Socialist Oasis Survives in Capitalist Russia?!

Here is a story on a socialist village oasis in the midst of now capitalist Russia. Interesting.

A Great Working Class American Classic Film, Salt of the Earth!

So many real world working class American issues packed into only the first 10 minutes of the great radical film Salt of the Earth! Lets list them: Accumulation by dispossession, internal colonialism, western expansion, sexual division of labor, childbirth, racism and child hood fights, work place safety, organized labor and the UNION!, debt. Salt of the Earth is a great film made by people blacklisted from Hollywood by McArthyism in the 1950s. Check it out! Availble in full from Netflix or in pieces on Youtube.

Leo Panitch on The Relevancy of Marx, Climate Change and the Need for Financial and Industrial Planning

Leo Panitch has been the editor of an excellent series of yearly edited volumes known as the Socialist Register, each organized around a particular theme.

Recently, Leo Panitch was asked to author an article for Foreign Policy magazine on the relevancy of Marx to understanding modern capitalism. This was the event that led the Real News to interview Leo. I have embedded Part II below, but you can find Part I on You Tube.

In summary of Part II, Panitch discusses the financial-economic crisis, the collapse of Detroit's auto industry, and the problems of addressing climate change under capitalism.

Panitch points out that the "cap and trade" schemes currently being devised are a lot like the complex financial products of derivatives, mortgage securities, and credit default swaps that played a role in the speculative housing bubble that lead us into the current financial crisis. And of course there is the more obvious problem that these schemes only create incentives for industries to voluntarily reduce carbon dioxide emissions it it is profitable. They don't directly create policies that drastically cut emissions, which is really what is needed.

This is basically all that the present liberal wing of the ruling class establishment has to offer. Basically they are afraid to consider the more rational alternatives like economic planning. Instead of massive bank bail-outs, Panitch argues that a socialist response would be the nationalization of the banking and auto industries to be run as a public utilities. With those financial and industrial assets in hand they could be directed towards re-orientating production into green technologies.

Panitch points out that the collapse of the auto industry is a great loss of human skill and know-how. There is no reason that those people could be put back to work building solar panels.

Another key point of the interview is that Marx was not in the business of giving advice to capitalist states. He was under no illusion that those who control the state and economic institutions of capitalism would implement rational solutions to problems if it was contrary to their class interests. As always, what is needed is a working-class movement from below.

Thanks Business Week for Clarifying Some Things

Its been a little grating on the nerves of socialists to hear all these righty-idiots blabbering about Obama and the Democrats enacting a socialist agenda. Finally, we can thank a publication of the bourgeois press for clarifying some things, and letting genuine socialists speak for themselves. Business Week published an article titled "Socialism? Hardly Say Socialists" with interviews with representatives of the Socialist Party U.S.A., International Socialist Organization (ISO), and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), about what a socialist politics and program would actually look like. Here are some choice quotes:

The DSA works within the Democrat Party, by the way, which is what Business Week means by "more inclusive", and doesn't consider itself a party as misrepresented in the article.

"But even to the more inclusive DSA, Obama is no socialist. "The discussion
of socialism that has appeared in the media is surreal," says Llewellyn. "Nobody
in their right mind would think Obama is a socialist if they knew anything
about the meaning of the word. Obama is acting as Roosevelt did, trying to
save capitalism from itself."

The ISO is a bit more radical:

"Sherry Wolf, an activist with the Chicago-based U.S. branch of the
International Socialist Organization (ISO), scoffs at the idea that the U.S. is
at the dawn of a socialist era. "What Marxists mean by socialism is different
from what Rush Limbaugh means," she says. "We believe the class that produces
the wealth should own and control that wealth. That's a far cry from what's
happening now. The state is propping up banks, mortgage, and insurance
companies, while the lives of working people are torn apart by foreclosures,
evictions, and unemployment. It's an effort to save global capitalism from its
own excesses."

Wolf's group sees itself as "revolutionary," meaning it advocates not
incremental changes but rather a "total transformation of society and political
economy."

Finally there is the Socialist Party USA, which is kind of a nostalgic organization for the great World War I era socialist Eugene Debs. (the picture at right is Socialist Party campaign material from 1912, Debs is on the left). Their representative Billy Wharton was quoted as saying:

"You see [Obama] operating as a hedge fund Democrat on health care now,"
Wharton says. "He blocked advocates of a single-payer system from presenting
their case to the Senate Finance Committee."

So there. Finally genuine socialists have gotten a chance to break through the mainstream media silence barrier to actually give their perspective. Although on one level irritating, perhaps the right's false accusations of Obama and his party as socialists has done us genuine socialists a favor. Now the word is on the tongue of many more people, and they might endulge in some curiosity and further research into future socialist possibilities. And the time is right with capitalism entering such a profound crisis. I never thought I would be thinking "Thank you Sean Hannity". I hope he lives to see and regret what he may have done, perhaps opening up a socialist Pandora's box.