five foot, two inches tall, but he's extremely
vain about his height. And he had a kind of bouffant hairdo so that
his hair stood up another inch," remembers Koh. "He wore very thick
heels, and platform shoes, too, to pick him up an extra inch. So he
looked a little bit like an aging rock singer."
Koh, however, also told us Kim is cunning, ruthless and smart enough
to try to use nuclear blackmail to force Mr. Bush to give more aid,
food and fuel. Plus, he has pronounced Western tastes.
"He drinks hard scotch. He loves American videos. He talked about his
three computers on which he surfed the Internet," adds Koh.
"Everything that he deprives to his people, access to the outside, are
things that he himself personally craves."
The constant indoctrination demands rigid conformity. Ideologically,
everyone must be in lockstep - especially at those massive outdoor
performances that honor their leader. Koh says he's appalled that Kim
puts his money into a million-member military, and developing nuclear
weapons, and ballistic missiles when he can't provide basic
necessities for his people.
Food goes first to the military and the elite. For everybody else, Kim
force-feeds them propaganda.
"It's a country where there's essentially no freedom, no civil and
political rights. People are spying on each other," says Koh.
All North Koreans are aware that they don't have the freedom to say
what they want and to do what they want," says Smith. "And that they
would be in trouble if they said the wrong thing."
"They are full of fear," adds Vollertsen. "I never saw so many people
so afraid about anything - any soldier, any military post, any
policeman."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Their fear is understandable. U.S. officials also told 60 Minutes that
North Korea has a dozen such slave-labor camps that together contain
perhaps a million people - five percent of the country's population of
22 million.
Any sign of disloyalty can get you sent to slave labor, according to
former inmates who say that if one member of a family is arrested, the
whole family often has to go, too. Many inmates work 18-hour days in
hazardous coalmines.
In some camps, one out of five prisoners die each year from exhaustion
or starvation. Others die from being used as guinea pigs for chemical
and biological weapons. And guards are encouraged to be brutal and
utilize punishment cells.
"The punishment cells that have been described by refugees are very
tiny cells which are too small for someone to stand up, but also too
short for them to spread their legs out," says Koh. "So people are in
that sort of cramped position. And in those cells they're thrown after
they've been beaten or subjected to other kinds of humiliating
treatment and they, they're fed or not fed."
But never fed much. "Human Rights Watch reports that the workers at
the labor camp tried to catch rats in their shoes so they can roast
them, and have an occasional piece of meat," adds Koh.
Sen. Sam Brownback, a Republican from Kansas, has heard similar
reports from North Korean defectors who escaped into China. He
traveled to China's North Korean border, and told 60 Minutes that tens
of thousands of defectors are hiding in China to avoid being sent back
to a North Korean prison camp.
"You have horrific, horrific stories," says Brownback, citing public
executions, people eating bugs and rats, the routine killing of babies
born in prison – even women feeding their family a bit of food laced
with rat poison to kill their children before they starve to death.
"I've had eye-witness testimony."
Brownback and Vollertsen believe that, just as in Nazi Germany, when
the full scope of horror in North Korea is finally revealed, it will
be far worse than the initial reports.
And Vollertsen vows to keep telling the world about these children
until Kim Jong Il is toppled. But will people view him as a fanatic?
"We were accused, we, Germans, that we kept silent and now I'm called
a fanatic because I'm so outspoken, because I'm traveling around the
world and shouting, 'Here! Look at those children,'" says Vollertsen.
"Because I want to save those children now. And that's why I'm a
fanatic."
© MMIII, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.
It may seem impossible, Louis, but contempt for you on apst still
grows exponentially, even after all these years of self-destructive
behavior it still grows! Confirmed leftists with respect for the
truth, like Kevin and Redflag, have no difficulty sorting you out.
Everyone with any fundamental standards of candor and intellectual
honesty know what you are. From end to end of the spectrum we know
that without the truth and decent standards, humane standards, the
radical left is done for in any future you can imagine.
Hunter Watson
Hunter Watson
> On 16 Jul 2003 14:51:29 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
> (kevinmurphy) wrote:
> >
> >Explain these "postcapitalist societies". Why are they more
> >progressive than capitalism, how did these "postcapitalist societies"
> >magically appear without the working class playing a role in their
> >creation, why did most of these "postcapitalist societies" then
> >disappear, why are workers in North Korean workers better off than
> >South Korean workers. Is it the workers' bomb, one station radios, or
> >perhaps the 7 am jumping jacks?
>
> In fact North Korea was much better off than South Korea for the
> longest time.
Nonsense. Originally the North had most of the industry. Both were
devastated physically in 1951-53. Each started pretty much from
scratch. After the armistice in '53 the United States immediately
began a systematic effort lasting years to build up the South Korean
economy. From the beginning the South made far greater progress than
the North. It became one of the famed Asian tiger economies. Those of
you who have been here a few years will recall the Nasa photo from
space taken at night which showed all of the Korean peninsula. The
South was bathed in light with dozens of large urban areas shining
brightly. The North was virtually black with the tiny exception of
Pyongyang, its Potempkin capital.
The collapse of the USSR has had a dire effect on the
> North, but you of course could be less interested in economic
> realities such as these.
What crap! Only already failed socialist economies had to be taken
down the hall to Intensive Care on collapse of the Soviet Union. Cuba
is an example. North Korea is another. South Korea experienced a
recession but is coming out of it just fine. There was some
unemployment but no famine, right? The failure of the Soviet Union
didn't create a ripple there. The socialist failures needed the Soviet
Union to stay alive. Once the dole died they immediately refocused
their efforts to gain hand-outs to the west. Tourism and prostitution
for Cuba. Western food aid for North Korea. Gawdawful, Louis. Both you
and North Korea.
The North Korean workers would be advised to
> make a stew of Tony Cliff's books. That would fill their stomachs, I'm
> sure.
Sure, sick humor in the face of an political famine.
> >
> >Again, what criteria are you using to claim they are
> >"postcapitalist"--other than a laundry list of middle class moralism?
>
> What is my criteria? Liquidation of the capitalist class. Like the
> ones who went to Miami. Just ask them. They'll tell you.
Yeah, you guys' underlying answer to every economic problem is one
form or another of liquidation.
Hunter Watson
Hunter Watson
> Louis Proyect <ln...@panix.com> wrote in message news:<1lpbhv0hvq10v7fv8...@4ax.com>...
> > On 16 Jul 2003 14:51:29 -0700, kevinmu...@hotmail.com
> > (kevinmurphy) wrote:
> > >
> > >Explain these "postcapitalist societies". Why are they more
> > >progressive than capitalism, how did these "postcapitalist societies"
> > >magically appear without the working class playing a role in their
> > >creation, why did most of these "postcapitalist societies" then
> > >disappear, why are workers in North Korean workers better off than
> > >South Korean workers. Is it the workers' bomb, one station radios, or
> > >perhaps the 7 am jumping jacks?
> >
> > In fact North Korea was much better off than South Korea for the
>
> refutes your shallow reading of Leon Trotsky. Sleazy Proyect adopts
> the Stalinist methodology of argumentation: quotes from the Talmud to
> show his devotion to the religion but when a Trotsky citation
> contradicts a Talmudic reading, it is simply cut out.
>
> > longest time. The collapse of the USSR has had a dire effect on the
> > North, but you of course could be less interested in economic
> > make a stew of Tony Cliff's books. That would fill their stomachs, I'm
> > sure.
> >
>
> off than South Korean workers "for the longest time". Were East German
> workers also better off than West German workers "for the longest
> time"?
>
> Don't expect more from Louis Proyect--he is an intellectual fraud who
> cannot explain the most elementary issues about these bogus
> "postcapitalist" societies.
>
> Just to clarify what *all* ex-Trotskyists (now apologists for
> Stalinism) asserted after WW2:
>
> 1) The working class does not have to participate in the creation of a
> "postcapitalist" state. The jackboot of the Red Army or a military
> coups can substitute for the self-emanciption of the working class.
>
> 2) Workers in {degenerated|deformed|postcapitalist} workers' states
> benefited *materially* from Stalinism.
>
> Nobody in their right mind would now argue that starving workers in
> North Korean benefit materially from Stalinism.
>
> 3) Workers would not allow the gains imposed by Red Army to be
> dismantled without fierce, bloody resistance--they supposedly
> understood how lucky they were to live under the jackboot of
> Stalinism.
>
> 1989-93 proved this assertion totally wrong. Workers helped overthrow
> Stalinism and helped secure the right to assemble, freedom of the
> press, elections, etc. Cyberspace lunatics like Louis Proyect
> consider this process a "counterrevolution".
Are you referring to Polish workers? Certainly they were heroic in
this sense. But then they had only been fully Stalinized since about
1950. My impression which may well be wrong is that the Russian
working class by the time of the 1980s was pretty worn out, pretty
passive after all those decades of pressure from the apparat. This is
your field, Kevin.
>
> 4) The economies of these bogus workers' states were historically more
> progressive than capitalism, and would out perform capitalists
> countries.
>
> Again, proven totally wrong. It was not the argument at the time that
> the bogus workers' states necessitated massive support from the Soviet
> Union ($5,000,000,000.00 a year in the case of Cuba) to sustain
> growth--the state capitalist regimes were supposedly *inherently* more
> dynamic than capitalism. The goal posts have shifted because the
> apologists for Stalinism have been proven wrong. Again, nobody in
> their right mind would now assert that the economy of the starving
> workers' state of North Korean is outperforming South Korea.
But Proyect said that it had out performed S. Korea up 'til 1991!
> > >
> > >Again, what criteria are you using to claim they are
> > >"postcapitalist"--other than a laundry list of middle class moralism?
> >
> > What is my criteria? Liquidation of the capitalist class. Like the
> > ones who went to Miami. Just ask them. They'll tell you.
>
> Cuba pharmaceutical inc./sugar inc./prostitute infested hotels inc.,
> etc. don't operate as capitalist enterprises? Tell that to the
> $.50/day wage workers?
>
> Kevin Murphy
Louis Proyect
wrote:
>
>"Enemies of the Cuban revolution"? Lou, your paranoia is showing. The
>IS tradition stands firmly behind the Cuban Revolution. We stand
>behind it in the same way we stand behind all genuine national
>liberation struggles that topple an imperialist regime. We just don't
>happen to think it was a socialist revolution as well. You can
>disagree with this position--fine. But when you start lying, calling
>us "enemies of the Cuban Revolution," it just makes you look like a
>typical sectarian windbag.
Excuse me? You do propose that the working class overthrow its
oppressors, right? Maybe I should be more specific. You are an enemy
of the government, as I am sure you would freely acknowledge.
>As for going to the island. What's the big deal? Now nobody who has
>not been to a country can comment on it? Puts a wrench in things if we
>wanna talk about, say, ancient Rome, eh?
I think you should stick to ancient Rome. You'd probably not mess up
as much.
>This was not a new phenomenon and is still with us today, but it had
>particular currency in the post-war world since it seemed to match
>reality in a very specific way: i.e., the 30s--after a period of
>capitalist reform and wartime planning, resulting in a massively
>increased role for the state in economic life around the world--gave
>way to the longest and biggest boom in capitalism's history.
But why confuse South Korea with Cuba? In one case you have a ruling
class that can and does shut down plants and throw people at the mercy
of unemployment and everything that goes with it--as it did during the
Asian meltdown. In Cuba, which has suffered an even greater economic
crisis after the collapse of the USSR, nobody has suffered job loss.
There has been rationing, etc. but the market forces are not at work.
>I could make the pedantic comment at this point that a) the Zapatistas
>did not win their revolution; and b) Cuba had relatively favorable
>trading status with the giant Russia economy and the rest of the
>Comecon. But why bother? I will, however, point out that if you are
>trying to blame the Zapatistas for the miserable health and
>educational standards in the region, you have your head buried much
>farther up your ass than I thought.
The Zapatistas are vehemantly opposed to Marxism. They are also
politically confused. That you would rate them higher than the Cuban
government which openly defends Marxism is not only entirely your
privilege, but completely understandable.